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05-12-09, 04:30 PM   #161
Vyper
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Originally Posted by djrajir View Post
Somehow I still dont see curse going along with this. I hope they do but we shall see.
They may not, who knows? Unfortunately, unless everyone involved co-operates, there is no solution to making addons all available in one spot.
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05-12-09, 05:01 PM   #162
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Originally Posted by Shialla View Post
My Take:

Curse IS greedy. The free version of their updater is crippleware IMO.

WoWM probably should have tried harder to reach some sort of accord with WoWI (I seriously doubt any sort of accord could have been reached with Curse)

WoWI if guilty of anything, is guilly of being run by sheeple, who let Curse talk them into blocking WoWM.

In the end the people who are hurt by this is we the users, because as has been said we have to keep track of addons via multiple sites again. As for the people who loudly proclaim they don't need addon updaters, good for you. Some of us have too many to manually check each addon across 2-3 different sites to see if it works.

Sadly in the end, greed is more important than community, c'est la vie.
You can't take both WoWI and WoWM's side by villainizing Curse. WoWI took an equal part in blocking WoWM, and wasn't bullied by Curse.
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05-12-09, 05:10 PM   #163
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Originally Posted by Lykofos View Post
Use the feeds from CurseForge and WoWAce for Curse as all AddOns hosted on Curse are pushed from either CF or WA (by an author change a tag on their CF/WA project to "Release").

Think of Curse as the retail area of your local auto parts store. There you have the shiny displays and the dudes behind the counter that go get your part. CF/WA is the back of the store where the parts are. CF/WA users know how to use the side door and can find the part they need on the rack themselves.
oh yay! thanks for the awesome infos Lykofos
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05-12-09, 05:30 PM   #164
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Originally Posted by Cairenn View Post
Oh, you mean like the "upload optional plugins or patches" that has been on our site forever. All it takes is for the author to allow it.
That's what I have on my little package of UI fun.

Although it's not an addon I'm fully aware that at some point I may not be maintaining the work I've done. This is why I activated optional patches - If I ever quit the game people can still upload patch for the various new content patchs and get their /script sound commands.
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05-12-09, 05:33 PM   #165
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Originally Posted by ArrchDK View Post
You can't take both WoWI and WoWM's side by villainizing Curse. WoWI took an equal part in blocking WoWM, and wasn't bullied by Curse.
That and if WowInterface had not gone with the block at the same time as Curse then all the traffic that would normally be going to Curse would flow to Wowinterface.

And poor Dolby would be crying as the servers melted down in a puddle of goo
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05-12-09, 05:55 PM   #166
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Originally Posted by djrajir View Post
Sorry i didn't read part b of #7.

Somehow I still dont see curse going along with this. I hope they do but we shall see.
Let's have another look at that clause shall we

Originally Posted by Our Illustrous Site Admin , Cairenn View Post
7. But, isn’t that what you guys were complaining about with WowMatrix in the first place? That they were downloading from your site without your permission?

No, the difference here is that:
a) they (whatever site) will be writing the module themselves; and
b) they will be able to show their own ads & respect their Premium/Non-Premium membership restrictions, etc when a user is on their tab.
I Pasted that here just to be clear to people following this thread.

Curse are perfectly welcome to do this. They'll probably make it just like the free curse client not the premium. I don't think they're not going to offer the "update all" feature free to people who download and install Mini-onion (sorry Shirak cant spell that other one).

I'm not sure if you still believe the greed angle but It's not about greed. It's about business. Both sites to stay alive need to make money. Servers don't run on sunshine and rainbows. There are costs involved. Some of these are quite large (Curses projected bandwidth bill for the month the patch come out == over $75,000 , $100,000 for server upgrades)

Personally for me I see it as another way of supporting the sites through me donating my money. . If my $$/month keeps my favourite addon sites open a little bit longer than by gum ! My hand is going for that secret place I have my credit card!

An updater client is a nice tool but it's not the be all and end all of updating methods. Updating manually is not the hard ardous time consuming process people think it is. You don't need to be downloading every single addon update there is every single day. Once you move out to say once per week or once every two weeks you'll see that the addon sites really don't have to make an alternative solution : it's a task you're not going to be doing that often so it really doesn't matter how you do it.

