Dear Curse

Knowing When to Quit

So on Patch Day, we who were using WoWMatrix for updates got nailed by a collective action undertaken by Curse and WoWInterface. It's already been explained to death, argued to death, protested to death. Why it was done has been offered as a defense of how it was done, and that logic has been challenged, and it too was argued to death.

There does come a point when you have to acknowledge the fact that there will forever be differences of perspective on these kinds of things. Curse was not wrong for shutting off WM. WM was not wrong for providing superior service, which they did. The users were not wrong in being royally pissed off about being caught in the fight between the two. From these perspectives, each party was in the right.

Curse completely mishandled the act of shutting WM off; I've already said how a week's notice would have been sufficient for WM users to find alternatives, but Curse decided 15 hours was plenty. WM was using the same technique of providing its service that web developers used to do, when they linked graphics hosted on other sites into their own pages, using resources from the target server that the target couldn't recover. That was wrong of WM, period. The users (myself included) failed to either do due diligence to determine that we were supporting a proper business entity, or failed to care about where we were getting our "free stuff". From these perspectives, everyone was in the wrong.

I refuse to contribute another word to the hair-splitters on both sides who want to convince anyone that they were more right than wrong.

Regardless, it is time to quit. WM is dead, for all intents and purposes, and we are left with survivors. I choose to deal with Curse, as they have shown the most inclination to do what is necessary to serve their customers, and that term includes those they might like to get money from someday -- like me, for instance. I choose not to support WoWI, not because of their actions, but because of their reactions; their responses to posters in their forums has been snide in the extreme, and their sneer is practically audible through the written word. There is no excuse for that, particularly in people who want to offer a premium service. Their customers also include people they might like to get money from someday, and right now, they are poisoning their own well.

It's time to quit this. Everyone who works on WoW, whether on an addon site or not... get back to work. The rest of you, yeah, you can continue spewing, even though it's wasted effort. I'd like to suggest that you probably have better things to do with your time.

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  • Mon, Apr 20 2009 9:05 AM ()

    @SilverKnight16, while I agree that updating a limited number of addons manually isn't an overwhelming burden when you're dealing with one machine, it starts to become a touch more troublesome when you're maintaining multiple machines, each with a unique set of addons. For that, having some kind of easily operated auto-updater makes it more likely that my less-technically-inclined users will actually remain updated!

    @dreamingxashley, I wrote several blog and forum posts on this subject, over a period of several days. If the above post had been my *first* on the subject, then yes, that would be ridiculous. It isn't, though, so my position stands. I would also like to suggest that your understanding of the problems with WoWMatrix is outdated, given the list you mentioned. And finally, as I wrote in the piece to which you're replying, I'm not defending WoWMatrix on the points you mentioned. But neither is the manner in which Curse and WoWI responded to the issue defensible.

    *Which is irrelevant.* What's done is done. WM isn't coming back in any meaningful way, unless they start hosting.

  • Sun, Apr 19 2009 4:20 PM ()

    Eloquently written, but utterly pointless.  You're trying to put the definitive stamp on a stale (and idiotic) argument, when the ones arguing it are already too pigheaded and stubborn to listen to anyone's side but their own.  I commend you for trying, but I can't see this defusing anything.

    Furthermore, all of this hubbub would have been easily solved if people could stop being lazy and just download their mods manually.  "But--but, what do you mean I actually have to TYPE THE NAME IN?!  That's barbaric!"  I have something like 85 addons and over 150 folders in my Addons folder.  Despite that, it's really NOT that hard to spend ten minutes on your website of choice, once a week, and type in the names of the major addons you like.  If they have a recent date by their name, YAY they updated!  If not, oh well, I'll look back next week.  If, during that window a specific addon suddenly stops working, oops, better go check for an update!

    I realize this has absolutely nothing to do with the 'argument' at hand, but that's namely because the argument at hand seems to lack any real significance.  Philosophical debates are nice and all, but people were really starting flamewars over this nonsense?  People really should have better things to do with their time--like manually updating their friggin mods and stop with the idiotic bitching.  But maybe that's just me.

  • Sun, Apr 19 2009 1:39 PM ()

    You (the OP) want it to be stopped harping about, yet you post an editorial complaining about it as well! However, from what I understand, Wowmatrix was taking mods off Curse, stripping out the names of the authors, and even deep-linking back to Curse...

    How is that defensible?

  • Sun, Apr 19 2009 8:27 AM ()

    @nebolith:

    You post that under what I can only assume is the assumption that the Curse client is the only way to get your addons updated.

    It is, in fact, not.

    The addons on the Curse site are pay-to-download, but rather are and always have been free. It's the -method- that you are complaining about, and one which has a quantifiably easy solution.

    Don't pay for it, and do it like you grandpappy did. Download each one in succession, -manually-.

    There, solution found, (m)assess placated, now STFU already.

  • nebolith said 
    Sat, Apr 18 2009 6:42 PM ()

    A very well stated editorial but wrong nonetheless. The fact is, no matter how good software, is, you may not leverage anyone elses intellectual property without permission.

    Certainly I would never consider getting away with fishing in my neighbor's pond because I had a better fishing pole, especially if my neighbor wants to sell fish, that is just plain stealing.

    The curse client has ever intention of being subscriber based and leveraging its content for its own benefit, whether it is a subscription fee, removing adds or elsewhere. For someone curses content as theirselves so they could leverage an ends to a means is wrong, and illegal.

  • MojoTB said 
    Fri, Apr 17 2009 6:21 PM ()

    Bravo, Sir. I could not have expressed my feelings on this issue any better.

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