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

[Slakah]

I basically said all of this to come down to a quick point. The community (as it's probably evident) wants something that is easy to use and not filled with advertising, having to pay an additional monthly subscription fee, and that actually works.

WoWInterface (namely Shirik) is developing an Addon-Manager, and from the look of the screenshots looks very simple, it's currently in alpha and to my knowledge will not require a subscription to use the holy "Update everything button", but it does look pretty pritty.

[Bouvi]

My stake is stability. I would hate to lose WoWi because they could not pay the bandwidth that WM leeched. I mean I have been here 4 years now. It is more than just an addon site. It is a community.

Back in my more noob days I asked these wonderful people question after question (and today people are still asking different questions) and guess what? They answered.

Bottom line if you don't care what happens to WoWi then leave. It is more than an addon site and to complain that they took the steps to ensure they continue to exist is just idiotic.

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by Bouvi Bottom line if you don't care what happens to WoWi then leave. It is more than an addon site and to complain that they took the steps to ensure they continue to exist is just idiotic.

In the 30+ pages we've got going here, I don't think anyone has said this better.

[Vyper]

Originally Posted by Tekkub In the 30+ pages we've got going here, I don't think anyone has said this better.

I also have to say, in the 30+ pages we have here, I don't think anyone (including me) has added anything thats not already in the first 10. At what point do we call this discussion closed?

[Bouvi]

Originally Posted by Tekkub In the 30+ pages we've got going here, I don't think anyone has said this better.

OMG Tek wubs me. I can die happy now

Originally Posted by Vyper I also have to say, in the 30+ pages we have here, I don't think anyone (including me) has added anything thats not already in the first 10. At what point do we call this discussion closed?

It has helped to increase my post count.

[Cairenn]

The minute we lock this thread, we have people accusing us of stifling their freedom to speak their mind. New people to the issue (ie those that are only just finding out instead of having known about it last week for whatever reason) need to be able to have their say. As long as it stays civil, there's no reason I see to close the thread. As everyone becomes aware of the issue and has the opportunity to discuss it, it will eventually die down on its own.

[Conclusion]

Originally Posted by Lykofos Now you expect Curse to pay for the bandwidth that WM uses. Now that bandwidth has to include WoWAce, CurseForge and normal Curse hosted mods. Curse did try to negotiate with WM as stated multiple times in this thread. Curse even tried to buy WM! However WM always wanted to pay a fraction of the bandwidth they ate or WM wanted an exorbitant amount for themselves. In short WM wanted (and still wants to) be greedy. WoWMatrix does not care about the AddOn community, they only care about cash. Curse and WoWInterface both have demonstrated that they care about the AddOn community.

Umm...I don't think you are understanding my point. I realize that Wowinterface may have a vested interested in the WoW community and the adddons and mods that have been developed for the game World of Warcraft.

It however is overly crystal clear that Curse Gaming is simply out to make a business of not only catering to the WoW community and giving them the ease of access that they have enjoyed up to this point with updating addons but also catering to other games as well. If they were in it for completely wholesome intents, they would not be advertising their "Premium" services and the fact that they have an "Author's Rewards" program blaring over every screen that you access on their website.

If people want to donate money to the authors of addons, then let them donate that money. However to make a business off the backs of people who are simply making things to help themselves and help others enjoy the game better to me is wrong. If everyone is so worried about bandwidth, why not let Curse (and for whatever purpose, Wowinterface) offer to give the money to the authors after the bandwidth bill is paid every month. As much as I think this would be nice, I know that it will never happen because Curse is in this for profit. I am still waiting to see if Wowinterface is going to follow that same bandwagon or not.

I sincerely hope that Wowinterface can come up with a clean program that gives users the ease that they have enjoyed with not only the Ace updater as well as Wowmatrix (as bad as hotlinking files hosted elsewhere is). However, you cannot deny that what those two programs (regardless of how you feel about either) have done to enhance the community as far as giving users who may be new to the game an easy way to download a mod or addon to enhance their gaming experience.

Instead of believing that I am out to cause a problem or I'm just another "OMG WOWMATRIX IS DOWN" poster, I am actually a college student and hold down a full time job on top of running a medium size guild. I have been a site administrator of a website that had been slashdotted on two occasions that caused us to get termed from our webhost due to bandwidth. If you have never been slashdotted, then you have no idea how a bandwidth bill can hurt at the end of the month and trying to explain to potential new hosts exactly what happened.

