A potential opportunity? (@Dolby)
Disclaimer: I've no experience with OW myself.
With OW taking over CF, there's a lot of chatter about dropping CF altogether (some people really hate OW). I'm not sure what sort of resources you all have, but it may present an opportunity to increase traffic, etc, here. Authors and users need a centralized hub to host and download add-ons that's reliable and trustworthy. Currently, there are some third-party add-on managers that are scraping, etc, which is great for users but not so much for hosts (including WoWI) and authors. If a system were implemented similar to NexusMods, where the site uses a combination of non-intrusive ads and download restrictions to encourage subscriptions that remove the ads and restrictions, that would help cover the overhead of the service. Additionally, third-party managers would be given authenticated API access based on community reviews (to keep out the riff-raff) and they would have to require users to login so that the aforementioned download restrictions would apply when using such a manager. (Similar to how ModOrganizer works). As I mentioned, I'm not sure what resources you all have or if it's feasible on your end, but I thought I'd mention it just the same. Though, you'd have to stop beating this dead vBulletin horse. :p |
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Then what is it you're asking for? You're pretty much describing everything that WoWI already does besides forcing download authentications.
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I'm not asking for anything. I'm merely pointing out a potential opportunity. Yes, WoWI offers a lot to users and authors, but it does have its limitations (which can be said of any site).
I'm sure that there's plenty of improvements that a lot of people would like to see implemented (I'm still waiting on Markdown support. :p). But that isn't the point of my OP. I just wanted to pick Dolby's brain about the potential and see what they thought. |
This made me laugh to see posted -- for good reasons.
I've long been absent from the WoW community, but I contacted Dolby privately yesterday about the same topic, with some input I wanted to provide. Your thinking of what the future of addon managers might look like is similar to mine from the sounds of it, so fingers crossed. Off-topic: Hi Storm, glad to see Masque is doing well and that Apathy still exists. ;) |
We are certainly looking into providing an api for 3rd party managers to use, just working on a way that is affordable and doesn't bankrupt us with crippling resource expenses. :D I certainly like your suggestions so far.
Also want to do it in a way that requires the least if any changes for addon authors and 3rd party managers. I think we can find a way but you'd also have to convince others sites like us to provide an api too. Just having one side do it isn't all that useful since there are authors that stick with curseforge because they have some nice ad rev sharing which is totally understandable. I in no way fault any of them for wanting to stay exclusive with that and really only jealous its something we can't provide for authors here. |
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As far as API, the biggest change would be requiring authentication for downloads. This would be to enforce the server limitations of non-subscribers, etc, even through third-party managers. Then you really wouldn't even need to worry about the third-party clients, as it would force them to incorporate authentication into their application (via user credentials). Quote:
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I can see the need for additional hosts. The problem is that it makes it more difficult for authors to maintain consistency across the sites. I know I've given you a hard time about the lack of Markdown support, but there's a reason for it. Any time I update my ReadMes, I have to spend a few hours formatting them into reasonable BBCode. Luckily BigWigs packager makes short work of the change log. I guess I should just write a shell script to run pandoc and convert it and post it via the API, but meh. That's more work! :p |
As a developer of one of those 3rd party apps this is something we've been looking into helping with as a group. There is a model we're building just need the buy in from authors to really dig in :)
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I did my part by making my addons available at as many alternatives as I can. Will be grabbing my popcorn and seeing where the crowd goes!
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Milton Friedman, is that you?
*ahem* More seriously, as the developer of an add-on manager I am not in favour of any aspect of this proposal. I am not in favour of putting any kind of rewards programme in place. Rewards programmes are exploitative - they are a thinly-veiled attempt to create a monopoly. The most-downloaded add-on on WoWI (Leatrix) is now abandoned I would assume for this exact reason. I am also not in favour of introducing download restrictions for free users as a means to recoup expenses or requiring users of third-party managers to log in, which is more than likely to backfire with WoWI’s current hold over the ‘market’. The way *I* drive traffic back to WoWI is by limiting the amount of information presented in the catalogue and by linking back to WoWI. If users want to see what an add-on looks like or view add-ons created by the same author or discover add-ons in a category or interact with the author, they have to visit WoWI. My add-on manager also accepts WoWI URLs so that users are not obligated to use my catalogue; they can browse WoWI like they normally would. I have obviously no idea what WoWI’s costs look like and I’m not in a position to assess whether third-party managers pose an actual threat. If real, such a threat should not be countered in a way that is sure to drive WoWI’s remaining user base away. P.S. Third-party add-on managers are not ‘scraping’ WoWI. They are using the undocumented MMOUI API used by Minion. |
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With that said, I'm fine with an enhancement to the site that allows for more funding options and helps promote them. Quote:
While I can sort of see where you're coming in regards to the "monopoly" bit, especially considering that "Big Business" had it's dirty fingers in CF, that really isn't applicable here. As Dolby mentioned, multiple hosts is a good thing. As is users and authors having options. Quote:
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So far you've explained why you don't like any of the ideas presented. Do you have any alternatives? |
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I imagine a future with API authentication tokens being used for addon managers moving forward, but probably also on a host's own website when downloading. This would entirely prevent the direct access currently exploited to bypass a host's terms and monetisation schemes. That part is really on the hosts to sort themselves out.
