Kadomi from Tank Like a Girl brought this to my attention on Twitter this morning.
Curse and WoWInterface working together to help protect our authors and other site-users
Basically WoWAce and Curse have taken action against WoWMatrix after repeated requests for WoWMatrix to change their model of operations.
It will be interesting to see whether WoWMatrix change their playstyle… or not.
Meanwhile, if you haven’t yet, time to get yourself the Curse Client or the WoWInterface Manager!
Gnomer and Out!
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http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/04/14/the-end-of-wowmatrix-as-we-know-it/
Yes, protect us so we can use the horrible Curse or even worse WoWI updaters.
I understand why they dislike WoW Matrix…but they don’t give us comparable alternatives.
This makes me sad. I never use WoWMatrix to actually update my addons, as I rarely update at all if they’re not broken, and if they are I go directly for the official site.
What I do use WoWMatrix for is finding NEW addons. Say I’m looking for a mod that will do a particular thing. Like, let me set up a tradeskill queue. Or add notes to my items. I can’t search in Curse, because it only searches by addon name, not description.
Of course, Curse hasn’t been letting me search at ALL for the past few weeks, as it just returns me to their homepage every time I try using their search feature. The last time I tried using the Curse client itself, it could only find a handful of my 80+ addons, which is hardly helpful, and its addon search also only searches the title.
WoWInterface is slightly better, as there IS a way to search description, but I really have to go a roundabout route to actually get to it.
I’ve not had any alternative as I use a Mac. If Curse had brought out a mac version at the same time as it’s windows version I’d never have had to switch when I replaced my PC for a mac. >_<
I’ve just downloaded the curse client which has a mac version in beta, but it’s just not as comprehensive a list as WoWMatrix, so until they make one that is, I’ll still be using it I’m afraid!
All I have to say is: Good!
WoWmatrix, for me, was always on the dodgy side. Why should I support people that leech bandwidth, that remove authors’ attribution, and who disregard the authors’ requests that addons only be distributed by parties with permission?
As for Curse Client, the latest version it does pretty much everything I want it to to replace the long-lost WowAceUpdater, so that’s enough for me.
I understand why they are doing it but please give an alternative. That isn’t bloated. I use Macs to play World of Warcraft. Yes I have Windows computers too, but I prefer Macs.
I tried the Curse Client for Macs,a while ago, and it was a joke. Overly bloated, and I couldn’t find half of the addons I needed. The good news is that WowMatrix does list the authors website so I’ll just go directly to their website to update the information when it’s needed.
I think it’s retarded. I use wowmatrix because its fast and easy. Curse & WoWAce are just not as well put together. Regardless of who theyre “leeching” off of. The end result is to make addons for everyone to enjoy. I don’t think “Gee, I wonder who made this addon”. They sound just like Metallica about the who Napster thing. Get over it.
Think of it this way. It doesn’t matter to you who wrote the addon but it does the author. If the author isn’t getting recognition and Curse/WI/whomever is paying for hosting and WOWMatrix is stealing their bandwidth, then it’s just wrong. The addon authors aren’t getting the only thing they can get, especially now under blizz rules, recognition
Sure it’s not as easy to use Curse or WI. I guess I see that as selfish. Curse’s client has gotten better. About a week ago they released an update that works pretty well.
They don’t have every addon because they don’t host every addon. I still go to Auctioneer and Deadly Boss Mod’s websites to get the latest of those addons.
I run Curse everyday before I log into WOW. Most days there are no updates. Patch days have a ton.
Keep pretending it doesn’t matter and you’ll see more and more authors making it harder to get their addons, if at all. Keep complaining on how HARD it is to update your addons and you’ll find websites stop hosting them.
As for the Mac/PC issue. Macs are a lower percentage of the users, of course they are going to develop them for PCs first. I am not sure I understand the bloated crap either. Open it up, run it, close it. Then Log in. It’s not like that takes weeks to do.
I just know its easier for me because I’m not all that into knowing where to find things and before wowmatrix I had to get my husband to update my addons or get new ones… and when we had curse all it did was fill my desktop with useless crap. But that was yrs ago. I haven’t even checked out anything from there since then. They should come up with an addon database like wowmatrix.. imo
well the end is in the air for a lot of addons.
blizzard is reported to be going after the addon writers that break they rules.
i would not be surprised if blizzard makes they own addon script with a allowed writers / addons. then all these companys and writers that are making money from blizzard (via they addons).
those moaning about wowmatrix.
they list authors / web links (even to those site they LEACH off), they made a better UI than these companys and that why it had become so popular .
and to the authors
since their software linked to the sites you allowed to dispute your addons they did on break any laws.
why not give the players what they want a client to download addons from multi sources quickly and easily, authors should want the addons used as long as they are the links to the sites the get the files from and to the authors be happy.
“they list authors / web links”
Yes, but they don’t display the ads that those web links rely on to keep enough money rolling in to keep them online.
Do you see now?
