WoWAce to close its doors (sort of) - Page 3

Ragnor · 07/25/08, 2:35 AM

The ZAM Network is owned by Affinity Media who are indirect owners of IGE (yes the gold sellers).

Pretty much every massively popular fansite has sold out to a web advertising network eventually. Gold selling and gold selling advertising is big business.

However Curse raised 800k from venture capital investors in 2006 and a further 5 mill (yes multiple millions) in 2007 from French private equity investors so it seems unlikely they will be getting taken over by the gold sellers.

They will need to be turning a profit in advertising revenue or subscriptions sooner or later.

Sovereignty · 07/25/08, 4:31 AM

Originally Posted by Ragnor

The ZAM Network is owned by Affinity Media who are indirect owners of IGE (yes the gold sellers).

Wrong. You shouldn't spread such inflammatory rumors without substantive evidence to backup your assertion. Here's a link to the head administrator of WoWInterface saying that their parent company and IGE are not related: Allakhazam... - WoWInterface

I can't find it now, but there was a 20+ page thread on the official forums which debunked the myth, corroborated by legal professionals who actually knew how to read the documents which lead to initial confusion.

Kaelten · 07/25/08, 2:06 PM

Hey guys, just wanted to say hi.

In regards to Curse:
Not only are we doing a new client. But we're doing a new Curse.com too.

I, more than any of you HATE the current state of curse.com. Why? Because I HAVE TO FIX IT!

I'm excited to say that come the new curse.com that much of its going to be better. Everything is getting redesigned form the ground up. Being intimately involved with the states of things, past and future, I promise you guys that things will be better.

As far as WowAce's changes. I'm excited. Mainly because for the first time I'm going to be able to work on WowAce fulltime. It's been suffering from slow bit rot as its been on autopilot for so long.

I know there are ups and downs. But I just ask that for now that people would tell us whats wrong so we can make it the best possible, and then wait until they see the results before they completely go crazy. Thanks to you guys who do have this attitude.

I'm also fully willing to talk and discuss with anyone who's interested.

Later guys,
Kael

Felixalias · 07/25/08, 3:35 PM

Kaelten,

While I fully understand the necessity for a paid version in order to keep WowAce running, which features does the premium version add? The ability to update every few hours, or the ability to update all addons at once (without clicking a checkbox beside each addon). In other words, is the free version just missing a few features, or is it completely crippled?

Austin · 07/25/08, 3:36 PM

Just giving similar input to what I've already seen, and as an end user I'll use it, or I wont. I already use WoWI far more the curse in order to find non-ACE AddOns that are actually up to date and are easier to find.

As both an end user, and a GM of a medium progression guild have issues with Addons.

ACE and the WAU allowed stupid easy up to the minute updated mods that I could ensure that the raid was all on the correct version, however I have so many things in my Addon folder that I really have no clue what half of these damn libraries are for, and why I have so many addons. I'm sure that I've been updating libraries that I don't use, wasting everyone's bandwidth.

Curse is okay, but searching it is a BITCH, I search for 1 mod and I get 5 different version being updated by 3 people and 2 that are 3 years out of date as well as 15 different "compilation" packages that all contain that addon.

We have ~90 people in the guild, a good portion of them are HORRIBLE at updating them, I've had to host the correct version to ensure that we all were running the same version more then 1 time(Omen/Threat).

Kody · 07/25/08, 3:49 PM

Originally Posted by Austin

Just giving similar input to what I've already seen, and as an end user I'll use it, or I wont. I already use WoWI far more the curse in order to find non-ACE AddOns that are actually up to date and are easier to find.

As both an end user, and a GM of a medium progression guild have issues with Addons.

ACE and the WAU allowed stupid easy up to the minute updated mods that I could ensure that the raid was all on the correct version, however I have so many things in my Addon folder that I really have no clue what half of these damn libraries are for, and why I have so many addons. I'm sure that I've been updating libraries that I don't use, wasting everyone's bandwidth.

Curse is okay, but searching it is a BITCH, I search for 1 mod and I get 5 different version being updated by 3 people and 2 that are 3 years out of date as well as 15 different "compilation" packages that all contain that addon.

We have ~90 people in the guild, a good portion of them are HORRIBLE at updating them, I've had to host the correct version to ensure that we all were running the same version more then 1 time(Omen/Threat).

I agree completely that it's frustrating to search for AddOns right now on Curse. Almost to the point of stupidity, to be completely honest.

This is a major reason we've taken a hard stance on new projects and files being uploaded (all projects/files are created/uploaded via CurseForge now), and each must be approved before you can have it hosted on Curse.com. This should help substantially in clearing up the clutter on the site.

We also have something coming for compilations that we're not quite ready to talk about (still working out the basics of how it will work), that should allow them to co-exist with AddOns, without actually getting in the way of search results.

