Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaelten

No we don't have an Impressum, we're an english website, Impressums are primarily a German convention/requirement

My real name and identity is very well known.  I'm not hiding at all.

The price vs value of premium is a personal decision that is made by each user.  No one can govern that decision for everyone.

 

I have no problem with constructive, civil discussion, in fact I love it.  However, I am getting tired of people posting tirades, nonsensical, or otherwise inflammatory messages.  

So please keep it civil and constructive and we can talk all day. 

You act as if you are surprised that people are angry that you made a free service cost money.

@Tarelias, 20% of the revenues currently are going to the authors, we're looking at expanding that, but it'll depend on the # of subs we have

@tenk51, no not surprised, I knew some people would be upset, which is regrettable.  This is not the first time I've been faced with a tough decision that I knew would make some people angry.  Sadly,  I can't please everyone all the time, and still keep things running.  There are realities in play that prohibit that. 

@Kaelten

Have you considered re-adding the "update all" to the basic client and adding further premium benefits to replace that one button, that for many of us is the bone of contention. Of course it's not fair to premium subscribers if they paid for something and then everyone started getting it for free, but if you add different value to the client to replace this, then maybe that would be ok.

@nemof  I can't make any promises one way or the other.  We are definitely going to be adding more value to premium, but we do want to do what we can to continue to expand the value of the free services as well.  I will say that there have been discussions about such things, but so far we're not ready to make any decisions or announcements regarding the future of either experience. 

Thanks for that reply, that's much more than I hoped to hear, and quite positive.

Overpriced.  I wouldn't sign up for anything more than a month at a time b/c I'm not committing to playing WoW for the rest of my life, and $5/month, or 33% of the monthly subscription price to WoW is way too much for what's offered.  I don't think you'll get the numbers of subscribers you're looking for.  Try lowering the price for the low-commitment user and you'll get a lot more subscribers.

@nemof, you're welcome :)

@Weirdoe, your posts all have been negative feedback, which is your perogative. However, saying that Curse is acting in a monopolistic fashion does not make it so. Off the top of my head: WowInterface, WowUI, SpartanUI, UnderworldNexus.com, CTMod.net, CarboniteAddon.com, AuctioneerAddon.com, WobbleWorks.com, and those are just the ones I check regularly. Curse and WowInterface moved together to stop WowMatrix for reasons already established.

It has been said already that Curse' Basic Client is free, downloading the addons are free, and the Premium version is entirely optional, yet beneficial. And the Premium Preview that was available for the last several months was clearly marked and labeled during installation and during use, that it was time-limited.

If you want to give feedback to us, good or bad, that's fine; we welcome both. But shouting your nonsense in every post you make is not welcome, especially since your opinion does not mesh with any facts whatsoever. Consider this your warning.

Of course the truth hurts.
Deleting posts is a good way of silencing folks.

Once again, my first addon in wowmatrix is !BugGrabber.
It can't be found in any other place except old versions.
I haven't checked the other addons I use but if you feel it cntributes to the proof I will ofc do so.
We are forced to use curse.com so you are close to a monopoly and it's our responsibility to react against your behaviour.
Since you obviously intend to delete my posts anyway you might as well continue to show the real curse.com by deleting my account.
The truth is still not what you claim.
There is no real competition after you took over wowace.
I like wowi and other places but they are not close to have the amount of addons you have.

The "free" client isn't useable updating one addon at a time and it was several days since I deleted it.

Sadly your client is ridiculously priced.
Open Office is free, software as Faststone and alot of other shareware is way more worth the value and I happily pay, and have done so, for the software I use.