Granted an updater client does make the whole process simplier and quicker particularly the neophyte user. But that's not to imply that without that tool you couldn't keep yourself updated regularly with a minimus of fuss and bother

Oh dear another verbose response.Maybe I should change my avatar rank to something a bit more descriptive then "A delicate , unique snowflake"... Maybe "has verbal diarehha" or "about to be shot for extreme verbosity" or "has an inability to be brief".
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05-12-09, 06:11 PM   #167
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i think the underlying issue here is money and competition for ad revenue.

wowmatrix was the obvious target, but i'm wondering about what happens when they're finally gone. is wowi next? they are, afterall, competition for curse. the author rewards program from curse can be seen as being an effort to hoard addons.
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05-12-09, 06:25 PM   #168
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Originally Posted by lilsparky View Post
i think the underlying issue here is money and competition for ad revenue.

wowmatrix was the obvious target, but i'm wondering about what happens when they're finally gone. is wowi next? they are, afterall, competition for curse. the author rewards program from curse can be seen as being an effort to hoard addons.

The big difference being that wowi, curse, incgamers all use their own resources to host addons. WM didn't, causing a drain on the viability of the other sites, while making a profit from their own ads.
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05-12-09, 07:49 PM   #169
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Originally Posted by Elhana View Post
I do not agree that temporary fixes should not be implemented at all - some addons may be broken for ages for different reasons, yet addon is still "maintained". Just search for "fan update" here and you'll see how many people actually putting their dirty hands into your cookies, even more if you look for hacks in comments.
I wasn't talking about Fan Updates or hacks in comments. Both of those are highly visible and public. If I want a "fan update" I choose to download it. If it's a "hack in the comments" It's me making the choice to open the lua and put it in there.

I was talking about WM changes addon code without people's knowledge. Unless you know how to de compile wowmatrix's code from memory like Arrowmaster does then you have no idea that wow matrix is doing this. It's not decleared in any notes that WM displays anywhere. You're not notified that WM is doing so.

And yes this does create supirious versions of a mod - the latest version of a mod and the version the wow matrix "helpfully" altered. The addon author has no idea WM has altered his code so when he's trouble shooting problems people have he dosn't have the same code and thereby doesn't have the same version the person having a problem has.

Of course all of this isn't relevant anymore as WM have removed the function that did this. They removed it when they put up that little FAQ they responded to the block with.

Originally Posted by lilsparky View Post
i think the underlying issue here is money and competition for ad revenue.

wowmatrix was the obvious target, but i'm wondering about what happens when they're finally gone. is wowi next? they are, afterall, competition for curse. the author rewards program from curse can be seen as being an effort to hoard addons.
Well your first part of your argument is correct - servers don't run on sunshine and rainbows, bandwidth doesn't grow on trees. To be viable websites that will stay up they do need to be run as businesses.

And Businesses do need to have moneey coming in to pay the bills. Curse's estimated bandwidth bill for the month of April ? $75,000 (1) . They need to pay it somehow.

The second part of your argument isn't very valid - although there is a rivalry there between Curse and Wow interface , it's more of a friendly rivalry more then anything. They do have friendly relations with each other and do share certain things like tips on how to block wowmatrix and other addon site admin stuff.

If they wanted to drive wowinterface out of business all they needed to do would be to not tell this site about how they were going to block wowmatrix. Then all traffic that the WM users would normally be sending Curse would of been sent to this site instead. Do you think this site would of survived patch day with the extra bandwidth on patch day that Curse was doing ? I mean they were doing the bandwidth for both Thottbot and Wowhead combined on patch day (2) Search the URL in my footnotes for GB - they were doing an amazing amount of traffic on patch day. If they really wanted this site to go down that's all they needed to do (no dis respect intended towards Dolby tho )

As for the Premium program hording addons ? I don't buy it. There are a ton of other reasons why an author would publish to Wow interface and not Curse or both at the same time. An author makes a decision as to where to publish his or her addon and most of the time it's not where the money is leading them. Author tools , SVN , ease of publishing , quality of support ticket system, support forums , having more places people can download it from .... all are more valid reasons then getting a monetary cut out of it. And please note that with Curse's Premium program you can still download your addons for free through the client and through the website. They aren't preventing you from getting addons at all.


(1) http://apt.rikers.org/%23curseforge/20081015.html.gz search for 75k
(2) see link as above search for wowhead
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05-12-09, 07:50 PM   #170
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honem:
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05-12-09, 08:08 PM   #171
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Originally Posted by Cairenn View Post
honem:
oh - you did that?
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"You'd be surprised how many people violate this simple principle every day of their lives and try to fit square pegs into round holes, ignoring the clear reality that Things Are As They Are." -Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh

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05-12-09, 08:15 PM   #172
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Hehe was wondering what she did, just noticed. >.>;
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05-12-09, 08:15 PM   #173
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Honem, you're tireless I wish I had the energy to reply to half of what you have. <-- for emphasis
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05-12-09, 08:19 PM   #174
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Someone who posts with vigor. With passion. With eloquence.

