WoWInterface and Curse working together to help protect authors and other site-users

[silentdabeast]

funny.....sooooooo Freakin funny. Do you guys actually listen to yourselves? Do you read what you post at ALL?

BOTH WM's claims on how Curse and WowIi treated them AND WowI/Curse's claims CANNOT be right - because they both contradict each other!

WM says that they tried to reach out and do what they could, and WowI/Curse says that WM did nothing but steal bandwidth, and evade.

So what IS the truth?

What I like to use as my lens is....money talks. Sure WM is making money with their software, but so is WowI and Curse. Who has more to lose? WowI and Curse do! Why? Because they've been around longer. They had the edge on addon distribution and making profits from it. When WM came along, that edge was QUICKLY stolen from them.

Again, money talks. Read between the lines folks. Who had the most to lose? Who would do anything to make sure they DON'T lose? Who would screw us, the consumers/customers, in order to keep from losing money? Who HAS been screwing the authors (I do write addons btw - though I don't host them here or @curse) for years, yet making it sound like they have not? Who has been getting FAT as cows off of FREE MONEY?

Then WowI comes out with their "competitor" called Minion...what a joke it is! Their bottom line still drove it, they shaped it around anything BUT the needs and convenience of the enduser - no, they shaped it around that blatantly intrusive and completely unwanted 3 in by 3 in (give or take) ad at the bottom right of the interface. Why? because again, it's all about money for them. they could care less about the authors OR us endusers.

Anyone who supports them (the two hypocrites) is supporting bad things! My suggestion is, if you don't like WowI or Curse...STOP USING THEM! Get WM, use alternate addons, whatever....make WowI and Curse crawl back to WM and beg for forgiveness for their insolence and WORK OUT A DEAL with them! Because honestly, there are a LOT less supporters of WowI and Curse than they would have you believe. Seriously...if you don't like these bloodsucking sites...stop downloading your addons from them, tell all your WoW playing friends to download WM and boycott these idiots....it's the only way to get them to see the light. Get in General chat or trade chat and start up conversations - whatever. Make these idiots bleed.

[silentdabeast]

killer189, I agree with you.

I could build a nice "author-friendly" website for them to host their addons and do all and more than WoWi and Curse do...BIG DEAL! So what!??!?

The people who run these sites, they walk around like they are God's little angels who have done nothing but treat us all with the utmost of respect and generosity, then they turn on WM and try to make them look like the devil's spawns. That, in itself, makes me VERY distasteful toward all 3 of them! (because WM is doing it too).

If you ask me they're all a bunch of spoiled brats who think they somehow deserve our respect, our love, and our support. They don't 'deserve' anything from us! Not our respect, not our support - nothing. The more the saps who DO buy into their entitlement propaganda keep downloading from them, the more entitled they're going to think they are. The SAME thing is happening in our government right now - it WILL all come back to haunt us all in the end.

I think it's time either Blizzard steps in and shuts these morons down (which they CAN do), OR people give up and start writing their own addons - it's reall not that hard....a basic addon is 3 files, and it's all text.

[Torhal]

Originally Posted by silentdabeast I think it's time either Blizzard steps in and shuts these morons down (which they CAN do), OR people give up and start writing their own addons - it's reall not that hard....a basic addon is 3 files, and it's all text.

...

That is all.

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by silentdabeast if you don't like WowI or Curse...STOP USING THEM!

So the fact that you're using this site must mean you like it? Oh right...

Originally Posted by silentdabeast I could build a nice "author-friendly" website for them to host their addons and do all and more than WoWi and Curse do...BIG DEAL! So what!??!?

See the funny thing of it is, it's not the users that WoWI, Curse and WM need to win over, it's the authors. By and far, authors prefer WoWI or Curse to WM and users prefer WM. Who has more (legitimate) content? Simple fact of the matter is that by catering to authors, WoWI and Curse bring those authors userbases to them. Users will go where the addons are, and they aren't at WM unless WM takes them by force (as they have always done).

If WM had seen that from the start, they would probably have a very large base of addons to host. But they didn't, they simply took whatever they could find and ignored authors, in fact up until very recently they worked AGAINST authors. Modifying addons, removing credit... they did lots of stuff to drive away the people that were providing their content... unwillingly as it were.

[silentdabeast]

How do you know? Where you there? Did you hear or read the convo's that went back and forth between WoWi/Curse and WM?

No, you did not. you are taking their word for it, because that's all you CAN do.

You sit here and you presuppose that WowI and Curse are the "nice guys" and WM is the "bad guy", and from that presupposition you conjure up all this nonsense.

Granted, WM didn't have author resources on their site - but they didn't need it! They didn't host addons! Why would they build those functions if they were not going to use them? OF COURSE they didn't have that stuff???? DUH! To bring that point up completely evades the point (which is yet another reason I don't truth WowI - they evade the issue).