  Quote:

Originally Posted by Wowza1

  Quote:

Originally Posted by Blurr

It's an inferior client, that I'm now forced to use

Pray tell.. how exactly are you "forced" to use...?? Did Curse come to your home, tie your hands to the keyboard and block all internet usage and only allow you to access the addons via their client? GO DO IT MANUALLY YOU LAZY ARSE... I've been doing it since day 1 of playing wow. I don't use the curse client because I'm familiar of how and where to put addons.. Gee.. so it might take me a moment of time to update... Wow... make yourself a custom homepage on your browser that links to every mod page that you use.. 1 click and you see "oh hey, there's a new version" or "oh, it's still the same as i have".. voila... no paying, no bitching, no forcing..

You're crying about having to pay for a SERVICE that Curse offers, which you do not have to use.

That's acutally not the point. There are two hard facts:

1. It violates Blizzard UI Policy. No money is ever allowed to be charged to download addons, or any service tied to this addons. Offering an Update All option for paid customers only or better downloadspeeds, is a service and it's tied to WoW addons.

2. Ads are more than enough to pay for the traffic. If you do some affilate marketing, you can even make some very good money without charging people, as it could be seen here http://mmo-worlds.blogspot.com/2009/05/curse-client-premium-version-spyware.html.

To 1: As stated above, the only legal way not to violate against Blizzard policy and still keep Curse Client Premium would be to remove the WoW addons from the Client and only keeping Warhammer and Rune of Magic addons there. The fact that you can download it "for free" doesn't change anything. Other "premium" addons were also possible to be downloaded for free and charged for extra stuff. So you can't say it's forbidden to offer this but it's ok if curse charge money for a premium service.

And before people jump on it: While the Curse Updater is technically not an addon, it offers a service directly tied to addons! And this is per se Blizzard UI Policy forbidden too.

  Quote:

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.

Read the bold parts, especially the underlined one. In fact, there is no juristic "room" which would legalize the use of a premium service tied to addons. If they still really want a service, they have to limit it to the other two games mentioned above: Runes of Magic and Warhammer Online, as their EULA/ToS doesn't limit the charge for addons (at least i believe, don't play RoM and have quit Warhammer months ago).

To 2: There is more then enough evidence, that you can finance the whole traffic through advertisements only. Google Adsense pays very well and since curse is a huge website, enough people visit it. 1 GB of traffic costs no more than a few cents nowadays. In germany you get like 100-200 GB for 15-20 EUR including the hosting tied to it and 15 GB webspace. Thats approximate 2.5-5 cent per GB, if you take out the costs of the server and the hdd space. Now imagine, how much one could download for this amount of money you have to pay yearly? Exactly about 200 GBs or more.

Now let's see, most addons are far below 100 kb in size (ziped of course, as that's the way they are downloaded by the client). If you have 100 addons thats 10 MB of traffic + 5 MB if you have some huge addons (Questhelper, Cartographer and other addons which comes with a database). That's for a complete update of all addons. Most of the time only a handful of addons will need update, so thats 15-20 MB per months max, or 180-240 MB per year. Not even one GB. That being said, one user how downloads and updates his addons regulary and have a limited amount of addons the costs of traffic are less than 10 cent.

Now one could say, 5-10 cent per use can sum up if you have 200.000-300.000 or more users, which quickly can cause $10.000-$30.000 for traffic yearly. Well you're right. But you underestimate the income generated by ads. For every 1000 ad-impressions you will receive 1-5 clicks worth $0.05-$0.50 in most cases, sometimes more. According to the post above, curse has somewhat of 50.000 visitory daily and each of them view 10 pages in average. thats 500.000 views. That alone makes then get $10.000 monthly, only with the website. And as said special campaigns (or affiliate programms) from big game publishers could yield even more than any other advertisement form of advertisement.

For me this all just looks like a money 3-way-scheme: Money from ads/campaigns, money from premium service and money from ads in the client itself.

On the other side, 20% of all premium stuff to go to the developer is a joke too as not even 10% of the premium fee is required to more then cover all traffic costs.

Edit: How don't believe that the numbers above are correct: What do you think why wowhead.com was sold for $1.000.000 (yes, 1 million USD)? Because the site makes easily a few $100.000 yearly profit only with advertisements (even in times, every second user has banner blocker active) otherwise no one would pay $1.000.000 for it. However, WoWhead has somewhat higher number of visitors (I think they had like double that visitors of curse last time i checked alexa).