Originally Posted by Calen

From the log of the IRC discussion

I'm sure I saw a post from one of the curse employees suggesting that they will do everything possible to insure that only their downloader is functional; unsurprising as they intend to leverage their client for either direct profit (premium subscription) or ad revenue.

I rather abhor the thought of running their downloader client for a few reasons..

1) It's going to feature embedded advertising, which often includes the possibility of remote exploits (both WAU and the Curse website itself have both been documented as spreading trojans, in the past).

2) It's designed to run as a background process, for automatic updates which leaves me wondering what other kind of activity they will be logging. Even if it's just logging your play time indirectly by detecting when the wow client is active, I will be irritated. The client is closed source, and only available as a binary, further reducing my interest in running it..

3) I'd consider paying for a premium client if I could think of a way of paying the people at curse without giving them any kind of personal data, credit card numbers etc.

No offense intended to those that are involved with curse.com development.. but as a professional programmer I am inherently suspicious of the security practices of a hobby site/portal gone commercial, and given their past history for both design, content and security practices I'm certainly not going to be an early subscriber.

Personally, I'm not too concerned - I will still be able to update my addons, in one way or the other, but for some of my raid members that are reliant on updaters I loathe the upcoming changes.

In regards to #1: Do you have a link to legitimate proof that Curse.com has been compromised with trojans (I'm guessing you're suggesting ads with trojans embedded -- which is incorrect if so)?

#2: There are potential security reasons (on our end) as to why the client is closed source. That's pretty much the only reason it is.

#3: The billing system for premium should be flexible enough that you won't have to disclose credit card info. We'll have more details on premium as we get closer to actually launching it, but suffice to say no one will be losing any usability on the current Curse.com by us introducing premium. We're designing entirely new features to coincide with premium.

ZealotOnAStick · 07/25/08, 4:31 PM

Originally Posted by windcape

Now I can't seem to get a clear answer on it but...

Will ALL the current outdated addons on Curse and CurseForge be REMOVED COMPLETELY when the new project starts?
Searching for say, "Action Bar" on CurseForge now , gives you several thousand UIs from yesterday to Vanilla WoW Beta -- which is NOT enjoyable.

I want to search for "Action Bar" and get: Bartender3,4,Bongos,Dominos etc. and nothing else.

I'm not going to use Absolutes like "ALL." There is a goal (and a personal peeve of mine, so I'll probably be doing the majority of the cleanup, and there are literally thousands of projects currently so no promises on precisely how timely things may be) to tremendously clean up the Addons on Curse.com/CurseForge.

The first step, which will be one of the most significant, is going to be a new, saner way of handling compilations/packs. There's frankly not even a point to trying to clean anything up until that support is in. It can't come fast enough for me.

lazerpewpew · 07/26/08, 6:29 PM

1: It is funny that someone would use "searching is painful" as reason to bash curse.com. Only the retards wouldn't be able to recognize whether the addon he searched from curse and was just about to download is the right one or not.

2: People, please realize one thing, Bandwidth is not free! wowace will not sustain itself, from the reason people have explained in previous posts, and curse or any future addon sites will not be able to sustain itself if it doesn't have a profitable business plan.

3: It is, at best, aggravating to receive accusations such as having trojans in the software you work hard on, not to mention a baseless one. The quality of software doesn't depend on being open sourced or not, but it depends on the communications between the developers and the community that use it. Even if the new curse client is "open sourced", I don't think most of us would bother to build a "trojan-less" one ourselves.

Oh and remember there were words about the webpage used in WAU has a keylogger? I didn't follow it, but that proves open sourced software is not taken for granted as safe.

• koaschten · 07/26/08, 7:19 PM

Originally Posted by lazerpewpew

Oh and remember there were words about the webpage used in WAU has a keylogger? I didn't follow it, but that proves open sourced software is not taken for granted as safe.

The problem with that was the advertising network was serving the malware, not WAU. When the wowace guys got notice from it, they DISABLED the advertisement display on WAU (aka blanked the page that WAU was refering to to serve the ads).

Ragnor · 07/27/08, 1:19 PM

Originally Posted by Sovereignty

Wrong. You shouldn't spread such inflammatory rumors without substantive evidence to backup your assertion. Here's a link to the head administrator of WoWInterface saying that their parent company and IGE are not related: Allakhazam... - WoWInterface

I can't find it now, but there was a 20+ page thread on the official forums which debunked the myth, corroborated by legal professionals who actually knew how to read the documents which lead to initial confusion.

Sorry I should have said Affinity Media was the parent company of IGE. They claim to have sold any stakes in IGE and no longer be involved since back in June last year.