With footnotes.

Love it!

My apologies, carry on.
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05-12-09, 09:04 PM   #175
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Originally Posted by Verissi View Post
Honem, you're tireless I wish I had the energy to reply to half of what you have. <-- for emphasis
Check out my new forum tag.

A Verbose Energizer Bunny

I can has energizer bunny similie ??

EDIT : If anyone missed it after I made the comment about having being way too verbose I was Cairenned ! She changed my tag to "^has verbal diarehha^"
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Last edited by Bluspacecow : 05-13-09 at 01:54 AM.
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05-12-09, 09:19 PM   #176
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Originally Posted by honem View Post
I can has energizer bunny similie ??


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05-12-09, 09:21 PM   #177
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Guess you missed it then, huh? *giggles*
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05-13-09, 12:51 AM   #178
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Originally Posted by honem View Post
Well your first part of your argument is correct - servers don't run on sunshine and rainbows, bandwidth doesn't grow on trees. To be viable websites that will stay up they do need to be run as businesses.

And Businesses do need to have moneey coming in to pay the bills. Curse's estimated bandwidth bill for the month of April ? $75,000 (1) . They need to pay it somehow.
oh, i'm not blaming anybody or anything. $75k a month in bandwidth costs kind of underscores the issue -- they wouldn't be doing that unless they anticipated making well over $75k a month. what's a guess at how much they make in a year? a million bucks? more? less?

The second part of your argument isn't very valid - although there is a rivalry there between Curse and Wow interface , it's more of a friendly rivalry more then anything. They do have friendly relations with each other and do share certain things like tips on how to block wowmatrix and other addon site admin stuff.
the quickest way to ruin a friendship is to throw money into the equation. the more you throw in, the quicker the friendship ends. maybe curse and zam are hands-off enough to not let it affect the folks actually running the sites, i dunno. but business is business. why would curse opt to be nice instead of opting to make more money?

If they wanted to drive wowinterface out of business all they needed to do would be to not tell this site about how they were going to block wowmatrix. Then all traffic that the WM users would normally be sending Curse would of been sent to this site instead...
divide and conquer. it's a standard technique. if wowi didn't block wowmatrix, then wowmatrix survives -- heck, maybe wowmatrix and wowi comes to some sort of agreement over bandwidth costs. it's better for curse to make the "sure kill" and see how things pan out later.

As for the Premium program hording addons ? I don't buy it. There are a ton of other reasons why an author would publish to Wow interface and not Curse or both at the same time. An author makes a decision as to where to publish his or her addon and most of the time it's not where the money is leading them. Author tools , SVN , ease of publishing , quality of support ticket system, support forums , having more places people can download it from .... all are more valid reasons then getting a monetary cut out of it. And please note that with Curse's Premium program you can still download your addons for free through the client and through the website. They aren't preventing you from getting addons at all.
i know the premium service isn't mandatory -- that's probably against blizzard's recent addon policy and would be a bad move by curse even if it wasn't. and in truth, the author rewards program isn't so much money that people would be really swayed to host there instead of here, but i have to imagine the formula for the rewards must include d/l count and visits. authors who are already there would be serving their own interests by removing their addons from other sites (to increase their curse traffic) or even hosting older addons elsewhere so people would be exposed to the addon but still need to go to curse to d/l it.

if curse wanted to play nice with wowi, they'd give me the option to syndicate my addon to other sites (like wowi).


and let me be clear here, i'm not suggesting that curse wants to take down wowi, i'm just speaking from a theoretical standpoint. looking at it as a business, you're always trying to get rid of competition and increase your market share. that's just how business works.
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05-13-09, 01:51 AM   #179
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Originally Posted by lilsparky View Post
oh, i'm not blaming anybody or anything. $75k a month in bandwidth costs kind of underscores the issue -- they wouldn't be doing that unless they anticipated making well over $75k a month. what's a guess at how much they make in a year? a million bucks? more? less?
Don't forgot these other costs to figure in

There's not only bandwidth to consider but also the fee they pay their data centre, hardware upgrade costs,people's salaries etc etc etc.