 The times where you had to pay $0.50-2.00$ per GB of traffic are long over (that was the prices 6-8 years ago). Nowadays most providers even don't pay volume (i.e. GB downloaded) but by the amount of bandwith. It's called "burstable billing" and is very well explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burstable_billing

This way it doesn't even matter how many GB traffic you have, as long as it's burstable traffic doesn't exceed the max. bandwidth 5% of the time.

People really should do some research before crying out that they have traffic costs (which is true of course, but it's very easily covered with advertisements too, which most people forgot to mention!)

Edit2: One think I forgot to mention: If the curse programmer would be any good (which they arent obviously), they would synch the addons with SVN (subversion, a tool for sourcecodemanagement). This way they'd only need to download the changes not the whole addon. For example of a hand full of quests where added in Questhelper you'd only need to download maybe 1 kb which includes the changes instead of the whole 5 MB package. This can drastically reduce bandwidth and traffic cost further. Also optimizing the main website with less pictures (and flash bullshit), can drastically reduce traffic costs.

lamhir, there is a difference, the quoted passage would be relevant if Curse didn't offer a basic service for addon downloads, but they do, and as such it cannot be considered "Paying for addons, or access to addons". This is no different from how fileservices today work, most copyright holders have the exact same policy regarding their releases

For example most releases of files like patches, demos, trailers, etc. have a copyright statement stating that no redistribution of the download is allowed, unless it is free. So how does a site like Fileplanet survive while "violating" the copyright? The answer is, they DON'T, and neither does Curse, they provide a free alternative to their premium service, and as such you're only paying for the service, and not the addons. Just like how a fileplanet subscriber is paying for the service, and not the files.

IF Curse only had downloads available for premium subscribers, THEN it would be in violation of said policy, but not until then.

  Quote:

Originally Posted by Janzu

Why are you people whining about that 'Update All' feature made premium only? I suppose you didn't play during time there was no updaters and you had to download everything manually by going to 10-20 different websites. You still can nowadays WITHOUT PAYING use curse to update... Just couple more clicks required if it's problem go with old way but then you'll just find out yourself coming back to curse as manually downloading addons isn't easier

In my honest opinion making users to pay for that one button (and ads etc. removed) isn't worth paying money but why would I cry as I still can easily use client in which I wanted to use it

And what comes to slower downloads... You probably won't even notice difference between download speeds unless you have very fast connection. So don't cry and look at truth.. You will only make things harder for yourself if you remove curse

I think you're wrong, and I'll tell you why (from my point of view, someone who has played WoW from day 1 since it was released without any breaks/"vacations" and is very addon-focused):

Back, 3 years ago (thats ~1-1.5 years after WoWs release) there weren't many addons. Most of the addons wasn't update as frequent as they did later (most important to mention were CTRaid and CTBoss mods, both which could be downloaded from the CTMod website). And the other addons rarely changed or needed to change other than on major updates and even then it was rarely that something gets broken. Also most of this mods didn't had any kind of libraries, every addon was selffunctioning.

Toward the end of the vanila WoW era, the first "advanced" addons appeared and addon libraries where introduced, namely: Ace-Addons and BigWigs (this was somewhere during AQ40/Early Naxx times). Soon many more addons coming out who relied on ace libraries and soon there were 1000s of addons. From this point on it was hardly managable anywere to keep your addons updated.

However, wowace had an SVN server (long before there was WAU server) which i personally used to update the addons. This had 2 huge advantages:

1. I could download the addons

2. This wouldn't override my modifications to the addons itself. Instead, it would merge the updates of the addons with my changes to the said addon. This allowed me to customize my addons highly while still be able to update them. Worked well and i never needed to use any updater (never used any updater like WAU or WoWMatrix). Until Curse decided to take over wowace and kill this opportunity, just to fill their greedy pockets with more money by charing for to download the addons.