Call me cynical if you like but I suspect there is still some involvement. Who knows... if the wind changed, the ownership of some of these companies could change at the drop of a hat (like they seem too have in the past).

Anyway the point was....

a) Curse Inc is not owned by Affinity Media unlike many other popular sites or by IGE or anything like that.
b) Curse Inc will be under shareholder pressure (at some stage) to perform and generate ROI for their investors.

• Intermission · 07/28/08, 3:04 AM

Originally Posted by Kaelten

Hey guys, just wanted to say hi.

In regards to Curse:
Not only are we doing a new client. But we're doing a new Curse.com too.

I, more than any of you HATE the current state of curse.com. Why? Because I HAVE TO FIX IT!

I'm excited to say that come the new curse.com that much of its going to be better. Everything is getting redesigned form the ground up. Being intimately involved with the states of things, past and future, I promise you guys that things will be better.

As far as WowAce's changes. I'm excited. Mainly because for the first time I'm going to be able to work on WowAce fulltime. It's been suffering from slow bit rot as its been on autopilot for so long.

I know there are ups and downs. But I just ask that for now that people would tell us whats wrong so we can make it the best possible, and then wait until they see the results before they completely go crazy. Thanks to you guys who do have this attitude.

I'm also fully willing to talk and discuss with anyone who's interested.

Later guys,
Kael

Well I'm glad someone at Curse agrees that it needs to be improved. Hearing that it's going to be re-designed from the ground up sounds nice, I look forward to giving it another go when it's done.

One thing that a few others have mentioned in this thread but I would like to repeat for clarity:

Have the features for the free and the premium Curse clients been established? Or is that still in the works? I imagine it would be hard to balance the different versions. The free needs to be able to... work, in order for it to even be worth using. But if it "works", what makes the premium version better? I would assume you would need to do things like limit the amount of mod updates per hour? Because "ticking all the checkboxes" compared to "ticking 'update all'" is the only difference I have seen people mention.

Perhaps I dont understand what the client does, and it's more than just a mod-updater. Either way I'm off to go search around the Curse/WowAce site, because I have a feeling I just asked the question hundreds of others have, but just in a different forum.

pilger81 · 07/28/08, 5:30 AM

Originally Posted by Kody

....
#2: There are potential security reasons (on our end) as to why the client is closed source. That's pretty much the only reason it is.
....

I really support you with your decision to change that much but security by obfuscation...sorry that argument is too poor.
--- it takes longer to find bugs
--- it takes longer to fix bugs
--- when neccessary you can get code of closed source

I don't see a reason to pay for the updater but being it closed source and the already mentioned( on wowace) problem with forced updates.

Cairenn · 07/28/08, 6:19 AM

Hi guys,

First, I want to take a minute to introduce myself. I'm Cairenn, one of the co-founders and admins over at WoWInterface. I've been reading here for a long time but have never registered and posted before this. Figured this was as good a time as any to actually post something here for a change, instead of just reading.

This is going to be long, so I’ll ask your indulgence and forgiveness in advance.

Originally Posted by shorto85

Kaelten also mentioned the Curse updater tool being redone to include all of the WowAce content. However it seems that the "one click update" that so many of us have been spoiled by from using WAU will be a premium feature.

Originally Posted by Malan

Is that planned to be java based for multi platform compatibility? (Mac user here)

WoWInterface already has updaters for both Windows and for Mac & Linux. And they are free for all registered users on the site.

Originally Posted by Nadiar

< snip >
Next, I would have programmed in the ability to publish any 'release' quality update to WoWInterface and Curse, directly from a web interface for the Developers. This reduces the reliance on using WowAce for distribution, and removes part of the laziness barrier that seems prevelent in many of the Developers.

Originally Posted by tsigo

My main gripe, as a developer, is that publishing to these addon sites is a pain in the ass. I've got export the Subversion branch, zip it, upload it, then enter the changelog. < snip >

It’s very very easy for authors to update on WoWInterface. One button push easy. If you use our SVN, you can just do the zip straight from there. If you are uploading from somewhere else (ie: another SVN or your computer), you can use Shadowed’s handy program.

Originally Posted by Nadiar

< snip > the ease with which a Developer could be replaced on any specific AddOn was indeed much smoother than the alternatives on Curse and WowInterface (which created situations where we had several terms such as Reborn, Renewed, Refreshed, 2.0, or II, all in circulation simultaneously).

There has always been two very easy ways to deal with this on WoWInterface. The first is that anyone can upload a patch to an existing addon, which the original author can then incorporate or not as they so choose. The second is that all it takes to change ownership of an addon on the site is for the original author to drop me a PM saying that they are transferring ownership of [their AddOn] to [whoever].

Originally Posted by Saroz

< snip >

All mods from WoWAce will be found on the new site, even if they don't have an active author, so no mods will disappear.

