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05-13-09, 02:03 AM   #181
Cairenn
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Originally Posted by honem View Post
If anyone missed it after I made the comment about having being way too verbose I was Cairenned !

She changed my tag to "^has verbal diarehha^"

....maybe next month I'll come up with an even better forum tag

PS Forum Tag == What's under my forum username on my posts
Who, sweet innocent little me? Never happen!

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05-13-09, 02:28 AM   #182
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Originally Posted by Cairenn View Post
Who, sweet innocent little me? Never happen!

Oh dear. Getting even further off topic. Your posts and other posters here made me go off to work on a semi-permanent high
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05-13-09, 02:30 AM   #183
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This is a GOOD THING (tm).
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05-13-09, 09:49 AM   #184
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Originally Posted by lilsparky View Post
oh, i'm not blaming anybody or anything. $75k a month in bandwidth costs kind of underscores the issue -- they wouldn't be doing that unless they anticipated making well over $75k a month. what's a guess at how much they make in a year? a million bucks? more? less?
From a numbers of this topic:

75000 / (3Gb/hour * 24*30) = 30$/GB
I want some weed you smoke!

http://www.switchlink.co.uk/unlimite...h-servers.html
£3700p/m including hardware and 1Gbit port

http://www.colocation.com/gigelocations.html

Curse has several servers, but to make up for 75k pure traffic cost you'll need to have craploads of them.

Link to their datacenter/hoster website? )))
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05-13-09, 10:15 AM   #185
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Originally Posted by Elhana View Post
From a numbers of this topic:

75000 / (3Gb/hour * 24*30) = 30$/GB
I want some weed you smoke!

http://www.switchlink.co.uk/unlimite...h-servers.html
£3700p/m including hardware and 1Gbit port
http://www.findmyhosting.com/truthunlimited.htm

Edit: Looking closer at the link you provided, I'd highly reccomend staying away from them, any service like that, which doesn't present it's ToS up front is concerning.

Last edited by Vyper : 05-13-09 at 10:19 AM.
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05-13-09, 10:17 AM   #186
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Originally Posted by Elhana View Post
From a numbers of this topic:

75000 / (3Gb/hour * 24*30) = 30$/GB
Originally Posted by honem View Post
The IRC log linked by honem, they mention breaking 1.3GB/s. Too brain dead to do the math to figure that out.

I think I remember a comment on one of the forums (either Curse or here), where Kael mentioned 1.3-1.5TB/hr during the patch cycle.
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05-13-09, 05:39 PM   #187
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Originally Posted by honem View Post
Don't forgot these other costs to figure in

There's not only bandwidth to consider but also the fee they pay their data centre, hardware upgrade costs,people's salaries etc etc etc.

You also need to factor in all the websites Curse runs - the wow addon side isn't the only one they are running.

I think from the chat I linked you they predicted they would do about 3GB / hour. The actual on patch day was higher than that.

So I don't think Curse are exactly rolling in cash that some people like to conclude. If they did then they would of been able to bring that Premium idea of theirs out a lot sooner (I first heard of it in April last year I think).
you don't spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars each month providing a service unless it makes you money. i can't imagine the business model is spend $100k, collect $110k in revenues, split up the $10k profit.

I'm sorry man but I really don't agree. You can have friendships in rival businesses where the quality of the friendship itself isn't effected by the money that's thrown in. I've heard and seen cases of people working in rival businessess still having active friendships despite being direct rivals. I've never come across this "I can no longer be friends with this guy because the company he works for beat mine for market share and advertising so we are now losing money against the company he works for" attitude you speak of.
yeah, but you think the corporate heads of Zam and Curse are friends? the people who interact with the community might be friendly with each other, but i doubt they're the ones who make the far reaching policy decisions. so sure, employees who have no real vested interest might be chums, but the people looking at the bottom dollar don't really care about all that.

Sometimes you have to take actions for the good of the community. Both Curse and Wowinterface come to the agreement to do this simultaneously.
actually, curse came to the decision they were going to do it and wowi pretty much had to as well. perhaps it was in wowi's best interest to go along with it, but nothing i've seen suggested that they had any real say in the decision.

Things is. For there to be any sort of "agreement" over bandwidth costs wowmatrix would have to of talked to the people at wow interface.Caireen and a few other admins have said multiple times that Wow matrix never contacted them at all.
sure, because curse hosts most of the mods and is generally the king of the hill. if they blocked wowm and wowi didn't, then i suspect wowi would have been able to contact wowm. not saying that wowmatrix would have suddenly played nicely, but they might have been more agreeable to a workable solution rather than watching their entire business evaporate.

