Hi, thought i would mention this to ya. I am surprised Curse.com went ahead with this idea after what happened to Carbonite Addon. Seems that Blizzard says nobody is allowed to make money off them without their legal permission. Curse.com selling a 3rd party program for use with WoW will probably not go over well. As i remember it carbonite was forced to make their addon completly free, else they would have a huge lawsuit. Wonder how long untill Curse is in the same boat.

We are not selling the Curse Client.  We're offering value-added features for the website and the client, which without them does not hinder the acquisition of AddOns whatsoever.

Its still a very fine line to walk upon.  Sure you DO offer a free service, BUT your still making money with the premium service.  As i see it, the technicality does not fall line in whether you have a free version, but whether you are making money from wow related material in ANY capacity. As such, even having addons solict for donations, which again are voluntary (such as the premium service is) is still not a loud.  Not donating for an addon did not "hinder the acquisition of AddOns whatsoever" either mind you.

Personally I think it was just greedy. In the day and age where EVERYTHING costs somthing it was refreshing to see a good utility be functional AND free.  But now i have to stare at adds and manually update each addon at a time because either A) website based ad revenue was not paying the bills or B) someone wants a little pocket cash.  I tend towards B in the regard of how many hits this site gets in a day.  If im wrong correct me. But in anycase i think your stepping on some uncertian ground here, and i would hate to see a complete ban.

Hell, team up with google, they love to code, this website is all about coding, it fits. (and there would be a far superior search system to replace the, sorry to say this, shitty one you have now)

I dread the big patch days when i have to click an addon, hit update, wait, click an addon click update wait. etc etc etc 

Truthfully, the curst client is the only reason I even use curse.com and though its functional now, if it turns out to be a waste of time instead of a TIME SAVER unless i go premium, i will have no reason to stay.  I pay enough for me an dmy wifes account's and the rest of my life then to pay so i can update a videogame.

sincerely

a concerned user

I am in total agreement with the above poster. I understand that there is money to be made in this world, but I am now uninstalling Curse Client and going to wowmatrix. It's as good as CC but free.

The amount of times an addon is updated, or when its major patch day and all addons need to be updated, i don't want to have to trawl throught the endless pages of addons, manually installing each one.

This is a bad day for gaming... I just hope that not too many leave curse behind, as it was once a haven to many i'm sure. I will return when either CC is completely free, or if there is at the worst a "Donation" option if you feel that the team are doing a good job with the site and client.

Yours regretfully,

Trip

  Quote:

Originally Posted by Kody

We are not selling the Curse Client.  We're offering value-added features for the website and the client, which without them does not hinder the acquisition of AddOns whatsoever.

The same was true of Carbonite.  There was a "free" version with obfuscated code and a far more limited feature set.  If the user chose to, and many did for some odd reason, you could pay for a more feature-filled version that was still obfuscated and time-locked.  Take note of what happened to them.

Not quite... there was more involved. They were also advertising within the WoW Client...that's a pretty big no no.

There is a huge difference here. We are not charging for addons or access to addons. If you aren't premium you still get to click the update add on button.

  Quote:

Originally Posted by shinynewac

Not quite... there was more involved. They were also advertising within the WoW Client...that's a pretty big no no.

There is a huge difference here. We are not charging for addons or access to addons. If you aren't premium you still get to click the update add on button.

I understand you have the free option, but the truth is Blizzard, if they choose to, can say "hey, addons are created with code conventions we created, most addons inlude WoW intellectual property, (names, places etc) and we allow the Authors the use of said property for non-profit use." Ultimatly, Blizzard can say all addons created to work within the confines of WoW BELONG to blizzard, and therefore can easily (and with highly paid laywers) decide that Curse.com profiting off the distrubution of there I.P without their consent to be a red flag...if they choose to go down that path.  But the way big companies like to fling lawsuits around just because...I dont want to risk Curse ending up fined to the point of being shut down.

The problem with WM is they know that addons author don't have the ressource to sue them when they redistribute addons without their permissions.

and it's very sad to see people endorsing such behavior.  (and in the worse case, they would probably abide and result in a C&D)

At least they seem to want to do something about it, judging by the informatory text when one of the Curse or Wowinterface hosted mods is selected through their client. Should people get charged for downloading a freely distributable addon (dependent on the license of course)? If they sort this out to mod authors satisfaction, then thats the service I'll use.

It's very sad to see people profitting from free-to-use and distribute addons, purely by providing some automation.

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.

