Best Ways to Release Addons

[Aezay]

I have been coding addons for about a year now, during this time I have learned a lot on how to make addons for WoW, and how to improve the code. This is all great, but when it comes to releasing the addon and making it available for the public, I haven't learned a whole lot.

WoWInterface and Curse has always been the two sites I've released my addons to, and yes it works great. But through observation, reading forums and just asking people I play with in WoW, it seems like there are three different kinds of addon users. There are the ones who doesn't care where they get their addons, just as long as it is good and it suits their needs. Then there are the ones who is basically the same, but are too lazy to update their addons from sites like WoWInterface or Curse, so they try and find a similar Ace addon just so they can use WoWAceUpdater. The last group are the ones that religiously use Ace addons because they blindly believe that all Ace addons makes WoW run better.

This is not a discussion about Ace at all, but about the best way for your non-ace addon to reach as many users as possible. You may say that as long as the addon suits you, why care? But for WoW addons, there are no rewards except the one you get from the people who like and use your work, and if not having your addon aced hinders that, it is a shame.

So the big question is, what way is there to make your addon better available. Should you just continue to work and improve on your addons, or should you make it available through the WoWAceUpdater? And is this even possible if you do not use any ace libraries? I know this question in particular is probably better asked or researched on wowace.com, but I am interested in what people think here, and what others do to release their addons.

[Sythalin]

There is no "best" way to release an addon. Period.

When you post one up, wherever you decide to do so, it's up to the people to spread it around. All mod sites have a list of recently added mods on their front pages, and the curious will take a look at new additions. If they like it, they'll mark it and recommend it to their friends. If they don't, they'll either post up suggestions to make it better or dismiss it and never acknowledge it's existance again (the latter being the usual case). A lot of times people won't notice an initial release either, but catch it later after you've posted fixes and new features.

The update method you reference as far as WAU is rather moot. Both incgamers and curse have their own clients to do the same thing now and those people who use mostly Ace addons (like me) do in fact use it for convience and a lot of times the Ace'd are updated more often. But as long as a mod is good from another site (I use a lot of non-Ace'd as well) people will just bookmark it and have an email sent to them when said mod is updated.

In the end, all the mediums are about the same when it comes down to it. The real factors that matter are simply these: how useful is your mod, and if it's really good, just give it TIME to spread. My most successful mod, MageTaxi, took a couple of months before I started seeing a serious number of DL's start floating around between here and incgamers. It's not posted at curse nor is it Ace'd. Word just gets around.

So as I said, in the end, it's all about functionality and time. If you allow for both of these, it won't really make a lick of difference where you host it from.

[Ragnor]

You do not have to use Ace libraries to store your addon in the wowace svn FYI.

[Slakah]

It might be interesting to release two addons with one being the control and the other with a huge "Now with added ACE", but as ragnor said mods don't require Ace Libraries to be placed on SVN. Fanboi's will always exist whether its for Nintendo, Ace Libraries or Apple, which is rather depressing when mods which are just as good if not better suffer because there not conforming to the status quo.

Small no-config addons seem to suffer as well, i.e the ones which do there job and nothing else when compared to the modular monoliths.

[saanlem]

I use the java Ace updater for my Ace addons.
The other addons I get from wowinterface and Curse,
Both have a "favourites" which I use. If there is an update, my Favourites tells me so.

[Dridzt]

There's also WUU (WoW UI Updater) to checkout that supports multiple sites,
and a few excellent meta-lists like wowmods.

If your users are so lazy that they can't visit a couple of their favorite addon sites every other day
direct them to one of the above.

Note: WoWMods is just a meta-listing of updates, you still need to visit the respective site (wowi, curse etc) to get addon details and download.

Edit: I realize I didn't reply to your query directly but if your predicament comes from users
requesting you "make it Ace'd" or some other silly demand so they can one-click update through WAU,
you could point them to the tool above that supports 1-click update for your addons as is.

[Seerah]

Take a look around the wowace forums, and you'll see the opinion of its regulars on "fanbois". Fanbois are always calling for a mod to be "Ace'd", asking when a mod will be available through WAU, don't even know which of their mods use the Ace libraries and which don't (since mods on the svn don't have to use the Ace framework, and there are plenty of good Ace mods *not* located on wowace), and don't know a good mod when it bites them in the butt because it's not "ACE".

Whatever you do, don't listen to the fanbois. Mods are your work to do with what you please. If you want to code it one way, that's your prerogative. If you only want to release it on one site to keep up with bug reports, comments, feature requests, that's up to you. More sites = more work for you.

Everything you've heard above is true. There are updaters like WUU and others that span multiple download sites. Your mod doesn't have to be "Ace'd!!1!11" to be on the svn. Word of mouth is what will gain your addon popularity, wherever it is located.

Above all, write addons for *YOU* - not to try to get every single wow player to use it.

[Aezay]

Thanks for all your replies and opinions.

I've had the random fanboi asking me to make one of my mods Ace a few times, but that is not what has motivated me to make this thread.

Some time ago, I looked into how I would include a mod to the Ace SVN, but never quite figured it out. Adding my mods to Ace seems like the best step if I want to make it more widely available. Just as coding addons, I enjoy trying to make them popular, in the same way it is fun to gear up a character in WoW I guess.

Working on my addons, answering posts and adding user suggestions never seemed like work to me, if it did, I would stop right away.

[Seerah]

http://wowace.com/wiki/SVN_Rules
http://wowace.com/wiki/SVN_For_Beginners