Blizzard's recent addon policy covers authors making addons.

Curse is not an addon author. An updater program is not an addon.

Also they checked with Blizzard before they released it. Blizzard were okay with it - the "not charging for services related to addons" is to do with charging to download the addon. You can still download addons free through this service so it's not covered by the addon policy.
understood. i was saying that if curse charged to download addons, that would probably run afoul of the blizz policy. since you can get them without paying, it doesn't.

If you're interested of the details of the Curse Rewards program there's plenty of posts on wowace.com to read through. Tells you exactly how it's going to work and how much is gonna be given out.

Lastly I'm not sure which addon community you've been a part of but I just don't see "greedy" authors suddenly deciding to take advantage of this program to make money off it by fudging the system.
really? you didn't read those threads very well then -- they repeatedly say they're not going to get into the specifics of how they formulate the rewards out of fear that people will game the system. i've been on wowace for close to two years now.

Addon authors usaully only remove addons from sites to make providing support easier on them. They publish to multiple sites to share the load around - if one site is down you can get it from the other sites.

It's counterproductive to upload older versions on other sites as that's more work for them that they could be using to provide support for their addons. The only way they could get outdated versions would be if wowmatrix hosted older versions covered under a license that gives them free distribution. At the end of the day distributing older versions of an addon you are currently maintaining is a bit like shooting yourself in the foot - you know you're going to get support tickets for those older versions which means more work for you as an addon author . And addon support is enough of a nightmare as it is !
naw, it's really easy. you just say "please direct all support questions to [link to curse page]". that way, if page hits and support questions are tallied into the rewards program you get those, too.

Besides I don't think Ckknight, Kaelten and the other Curse admins would stand for an addon author fudging the system. They would just kick the author off the Curse Rewards program and delete their addons off Curse.
yes, because curse clearly doesn't want people visiting their site to download addons. i mean, it's not like they're in business explicitly to provide that service or anything.
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05-13-09, 05:42 PM   #188
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Originally Posted by Elhana View Post
From a numbers of this topic:

75000 / (3Gb/hour * 24*30) = 30$/GB
I want some weed you smoke!

http://www.switchlink.co.uk/unlimite...h-servers.html
£3700p/m including hardware and 1Gbit port

http://www.colocation.com/gigelocations.html

Curse has several servers, but to make up for 75k pure traffic cost you'll need to have craploads of them.

Link to their datacenter/hoster website? )))
not sure what that all means, honestly -- i know next to nothing about bandwidth costs. i'm just going from what information was presented -- that curse anticipated $75k in bandwidth costs alone for april.
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05-13-09, 06:47 PM   #189
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Originally Posted by lilsparky View Post
you don't spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars each month providing a service unless it makes you money. i can't imagine the business model is spend $100k, collect $110k in revenues, split up the $10k profit.
Point taken. Businesses do need to turn a profit after all. My point was simply that bandwidth is not free or limitless. Someone at some point has to pay for it and someone has to vouch for it being effectively used.

Originally Posted by lilsparky View Post
yeah, but you think the corporate heads of Zam and Curse are friends?
Unless I'm mistaken wan't your argument "Curse and Wowinterface hate each other?" and that Kaelten forced Caireen to put up the wowmatrix block?

Please correct me if not so

Originally Posted by lilsparky View Post
actually, curse came to the decision they were going to do it and wowi pretty much had to as well. perhaps it was in wowi's best interest to go along with it, but nothing i've seen suggested that they had any real say in the decision.
Then maybe you should be asking Caireen how much input wow interface had in the decision to block wow matrix instead of assuming

Originally Posted by lilsparky View Post
if they blocked wowm and wowi didn't, then i suspect wowi would have been able to contact wowm. not saying that wowmatrix would have suddenly played nicely, but they might have been more agreeable to a workable solution rather than watching their entire business evaporate.
This is where I'm going to have to disagree with you. Like it's been re-iterated again and again over multiple threads. Curse and Wowinterface have been trying to work with wowmatrix for months. They didn't just roll out of bed one day decide they wanted to block wowmatrix once and for all and the next day put down the block.

Trying not to be personal here but you seem to subscribing to the notion that if curse had blocked wowmatrix and wow interface didn't then wow matrix would suddenly contact wow interface. And that they would of been able to "work something out" and there would be sunshine and rainbows and little dancing lambs and everything will be a-ok in the world.

Thing is from all the threads I've read about this ...wow matrix have never played nicely with the author side of the community. They've never answered any of the communications sent by this site over many many months. What makes you think they're suddenly going to change their spots ? IMHO They don't have a very good track record at all.

