Andúril
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 279
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The thing that many people are conveniently missing is that WM actually parses the html page from the site and sniffs the link from it to download said addon, so they are essentially downloading the web page and the addon. Moreover, seems that no one has actually taken the time to read Seerah's post (I'm tempted to say most posts but what the hell). The frequency of updates is just as important when it comes to bandwidth, especially if the parsing mechanism is flawed and forces you to update an addon that is already in the latest version. Bandwidth usage going down as much as 50% is no random figure. It's one thing having a few thousand users hammering the "update all" button and an entirely different thing having the same amount manually downloading. It's a practical difference for the most part.
Moreover, people continue to assume too much, such as that every single user is running FF with NoScript/Ad Blocker. You'd be surprised to find out how many they don't.
Let's touch functionality as well. The fact that client-wise WM offered a good updater isn't as important as the fact that it has become common sense it seems that an updater is mandatory, if you are to have any chance for your UI not to break. This was a misconception that WAU encouraged up to a point that it was considered to be a widely accepted, standard practice. In reality, people do not require every single update in the book, especially when it doesn't directly affect them (e.g. localization update for the lost tribe in Amazon). From that point of view, I personally consider WAU, as the worst single mistake in the entire history of this community. The "lazier" among you will not agree and probably flame me for this but in all honesty, I've seen it happen, first on WoWAce, then elsewhere, as soon as the plug was pulled. It was like trying to detox a junkie. The monster had grown so much that even the people originally responsible for the development backed out, mostly disappointed by user feedback and the ever-growing demands of the self-entitled userbase.
Then I keep hearing about people using as much as 200 addons. In all honesty I cannot possibly fathom how or why any single user requires 200 addons to get a decent working UI (including running disembedded which users should *not* be doing in the first place). There is no way in hell you can convince me that ALL of those addons are absolutely required or that half of them are being used, half the time (unless we are talking about modules or plugins, even then its going overboard). But let's agree for arguments sake that all of those addons are required. Is it also required to have every single one of them updated, "just in case", once a year, a user might require feature X in addon Y ? My point is, some users have grown accustomed to just click "install" on an updater, as a fire and forget solution, without thinking.
Which brings us to the next, much debated issue. Why doesn't Curse or WoWI offer an updater with an equivalent functionality to WM ? Though this has been answered already, I'll try a recap. Let's get the obvious out of the way. People that are hoping for a centralized site or repository where all addons are being hosted and maintained, are simply living in a dream world. First of all, in order to do that, you would have to convince most authors to agree on their work being hosted there (good luck with that for several reasons I'm not gonna bother mentioning). Secondly, you would require a "unified" updater to pull from the repositories and while it was in the best interest of both Curse and WoWI to side on shutting down WM, people have to accept the simple truth, that when all has been said and done, both of these sites are actually competitors, so such an "Alliance" is very unlikely to occur on that front. A unified "API" or plugins however, is an idea that has merit and to the best of my knowledge such an option is already in the works.
That being said, It's no real secret that Curse has been struggling with their updater for quite some time, after WAU became redundant. A lot of people back then (myself included) had criticized the proposed design (still in beta), but things went on regardless, as no other viable solution was in sight at the time and costs were hurting Curse. From that time a lot has changed and while the client right now has nothing to do with its initial incarnation, there are obviously a lot of things that can be done better. This is actually a chance for people to offer constructive criticism, instead of issuing decrees of how bad it is, how it didn't get us a new girl to bed or w/e. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Is the client clunky, inconvenient, buggy and intrusive ? Post about it, offer suggestions and who knows, you may actually get what you wish for.
On a similar note, WoWI has had problems speeding up their own process of getting a viable updater out, simply because they had to rely on volunteer work. There is nothing secret or complicated about this, there is no elaborate scheme to "cheat" users or intentionally hurt them, it's just the way things are. If you think you can contribute or have some experience that can speed this process up, there is no one stopping you giving these guys a hand.
If you still feel that taking the easy way out and catering to a 3rd party updater, whose creators are not contributing anything to the actual community but rather only gaining without giving anything back, or you just feel that WoWI and Curse are still trying to intentionally charge you/deceive you/hurt you, or you just don't care as long as you get your automated updates from *anywhere* and frak authors and websites, then what can I say. You are beyond help and/or hope and wish you luck in your future endeavors.
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Last edited by Tristanian : 04-14-09 at 03:08 PM.
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