2) Add-on code must be completely visible.
The programming code of an add-on must in no way be hidden or obfuscated, and must be freely accessible to and viewable by the general public.

3) Add-ons must not negatively impact World of Warcraft realms or other players.
Add-ons will perform no function which, in Blizzard Entertainment's sole discretion, negatively impacts the performance of the World of Warcraft realms or otherwise negatively affects the game for other players. For example, this includes but is not limited to excessive use of the chat system, unnecessary loading from the hard disk, and slow frame rates.

4) Add-ons may not include advertisements.
Add-ons may not be used to advertise any goods or services.

5) Add-ons may not solicit donations.
Add-ons may not include requests for donations. We recognize the immense amount of effort and resources that go into developing an add-on; however, such requests should be limited to the add-on website or distribution site and should not appear in the game.

6) Add-ons must not contain offensive or objectionable material.
World of Warcraft has been given a "T" by the ESRB, and similar ratings from other ratings boards around the world. Blizzard Entertainment requires that add-ons not include any material that would not be allowed under these ratings.

7) Add-ons must abide by World of Warcraft ToU and EULA.
All add-ons must follow the World of Warcraft Terms of Use and the World of Warcraft End User License Agreement.

8) Blizzard Entertainment has the right to disable add-on functionality as it sees fit.
To maintain the integrity World of Warcraft and ensure the best possible gaming experience for our players, Blizzard Entertainment reserves the right to disable any add-on functionality within World of Warcraft at its sole discretion. For more information...

If you are an add-on developer and have any questions about and this User Interface Add-On Development Policy and how it pertains to the add-on that you've developed, please don't hesitate to email us at WoWUI@blizzard.com.

after may 19th bliz will enforce this policy and since your addon does provide access to addons and updating them it falls under this policy.

@ red2k2rt: Curse got no addon providing access to other addon.

Being an author myself, I wonder how an addon can download other addon.

Blizzard knows whats going on and i am sure their legal department is sifting through it all , if they find anything that breaks the TOS ytou can bet 100% curse will follow rules.

now please give them some room

@red2k2rt

I think you're misinterpreting the spirit of that policy.  If I had to guess I'd assume that Blizzard doesn't want players to feel forced into paying for specific addons that have become successful enough to be considered a requirement to play competitively.  It was probably a pre-emptive move to ensure pay-to-play addons can't ever become a big issue.

The Curse client isn't an addon. Plus, if Blizzard were to start impeding a site like Curse from making money everyone would lose out.  If addon sites weren't viable from a financial standpoint where would you get your free addons?  I'm not an addon author, but I can guarantee you that most of them aren't going to be willing to pay for hosting so you can download their addons for free.

The Curse client is still an incredible tool even if you're using the ad supported version.  It's too bad so many people have a false sense of entitlement these days.

red:

I'm afraid your comprehension of Blizzard's policy is somewhat lacking: The Curse Client is not a WoW addon; therefore it doesn't fall under the policy. All the functionality of the Curse Client is available for free. Curse has the right, just as Blizzard does, to add value for a fee.

Curse does not charge for you to download an addon; it does not charge you for hosting the addon for you to download (services related to the add-on), nor does it require some form of monetary compensation for you to download or access an add-on. In fact, you don't even need the Curse Client, so you don't even have to subject yourself to the advertising therein.

Nice copy/paste job though.

Its absolutely wrong! all of the above is right and we shouldnt be getting charged for what most of us thought as a free service why do you thing we choose Curse???? you'll find the majority will not sign up as a Premium member... its total BS!!

  Quote:

Originally Posted by Rivastar

Its absolutely wrong! all of the above is right and we shouldnt be getting charged for what most of us thought as a free service why do you thing we choose Curse???? you'll find the majority will not sign up as a Premium member... its total BS!!

If the majority of client users signed up for premium... wow what a different world that'd be.... we could do so much that we can't do right now it'd be crazy.....

Thanks for the feedback man, and the vision of what life could be....

  Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaelten

  Quote:

Originally Posted by Rivastar

Its absolutely wrong! all of the above is right and we shouldnt be getting charged for what most of us thought as a free service why do you thing we choose Curse???? you'll find the majority will not sign up as a Premium member... its total BS!!

 

If the majority of client users signed up for premium... wow what a different world that'd be.... we could do so much that we can't do right now it'd be crazy.....

 

Thanks for the feedback man, and the vision of what life could be....