Originally Posted by lilsparky View Post
naw, it's really easy. you just say "please direct all support questions to [link to curse page]". that way, if page hits and support questions are tallied into the rewards program you get those, too.
Yeah but it's still more work for an author to do. I still say uploaded old versions to other sites directing them to Curse is probably one of the most counter productive moves you can do as an author. In the end it's just more work for you to do as an author.

Originally Posted by lilsparky View Post
yes, because curse clearly doesn't want people visiting their site to download addons. i mean, it's not like they're in business explicitly to provide that service or anything.
Yeah but it's in their best interest as a site offering a program like the Author Rewards program to offer some integrity to how and where they give out rewards. If they really allowed every tom dick and harry to upload something then allowed them to bump up their rank artificially to get hits the program wouldn't last very long.
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05-13-09, 07:42 PM   #190
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Actually, there are businesses that operate at around a 10% profit margin. Spending $100,000 to make $110,000 may not sound like such a great deal but you need to consider time frame. A $10,000 profit per month works out to a $120,000 profit per year which is nothing to sneeze at. Especially if you don't have a lot of people with which to divide it up as is the case with many small businesses.

Now I don't know what kind of profit margin Curse is operating with or how many people are getting a slice of the pie but just because they're turning a profit doesn't mean they're making obscene amounts of money.
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05-13-09, 08:04 PM   #191
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Originally Posted by honem View Post
Unless I'm mistaken wan't your argument "Curse and Wowinterface hate each other?" and that Kaelten forced Caireen to put up the wowmatrix block?

Please correct me if not so
i don't believe they "hate each other". i think "hate" and "like" are not really adjectives applicable to business relations. wowi and curse are pretty much offering the same services. they are in direct competition with each other. i don't think wowdb was created as a means to help wowhead -- it was a way to get more market share for curse.

Then maybe you should be asking Caireen how much input wow interface had in the decision to block wow matrix instead of assuming
come again? you quoted caireen yourself on the matter:

"Why would we not have a choice? Because other sites were going to be implementing theirs today, whether we did or not. If we didn't go ahead with ours today as well, we wouldn't be running at all today. They (WowMatrix) would have jumped from splitting their scraping of both sites to scraping only one site, our site, since they couldn't access the other one. We'd be down today, completely and totally, no one would be able to get to our site at all. How does that help anyone?"

that sounds a bit aggressive on curse's part. we're going to block wowmatrix -- here's how we're going to do it, if you're not onboard, expect to be blitzed by wowmatrix.

This is where I'm going to have to disagree with you. Like it's been re-iterated again and again over multiple threads. Curse and Wowinterface have been trying to work with wowmatrix for months. They didn't just roll out of bed one day decide they wanted to block wowmatrix once and for all and the next day put down the block.

Trying not to be personal here but you seem to subscribing to the notion that if curse had blocked wowmatrix and wow interface didn't then wow matrix would suddenly contact wow interface. And that they would of been able to "work something out" and there would be sunshine and rainbows and little dancing lambs and everything will be a-ok in the world.
i think you're misunderstanding my point. i'm not suggesting that wowi would have been able to work with wowmatrix. maybe yes, maybe no. people point to all the changes in wowmatrix's policies since they got slapped as "too little, too late". however, another way to look at it as "they got the message". regardless, from a business standpoint, curse ensuring that other sites were onboard with their blocking is more beneficial than a disunited front on the issue -- particularly if wowmatrix were to somehow figure out a way to work with wowi. it would be absolute fail if curse were to accidentally force two competitors to join forces when they could have eliminated one.

Thing is from all the threads I've read about this ...wow matrix have never played nicely with the author side of the community. They've never answered any of the communications sent by this site over many many months. What makes you think they're suddenly going to change their spots ? IMHO They don't have a very good track record at all.
fear of going out of business. they don't do the things they do simply because they're evil and want to mess with people. they do them as a business model in an attempt to make money. watching their business fail is a strong motivator.

Yeah but it's still more work for an author to do. I still say uploaded old versions to other sites directing them to Curse is probably one of the most counter productive moves you can do as an author. In the end it's just more work for you to do as an author.
you think? i only host here and at wowace/curse. my mods here are a cycle behind curse because, frankly, it's a drag to upload. yes, i'm lazy. since i develop on wowace, i upload via svn then tag when i want it to go to curse.