The PRIMARY purpose for WM was to provide an alternate, easy, reliable, and user-friendly way for the ENDUSERS (not authors) to keep their addons updated. They exist for a completely different reason!

Look, fine, if WowI and Curse want to offer all this great stuff for the author, WONDERFUL! These sites have made it clear that they are here for the authors' needs.

FINE! I don't write addons for others to use - I download addons others have written. So inasmuch as the author's have a friendly way of submitting and updating addons, WHY can't the enduser's have an easy and friendly way of GETTING the addons?? THAT was the question WM answered! They answered it because WoWI and Curse did not. WowI and Curse were more interested in making money from endusers NOT offering a good way download mechanism for endusers to get addons.

For nearly 3 years endusers had to contend with searching 3 or more websites for updates to their favorite addons....WM came along and fixed that - the revolutionized the whole process. It's not the bandwidth that WoWi and Curse are mad about - that's their excuse, but it's not the reality of it. The reality is, WM took the edge away from them, and that made them mad as hell. When that little line graph showed a loss in profits (esp. during this dang-blasted Obama-driven screwed up economy we're in), they took action - they said to the enduser "you WILL use our sites or you won't get addons". For that, WoWi and Curse should be spanked with a rod!

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by silentdabeast How do you know? Where you there? Did you hear or read the convo's that went back and forth between WoWi/Curse and WM? No, you did not. you are taking their word for it, because that's all you CAN do. You sit here and you presuppose that WowI and Curse are the "nice guys" and WM is the "bad guy", and from that presupposition you conjure up all this nonsense.

I know many people in the community personally, and I've been here through this entire ordeal. I was there when they tried to contact WM. I was there when no reply was received (and I'm still here). I myself have contacted WM asking them to remove my addons and never ever got a reply. There is no "taking their word" going on here, I know exactly how WM has acted through this whole thing, and I know who have been "nice guys" to me and who have not.

But then, you can only take my word on that now can't you?

Originally Posted by silentdabeast The PRIMARY purpose for WM was to provide an alternate, easy, reliable, and user-friendly way for the ENDUSERS (not authors) to keep their addons updated. They exist for a completely different reason! Look, fine, if WowI and Curse want to offer all this great stuff for the author, WONDERFUL! These sites have made it clear that they are here for the authors' needs.

WM's primary purpose is to make money, by providing everything you pointed out there, and minimizes expenses by using other site's bandwidth (they still do by the way, just not Curse or WoWI's, but they're busy touting their new hosting to draw attention away from that). WoWI and Curse's primary goals are to make money as well, of course, they are businesses. But they've been paying their own way this entire time, and don't take content they do not have permission to. Ace (now part of curse) had an updater of WM's caliber before WM existed... it was discontinued because it was costing too much in bandwidth bills to sustain. They've been working to provide similar functionality without killing driving themselves into bankruptcy ever since.

[Verissi]

Originally Posted by silentdabeast I could build a nice "author-friendly" website for them to host their addons and do all and more than WoWi and Curse do...BIG DEAL! So what!??!?

If you object so vehemently to Curse and WoWInterface, then why haven't you? Oh wait, because it incurs expences that you would have to recover somehow. Feel free to do so, though. I have yet to see anyone who has said the same thing actually walk that walk.

The SAME thing is happening in our government right now - it WILL all come back to haunt us all in the end.

Much like in government, at least in the States, you're free to vote to change things (in this case, with your browsing habits) or even "run for office" yourself. Again, if you disagree with all of the current sites, build your own. Nobody is stopping you but you.

I think it's time either Blizzard steps in and shuts these morons down (which they CAN do), OR people give up and start writing their own addons - it's reall not that hard....a basic addon is 3 files, and it's all text.

The latter statement is one that I agree with. People can write their own addons, but in many cases, why bother when so many already exist that do the job very well? That's the mindset behind many people's choices to download addons instead of writing their own: why reinvent the wheel when it involves learning to write the code as well? I encourage friends to learn about Lua and writing addons, but for most, it's just too much trouble to do so when they have other things that they would rather spend their time doing. Those that do pursue learning about it, though, have been thankful for the help and encouragement.

As for the Blizzard "steps in and shuts these morons down" statement...please tell me how this would be a) legal, and b) in their best interests. Even if they could, how would this even be in the WoW community's best interest? Would you seriously want addon distribution to be fully decentralised?

[Jalandar]

Originally Posted by Tekkub I think you should look again at WM, they were the ones who were dishonest and deceptive. Authors did not give them addons to make money off of, and they made that money by ofloading the expense (bandwidth) onto other sites. While you're at it, you need to find out what rights you and authors do and don't have, because you've got it all ass-backwards.