The curse client is so much more worse then the SVN solution i used before. I can't customize my addons anymore. Everytime i make a change and the curse updater downloads it, my changes are overwritten and i have to search go through the source and apply the changes once again.

However, since Ace was invented so many addons spread out, most of them usefull (BG addons, timer addons etc.), that maintaining and updating them manually became almost impossible. This also lead to increased loading times, as the addons themselve became pretty big (due to the embeded libraries). So in order to reduce times, you had exclude the embedded libraries and put them in the addons folder as standalone. With SVN this wasn't much of a problem neither, you had to do it manually once and the everything was ok (you only had to obmitt externals when updating).

Now thanks to Curse, wowace is dead (for everyone who doesn't know it yet: Curse gaming has take over wowace and since wowace acts as backend for all the curse addons). Now, I have over 100 addons (more like 150 or 200). Most of them are libraries necessary to run most of the addons. Updating them manually has became impossible. Updating them automatically became impossible to, thanks to Curse's shutdown of wowace (because there wasnt any alternative anymore)

This was the only reasony i orignally downloaded the curse client and now you can't even update the addons neither. Now we're back in stoneage thanks to "premium" service.

You argue that there are alternatives? Which ones? WOWUI/WOWI both don't offer the ace libraries directly for download. The addons there all use embedded addons, which is a great step backwards. If you have 60-80 addons with embedded libraries, it takes like 2-3 times the time until your loading screen is gone, because each one has to be compiled/interpreted internally (even though only the newest library will remain in memory).

  Quote:

Originally Posted by FISKER_Q

For example most releases of files like patches, demos, trailers, etc. have a copyright statement stating that no redistribution of the download is allowed, unless it is free. So how does a site like Fileplanet survive while "violating" the copyright? The answer is, they DON'T, and neither does Curse, they provide a free alternative to their premium service, and as such you're only paying for the service, and not the addons. Just like how a fileplanet subscriber is paying for the service, and not the files.

IF Curse only had downloads available for premium subscribers, THEN it would be in violation of said policy, but not until then.

Well there is a difference. First on, the stuff uploaded on FilePlanet is user updated stuff. Registered users (not developers) upload their stuff there (in most cases without the permission of the original developers) and though the uploaders are viable for it. If a developer/publisher reports that this software was uploaded without their permission, you can bet that FilePlanet will remove it immediately (as most other 1-click-hosting-services like Rapidshare do to). Since the addons arent allowed to be charged for it, they are (by Blizzard policy) illegal to be used with the premium account and (in theory) all they'd need to do is to ask curse to remove all the wow addons from the premium service or get sued. Would Curse still keep them then or be liable for their illegal hosting?

On the other side, the stuff hosted on FilePlanet is to big to cover the traffic costs only by advertising. On FilePlanet you have files which often >1 GB in size (that's what your average wow gamer downloads in 3-4 years but on fileplanet it's can cause this amount of traffic in 1 or 2 hours.

So lets copmare it
FilePlanet:

$39.95 /annualy (equals $3.33 per month)

$15.95 / quaterly (equals to $5.32 per month)

$6.95 / monthly

Curse:

$29.95 /annualy (equals to $2.50 per month)

$24.95 / 6 month (equals to $4.15 per month)

$5.00 / monthly

So FilePlanet is able to cover several 100 GB traffic per month for as less as $3.33 per month and Curse needs $2.50 to cover a max of 40-50 MB/month?

I am the only one who does see a flaw here? How is Curse going to justify this, that a few MB per months are worth equally as a few 100 GB on FilePlanet? Do they host their servers somewhere in Africa where 1 GB of traffic costs a few $100's?

