Concerned Subscriptionist.
 

Well, when I first heard that blizzard wasn't allowing anyone to charge for addons anymore I figured that would be the end of carbonite. I was happy to find out that you had switched to a donation system. I can't say that I'm really pleased with the new idea of paying to vote for new content, but hey whatever works for you guys.

The thing that does bother me is the fact that I was a yearly paid subscriber and my subscription isn't up until June or July. However, the quality of carbonite has already dropped off very badly since the 3.11 release. That update was supposed to add the new quests for the argent tournament, but it doesn't actually include all the quests, only the first set that you get. My carbonite doesn't give information for any of the champion quests... Not that they are really that hard to find, but it's still incomplete. Not to mention that for some reason, since the patch my large map has been acting like a huge mini map. It shows specific ground detail instead of the colored standard map that you would see in the normal blizzard map. This also messes with the map overlays for the location of quest components. If I zoom out on the map, it goes back to the other map style, but I have no idea why it's started doing this or how to make it stop and it's very annoying to have to zoom out every time I open the map to make it look normal again.

Is this what I should come to expect out of the future of Carbonite? I would like to think if I choose to make donations that I would continue to get the same support and updates that we always had. It seemed like before Carbonite was getting updated every 2 to 3 days sometimes. I'm sure things are a little more difficult now and you can't depend on the addon as a steady source of income anymore, but if I'm going to make donations, I would at least like to see updates every 2 weeks, if there is clearly things that need to be addressed, like the lack of final quests for argent tournament and this new map problem.

Am I just completely out in left field here or does anyone else feel this way?

Personally I dont complain.

I paid before Blizz decision and still not regret it.

And from memory except for urgent fix I dont remember a new version every two weeks.

Now you have to think that Blizz has changed a lot of things in this patch. Even other addons had to work on Minimap (the famous facing...., rotation, the way the changes some textures and on and on and on).

Authors are not with the Blizz gods to know before release what is everything and they kindly adjust things. They need time, and their time is --I hope--- not only dedicated to the addons, but rather to their family, friends, game and work :P.

Now rather to complain, I would just post things to help them :
- list of the missing quests, not only the title but try to find a bit more so they dont have to look for each little detail
- For the map, a lot of users can help you to find out how to set it up as you like.

etc etc

So my words would be : P A T I E N C E and be grateful they work for us, they just could decide to simply do the addon for themselves and let us in the dark but they bring us some shiny pleasure to play a game that would certainly be less enjoyable without.


:banana:

or hey, you could just remove carbonite from your addons all together, unsubscribe from the forums, and cancel your remainder subscription. Doing this you just MIGHT achieve something like 'not knowing the existance of ANY carbonite'

but who the hell would want that?

Remember guys:

donation, balance remaining subscriptions, yadda yadda allows carbonite to continue development point blank regardless of a 'premium' feature or not. I can't say I've seen more than maybe 2 at most other addons that show the dedication, skill, and awesomeness that Carbonite does.

(blatant nUI boasting in that comment above :D)

I have to agree with the original post. However, I'm not complaining. Merely voicing my feelings (even if they are unpopular). Yes, I will compare nUI's creator to Carbonites creators. You can definitely tell that the same level of care and hard work goes into nUI as before, whereas with Carbonite you can definitely tell the level of care and work in Carbonite has declined.

I don't want to comment on the bulk of your post, but the above quoted part is the bulk of the basis for your complaint and is, in fact, your own fault I think. It sounds like you have the map set to autozoom and it is doing it to the zoom level that "details at zoom" is set to.

Why is this affecting you now? Because the patch reset the map settings to defaults and you have not yet restored everything to how you had it setup prior to the patch. The change log did mention that this was part of the update, so if you knew you wouldn't remember how you had things setup you really ought to have wrote down your preferences before updating the addon.

I think that has a lot to do with the different obligating factors to each author's addon (nUI vs carb). While I don't see a decline persay, rather less frequent implementations of more desireable features (which is a biggie to myself I will admit). I'm sure (or hope, actually) as the rush of all these changes settles perhaps carbonite can pick up the pace and figure something out to help us supporters get our 'fix'

Meh, now I'm depressed, I want all my paid addons back with their paid features. But still, I'm thankful to have left of my favorites that there is now. -silent emo sad-

Yes, you are right. Excellent point!


I just, oh I dunno. I wish I could see the same zeal in Carbonite that they put in it before. And I do understand why it's not the same (shakes fist at the evil policy).

I totally lost my train of thought. Meh :(

I think the reason for the lack of updates was they where to busy implementing a voting system where you Pay to vote for which feature they work on next.

Hopefully now they can get back to working on Carbonite first and "features" later

Meh I'll be honest, I do appriciate that they extended something out there to us, as they did with the voting system but imo that's really terrible thing to waste implementation time on with such hype ect that they gave it as well. If they wanted to pick supporter suggestions to work on as priority it would of been more worthwhile just to throw a dart on the suggest a feature post and when it hits someone who's donated go with what they wanted :/

Interesting, because I was actually coming here with the same thoughts today. I have wondered if the new donations model has pretty much ruined the Carbonite support structure. It's been several weeks since the last update, and there are many changes needed just to keep it up to date now.