They didn't offload the bandwidth. They simply provided a front end for the users to optionally use to download those addons more directly.

Secondly, WM TRIED to host the addons themselves, people like you cried out they were violating your rights so they had to provide links for downloads to the sites you deemed worthy for your addons.

So making that argument is kinda hypocritical of you and the others who make it.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[Wobin]

Once the users start claiming that the authors have no rights to control their own work, what reason have we to support them? The time we spend to make a product, is totally disregarded, cause it's free?

Go home. Take your toys with you. We don't care anymore. The authors have put their work where they believe it is worth putting, and nothing anyone else says will ever affect that right.

I say put your money where your mouth is. Do whatever you believe is the right thing.

But do it elsewhere. Go post on the WM forum about how put out you are, how disadvantaged, how TERRIBLY misjudged your reasons are.

[Arrowmaster]

Originally Posted by Jalandar They didn't offload the bandwidth. They simply provided a front end for the users to optionally use to download those addons more directly. Secondly, WM TRIED to host the addons themselves, people like you cried out they were violating your rights so they had to provide links for downloads to the sites you deemed worthy for your addons. So making that argument is kinda hypocritical of you and the others who make it. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The second they tried to host the addons themselves without asking permission they shot themselves in the foot with all addon authors. If they would have acted in a professional, respectful, and legal way from the start the situation would probably be completely different. All of their past actions have made them untrustworthy in the eyes of the author community.

EDIT: And didn't I tell you all of this months ago on the WoW UI/Macro forums? Go away you ****ing troll.

[Petrah]

I know we're s'posed to behave, and I know there's rules we have to follow. But damn, sometimes it feels good to see someone tell someone what for.

[MidgetMage55]

Originally Posted by silentdabeast I could build a nice "author-friendly" website for them to host their addons and do all and more than WoWi and Curse do...BIG DEAL! So what!??!? I think it's time either Blizzard steps in and shuts these morons down (which they CAN do), OR people give up and start writing their own addons - it's reall not that hard....a basic addon is 3 files, and it's all text.

I would love to see this happen. And if its not too much trouble please write a unit frame addon on par with stuf or pitbull. Its only 3 files you should be able to crank that out in a day or 2.

I also look forward to your site. Im sure with your fabulous outlook on the community you'll have a top notch site in a matter of days with authors flocking to you for hosting. Dont forget to ask author permission to host their addons if its not under a redistributable license. In fact if you do it right you wont even need authors to come to you. You'll be churning out addons so fast and easy that there wont be any need for others.

Please show us all how it should be done. In all my days i have yet to encounter someone so eloquent and well thought out. Im sure you will make the best damned UI site on the net. Dont let these blowhards discourage you. I have the utmost faith in your abilities.

Sincerely,
Gomer Pyle

[voodoodad]

The government is taking over financial institutions and car companies, maybe they ought to look into expanding the welfare state into the realm of WoW addons and auto-updaters since it seems there are so many people that think they are entitled to everything for nothing.

[Tekkub]

Screw that, they should be paying me for all the work I've done and given out for free because I didn't know any better.

[voodoodad]

Originally Posted by Tekkub Screw that, they should be paying me for all the work I've done and given out for free because I didn't know any better.

But Tek! You care! You really, really care! Isn't the warm fuzzy feeling you get from that payment enough???

[Tekkub]

No one has sent me anything warm and fuzzy to feel up, what are you talking about?

[voodoodad]

Originally Posted by Tekkub No one has sent me anything warm and fuzzy to feel up, what are you talking about?

But I... and then you... and she said.... oh, man....

[MidgetMage55]

I will be taking over. You shall all be paid in pocket lint and sarcastic statements.

As a special case Tekkub will be paid in pictures of bacon.

[Jalandar]

Originally Posted by Shirik EDIT: Oh yeah, furthermore, this is NOT a WM vs. everyone else thread. There are threads open for that discussion already. People whom cannot stay on topic will be removed from this thread forcibly. This is your only warning.

It became about that when people began calling it the WM replacement, and comparing it favorably, and then when others pointed out how it lacks Vs WM then the anti-WM folks started attacking WM on other points in this thread. So those who disagree don't have the right to refute those statements?

So whose only warning is it? A warning against those who are simply pointing out the failure of the updater to live up to other updaters, including WM? Because that smacks of silencing your critics.

Not that I'd be surprised, especially given my prior experience with that from you guys.

[voodoodad]

AHEM! Not to repeat myself or anything, but...

Originally Posted by voodoodad If you don't like this site, then don't visit this site. The internet is a vast landscape, with many many places developed for just such people as you! Isn't it wonderful?