Rarely am I forced to immediately post something, but Curse and their frigging “premium” service offering have forced my hand.
I’ve been pissed since they blocked WoW Matrix. I understand they want their visitors and whatnot, but WoW Matrix was just flat out a better product. But, again, I understood their reasoning.
So I did what they wanted. I grumbled a little bit, sure, but I started using the Curse client to download the brunt of my mods.
Well, tonight I went to log on for an hour or so, and because it’s been a few days or so I thought I should check for updates to my mods. I see that a few do in fact need updating (using the Curse client, like I’m ?supposed” to) and click the old ?update all” button. And this is what I get:
You have got to be EFFING KIDDING ME. So I went from a superior, free program, to Curse begging for my cash. Just for giggles, I check out the prices. 5 bucks a month? 30 bucks a year? For an addon manager I used to get for free? WTF?
So, everyone join in with me!
SCREW YOU CURSE, YOU SUCK!!!!!!!!
Now excuse me while I go update my addons one by one. Jerks.
p.s. And, to top it off, even if you do it one by one, you have to WAIT for each download to finish and install before doing the next one. AAAARRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!
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I’m usually a big fan of your posts, so this one sort of disappointed me. I used WoW Matrix and I loved it, and I was disappointed when it was blocked by Curse and WoW Interface–but from a business standpoint, I can’t imagine how you’d find them (Curse) at fault.
I’m sure you understand that WoW Matrix connected directly to these sites and downloaded the addons from them–not from WoW Matrix’s own servers–completely bypassing any kind of advertising revenue they had set up. Perhaps you and I don’t get paid for blogging, but when you run sites the size of Curse and WoW Interface it becomes a big deal. All WoW Matrix had to pay for was development time and bandwidth for their own site, while they simply leeched away at other resources. But I’m sure you understand all this, and are simply frustrated at the situation; however, I’m sad to see someone who usually posts very intellectual and rational posts resort to name-calling and cursing.
I hope you’re able to find a solution to your addon updating problem, and I look forward to your usual high-quality posts in the future.
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I do understand why they blocked WoW Matrix. My problem is that they did offer up the free client that was similar, and allowed me to update all of my addons with one click. It worked fine, and I was living with it.
It’s when they decided to pull the rug out, and start charging for said service that I got ticked off. Listen, if you want to ADD functionality and start charging for it, fine. But don’t think I’ll sit back and stay silent when you take previously free functionality away and then ask me to pay for it. Not cool.
I’d have to agree that charging users for a functionality such as “updating all addons” is rather unreasonable, especially since it had been previously free. I haven’t tried the client, but I’d hope they’ll come up with better/unique incentives than this gimmick to entice users to sign up for the Premium service.
In the meantime I guess I’ll just update them manually.
I expected this change the first time I opened the Curse updater and saw they were giving me a “free preview” of the premium updater. This is just the other shoe dropping.
What I find truly annoying though is how it blocks you from downloading a second update until the first is completely finished. There’s no reason for this I can see other than to frustrate you so much you shell out for the premium downloader. I mean, if I was doing it manually, I could have my browser downloading multiple files at the same time, and their client is certainly able to handle multiple downloads once you pay $5.
At the moment I only have a few to download, so have left the Curse downloader installed, but come patch 3.2, when probably every mod I use will need updates, I think I’ll just go back to manual downloads.
It’s just bad business to put out a normal product that’s so shitty customers _have_ to pay for the premium to get basic usability out of it, and resent the company. Offer me a decent normal product, and then upsell me when I’m happy and impressed with something that is a true upgrade. Then, you’ve got a loyal customer for life, and someone who’s going to send friends to you too.
Are you listening, Curse?
I too expected this as soon as I saw the “free preview” come up. I got the update restrictions when I logged on last night. I promptly un-installed and deleted the curse profiler from my interface folder.
Curse makes (used to) updating easy but not $5/month easy. It will be interesting to see how well they do with their new business model.
If anybody from Curse lurks here: here is my suggestion. Make it so you have to visit the website to start your download. That way you can serve some ads and my eye time will pay for the service – but I am not paying money for it – sorry.
What about this?