I'd actually like to advocate an open source model for Carbonite. There are many of us who would donate time as well as money to add fixes to the Carbonite code. Many of which are over due.

Not really getting down on the author, just want to see this Great addon get back on the development track.

Oh gosh I hope this isn't true. That voting system was a total waste from what I could see. Horrible way to spend developer time if in fact that was holding things up. Lots of suggestions here already, and plenty of things to fix that they knew about before the "Poll" was put up. :(:(

Quoting my post from the "We have something interesting..." thread. Hopefully this gives you an idea of what we have been doing. The donations have been great and we appreciate the support but they are not a reliable source of income. We will do the best we can but support will not be the same as when we were doing this full time.

There are no guarantees in life except that we are all going to die someday as my grandmother did this last week. Truth is that while Carbonite donations have been better than the tiny amount we expected, it is still only about 20% of what we were making in sales. I took a reduction in salary of 75% in anticipation of this. I can't live off of 25% of what I was making, so I started a new full time project a week ago, which leaves a small amount of time for working on Carbonite. You can point fingers at whomever you like like, but these changes were not something we wanted to do.

With the limited time we have to add features, we want to do the features that the majority, who are willing to donate, want. Donators support us and we support them. That is the point of the voting system. Bugs are a separate case, which will be handled based on severity as we have always done.

Dude, learn to live on a budget...



Ok ok ok... now in all seriousness - the simple fact that carbonite is going to live on is the important part IMO. I'll gladdly keep contributing as long as it does and take what we get - understanding that there WILL be a drop in frequency of updates as well.

You picked one of the worst tasting brand of ramen noodles to make a point with. That particular brand of noodles taste like snot. Now mind you the first time I ever ate Ramen noodles was in a country where they are a staple food item in 1976 before most people in this area had ever heard of them.

Now as for Carbonite I too was a paid subscriber and from what I have seen Carbonite is one of the best maintained add ons I have ever seen. They respond to questions and problems as quickly as humanly possible. I have no regrets about what happened with my paid subscription. This is a quality piece of work and from what I am seeing has continued to be well worth supporting.:banana:

Very intentional... I've eaten more ramen noodles than I care to remember...

Yuck - Chicken flavor. Low sodium Beef is the best of the Maruchan. ;) Exceptionally better when you use 2 Tbsp of butter and about .5-.75 of the seasoning instead of following the packaging directions. ;)



/me keeps Ramen stocked in the cupboard for easy lunches

Back to what the OP was saying.

I do not think its fair that those who paid for a full year in advance (myself also being one of them) are not entitled to a full year of the same "quality" updates.

Would you not be able to keep updating carbonite and having people pay until their subscriptions are up? Because I don't think Blizzard can take away a service that has already been paid for, that they do not directly own.

They can ban your account, they can change the policies they have on addons, but I do not believe they can circumvent and cause VALID businesses, to well... go out of business.

This is a great addon but if you dont really have the time to maintain it then let others help. You dont have the time to support but there is still an expectation of donations. Those donations are going to start falling when the support does. Its and unfortunate cycle...

Eventually, that 25% would be closer to 1% and you might not find the time to support it at all. Instead of letting it get to that point, let others contribute with their time and expertise. Then, those of us who cant contribute in that way can still donate money.

Edit:

I was going to mention this before but it probably wouldn't work. Couldn't you require that people have a login to download and go back to only hosting Carb on your own website. In order to download, people would have to pay for the bandwidth and time spent updating the website, you could associate a fee per download.

Yes, you couldn't restrict the software so it would enable people to simply share it with their friends but it might be better then relying on donations.

Don't let any other site host Carb and just see if people pay for downloads. You could still offer a donation link for those who want to give more.

While we may not be devoting as many hours to it as we did before, we are still working on it, fixing bugs, updating the database and working on new features. What exactly aren't you getting that you were before?

As to your second point, we can not charge for the addon and paying for access to a site to download the addon is the same thing.

You are not paying to access the addon, you are paying to access the site. However, it just so happens that you cannot get carb anywhere else and you cant download it from the official site unless you have an account.

As I said, people would in no way be paying for the addon. They would be paying for the bandwidth used to download it and site maintenance. If someone wanted to share the addon with a friend, there is nothing stopping them. The only catch is you dont want it actually HOSTED on another site.

Honestly, I don't really have much of a problem with the plugin right now. Yeah, I would like the quests to really be cleaned up and have noticed minor bugs but nothing that is actually breaking the whole thing. I have noticed that it isn't being updated as often but not sure if thats a good thing or a bad. But it is fact that it hasn't been updated as often.

Really, I was just responding to the post saying that there isnt as much time to devote to the addon. If you feel that is going to cause it to suffer in any way or if it already has, open it up so people can contribute before it starts to fall apart.