MMO-Champion acquired by Curse

[Resa]

I highly doubt it, they knowingly allow ads that are bad on the site already... so I don't think that will change.
Or it will just force the people with the bad ads to pay more for the better ad agency, which... I mean come on the #1 wow website. frequented by a majority of the worlds elite players... all of whom have no issue making gold, and all have 10k+ on their accounts to pilfer. I'm sure they will gladly pay a few extra bucks and just charge people an extra $1 per k gold to make up for it.

You know them KNOWINGLY keeping bad ads on their site is like them shooting themselves in the foot, right? They're not morons. If theres a bad ad, get off your ass and report it.

Most of the time, you won't even SEE those bad ads unless your OS is out of date, which is your own damned fault. Get a decent antivirus and they wont even download - any decent AV will intercept it.

[engrey]

Ok, so now Boub does this as job. What about the forum moderators? Shouldnt they get money as well?

And hasnt got Curse a big forum themself?

Will Boub get less money for every 502 Bad Gateway that lasts longer than 5 minutes?

Edith: Oh yes, i am a paying curse customer! So i want special treatment now on this!

I have moderated for a fansite that was also bought up by Curse (WHA). All of the moderators work on a volunteer basis, so I doubt that would change for this site as well. Is it possible they could get paid? Yes, but it is not likely.

[Frozenbeef]

feels like 2 single parents going on their first date with the community of each being their kids :P


mmochamp and curse kissing in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g....

Now kids play nicely with each other or you don't eat this week...

[Litryn]

I kinda envy your life now.

[The bearer of truths]

AMG! We're all going to die!

nooooooooooooo

[Frosthowl]

"The only major change we could do to boost the traffic is to offer Night Elf porn to the users, and I was told I can't do that." Tell them to reconsider. I fully approve of this traffic boosting method.

[kingmob]

To an extent. But a fixed width site doesn't work very well with the amount of content that goes into a news post on sites like this. You end up scrolling for a majority of the time you're on the site.

I'm not talking about width. I'm talking about line length.

No, actually it doesn't. One person might have a 15" monitor, another person might have a 22" monitor and yet another might have a 60" television as their monitor. Fixing the column or line width means that those three monitors view it to that fixed width whatever it is instead of adjusting it to their own settings. Its horrible design.

You're assuming that the font is scaling as well to adjust for those sizes. Line length is line length regardless of monitor size. The legibility and readability (two totally different things) of say the nyt.com (a fluid site but with a fixed line legth) is vastly superior to mmo-champ and it's loosey goosey line length.

[Hinalover]

I really wonder about the maturity of the posters in this thread. All I'm hearing about is "sellout" and "OMG Curse has Viruses!"

First of all, to all of those crying "sellout," to me, these people are similar to how fans of underground bands, who eventually go to a bigger label company and going mainstream, react. A good example of this is the band Green Day. The fans were cry "sellout" to them when they went mainstream. To me their music has gotten much better since they went mainstream.

As for the virus issue, people need to learn that it costs money to enforce ad services. Look at Google, people buy ads on their site all the time. Yet even a company as big as Google has trouble with viscous ads that appear on their site. We have seen countless times gold farmers buying up ads on Google that redirect people to fake versions of known WoW related websites. Thus stealing people's information and/or planting viruses on peoples computers. A few things one can do:

a) Get an anti virus program. Run it AT LEAST once a week
b) Get an authenticator. For crying out loud, the US government uses authenticators. Trust me, I used to work for them for a short while
c) If you find a bad ad, report it. Curse or MMO-C will remove that ad from it's rotation. It's that simple.

So in all honesty, I really don't see an issue with the take-over. The site really does need a graphical upgrade. Comparing this with WorldofRaids' graphic is like black and white. WoR has a lot crisper look than the bland look of MMO-C. If nothing else, they could copy features between the two sites since I enjoy both. I for one give Boub a pat on the back and wish him luck in the future.

[lillbrorsan]

Curse is meh, MMO-Champion is awesome, happy to see that this site will improve, only thing that worries me is the lame feature called "premium".

[engrey]

I wonder why someone volunteers for a company like that.

Blizzard should adopt that model of forum administration. They could safe a lot of money if they would fire most of the blues, and hire players as moderators for free.