Yeah, whether the author wants to have their stuff on Curse or not. The only way they can get any choice in the matter is if they choose to remove their mods from the Ace SVN now, before the merger goes through.

Originally Posted by koaschten

The point is, the backend is already running on curse.com servers. Kaelten would have a big hole in his pockets by now. < snip >

But people love to forget/gloss over the fact that WoWInterface hosted Ace for a couple years before that …

Originally Posted by Ragnor

Sorry I should have said Affinity Media was the parent company of IGE. They claim to have sold any stakes in IGE and no longer be involved since back in June last year.

Call me cynical if you like but I suspect there is still some involvement. < snip >

There isn’t. There never was.

sark · 07/28/08, 2:51 PM

Whether it's closed source or not, what's to stop me from packet sniffing the protocol and writing a non ad version. It also seems fairly trivial to just mirror the source somewhere else and point the old updaters there.

It sickens me that a service that was once free and widely used is going to be taken over by VC capital, and then to make matters worse you are going to shove advertising down my throat.

I can't wait for roll over flash ads obscuring the "Curse.com Update Button ( only $10 )"

Centipedes in my World of Warcraft?? Sooner than you might think.

• Abbi · 07/28/08, 3:05 PM

Originally Posted by sark

It sickens me that a service that was once free and widely used is going to be taken over by VC capital, and then to make matters worse you are going to shove advertising down my throat.

The data transfer per month was cited at 60 terabytes in peak months. One of the cheapest ways to handle that much data I know is Amazon's S3 service. If I tell Amazon's calculator that I want to push 60 terabytes in a month, the bill calculates out to a little over $8,000 a month, or $96,000 a year.

You couldn't use Amazon S3 to run an entire SVN, either -- it's not suitable for the purpose. So the real costs are probably substantially higher.

Rhaegal · 07/28/08, 3:36 PM

Originally Posted by tsigo

No kidding. After this announcement I went to check out CurseForge and, after finding my old curse-gaming.com login still worked, saw that they still had records for the very first addons I ever wrote, before I knew better and started using Ace. They hadn't been updated since before TBC and yet there they are, available for download.

This has always been one of my biggest complaints about Curse (other than it just being an ugly, poorly designed site). Searching for a certain category of mod, you'll find 20 mods that haven't been updated in 2 years, and maybe a couple that have, if you're lucky. It doesn't seem to be any better from a server maintenance standpoint to have hundreds, possibly thousands, of mods that are unusable, either.

What I'd dearly love to see as part of this site redesign (which, as much as I've always disliked Curse, I'm so far very optimistic about) is a Report Outdated Mod tool. After enough people report a mod as non-functioning, it gets flagged for review. At that point, either it gets tested or an attempt is made at contacting the author to review or retire the mod, something like that. Hell, you could automate the whole thing if it's left up to the author to update it or retire it, and just automatically retire it if the author doesn't respond within a certain time limit.

◊ Malan · 07/28/08, 3:37 PM

Originally Posted by ZealotOnAStick

Our CEO has said (including in an industry multimedia presentation)

Just how big is Curse these days?

• Jokie · 07/28/08, 3:55 PM

Originally Posted by lazerpewpew

1: It is funny that someone would use "searching is painful" as reason to bash curse.com. Only the retards wouldn't be able to recognize whether the addon he searched from curse and was just about to download is the right one or not.

2: People, please realize one thing, Bandwidth is not free! wowace will not sustain itself, from the reason people have explained in previous posts, and curse or any future addon sites will not be able to sustain itself if it doesn't have a profitable business plan.

3: It is, at best, aggravating to receive accusations such as having trojans in the software you work hard on, not to mention a baseless one. The quality of software doesn't depend on being open sourced or not, but it depends on the communications between the developers and the community that use it. Even if the new curse client is "open sourced", I don't think most of us would bother to build a "trojan-less" one ourselves.

Oh and remember there were words about the webpage used in WAU has a keylogger? I didn't follow it, but that proves open sourced software is not taken for granted as safe.

1. If the main reason a user is on the curse site is to get addons, the search feature being painful is exactly the reason to bash the site. What good is any site if you cannot find what you're looking for easily? I think it's been said that it's more likely due to the extra results from pre-BC versions, derivative works, compilations, etc.

3. I think the accusations come from the ads on the page serving trojans. A user doesn't care whether it was the site or the site's ad network that attempted to load a virus on their machine. All they know is they went to Website.com and got a virus (or warning).

Felixalias · 07/29/08, 2:08 AM

Originally Posted by Jokie

3. I think the accusations come from the ads on the page serving trojans. A user doesn't care whether it was the site or the site's ad network that attempted to load a virus on their machine. All they know is they w