I believe that the real (and correct) way to fix this problem once and for all is to offer a SUPERIOR product that the end user can enjoy. I do not believe that the end user is going to want to pay a monthly subscription fee, convenience fee, or whatever you may want to call it for something that someone will eventually come and circumvent.

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by Conclusion < snip > I sincerely hope that Wowinterface can come up with a clean program that gives users the ease that they have enjoyed with not only the Ace updater as well as Wowmatrix (as bad as hotlinking files hosted elsewhere is). However, you cannot deny that what those two programs (regardless of how you feel about either) have done to enhance the community as far as giving users who may be new to the game an easy way to download a mod or addon to enhance their gaming experience. Instead of believing that I am out to cause a problem or I'm just another "OMG WOWMATRIX IS DOWN" poster, I am actually a college student and hold down a full time job on top of running a medium size guild. I have been a site administrator of a website that had been slashdotted on two occasions that caused us to get termed from our webhost due to bandwidth. If you have never been slashdotted, then you have no idea how a bandwidth bill can hurt at the end of the month and trying to explain to potential new hosts exactly what happened. I believe that the real (and correct) way to fix this problem once and for all is to offer a SUPERIOR product that the end user can enjoy. I do not believe that the end user is going to want to pay a monthly subscription fee, convenience fee, or whatever you may want to call it for something that someone will eventually come and circumvent.

Oh, we agree completely that the updater itself was a nice piece of work. We've never said otherwise.

We just can't afford to let them keep abusing our resources, as you can fully understand having been slashdotted yourself.

We're trying.

[Conclusion]

Originally Posted by Cairenn Oh, we agree completely that the updater itself was a nice piece of work. We've never said otherwise. We just can't afford to let them keep abusing our resources, as you can fully understand having been slashdotted yourself. We're trying.

And as much, I sit quietly waiting to see what's next. This boat is not an easy one to be in...thanks for at least listening to what I had to say instead of flaming it down.

[Donnaterassi]

See me.
I'm new here.

In two days, (25 hours really) I've been:
edited,
deleted,
flamed,
called a HIM (Hello? Donna?)
and accused of trying to start trouble.

But in the middle of all of that I have been allowed to speak my mind, and to ask incendiary questions. That no one answered the questions is irrelevant. The important part is that I was still allowed to ask.

I have been trying to come up with some way to ask my questions so I can understand without pissing you guys off. Drama really isn't my thing, though all evidence to the contrary.

You guys have a metric ass-load of code. Seems to me, depending on that whatsit you gotta sign to use their site (and it's long term impact) That if you uploaded all your code onto them and made them host it, (and maybe put together a small 'patch') you could crush them under the combined weight of their greediness, The mindless clickers of the update all button And your extensive fan base.

Maybe I just need to lay off the FullThrottle on patch day.

[Zyonin]

Originally Posted by Conclusion It however is overly crystal clear that Curse Gaming is simply out to make a business of not only catering to the WoW community and giving them the ease of access that they have enjoyed up to this point with updating addons but also catering to other games as well. If they were in it for completely wholesome intents, they would not be advertising their "Premium" services and the fact that they have an "Author's Rewards" program blaring over every screen that you access on their website.

Umm, "Curse simply out to make a business"? Sure, that is their right to. However that "business" goes to support the two largest AddOn development communities in the entire WoW domain: WoWAce and CurseForge. In fact Curse has supported WoWAce for a very long time, prior to Curse supporting WoWAce, WoWInterface was doing the hosting.

Curse is perfectly entitled to advertise their Premium services. That money that comes in via the Premium subscriptions goes to support the Curse Network which includes WoWAce and CurseForge. Why shouldn't subscribers gets some nice perks for coughing up some money. If you are going to condemn Curse for have a Premium subscription, then you might as well paint WoWInterface and WoWUI.Incgamers with the same brush. Both have their own Premium services. In addition, Zam Networks (the parent of WoWInterface and the MMOInterface Network) has its own Premium services.

If people want to donate money to the authors of addons, then let them donate that money. However to make a business off the backs of people who are simply making things to help themselves and help others enjoy the game better to me is wrong. If everyone is so worried about bandwidth, why not let Curse (and for whatever purpose, Wowinterface) offer to give the money to the authors after the bandwidth bill is paid every month. As much as I think this would be nice, I know that it will never happen because Curse is in this for profit. I am still waiting to see if Wowinterface is going to follow that same bandwagon or not.