I'm sorry but the traffic argument is simply flawed and everyone who runs a website or a webserver knows it that there is something very wrong with the curse premium pricing. If you'd want to cover the traffic alone and make a few bucks, $5 would be more than enough to more than cover the traffic costs of 100 or 200 average wow gamer (in other word: 1 paid $5 premium account could easily cover up 99 free client users) if it comes to traffic alone (if Curse change the way of the updater so it only downloads the changes of an Addon like SVN did on wow ace, this number could be multiplied by 5 or 10).

I'm not stupid to buy this traffic cost story, I host a website myself. I know the prices of traffic costs

lamhir, no it's not, and being user generated content doesn't excuse copyright violations, infact the same could be applied to Curse, the fact remains, it's not violation of copyright because they ARE providing a free alternative, and the only thing you really pay for is for a better service.

Until you accept the fact that the UI policy doesn't apply, as it is not addon downloads you're being charged for but a premium service, which also includes faster downloads, then this discussion is over.

  Quote:

Originally Posted by FISKER_Q

lamhir, no it's not, and being user generated content doesn't excuse copyright violations, infact the same could be applied to Curse, the fact remains, it's not violation of copyright because they ARE providing a free alternative, and the only thing you really pay for is for a better service.

Until you accept the fact that the UI policy doesn't apply, as it is not addon downloads you're being charged for but a premium service, which also includes faster downloads, then this discussion is over.

First on, you said it yourself: Premium membership is a service (which relates to WoW Addons). And now read the quoted passage from the UI policy again:

  Quote:

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.

 It clearely states: ...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 (Didn't you read the underlined part? monetary compensation to download or access addons. If you have to pay to update all addons at once, you are paying for download and/or access of these addons!).

Carbonite had a free version too. That just didn't excused that you had to pay for the premium version.

Curse claims there are competition.
Most of those mentioned are sites with 1-3 addons only so not much of an option.
I have in total 63 addons, all of these are decently popular since I never download and install new addons or seldom downloaded ones due to security reasons.
Among my addons are Grid + Clique, Fubar including several extras, ACE2 + 3, Auctioneer, Altoholic, Autobar, Bartender4, BigWigs, Chatter, Chinchilla, Fishingbuddy, Omen, Recount, Ora2, Pallypower, X-Perl and so on.
Most of you recognize them as popular addons.
I checked the "competition".

curse.com, 62 of 63 addons, 2 a week old. That's 98% of my needed ones.
wowinterface.com 34 of 63 addons, the rest missing or way older. 54% of my needs covered.
wowui.com, 8 of 63, 13% and hardly a big threat to curse.com.

That is not much of competition and the only solution I got is to use curse.com.
I truly salute curse.com for getting a well filled site, you have done a great job, but the client is and will continue to be crap until we get a free decent one with "Update all".
I have no choice than to update them all manually and it takes alot of time.

I also claimed curse.com's costs was covered by all the ads on their site and client so a big thx to the recent posters that clearly showed the truth for everyone.
Please stop lying to us now and admit you made a mistake.
I want my old curse.com back.

The point is that the pricing scheme is insane. Its either $0 for having a slow ass client or its $25 to make it go faster. that is insane, I went on the page to buy premium, but I was thinking more like $5-10 a year. When I saw $5 per _month_ i almost fell of the chair. Thats half what it cost for the _GAME_, never in my wildest dream would I think that they'd price a 3rd party optional service with little benefit over a free service to half that of the actual game they're providing a service for. Someone is obviously not thinking straight. $1.5 a month and $10 a year and I'd gladly pay up.

And also I do not care the slightest for an avatar, beta keys, or ads.

Deciding if the price-point for premium is worth it is of course a personal decision, and one that neither I nor anyone else has the reason to chose for anyone other than themselves.

@Weirdo, what your #'s there show me is that Curse's selection best suites your needs, that does not make us a monopoly or monopolistic.  What you've told me is that we carry more of your favorite 'brands' of addons than anyone else.  Just because my favorite brand of jeans can only be found at one store doesn't make said store a monopoly.  It is, however, very normal, especially for Americans (I'm American, not asserting that you are really), to call anyone who's done their job well enough a monopoly.  So thank you for the compliment. 

  Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaelten

Deciding if the price-point for premium is worth it is of course a personal decision, and one that neither I nor anyone else has the reason to chose for anyone other than themselves.

 

@Weirdo, what your #'s there show me is that Curse's selection best suites your needs, that does not make us a monopoly or monopolistic.  What you've told me is that we carry more of your favorite 'brands' of addons than anyone else.  Just because my favorite brand of jeans can only be found at one store doesn't make said store a monopoly.  It is, however, very normal, especially for Americans (I'm American, not asserting that you are really), to call anyone who's done their job well enough a monopoly.  So thank you for the compliment.

Yea, but the reason for this is the reason i stated above. Like 90% of all current WoW addons are based on either Ace/Ace2/Ace3 or LibRock libraries. Both brought into the live from the same person: ckknight, the person who first started ACE/Wowace. Due to the fact, that all addons based on this two libraries where originally hosted on wowace SVN server made wowace a virtual monopoly on wow addons. It was fine, while wowace was independed to have all your addons gathered in one place (while some of this addons where mirrored on other addon sites, most of them remained only available on wowace). They all were available either via the website (wowace.com/files) or via SVN (later also via WAU).

Until you (Curse) took it over. It was a great step back, as you wasn't able to synchronize your addons yourself directly from SVN anymore. Everyone made customized their own addons, was fucked up without the posibility to synch/update the addons via SVN anymore. In my guild I did adjustments to the BigWigs for example, to add new stuff for boss tries until the original mods get this features/casts/timers added. Or did some adjustments to some other addons (like cartographers cia/kgb like spy features which let everyone in your guild know where you are).

Let us go a step further. Until you took over wowace, Curse's amount of addons was very bad too (like all other remaining addonsites too atm). By taking over wowace curse got a virtual monopoly on the addons (we remember: 90% of all addons where based on ACE or librock libraries and where all hosted on wowace svn).

However, while losing the ability to synchronize your addons directly via SVN was a big set-back, we still at least had the option to comfortably update the addons (even though customizations were impossible now or were tied together with a much increase effort of modifying them yourself after each update). But charging money for this really beat it up.

And I still haven't seen an explaination on how FilePlanet can affort to host and offer several GB of traffic (where files are really big and generate some serious traffic unlike the tiny wow addons, mostly a few kb in size) for the same price you charge users for the premium service?

 You must be doing sth terribly wrong as a company, if your traffic is like 1000x more expensive than the one FilePlanet uses

  Quote:

Originally Posted by lamhir

  Quote:

Originally Posted by FISKER_Q

lamhir, no it's not, and being user generated content doesn't excuse copyright violations, infact the same could be applied to Curse, the fact remains, it's not violation of copyright because they ARE providing a free alternative, and the only thing you really pay for is for a better service.

Until you accept the fact that the UI policy doesn't apply, as it is not addon downloads you're being charged for but a premium service, which also includes faster downloads, then this discussion is over.

First on, you said it yourself: Premium membership is a service (which relates to WoW Addons). And now read the quoted passage from the UI policy again:

 

  Quote:

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.

 

 It clearely states: ...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 (Didn't you read the underlined part? monetary compensation to download or access addons. If you have to pay to update all addons at once, you are paying for download and/or access of these addons!).

Carbonite had a free version too. That just didn't excused that you had to pay for the premium version.

Does Curse require any form of monetary compensation in order to download or access an addon? No. They offer better service with monetary compensation, but that doesn't change the fact that you're not required to pay for access to addons.

Carbonite wasn't free, it was free with ad-support, and then it had a paid version.

So again, Curse does not charge for addons, nor do they require any form of payment to make you download the addon, this is why this policy is irrelevant, and why sites like Fileplanet, etc. can "charge for downloads".