 

I lol'd

[edited due to racial slurring]

These people normal damn people like you and I are the people devoloping these addons. Curse.com are hosting the addons for FREE. Click the damn banners or buy a Premium account. This company these people aren't going to dish out money for a website and system that thousands of people are using and not make anything or even break even from it. Do you people just give your money away? hell no i'm guessing since your complaining about giving curse a few bucks.

I do agree it's a dick move and it will always be a dick move for any company to start charging for something that was once free or adding a Premium service and a free service. You do not have to use curse.com go to http://wowui.incgamers.com http://www.wowmatrix.com http://www.wowinterface.com or any other addon website there are plenty out there. If your still using curse and prefer it then support it and shut up. Servers and bandwidth cost money and with thousands of viewers and people downloading stuff from the website daily it also cost a bunch of money not only that the amount of staff working on the websites. Blizzard isn't paying for curse's servers or the staff nor do they offer a place for addon authors to distribute their addons. Suck it up use the ad (free) client or just not be lazy and browse the website for your updates.

You know, I won't shut up.  As a long time user of Curse, I think they deserve to know why I'll be leaving this site and finding a universal updater that is free.  Like many others I have issues with the Premium model when there are still free updaters out there that will IMO do the same job as the Curse client.  If that means I help 'steal' bandwidth by using WoWMatrix, so be it.  Curse made the choice for me, when their updater went pay, yes there is a free version but IMO its crippleware.

So no I won't shut up, I will however take my 'business' elsewhere and find an alternative to the Curse Client.

@Shialla, I can understand your frustration, and I hate that you feel that way, however the choice of taking your patronage elsewhere is an understandable one.  The reason we've gone this way is because long term viability of a completely free updater isn't there.  I'm of course open to suggestions about how things could be improved, and I hope that over time we'll be able to adjust what's considered a premium feature vs standard.  However, that's largely dependent on things making sense business wise.  What makes no sense is having to shut down in a few years time because the well was never filled back up.

Thanks for your feedback.

Just wait for the cracked version to be released soon :)

You had an ad version of the curse client that did just fine, please tell me what was wrong with doing that. As for the curse client not being an addon it is considered a medium through which addons can be downloaded, Bliz clearly stated you cannot have premium versions of items when it comes to accessing or downloading addons. I'm sure Bliz is aware now of what you guys have done to the client, and you have until May 19 to comply with Blizzards new rules after that they have the right to sue and issue cease and desist orders to stop you from making money off addon downloads. Now dont get me wrong I never had a problem paying for good addons, I had originally paid for a full year of use of Carbonite full 3 months before Blizzard released the new rules. But they made these rules for a reason and its up the entire community to respect them.

we never wanted Curse's staff doing all those things you've done on your website.

Maybe it's better for you, but for us who are visiting you, the only things we seen, are the way you are trying to make more and more money.

At the beginning Curse was free and simple. Now Curse is a communautary website and you evoled this website to much in comparison of what it was supposed to be at the beginning (addon download center online)

I think you will not gain customers like this, and more, you are now going to loose many people who are only intending to Download&Update theirs addon simply for the games they are yet paying for...the only think i registered on curse was to search&download addons. I don't care about your forums there are so many about those games...

you evolved your website so much and now you need us to pay, because you aren't good enough to be reasonable with your project, and trying to gain more and more profits. But you forgot that your activity depend on some "pay to play" games and we are not ready to pay more.

If your website is too expansive, close the forum, add some ads, simplify the client's ui(less options) downgrad the download speed of non-premium members, ask for donations like WOw ace.

so bye Curse

ps: i love the wonderfull bonuses you offer in your premium account ! wonderfull

and the worth is that you don't even make this addons  !!!!!!!!

i think GOA payed well enough(Warrior epic promotion on your main page) to let us free of charge when updating our addons

GJ Curse you just lost ALOT off people than use you program. So have fun with your junk..

wow so many cheap leechers out there. Its simple guys, you all love the addons that make your game time more pleasant. Yet you dont need to pay for your addons. At least show the authors the apropriate respect and  support the site they use to distribute their addons. Imagine curse would  shut down what benefit would all of you have ?  search for addon sites one by one and downloading manually?

Before the client was released it was a pain to find which addons were updated and downloading manually. Hell if you are too lazy to press a couple of buttons to update just leave it....

Patience with my rambles please I do have a point...

