Updaters and Such

[Falter]

TL;DR
I guess I'm venting, but I'm not upset about being forced to "do the right thing" by the mod sites. I just wish WoWI had put me in a position to continue to actively enjoy its site by giving me a better alternative than manual updating before blocking updaters as now I feel like the Curse updater is my best option for keeping mods up to date for raiding.

Now, my version of Pink Floyd's "The Wall"...

Personally, between Curse and WoWI, I'll take WoWI any day.

I respect the work of the mod authors that seem to be more active here than Curse, like Tekkub, Aezay, Mikord, etc. I also enjoy the look and feel of WoWI way more than Curse.

I used to come to the site for a couple of reasons:

1 - To see what people more talented than myself were cooking up
2 - To support this site and hopefully thereby, people from #1

But I also used updaters because they make managing my mods ... bearable.

Yeah, I almost said manageable. I had hoped by actively visiting the site (and not blocking ads) that it made up for mooching with updaters. Further, I would gladly have used a WoWI updater if there had been one worth using. I would even pay a monthly subscription to cover the bandwidth (all 10 Megs or less of it) I use each month to update my mods.

But neither of those were ever made options available to me.

Now, maybe this site is just meant to be for mod authors to have a community to share their work in which case good riddance to the leeches like myself. But if that isn't the case (and the Donation links tell me it isn't) and normal users count for something in the business model of this site, then I think WoWI has made a fairly poor move by blocking updaters without having one of their own to replace it.

At this point, I feel like I'm being pushed to Curse because WoWI has no updated updater it would seem, but Curse does. I suspect I'm not the only one. 80% of the people I have raided with are barely capable enough to get an addon installed in the first place, let alone update one manually.

Peace.

[Landrell]

There's nothing wrong with the Curse Client. I've been using it for a while now and it does the trick for the moment. There are some mods that I use that CC does not have, so I come here to manually update the ones that need it.

However, once the WoWI Updater is available, I will move to that one since I prefer the layout here over curse; it's much more user friendly. Though the WoWI updater is still currently under development, the person in charge is hard at work to getting it where it needs to be. Patience is a virtue with this one.

I hope you find what you're looking for here and then some my friend!

[donchupa]

A working WOWI is a most to be honest glad to hear its being worked on, its a shame it wasnt up and running before matrix was shoved aside because that was certainly a great installer, fingers crossed that wowi will be as simple to use

[Landrell]

Originally Posted by donchupa A working WOWI is a most to be honest glad to hear its being worked on, its a shame it wasnt up and running before matrix was shoved aside because that was certainly a great installer, fingers crossed that wowi will be as simple to use

Now the older version of the WoWI Updater is still available for download. Some people have issues with it, others say it works just fine. I'll be patient myself for when it does come out, the Devs are doing an awesome job with what little time they have to make this happen.

[Cairenn]

Hey Falter, sorry, didn't see your post last night (been hard to keep up with all the different threads on all the different sites). We did talk about the fact that our updater isn't ready in this post and this one. We most definitely wish it could have been ready. We also wish that we'd never had to block them in the first place, but we were left with no other choice. =/

I'm sorry this whole thing has been such a pain for our users.

[donchupa]

cheers Landell ill wait for the new one as well its easy enough to grab what i need at mo anyways, sad to read about the developer suffering to get it ready, to be honest hope he gets to kick back a bit and its ready when its ready, if i could help then i would offer my services but i know nothing about it

[Falter]

Well, I think the source for a lot of users like myself isn't the decision to cut updaters off. I acknowledge I always saw the business aspect of the equation, which is why I frequently just browse the site with ads blinking in my face.

But, there are a lot of people out there like myself that help guildies with things like this and now we're being flooded with people asking for help in manually updating mods they need to raid that they were barely able to install the first time. And the only choice we have to save our sanity is pointing them to Curse's client.

Every person that switches to Curse's client is going to be highly unlikely to return even after your updater is finished and that's bad for revenue (but good for bandwidth?!?). People are sheep and they are being herded to Curse and they will stay there until the grass is gone just like they did with WoWAce and now WoWMatrix. In the meantime, you might have pretty green pastures, but nobody's coming to graze. And it won't matter that Curse's grass is half astroturf.

I hate pointing out issues without suggesting solutions, so...

Consider allowing updaters to work again until yours is done
Since bandwidth was the issue you posted and not revenue loss (yes, I know that's a part of having bandwidth), let the updaters work for the big tickets like ORA, BigWigs, etc.. Just give those updaters the bare necessities if you can afford it to keep the users using the updaters they have instead of switching just to Curse.

By doing this, you could reverse the mass movement to Curse's client and maybe even grow your userbase, because people already have updaters working will stay with it until it doesn't. Remember those sheep from above?