You also need to factor in all the websites Curse runs - the wow addon side isn't the only one they are running.

I think from the chat I linked you they predicted they would do about 3GB / hour. The actual on patch day was higher than that.

So I don't think Curse are exactly rolling in cash that some people like to conclude. If they did then they would of been able to bring that Premium idea of theirs out a lot sooner (I first heard of it in April last year I think).
Originally Posted by lilsparky View Post
the quickest way to ruin a friendship is to throw money into the equation. the more you throw in, the quicker the friendship ends. maybe curse and zam are hands-off enough to not let it affect the folks actually running the sites, i dunno. but business is business. why would curse opt to be nice instead of opting to make more money?
I'm sorry man but I really don't agree. You can have friendships in rival businesses where the quality of the friendship itself isn't effected by the money that's thrown in. I've heard and seen cases of people working in rival businessess still having active friendships despite being direct rivals. I've never come across this "I can no longer be friends with this guy because the company he works for beat mine for market share and advertising so we are now losing money against the company he works for" attitude you speak of.

Originally Posted by lilsparky View Post
divide and conquer. it's a standard technique. if wowi didn't block wowmatrix, then wowmatrix survives -- heck, maybe wowmatrix and wowi comes to some sort of agreement over bandwidth costs. it's better for curse to make the "sure kill" and see how things pan out later.
Sometimes you have to take actions for the good of the community. Both Curse and Wowinterface come to the agreement to do this simultaneously. Otherwise wowmatrix would of just directed the traffic would of normally been spit between both sites to one of those sites. It's much better to share the work then to have one site bear the incoming bandwidth for both sites.

Things is. For there to be any sort of "agreement" over bandwidth costs wowmatrix would have to of talked to the people at wow interface.Caireen and a few other admins have said multiple times that Wow matrix never contacted them at all.

Also Caireen's also said they had no choice. It was either do this or there would be no wowinterface.com as she says here :

Originally Posted by Cairenn View Post
Why would we not have a choice? Because other sites were going to be implementing theirs today, whether we did or not. If we didn't go ahead with ours today as well, we wouldn't be running at all today. They (WowMatrix) would have jumped from splitting their scraping of both sites to scraping only one site, our site, since they couldn't access the other one. We'd be down today, completely and totally, no one would be able to get to our site at all. How does that help anyone?
Originally Posted by lilsparky View Post
i know the service isn't mandatory -- that's probably against blizzard's recent addon policy and would be a bad move by curse even if it wasn't. and in truth, the author rewards program isn't so much money that people would be really swayed to host there instead of here, but i have to imagine the formula for the rewards must include d/l count and visits. authors who are already there would be serving their own interests by removing their addons from other sites (to increase their curse traffic) or even hosting older addons elsewhere so people would be exposed to the addon but still need to go to curse to d/l it.
Blizzard's recent addon policy covers authors making addons.

Curse is not an addon author. An updater program is not an addon.

Also they checked with Blizzard before they released it. Blizzard were okay with it - the "not charging for services related to addons" is to do with charging to download the addon. You can still download addons free through this service so it's not covered by the addon policy.

If you're interested of the details of the Curse Rewards program there's plenty of posts on wowace.com to read through. Tells you exactly how it's going to work and how much is gonna be given out.

Lastly I'm not sure which addon community you've been a part of but I just don't see "greedy" authors suddenly deciding to take advantage of this program to make money off it by fudging the system.

Addon authors usaully only remove addons from sites to make providing support easier on them. They publish to multiple sites to share the load around - if one site is down you can get it from the other sites.

It's counterproductive to upload older versions on other sites as that's more work for them that they could be using to provide support for their addons. The only way they could get outdated versions would be if wowmatrix hosted older versions covered under a license that gives them free distribution. At the end of the day distributing older versions of an addon you are currently maintaining is a bit like shooting yourself in the foot - you know you're going to get support tickets for those older versions which means more work for you as an addon author . And addon support is enough of a nightmare as it is !

Besides I don't think Ckknight, Kaelten and the other Curse admins would stand for an addon author fudging the system. They would just kick the author off the Curse Rewards program and delete their addons off Curse.
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05-13-09, 01:55 AM   #180
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Originally Posted by Cairenn View Post
Guess you missed it then, huh? *giggles*
If anyone missed it after I made the comment about having being way too verbose I was Cairenned !

She changed my tag to "^has verbal diarehha^"

....maybe next month I'll come up with an even better forum tag

PS Forum Tag == What's under my forum username on my posts
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