So let me get this straight, the AddOn host sites are supposed to host out of the goodness of their hearts? Welcome to captalism. Its not all bad (and this is coming from a So******t). All of the AddOn sites are eventually in this for the profit, how else are things going to get paid for? From what I know Curse and WoWI plow their profits back into their websites. How else are things like an updater and new site features are going to paid for? With Pixie Dust and Good Intentions? Sorry, I left my rose colored glasses in the other room. Regarding Curse's Author Rewards, that is yet to be implemented, however Authors will be seeing some rewards for their labors. The Premium subscriptions and adverts help to pay for these goodies.

I sincerely hope that WoWInterface can come up with a clean program that gives users the ease that they have enjoyed with not only the Ace updater as well as Wowmatrix (as bad as hotlinking files hosted elsewhere is). However, you cannot deny that what those two programs (regardless of how you feel about either) have done to enhance the community as far as giving users who may be new to the game an easy way to download a mod or addon to enhance their gaming experience.

No one has denied that both WAU and WM have provided two easy to use and clean tools. I know that Shirik, the dev on the MMOI Update Manager (WoWI's new upcoming updater tool) is working to produce a clean, cross platform tool. Why don't you check out the thread that talks about this new updater and look at the screenshots before you start worrying?

Instead of believing that I am out to cause a problem or I'm just another "OMG WOWMATRIX IS DOWN" poster, I am actually a college student and hold down a full time job on top of running a medium size guild. I have been a site administrator of a website that had been slashdotted on two occasions that caused us to get termed from our webhost due to bandwidth. If you have never been slashdotted, then you have no idea how a bandwidth bill can hurt at the end of the month and trying to explain to potential new hosts exactly what happened.

Newsflash! So are many of the developers and WoWI supporters. I am an officer of one of the largest guilds on Bronzebeard EU. Almost all of us are working adults, some with kids (like myself), others are university students. Yet we all managed to update our mods WITHOUT WoWMatrix. This with things like raiding (Yes we are having fun in Ulduar), PvP, and all the Real Life activities that manage to eat our time. I should know as I am the AddOn Guru of my guild. Most of our members manually update, those who do use an updater use the Curse Client, and guess what? The CC users love it. We have had a few WM users, however I have cured them of that.

Regarding the Slashdotting, what do you think WM users were doing to both Curse and WoWI? Yes they were Slashdotting both sites EVERY DAY!!!!

I believe that the real (and correct) way to fix this problem once and for all is to offer a SUPERIOR product that the end user can enjoy. I do not believe that the end user is going to want to pay a monthly subscription fee, convenience fee, or whatever you may want to call it for something that someone will eventually come and circumvent.

The Curse Client is free and always will be. Just you have to pay for the "One Button Updates" (not really a big deal with simple AddOn by AddOn update is still very fast. I know, I have used CC in this fashion, I don't like One Button Updates). MMOI Update Manger will be coming as well and it will be free. You may even see a Curse module written for MUM.

However I doubt any of this will get through the heads of the WM supporters.

EDIT: The word filter appears to have a political bias of some kind. It does not like Social ist)

[Tuhljin]

simply out to make a business

Despite what you may have heard, capitalism isn't inherently evil.

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by Tuhljin Despite what you may have heard, capitalism isn't inherently evil.

Sure it is, it's made by humans after all.

Yes, Curse is out to be a legitimate business and turn a profit. WoWI has always been more about simply being self-sustaining, hence why they "sold out" to ZAM. They're not interested in the business side, they just want to provide a great site.

Just because they're a business doesn't make Curse money-grubbing *******s though. The "author rewards" is (will be?) proof of their support of the community. They're giving back to the authors what they can. I doubt WoWI could afford to do the same thing, but they give back in many other ways (which is why we love them). I don't love Curse, but they support Ace, so I show my support by pushing up my addons there, which means they end up hosted no Curse. Funny thing? I don't even really use the Ace libs anymore.

[Unbelievable]

I'm definitely on the side of WoWInterface and Curse on this. If WowMatrix wants to run an aggregation service, it should invest in its own infrastructure (servers, bandwidth etc) and make their service attractive to mod developers so that mod authors freely choose to add their mods to it.

That said, there is an alternative to both the labour intensive manual updating and bandwidth jeopardising (via obsessive update crowd) client solutions.

Server-side member-specific bundling. That is, when a site member wants to update their mods, the server checks that members favourites list and archives all of the updated mods (since the last user update) into a single archive. The member is presented with a page or two containing a collated list of donation options (for each mod that wants them), containing enough advertising to pay for the (single) downloads bandwidth.