  Quote:

Originally Posted by lamhir

And I still haven't seen an explaination on how FilePlanet can affort to host and offer several GB of traffic (where files are really big and generate some serious traffic unlike the tiny wow addons, mostly a few kb in size) for the same price you charge users for the premium service?

 You must be doing sth terribly wrong as a company, if your traffic is like 1000x more expensive than the one FilePlanet uses

Renting is more expensive than owning, 

  Quote:

Originally Posted by FISKER_Q

Does Curse require any form of monetary compensation in order to download or access an addon? No. They offer better service with monetary compensation, but that doesn't change the fact that you're not required to pay for access to addons.

Carbonite wasn't free, it was free with ad-support, and then it had a paid version.

So again, Curse does not charge for addons, nor do they require any form of payment to make you download the addon, this is why this policy is irrelevant, and why sites like Fileplanet, etc. can "charge for downloads".

Once again: I never said Curse charges for addons, but they charge for a service which is related to addons and this is per se Blizzard UI policy not allowed neither.

How is free Carbonite with ad-support any different than free Curse Client with limited features?

Both fall in same category, they want money from you for addons. Either to get rid of the adds or to update them at once. Both are related to addons or addons themselve.

  Quote:

Originally Posted by lamhir

  Quote:

Originally Posted by FISKER_Q

Does Curse require any form of monetary compensation in order to download or access an addon? No. They offer better service with monetary compensation, but that doesn't change the fact that you're not required to pay for access to addons.

Carbonite wasn't free, it was free with ad-support, and then it had a paid version.

So again, Curse does not charge for addons, nor do they require any form of payment to make you download the addon, this is why this policy is irrelevant, and why sites like Fileplanet, etc. can "charge for downloads".

Once again: I never said Curse charges for addons, but they charge for a service which is related to addons and this is per se Blizzard UI policy not allowed neither.

How is free Carbonite with ad-support any different than free Curse Client with limited features?

Both fall in same category, they want money from you for addons. Either to get rid of the adds or to update them at once. Both are related to addons or addons themselve.

Carbonite is an addon, Curse isn't.

The part you're quoting is to deal with, for example, selling data which is required for the addon to have any meaningful purpose, for example, addons like WoWEcon who charge a subscription fee for auction house data and so on, they're violating the UI policy because it's an service related to THE addon. The only part Curse has to worry about is this: "...or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on"

In any case, trying to selectively quote the policy won't change the fact that Curse isn't in violation of the policy, if they were, they would've been contacted by Blizzard ages ago.

  Quote:

Yea, but the reason for this is the reason i stated above. Like 90% of all current WoW addons are based on either Ace/Ace2/Ace3 or LibRock libraries. Both brought into the live from the same person: ckknight, the person who first started ACE/Wowace. Due to the fact, that all addons based on this two libraries where originally hosted on wowace SVN server made wowace a virtual monopoly on wow addons. It was fine, while wowace was independed to have all your addons gathered in one place (while some of this addons where mirrored on other addon sites, most of them remained only available on wowace). They all were available either via the website (wowace.com/files) or via SVN (later also via WAU).

Dude, get your facts straight.  I and Turan co-founded both Ace and WowAce, and after Turan left I've been in charge of both Ace and WowAce.

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Let us go a step further. Until you took over wowace, Curse's amount of addons was very bad too (like all other remaining addonsites too atm). By taking over wowace curse got a virtual monopoly on the addons (we remember: 90% of all addons where based on ACE or librock libraries and where all hosted on wowace svn).

85% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

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And I still haven't seen an explaination on how FilePlanet can affort to host and offer several GB of traffic (where files are really big and generate some serious traffic unlike the tiny wow addons, mostly a few kb in size) for the same price you charge users for the premium service?

 You must be doing sth terribly wrong as a company, if your traffic is like 1000x more expensive than the one FilePlanet uses

I'm not in a position to say how another company pays for anything.  It's possible that they're not at a point of sustainability.  It's possible that their economy of scales dictate different realities for them to face.  I know I've had an account there off and on for 3 years, and I've used maybe every other wow patch.  