The people that moderated the site never were paid to begin with, nor did we ever work for Curse. If MMO-C ends up the same way, aside from a few more ads nothing should change. The Curse people typically deal with the servers and information on them, aside from that everything else is un-touched and should remain the same (Relativity). Curse is very behind the scenes when it comes to that stuff, the site may go down for a few hours when transferring to their new box but that is usually the only downtime involved. You might also see them post in the forums from time to time (They already have in these comments) but that tends to be the extent of what they do.

[snowblind]

The site really does need a graphical upgrade.

No it doesn't. This is an information site, not a "OMG PRETTY FUCKING PICTURES!!" site.

Comparing this with WorldofRaids' graphic is like black and white. WoR has a lot crisper look than the bland look of MMO-C.

WoR is a disgusting, over-cluttered mess.

[Harvesting]

Gratz on the sell and recapitolization of MMO, this has been a great source of information for all of us gamers. Keep up the good work and best wishes for the future.

[mmathes339]

Could be worse, could be ran by Disney!!!

[Hinalover]

No it doesn't. This is an information site, not a "OMG PRETTY FUCKING PICTURES!!" site.

Go to MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, or BBC News and get back to me on that opinion. All four have a lot of pictures they use for their layout design, yet they still provide a lot of information.

WoR is a disgusting, over-cluttered mess.

That is your opinion. I just don't see how it's over-cluttered. Is it because you have to scroll down slightly just to get to the main news information?

[mentalass]

I got lots of respect for Boub and the team and what they do, but I do fear this take over will be like all take overs. A year down the line this site won't be the same, we will have to pay for forum access and such.

I already notice the curse logo at the bottom and © 2010 Curse Inc.

[furydeath]

and server go down for extended anyone shocked by this yet?

[Dukun]

Congratulation on making a bucket of cash off your site =)
As a guy who has been around many mergers as an employee and customer I am curious how much "synergy" am I going to see in the future?

In other words I have read your site and never commented on a thing or paid for anything. But LOVE the information and fan boi dedication to all things blizzard. Everything I am used to and love about your site is how its organised, maintained, written etc. On the other hand I used curses early on in my wow career, but for the last 3+ years I have been add-on free. How much of curses site is going to be integrated into your site? I dont mind reading the ads and god knows the really interesting ones I even click on then quickly use spy bot to scrub the guilt away. I just dont want to be forced into some type of download that monitors what I do in wow to better advertise directly to my needs on your sites! ( I know I know paranoid just trying to think like a corporate whore.)

Nonetheless congrats on your success I hope all goes well for mmo and you.

[Rainei]

How about you actually post some...you know, news? We know you sold like the sellout you are, we know you've destroyed what used to be a great site with this piece of shit VB that dosent even work right. So how about you get off your ass and actually put news on the front page? OH wait thats right, you sold to Curse and won't be in control of the site much longer, despite your "Soothing words". Wake up people, he sold you all out to a company that buys gold, supports guilds (Nihilium) that buy gold (SK gaming as well), and yet they dont get banned by the blizz TOS when they openly admit? Why? Because just like boub here, they're all little lapdogs. Next thing you'll hear is blizz buying curse.

This place sucks now, thanks.

[deathmetalzf]

Yay, curse logo on the bottom of the page already

[snowblind]

Go to MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, or BBC News and get back to me on that opinion. All four have a lot of pictures they use for their layout design, yet they still provide a lot of information.

Yeah, I still stand by my opinion. One of the big pulls for me about MMO-Champion is that it is a minimalistic design that doesn't rely on flashy graphics. You are obviously impressed by shiny things, which is the goal for all of the websites you used as an example (and likely why you like WoR as well).

I just don't see how it's over-cluttered. Is it because you have to scroll down slightly just to get to the main news information?

- The top bar (with the WoR logo and the "tabs") is too large.
- The ad placed under the bar is poorly placed.
- The "content preview" pane is unecessary. I hate these things and don't know why people insist on putting them on the site.
- The content stuff on the right side... there's just too much of it.
- Having the news posts framed by everything else on the site looks terrible. The eye doesn't know what to focus on because of all of the other stuff.

It's over cluttered and looks terrible. It doesn't look crisp at all.