This approach not only makes it easier (for the member) to update, but it should also reduce bandwidth consumption: Less wasted packet space, improved compression, opportunity to consolidate wowace librarys etc etc.

I seem to remember CTmod using a similar server-side model (for each of it's component mods) a while back.

Anyway, I thought I suggest it as an alternative solution. I'll shut up now and stop being silly

(dammit .. cant stop being silly)

PS. Apologies if someone has already suggested this - too many pages to read through

[Bluspacecow]

Originally Posted by Donnaterassi [color="SeaGreen"]See me. I'm new here. In two days, (25 hours really) I've been: edited, deleted, flamed, called a HIM (Hello? Donna?) and accused of trying to start trouble. But in the middle of all of that I have been allowed to speak my mind, and to ask incendiary questions. That no one answered the questions is irrelevant. The important part is that I was still allowed to ask.

WelL i for one apologise for calling you a guy. I personally thought of "Donna" as in the ninja turtle. There's also that thing we guys have of assuming everyone on the internet is male until specifically told otherwise.

As for being able to speak your piece - thats what the admins are looking for. To be able to answer people's questions and concerns about it. If it wasn't once again i'l like to point that this thread would of been a lot shorter mostly consisting of tempting Tekkub with offers of bacon.
[

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by Donnaterassi See me. I'm new here. In two days, (25 hours really) I've been: edited, deleted, flamed, called a HIM (Hello? Donna?) and accused of trying to start trouble. But in the middle of all of that I have been allowed to speak my mind, and to ask incendiary questions. That no one answered the questions is irrelevant. The important part is that I was still allowed to ask. I have been trying to come up with some way to ask my questions so I can understand without pissing you guys off. Drama really isn't my thing, though all evidence to the contrary. You guys have a metric ass-load of code. Seems to me, depending on that whatsit you gotta sign to use their site (and it's long term impact) That if you uploaded all your code onto them and made them host it, (and maybe put together a small 'patch') you could crush them under the combined weight of their greediness, The mindless clickers of the update all button And your extensive fan base. Maybe I just need to lay off the FullThrottle on patch day.

Hi Donna,

The comment that you have been edited bothers me greatly. Could you please show me where any of the staff edited your posts, I can't find them myself. If any of my staff has edited your posts, I will want to know why they did so. So, please link me to the offending posts.

[Spectro]

Originally Posted by Lykofos EDIT: The word filter appears to have a political bias of some kind. It does not like Social ist)

I think it's meant to filter c ialis. Probably an anti-spam thing.

[Cairenn]

Yup, that'd be it. ^^

[Bomyne]

Originally Posted by Jalandar I can forgive you for this, these types of sentiments are mostly made out of ignorance regarding open source software. For example, this site you are on right now runs on open source software. It is running on CentOS linux, which is a redistribution of Redhat Enterprise linux sources recompiled and debranded (to comply with the copyright rules). And the software on the server that is serving up this site is lighttpd, a great open source http server. (Previously it was run on Apache, the most widely used, and open source, web server worldwide). The software and programming language that runs all the code that brings you the forums, and nearly all the other dynamic features of this site, is PHP, probably the most widely used web scripting language in use worldwide, and open source. The database storing all the user information and all of the addon information? It's also an open source database engine. Chance are you have open source software without even knowing it. Own a Tivo? It is running linux. A Broadband router? Chances are good it is running a version of linux for embedded devices, and probably using some form of PHP for their web based interface. LUA, the very language every WoW addon is written in, is open source. I could go on and on about how your life is probably touched every single day by open source software, without your knowledge in most cases. The servers that run the complete internet name and number scheme are run using the open source software BIND. Still the most widely used email and messaging servers run worldwide are open source. Also, did you know that outside the US, Firefox 3 now sees greater use than Internet Explorer 7? And adding up all versions of both software, Firefox is now 10% behind IE overall in Europe? That you don't "trust" open source is just because you are ignorant about what open source actually is and what it means.

Ah ignorance is Bliss, isn't it mate?

I said I don't trust. I didn't say I don't use and I didn't say I don't like open source.

For an open source vendor to gain my trust, it takes a lot more from them then it does from a closed-source vendor..

Oh and if you want to start talking Linux with me, bring it on. I'll talk to you about it till you fall asleep from boredom =D

Either way, just like Sun (Java) and Adobe (Flash) can't force you to make your stuff open source just because it runs on their VM, so can't Blizzard.

[Tekkub]

/em waits for new, tekkub-specific WM drama to start.

I hope I get some pissed-off emails tomorrow.