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Once again: I never said Curse charges for addons, but they charge for a service which is related to addons and this is per se Blizzard UI policy not allowed neither.

If there was an issue here I'm pretty sure blizzard would tell us so.  We're an official fansite.  We have a open line of communication with blizzard.  In the past anytime they've had concerns they've contacted us directly and we've always, and will continue, to work with them on any issues they have.

@ Kaelten

It's an interesting point the troll raises. Reading the wow ui terms, it's pretty clear that it states charging for services relating to addons is against the rules - However, your point is also valid.

Have you spoken to Blizz, or are you just hoping that they will ignore you for a while. What happens though, when the nerf stick hits?

Also, out of interest, will curse be designing a module for either wowace or curse itself to use with the wow interface client?

@nemof, we've been in contact with blizzard and have satisfied all of their concerns regarding premium.  As far as the wowi minion, we're not ready to make any announcement or decision on that front.  

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Originally Posted by Kaelten

@nemof, we've been in contact with blizzard and have satisfied all of their concerns regarding premium.  As far as the wowi minion, we're not ready to make any announcement or decision on that front.  

When are you going to announce the new super premium service?

stop trolling ackis :P

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Originally Posted by Kaelten

stop trolling ackis :P

I'm not! I'm busy writing addons for the entitled!

Kaelten, there is a huge amount of brands of jeans out there.
Addons are placed on a few sites.
Microsoft is in a similar position as you are and they also clain they don't have a monopoly.
Well, at least they're close to and it should be acalled a de facto monopoly.
They had such control for many years that they could stear the office market like they wanted to.
After wowace was taken over you are in the same situation.
It's also a de facto monopoly and you made sure you had such control you could go ahead with the premium service.

Curse.com tried a new client a little more than one year ago.
I remember the reaction on Turalyon (eu) where I play.
It was alot of very angry players swearing alot about the client that was unusable.
The difference to the old one?
Update addons one by one and spam up an ad for every one of them.
Usable? Yes according to curse but no from the users.
Alot started using wowmatrix because of what curse.com did and that is the real reason curse.com got them killed.
Now it's the next try and curse.com will continue.

Since it's getting very obvios you will stand and die with the new crappy client I hope users leave and move to other places as far as possible.
Uninstall the client, yes I did and update addons manually now, and encourage addon creaters to move.
For the good of us gamers.

And don't for a second believe we will see a module to wowi's client.
Why dig your own grave by making us move to their client?

And yes, curse.com will continue to lie to us and never tell the truth about the real costs and other things.
Tbh I hope your site dies since you honestly deserve it.

Weirdoe the "Post" button is not there to encourage you type in som non-sensical bull and press it.

First of all, Microsoft isn't a monopoly, nor have they been sentenced for having a monopoly. (They've been sentenced for abusing a dominant market position) Second of all, Curse isn't a monopoly, and it doesn't have a dominant market position.

I'd try to explain how you counter your own arguments in the next part, but meh, i doubt you're smart enough to understand.

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If it's not worth the $3/mo fee to you then don't pay it.

I'm sure the premium service is worth the cost, but I have decided to not buy it based on principle of "voting with ones wallet."

You see, the free version isn't worth the "cost." You get more for free from the competition. It's the old Netscape vs IE wars all over again.

So I think that Curse is setting a bad precedent with their products, so I have decided to hold back on buying it.

It's really quite a simple concept: I support companies I think are headed in the right direction, and I do not support companies I do not think are headed in the right direction.

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Originally Posted by CobraA1

It's really quite a simple concept: I support companies I think are headed in the right direction, and I do not support companies I do not think are headed in the right direction.

You know, that was some dizzying intellect. Did you come up with that yourself, genius? LOL. Thanks for spelling that all out for us. Remind me to tip you 100 gold next time we meet.

I'm locking this thread now before it degrades any further.