I love Carbonite, When QH was glitched and leaching resources like a big dog, Carbonite was there for me, leading me thru the strange Horde lands where a noOb with 18 Alli toons had NEVER been! But I hated that it kept "breaking" and you had to go to their site to fix it. I mean WTF, If I found it on WM in the first place, why couldn't I fix it on WM? And WM, like a drug dealer, teasing me with their get more addons and their "EASY BUTTON" (I mean who doesn't want an easy button?) I went from 4 addons that I had been manually updating from the various authors to (a one time high) of 146. But that was just silly. So I cut back, to 112. And WM kept everything running for me. When found stuff I liked I supported the writers (Ya its easy to say, and PayPal does keep records -  but I have a family business so I know how it is)

Then 3.1 tuesday. Everyone knew there would be no raid because Blizz would NOT be able to stay up, Dalaran would absolutely suck. And all mods would have to be patched. On top of all that code drama, WowI and Curse managed to pull off the biggest FU ever! First and foremost to WM, but by association to all of us easy button users out there. I mean the codemonkeys had to have been amped out of their minds on Full Throttle and Bacon to get that together! Kudos. They single handedly made things really exciting on the forums for a couple of weeks.

Lots of changes were made. WoWI made changes. CC made some changes. WM made some changes. Donna made a lot of changes.

**down to 68 mods and looking at cutting 12 more this week**        **Donna's Diet Program...lose 12 mods a week (and survive)**

I'm tired of all the QQ.  Unless it's BBQQ.

Blizzard has sat back for the last little while saying, you kids work it out amongst yourselves, or we're gonna work it out for you, and if we get involved, you won't like the results. Reminds me of something my Ma used to say to me and my sisters. And we never liked the results when she worked things out. NEVER.

Just FYI.

  Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaelten

@Shialla, I can understand your frustration, and I hate that you feel that way, however the choice of taking your patronage elsewhere is an understandable one.  The reason we've gone this way is because long term viability of a completely free updater isn't there.  I'm of course open to suggestions about how things could be improved, and I hope that over time we'll be able to adjust what's considered a premium feature vs standard.  However, that's largely dependent on things making sense business wise.  What makes no sense is having to shut down in a few years time because the well was never filled back up.

Complete BS - you have "survived" 4 years and now ALL OF A SUDDEN forces us to pay for something that was free for 4 years ? where is the reason other then ripp the people of there money ?

  Quote:

Originally Posted by Shialla

Curse made the choice for me, when their updater went pay, yes there is a free version but IMO its crippleware.

Excact! you have either the crippled version where you have to click on every updated addon and then click update

or the payversion wich can update all at once (and please dont try to tell me many people are using more than that feature)

so only the guy who pays becomes a usable software = rippoff and goodbye curse

we hoped u make a turn to the better after u aquired wowace and crushed there updater but u prove to be the worth that can be :(

     I'll admit I'm fairly new to Curse and the services provided here. I've also decided to uninstall the Curse client all together as I only have 5 addons I use and nothing more. A monthly fee for the luxury of updating all my addons simultaneously is not worth it as it will take me only slightly longer to manually download and update the addons.

     I'm dumping the client alltogether because I can't stand advertising. I've gone to great lengths to strip ad content off web pages I visit (Firefox + Adblock Plus FTW) and have even installed an Untangle gateway behind my router to stem the tide of useless, bandwidth wasting advertising that's crammed onto websites. I've blocked out so much stuff that even Hulu's advertisements have stopped playing in the middle of my video streaming adventures. I could have dealt with one-at-a-time updates and slower download speeds on the free client but with the addition of advertising, the Curse client is little more than adware now.

     I do understand both sides of the issue, however. Bandwidth costs money. Hosting services cost money. If Curse maintains their own server(s) at a colocation facility, that's not cheap either. However, I think Curse dropped the ball on the client and the Curse service in general because there wasn't any attempt to simply ask for donations on a periodic basis before considering a subscription based service. A simple monetary "goal" on the front page with a "Donate" button and a "How much we have so far" figure would have been a nice alternative to foisting the "premium" service on everyone and crippling the client and loading it up with ads for anyone who didn't want to hand out their credit card number. If there was an option to donate every so often, I'd have thrown some money in the pot. Instead it would appear Curse would rather nickel and dime their members with cheesy "premium" services.

     In the end I think the Curse service is a good idea that's been implemented well. But it's not so good that I'm going to fork over my credit card information. Blizzard already charges me a monthly fee to play WoW and the Curse service doesn't provide a significant enough impact on my WoW experience to merit paying additional monthly fees because Curse decided their services are worth it. Had Curse asked me for a monetary contribution to their cause, I'd have given freely what I could. But I believe it's a mistake to assume that a service once offered for free for a very long time is now suddenly worth being offered under a payment plan. It doesn't add any value to the service and just makes Curse look pretentious.