Yeah but it's in their best interest as a site offering a program like the Author Rewards program to offer some integrity to how and where they give out rewards. If they really allowed every tom dick and harry to upload something then allowed them to bump up their rank artificially to get hits the program wouldn't last very long.
how is it "artificial"? curse gets more traffic / ad impressions even if the author is trying to force people to use curse. that's their ultimate goal as a company, no?

www.quest-helper.com (i think that's the name) redirects to curse's quest-helper page. that site redirect was set-up by the author of quest helper. do you think curse thinks of that as being "unfair" or do you think they think of it as bringing them more visitors -- and thus ad revenue?
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05-13-09, 08:05 PM   #192
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Originally Posted by WayfarerOmega View Post
Actually, there are businesses that operate at around a 10% profit margin. Spending $100,000 to make $110,000 may not sound like such a great deal but you need to consider time frame. A $10,000 profit per month works out to a $120,000 profit per year which is nothing to sneeze at. Especially if you don't have a lot of people with which to divide it up as is the case with many small businesses.

Now I don't know what kind of profit margin Curse is operating with or how many people are getting a slice of the pie but just because they're turning a profit doesn't mean they're making obscene amounts of money.
i think 10% profit margins are generally on mega corporations that churn so much revenue that 10% is still tons of money.
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05-13-09, 08:15 PM   #193
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Originally Posted by lilsparky View Post
you think? i only host here and at wowace/curse. my mods here are a cycle behind curse because, frankly, it's a drag to upload. yes, i'm lazy. since i develop on wowace, i upload via svn then tag when i want it to go to curse.
Points you again to Shadowed's nice little uploader. Single button push after you first set it up. Can be run from/pull from wherever you wish.
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05-13-09, 09:11 PM   #194
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Originally Posted by Cairenn View Post
Points you again to Shadowed's nice little uploader. Single button push after you first set it up. Can be run from/pull from wherever you wish.
i looked at it, but it seemed to be saying it was a command-line tool and the command-lines didn't look exactly user-friendly. at least to this user.

maybe you guys need a module in minion to handle submitting mod revisions.
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05-13-09, 09:13 PM   #195
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Something I do believe we are looking into, yes.
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05-13-09, 09:34 PM   #196
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Its ment to be command line because authors use it in their SVN hooks and such. A GUI module could be made for Minion to upload but how is that any easier than the web interface if you need to use a GUI?
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05-13-09, 11:12 PM   #197
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Originally Posted by Dolby View Post
Its ment to be command line because authors use it in their SVN hooks and such. A GUI module could be made for Minion to upload but how is that any easier than the web interface if you need to use a GUI?
with wowace, i right-click my svn directory and simply "commit" and type in a changelog. if i want it to go to curse, i just tag the repo i want.

it's essentially single click with no real questions and it automatically packages for me.

to get it here, i typically download it from curse to avoid having to deal with selecting which files to zip (avoiding the .svn files or whatever other data files i don't want to package) then tell the thing i want to upload and then fill out the form and check the boxes and browse for my file. it's not insanely difficult, but like i said, i'm lazy. i'd rather just say "update" and have the computer do the repetetive tasks that computers do so well.
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05-14-09, 12:35 AM   #198
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@honem & lilsparky: Her name is Cairenn. Just think "Karen", if that helps.

Anywho: As far as packaging automatically on Curse...it's a bit more cumbersome to package it yourself than you let on, since there are keyword-substitutions which the packager replaces in the ToC (packaged-version and no-lib-strip, for example), and keyword substitutions that many authors use throughout their Lua files (debug, alpha, etc). So, realistically, other than using Shadowed's tool you're stuck downloading your packaged zip from Curse and then uploading here.
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05-14-09, 12:46 AM   #199
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Originally Posted by Torhal View Post
@honem & lilsparky: Her name is Cairenn. Just think "Karen", if that helps.
I doubt if it will, and it's not really a big deal anyway. Lots of people spell it wrong, it isn't a particularly easy name to spell. People can figure out who it is they are talking about, and that's all that really matters.
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05-14-09, 12:52 AM   #200
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Originally Posted by Torhal View Post
@honem & lilsparky: Her name is Cairenn. Just think "Karen", if that helps.

Anywho: As far as packaging automatically on Curse...it's a bit more cumbersome to package it yourself than you let on, since there are keyword-substitutions which the packager replaces in the ToC (packaged-version and no-lib-strip, for example), and keyword substitutions that many authors use throughout their Lua files (debug, alpha, etc). So, realistically, other than using Shadowed's tool you're stuck downloading your packaged zip from Curse and then uploading here.
Or you can simply copy/paste the changes to an SVN replica here and then use the 'Make Zip' function from the 'Projects' tab The only "problem" might be, having to properly set up libraries in your project, but realistically speaking that's a one time operation for the most part (unless you are using libraries that get updated very frequently).
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