Addon mangers will either conform with the terms set by the hosts, or their access gets revoked. Hosts can live or die by whatever terms they set and the impact that will have on their users and authors, but when providing access to a host through third party software, the developers of that software are obligated to abide by that host's terms. The terms of access are set by each host, not developers of addon mangers, so any good intentions to provide some concessions to hosts are rather moot. I agree user logins aren't something I'd want to see become mandatory, but optional support for it would be ideal, allowing for premium access where it exists. I would love to see a future of many addon managers and hosts, where addon managers are selected by users for good UX, and hosts are selected by authors for best offering of services and by users for UX too, but that's not viable if everyone continues in this manner and repeating mistakes of the past. It's a future I envisioned 11 years ago and had to abandon, and the recent situation is why I decided to reach out now to see if my past work could contribute in any way. P.S. All third-party add-on managers providing downloads from WoWI are currently scraping; the definition includes the use of any APIs to obtain data, not just web crawlers parsing HTML/DOM. |
I don't know whose definition that would be but I've done my fair share of scraping for open government NGOs and nobody would consider using an API as scraping. I also fail to see why this keeps getting brought up unless the intention is to denigrate add-on manager authors. Evidently, developers who've spent years working on freely-licensed software for no compensation are worth less than add-on authors (who at least get to benefit from CF's rewards programme) or host staff because of some ingrained capitalist notion of impropriety.
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Additionally, any information that an author includes in their project's description, etc, needs to be readily available to the user. That is why this information exists. Quote:
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Yes, the CF rewards programme is a "carrot", and it is a tasty "carrot". But you know what I like more than carrots? Steak and lobster. For me, I upload my addons to Wowinterface, sure, but my development repository is Curseforge, because I like and understand their repo system, and they have this nifty localization system for addons. Wowinterface does not have a localization system, and I do not understand their repo system, and cannot begin to fathom their Addon Packager Proxy tool. I manually upload to Wowinterface as a convenience to users, not a convenience to myself. I gain nothing from having Wowinterface host my addons, and while it would be great if they offered a reward system, I won't ever lose sleep if they never offer one. If Curseforge/Overwolf ever took their rewards system away, I wouldn't lose sleep over that either. You are blowing both points completely out of proportion, and since you have stated that you do not wish to offer any constructive ideas, perhaps you should stop replying to this thread. The idea here is to talk about a potential opportunity, and you have been nothing but negative and dismissive. |
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One is able to extrapolate on their impact. I haven't said that CF do not offer a better developer experience - I made one simple point which is essentially a truism - I don't want to keep going on about it.
For the record, you do not have to manually upload to WoWI - you can use the BigWigs packager to easily upload to both hosts which is mentioned in the (long abandoned) packager proxy tool thread that you linked to. On rereading my posts, I did come across as abrasive on occasion; I apologise for that. |
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P.S. You can take a look at Masque's repo to see an example (.pkgmeta and .github\workflows). Quote:
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Someone is going to walk me through that BigWigs packager, in baby steps, treating me entirely like the noob that I am. Which is entirely off the topic. Suffice to say I did look at that, albeit briefly, and was baffled. I really only know SVN, and that's my starting point.
Should anyone want to take the time to guide me, I'd be happy to learn. DM me if you want to be my Jedi Master. |
I use TortoiseSVN to upload to the repos here.
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Same as Seerah. I use Sourcetree to maintain my repositories here and manually upload to CF. I actually found this thread because I came to see if WoWUp was doing what another company (that shall remain nameless) was doing several years ago with deeplinking.
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