This is a small set of mods, but a large number of users, I get that. It takes bandwidth to push a smaller number of mods to a larger number of users, but I'm thinking longer term in that by not keeping those users on their existing updaters and off Curse, you'll end up with more bandwidth then you'll ever need because the user base is all at Curse.

This would also take some stress off your developer so he doesn't end up pushing himself to get a product out that isn't ready. Because that will just further exacerbate things if it comes out and is functionally behind Curse's client.

Right now, Curse has all the advantage, but I still think WoWI has the superior product. I don't want to see WoWI lose out. I know this is probably keeping you up at night and causing you gray hair. So let me end by saying that I wouldn't be taking the time to type these things out if I didn't appreciate the site and the effort that has been put into it. That I admire the abilities of the authors that post here and really like to anonymously and quietly troll about. I don't want to see it fade out by losing out to MegaMart, er, Curse.

Further, all those attacks on you and the site by angry people, just try to understand that even those folks wouldn't be so angry if they didn't value the site so much. The magnitude of their anger reflects just how much they feel they've lost and that's a testament to the worth of the site and its community.

[Laslo]

Originally Posted by Falter Further, all those attacks on you and the site by angry people, just try to understand that even those folks wouldn't be so angry if they didn't value the site so much. The magnitude of their anger reflects just how much they feel they've lost and that's a testament to the worth of the site and its community.

That's just it, though. Most of the people posting in such outrage (please note I said most, not all) do NOT respect the community or value the site. They are mad because they lost their lazy one-click solution. If they did value the site and the community, losing WoWMatrix should not be a problem because they are just "forced" to visit the site they already love and respect anyway. There's a reason many of the enraged posters have April 2009 registration dates and 1 or 2 posts. They are not part of the community that is here. They are here to express their dismay at having to actually install an addon themselves. Installing an addon is not difficult, and people's unwillingness to learn or adapt is not the responsibility of this site, no matter how much whining and crying about WM comes through here.

[donchupa]

[quote=Falter;128310
Further, all those attacks on you and the site by angry people, just try to understand that even those folks wouldn't be so angry if they didn't value the site so much. The magnitude of their anger reflects just how much they feel they've lost and that's a testament to the worth of the site and its community.[/QUOTE]

No one has a right to be angry unless they have paid for a specific service that isnt being provided.

As has been stated earlier this was forced upon wowi it wasnt a choice they had or wished to do at this stage.

As for being mobbed by your guild for info on how to dl/install addons would have thought that most guilds have an idiots guide on their forums for that, if you havnt then why not just make one

[Seerah]

Originally Posted by donchupa As for being mobbed by your guild for info on how to dl/install addons would have thought that most guilds have an idiots guide on their forums for that, if you havnt then why not just make one

You can link to ours if you like, has tons of info and resources including a video tutorial (for XP): http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=14762

[donchupa]

nice one Seerah

[Falter]

You can lead an idiot to an idiot's guide.
You cannot make them read it.
But they are my friends, simple as they may be.
So I'll help them the best I can, by recommending an updater. And at the moment, there is only 1.

Now Laslo, you're right, but also consider that those same folks that don't take part in the community are still needed to generate ad revenue to support those that do take part in the community. If WoWMatrix wasn't good for ad revenue for WoWI, the Curse Client can't be any better. And since we all agree people like the one-click solution, I'm sure we can all agree those folks won't be manually updating by hand here when they can use the Curse client, right?

And once people get settled in with the Curse Client, those simple minded folks we post idiot guides for, will likely not be returning until the Curse Client is discontinued, which I don't see happening anytime soon. So where does that leave WoWI?

Now, I know this was a collaborated effort, but in my opinion, Curse is going to benefit from this far more than WoWI if I am correct and the user base settles in over there.

I hope that illustrates more clearly my source of angst. Betamax, BeOS, HD-DVD... I have a long history of being on the losing side because I think a product is better than the competition but they find some way to botch it. I hope this isn't another chapter in my ongoing saga. And to be fair, I was never that into HD-DVD.

[Dolby]

We can not consider allowing WM back until ours is done unless curse considers it as well. We can not handle the traffic WM generated a lone. If we turn them back on we go down.

There has been many real life examples that contradict what happened with betamax/vhs as well. Will it be harder to get people back? yes. Can we do it, yes. Do we have a choice? not really.

[Falter]

Thanks Dolby. I'm glad to hear that.

While I wish perhaps you could allow WM to work with a few key raiding addons until your client is done, I can understand if the infrastructure just can't support it. I just know it would stave off the migration and buy time to get the WoWI client done. I guess I should be saying MMOUI or Minion?