I started out using WoWMatrix because I really had no clue what to do. But then I got comfortable with loading my on add ons and decided that WoWMatrix wasn’t for me.
I don’t use the Curse client or anything like that, although I’m trying out this “favorite” thing on Curse. I manually verify all my add ons (123 folders and counting) every couple of weeks.
To keep track of my adds, I have a list posted on my guild forums that I update as I add and remove adds. I keep a description of the add, any quirks, a direct link to its source if it’s not on Curse, and the date I last know of an update.
I actually read the change log for an add’s updates and browse the comments to see if there’s anything interesting going on.
Even if I don’t always have a comment for them, I feel like I’m more a part of the add on community. Remember, the authors don’t have to make their adds available at all – they could just code and keep for themselves. Then where would we be?
I’m really happy about this, honestly. WoWMatrix was, as stated in the news post, leeching LOTS of advertising dollars away, and was threatening to put these sites out of business.
I say congrats to Curse and WoWInterface for taking WoWM down.
And as far as the alternative clients – Curse Client isn’t actually all that bad anymore. Hopefully it’ll continue to work well =)
There currently is website, author, and a click to donate for the addons covered by WowMatrix.
atm I have 140 addons used in some fashion or another. It is not possible to manually update these.
No one else has fully supported the Mac user. And curse, and everyone else has sucked with Mac support – period.
WowMatrix with links to the websites, and donation links is adequately doing what they should do.
Is Google evil because they don’t have the ads on your page up on theirs?
While I do think it’s important to have an environment that supports the mod developer community, this is whole thing seems ridiculous to me. The alternatives have to be there before you make these kind of dramatic changes. The Curse client is very poorly written for mac AND it only works on Intel macs thus leaving absolutely no options for people who are on PPC macs. I personally thought wowmatrix could have used a lot of improvement (i.e. user ratings), but it was lean, fast, and reliable. Having to update mods manually is a waste of time and a huge hassle. I’m not pointing the finger, but I am frustrated as a patron of many mod developers.
Thanks so much for all your thoughts!
This is obviously a touchy topic…
This post was intended as a PSA (public service announcement)…
I have made a post today about my own views.
You know its funny, I used curse a long time ago and the curse updater was stupid and screwed up all my addons to the point I went back to doing it manually, then I was told about WoWmatrix, easy to use 1 click updates all, and now heres the funny thing, there are buttons linking to Donate to the author and they also tell you who the author is. The only gripe I can see is they link to curse or wowinterface if they dont have direct access to the file. Do curse or interface have a comparable easy to use addon manager???.
Up until today I didnt even know about wowinterface, and they do have a manager but they are not sure how reliable the current one is as they are waiting on their new version to come, oh yay.. as for curse, well sorry to curse, get your act together your updater is crap
Curse is starting to sound an awefull lot like Microsoft. Booooooh! long live wowmatrix!
This is nonsence. If you don’t want your stuff “leeched”, then don’t write “Free” addons. Wowmatrix made the addon experience 1000% better. The curse client is a complete joke, and lol wowui.
Wowmatrix listed addons have donate buttons, how much more could an addon writer want? Has anyone ever heard of RSS? RSS does the exact same thing as wowmatrix. It delivers me the content that I want, without me having to go to the webpages that host the content. Sound familiar?
The podcasts I listen to, the web comics that I read, all delivered to me without me having to go searching for them. With LESS information that what wowmatrix was providing!!!!
If you are willing to kill wowmatrix, then we should kill RSS feeds because that are the EXACT same thing…..
Wowmatrix is the RSS of wow addons.
I tried curse client for the Mac. It couldn’t even find most of the addons that are hosted on Curse let alone any of the ones on other site. It doesn’t show advertising either, so it’s ‘stealing’ the bandwidth too I guess? Plus it *doesn’t even work* – hitting update just comes up with a bunch of ‘Download Failed’ messages. Come up with something that’s actually usable and I might use it. The current effort is embarrassingly bad (tempted to write one myself – I could come up with something better than that in an hour).
It’s difficult to see what WowMatrix could have done. All they do is link to the addon and download it.. now everyone will have to go directly to curse and.. download it. More bandwidth usage for Curse, not less, because of the extra crap that people have to go through to download things.
Not sure why you are having issues with Curse, I’ve been using it for a long time. They just released a new version but in order to update all you pay 30 bucks a month. Otherwise you have to manually update each of your addons. And since you might…MIGHT have 5-6 Addons updated each day (except patch day) it’s not too hard.
The bandwith WowMatrix is stealing is the author or curse or Wowinterface. Curse, Wowinterface are hosting the download and paying for it with their ads.
The bottom line is that this is a political maneuver on Curse’s and wowinterface’s behalf. Curse has a crap client and they want to charge people on a monthly basis to do something absurdly simple…. UPDATES!!! They will totally get away with it as long as the WoW community is apathetic about it. A free open source option needs to be spearheaded within the Wow developer community.
I must say the whole paid premium version stinks, but then it is something they tried to implement a while back… however combined with the WoWMatrix problems it just compounds the whole thing.