@brainboy17, I can understand your position.  We're a business; a business just like the other large addon sites.  Asking for donations is not something that business do.  And yes the client is adware for non premium users.

Its time for blizzard to man up and host addons for the comunity so we dont have to deal with situations like this. I honnestly dont have the money to go around for what everyone asks for intelectual property or bandwith or whatever. I'm sticking clicking while browsing the internet once a week or patch day.

I suspect that's the way it'll eventually go, maybe WoW 4 will include all the functionality necessary to keep addons updated itself in much the same way Firefox does, if we badger Blizzard a bit they might even get to work on it sooner rather than later; after all they have much more to loose if the WoW user experience is compromised.

I nearly gave the game up when wowace and the wau client went away, and I'm not convinced there'll be enough in the next patch to keep my interest if I have to click through all my addons updating them manually on patch day, might just cancel my subs and dust off the 360 instead.

I'd venture that the likelihood of them doing so is slim to nil.  They have a very sweet position in that they currently have to offer no support or sanction for addons.  If they do anything to approve or support addons they loose that complete deniability.

Also, I'd doubt that they want to spend the money it'd take to provide the entirety of the addon community with hosting.  They make a lot of money, but they're a business too.  You're asking them to spend millions of dollars annually to provide a free service.  That doesn't make much business sense.  

@Dizasterous,  Blizzards policy affects addons that they allow to run in their game.  The client is not an addon, it doesn't run in their game, and it in no way requires anyone to pay a dime.  It is not a binding contract that curse entered into.  

We were contacted by blizzard with regards to the policy to make sure we were ready to help them support it.  We've yet to receive any such communications with regards to the client or premium.  We're doing the exact same thing as FilePlanet (who also hosts certain addon files from time to time).  

Blizzards policy had two overriding purposes.  

1) Prevent people's in-game experiences from being compromised by adverts or other nag behaviors.

2) Prevent people from being able to get an advantage by paying for an addon.  There was a concern that professionally developed addons could overshadow the amateur ones.

The client and premium does neither of those things. 

See Edit Notes

Sometimes I really cant understand people ^^

I can make a rant towards those bitching on Curse but instead im just going to post how wonderful the client is in use.

Its fast, easy, it saves me hell loads of time updating my addons and they provide nice extra's.

2 thumbs up from me. Money well spend imho.

@MaceNL, glad you're enjoying it :)

  Quote:

Originally Posted by MaceNL

Sometimes I really cant understand people ^^

I can make a rant towards those bitching on Curse but instead im just going to post how wonderful the client is in use.

Its fast, easy, it saves me hell loads of time updating my addons and they provide nice extra's.

2 thumbs up from me. Money well spend imho.

The client is really nice yeah, way improved than the last time i've used it. But seriously now, if it wasn't for the block of WoWmatrix you wouldn't even consider charging us for the "update all" button (which is quite hilarious btw). :)

Whether the premium service is a godsend or a kick in the nuts, or a good or a bad idea, I'm not touching those issues. I do want to point out some legal matters, though. The matters I wish to point out are the terms of service, and how they relate to Curse Premium. The way I interpret them at least. I am not a lawyer.

Basically... it's in the name. "Terms of service". Not "terms of reading this document". Not "terms of we've decided this and the world has to follow it because we say so". The terms of service have no legal power whatsoever beyond the service itself. If Curse does not agree to the terms, the only legal recourse Blizzard has is removing the service. And the service here is "World of Warcraft", not "the ability and/or right to write addons".

If this case goes to court, Blizzard will have to rely on the same shaky ground as they did in the case against Glider. That is, they need to argue that Curse had not agreed to the terms of service or had failed to follow them, and thus didn't have a right to use the service, but did anyway. This will not hold up. In Glider's case, developing or running the offending program required illegally using the service. In Curse's case, that is not so. The client's functions do not in any way use World of Warcraft, nor does developing them. The same functions even work for several different games with no modification at all but the destination folder. Essentially, even though Curse's premium feature may fall under Blizzard's addon policy, it does not fall under the legal power Blizzard has to enforce said policy.

@alphakrol, It's really a moot point, we've been in contact with Blizzard and have satisfied any concerns they've had about premium.  Thanks for the support, but going back and forth over the ui dev policy and premium isn't really needed. :)

Fair enough :) I'm just pointing out, to those who seem to think Blizzard is still going to change their mind about that, that their policy has no legal merit in this case :)