But either way, if you're confident you can get people back, that's great.

Just let people like me know how we can help when its time.

And as I've been saying, get WoWI's premium sub separated from ZAM. They should be separate profit centers. I can't see paying $3.33 to support the entire ZAM network when all I care about is WoWI. Lower the price point and make it WoWI specific so I can feel good about paying you monthly. Please.

[donchupa]

umm maybe Idiots guide was wrong of me sorry, i totally understand what ure saying about people getting used to something and staying with it till it breaks but to be honest that i have allwys found to be a minority, generally people are allways looking for something bigger and faster.

Yes wowi is going to lose a load to curse at the moment but to be honest cursehas never been a great installer and still isnt. once wowi has there new one up and running im sure that the swing will come back this way and curse will be well just a second rate installer as per usual

[Zubgrub]

I commend WowI and Curse on their stand for authors. You guys work hard. I've gotten tons of enjoyment out of using the various mods over the years. Keep up the good work!

However, I have to agree with Falter with the whole migration thing. You are running the risk of folks not coming to WoWI once the your updater is finished. I recently switched to Curse because I had no other choice. Unless WoWI Updater blows it out of the water there's no reason to switch. But then I guess that's how any product goes doesn't it?

I just wanted to offer a user's standpoint on this debate. Again, good job all!

[Cairenn]

We know, trust me. We didn't want to take this step until our updater was ready, but we weren't given a [viable] choice in the matter.

[Laslo]

I really don't think there is going to be much of a swing. This site provides something that Curse doesn't, and that's a community. I know that's something that is a strange concept to people that try really hard to avoid having to go to websites to get their addons, but it's here. The people that frequent this site love it, love the community, and love the people that work on the site. You will be hard pressed to find more community minded people than the ones that populate WoWI from the staff down to the most infrequent of visitors. It's hard (impossible?) to just throw that away, especially over something as silly as an auto-installer.

That aside, the fact that WoWMatrix is no longer working GUARANTEES that more people will visit this site. Everything here is not available at the Curse site. People will flat out have to physically go to both sites. Some authors prefer this over Curse and vise-versa. I don't know how many people used WM, but it has been stated in several threads since the anti-WM action was taken that many of those people don't like Curse. That means they are coming here. Or they could go without addons at all, which seems to me like a pretty dramatic reaction to having to click a few extra times.

This site's income will do nothing but increase with this change. Profit? Maybe not, but hopefully this will guarantee that they will break even at least.

The bottom line is, as has been said roughly 43289042839042 times, the change had to be made. WM was killing this site. Rather than let that happen, they made some changes. I'm sorry everyone that used WM has gotten so lazy that the slightest clicking motion makes the concept of manually installing addons feel like they are doing tai-bo, but get over it.

The staff of this site have nothing but the community in mind when they make changes to the site. They know what goes on behind the scenes better than any of us. This change WILL help the community stay together or they wouldn't have done it. That is absolute fact. It has nothing to do with lining pockets or trying to monopolize the ever-so-lucrative market of free add-on sites. This community means as much to them as it does to those of us who are a part of it. The problem is the WM defenders for the most part don't get that (or get it and don't care) and are just worried about their frail wrists breaking from having to add their mods to a favorites list.

I know you keep mentioning your "simple" friends (your word), but I really think people like that are in the minority. I truly, TRULY believe that most of this is just laziness. People don't want ads, they don't want to go to websites, they just want to click and be done. They don't care about the cost as long as it's free to them. They could install addons manually. I know it's hard to believe, but there was a time before the ace updater. It can and has been done before. People need to understand that there is a chance that there may never be a one-stop shop for all their addon needs, and if WM was the only way to do it, I hope there never is anything like it again. Maybe someday Curse and WoWI will be able to pool resources and allow for it, but until then, people are gonna just have to suck it up. And exercise their wrists and clicking fingers.

[Falter]

Maybe I just attract the slow folks, but I wouldn't say the simple are in the minority at all. : )

But let's not beat a dead horse. I think you guys need to get busy strategizing on how to get people using the updater when it comes out.

As I said before, I'm more than happy to help and see it as a good way to repay the benefit I've gotten from using the site until WoWI has its own premium sub (/wish). The mod authors I admire the most seem to frequent here more than Curse, so you have my loyalty.

I just think you guys need to be prepared to market Minion when it comes out, have some new HTML pages to show off its features, videos to show its use, etc.

Perhaps a little banner I could use in my guild signature to show my support for the updater that links to its download.

Let's turn the conversation away from what's done and more towards what's next. Start telling us how we can help, when you think we can beta test, anything like that.

[Seerah]

I am sure that we will have a page detailing the updater, but those all sound like good ideas.