World of Warcraft User Interface Add-On Development Policy
With the continuing popularity of World of Warcraft user interface add-ons (referred to hereafter as “add-ons”) created by the community of players, Blizzard Entertainment has formalized design and distribution guidelines for add-ons. These guidelines have been put in place to ensure the integrity of World of Warcraft and to help promote an enjoyable gaming environment for all of our players – failure to abide by them may result in measures up to and including taking formal legal action.
1) Add-ons must be free of charge.
All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create “premium” versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on.
Yeah, I noticed that too.
But don?t think I?ll sit back and stay silent when you take previously free functionality away and then ask me to pay for it. Not cool.
I’m with you 100% here – luckily I only use a few add-ons.
Don’t want to sound like a broken record but I agree here to, I would hardly call the “Premium solution” $5/m worthy. Im only new to curse myself was happy with what they were offering, however can anyone through up some suggestions as to something else we can use?
Patric: The addons ARE distributed free of charge. You don’t have to pay to go to Curse to manually download them. Sure it takes a bit longer, but it’s still free. Not to mention, the Curse updater itself is not an addon. It’s an executable outside the game and doesn’t interact with the WoW client at all.
For alternatives to a client, I suggest heading over to WoW Interface. Word on the street is they’re developing their own. Instead of having to pay though, you get pelted with advertising. Pick your poison.
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Matt,
I have seen that argument on various forums regarding whether or not they have the right to charge for their services. They may be on shakey ground since part of the restriction says “charge for services related to the addon”. BTW, I think Blizzard is over the line by trying to restrict addon authors and others (Curse) from getting paid for their work! I am sure some of these addons are the product of hundreds if not thousands of hours and if market supports then they should be allowed to charge money. Bottom line is for $5/mo. I am perfectly willing to spend my own time updating addons or to put up with some advertisements at another site. Thanks for the tip – I will check them out.
I kind of saw it coming after the free preview of Curse premium. The fact that they advertise the money will go to help addon authors might get them a finger waggling from Blizzard. If Curse wanted to support the authors they could have asked me to click on interesting ads/banners. I would have been down with that.
If anything else, the downloader will be a great reminder list of what I need to reinstall come patch day.
@ Patric: I think Blizzard is within their right to restrict anyone from making money off of a game they created. As sad as it is to say, the addon authors wouldn’t be making their mods if it had not been for the game known as WoW. (or any of the other MMOs they create extra code for)
No one asked them to change the code and add their own touches to the game interface, but we can all appreciate them for the hard work they put in. They do so because they saw something that they wanted to see change and offered us the chance to play with their creation. After a time if the addon is good enough Blizzard will incorporate it into their own game. To me, that in itself would have been enough of a payoff.
If anything else… At least it’s better than FFXI. If you get caught with a modified game file you’ve violated their ToS and are banned from the game for a time. Or, that’s how it was when I played it a few years back…not sure if they’ve changed it since then.
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5$ is like 25% of my monthy subscription for WOW itself. That’s huge.
I understand they have to pay for the bandwith, that they have to pay the developers and so. Ok… but not so expensive.
So now… what are our alternatives ?
Never tried WOWInterface but they were the first to block every other tool (I used to play with WUU).
Maybe should I wish Blizzard to step in and distribute addons from their own servers.
At the very least you can block the stupid ads at the bottom. I don’t know if they generate revenue from their ad sponsors (of course they do), but you can go to your C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\host file and tell it to ignore a couple addresses by appending:
127.0.0.1 akamai.smartadserver.com
127.0.0.1 curseclient.curse.com
This stops those stupid little adds from showing up in the bottom right corner, at the very least. Personally I thought the client itself was good while they were doing their “premium preview” i.e.: “we’re gonna’ get you used to standard functionality, then drop the GOOD features of this program so we can wheedle money out of you” version
I completely agree with you — the Curse Client just sucks.
I’m now using WUU, the “WoW UI Updater”. For all Curse-addons, you still need to manually d/l them (but they will be unpacked by WUU), but you switch to other sites for Addons that are hosted on multiple sites (like wowinterface).
I?d have to agree that charging users for a functionality such as ?updating all addons? is rather unreasonable, especially since it had been previously free. I haven?t tried the client, but I?d hope they?ll come up with better/unique incentives than this gimmick to entice users to sign up for the Premium service.
The newer client just effed up my addons to the max. Last night I was playing fine. Had a windows update while I was sleeping off my hangover and I get back and curse thinks I have 2 Wow’s and all my addons are gone except Pally Power which I uninstalled last night?