Ajour and CurseBreaker Addon Managers No Longer Maintained

Ajour and CurseBreaker Addon Managers No Longer Maintained
Casperstorm (the developer of Ajour) and AcidWeb (the developer of CurseBreaker) have announced that the addon managers will no longer be maintainted due to Overwolf's new restrictions to the CurseForge API.
Originally Posted by Casperstorm (Ajour Developer)
I started working on Ajour in summer 2020. The goal was simple: I wanted the easiest and fastest way to update and download all of your addons for World of Warcraft. The timing was good; Curse had just been sold to Overwolf, Shadowlands was about to be released, and Classic was popular.

I spent many hours building Ajour, and luckily @tarkah and @mlablah joined to help me early in the project. Together we created what I believe is one of the best addon managers ever. And on top of that, I made some new best friends.

In late 2020 Overwolf posted about their stance on third-party addon managers. The short version is that since Overwolf earns their money from ads and user data, they wanted the users to use their application rather than third-party addon managers. However, they weren't sure exactly what their plan was, so for the time being, they kept the API open as it always has been.

Fast forward to the present time. Overwolf now knows what they want to do. They will deprecate the current API and create a new API where downloads do not count towards the CurseForge Reward Program—essentially splitting the community by turning addon developers against third-party addon managers. In addition, they will rate limit third-party addon managers if one becomes too popular oh, and not all addons will be available over the API.

What does this mean for Ajour? Well, it kills my motivation, and it kills my vision for Ajour. I don't want to fight with Overwolf (anymore). It's not worth it. Overwolf has all the data which makes Ajour work, and currently, they are pulling the rug under us.
We had a good run, but now it's time for the team and me to pull the plug rather than obey their new rules and turn Ajour into something worse.

Thank you all for helping shape Ajour into what it is today. Users, supporters, contributors. To every one of you, thanks.

FAQ:

What happens now?

  • Nothing. Feel free to use Ajour until it breaks.

What should I do?

  • Ajour will work until the current API is turned off, when is unknown. The other third-party addon managers is relying on the same API but some might take the on the fight, so make sure to check them out: WowUp by @jliddev, Instawow by @layday or CurseBreaker by @AcidWeb - all good friends of mine. I hope the best for them, but the future is not bright.



Originally Posted by AcidWeb (CurseBreaker Developer)
Due to upcoming CurseForge API changes I plan to discontinue this project as I don't believe it can fulfill its purpose anymore.

Two main reasons:

  • Entire point of this application is to aggregate multiple sources in one client. Without access to the full CF catalog, the vast number of addons will no longer be available.
  • If downloads made by third-party solutions don't generate Rewards Points anymore I can no longer with clear conscious recommend using a third-party updater.

So what now?

CurseBreaker will be maintained until the old API is still working. Expect breakage in the first quarter of 2022.

This is a part where I should recommend using other third-party updaters (like WoWUP, Instawow or Ajour) but I strongly believe they will have the same problem as me so... Maybe it is time just to stop using CurseForge altogether.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Ajour and CurseBreaker Addon Managers No Longer Maintained started by Lumy View original post
Published on 2021-11-15 08:40 AM
253 Comments
Comments 252 Comments
  1. Mikiti's Avatar
    Money money money, game industry is going to hell, same as anything else that becomes only about making profit, huzzah for future !
  1. Mendzia's Avatar
    This is why we can't have nice things.
    Greed wins once again.
    Fk Overwolf for being annyoing and malicious during TeamSpeak 3 era and fk Overwolf now.
  1. Esper's Avatar
    "World of Warcraft is on a major downward trend... how can we capitalize on that to make money?"
    "How about we make it so people can't download addons easily without installing our spyware client?"
    "Great idea!"

    People that have been teetering on the edge of leaving the game are going to just leave.
  1. Cattyrin's Avatar
    I hope Blizzard gets annoyed by this as well cuz then they'll send out the lawyers to do (hopefully) good things for once.
  1. Nerph-'s Avatar
    Overwolf can go suck a fuck. As Mendzia said, they're reputation was already shit during the TS3 era.

    Unfortunately I doubt the most players will care about trying to make a statement and not using Overwolf or CurseForge to get their addons.
  1. Pendragon's Avatar
    Hopefully the major addon creators take a stand against this nonsense.
  1. Nerph-'s Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Pendragon View Post
    Hopefully the major addon creators take a stand against this nonsense.
    Overwolf are basically trying to turn the addon developers against the community with this. Addon developers don't make money unless you use Overwolf (as far as I'm aware).

    That said, I always thought making money (unless they are donations or something) was against Blizzard's addon rules. Maybe someone with more knowledge on the subject can enlighten us.
  1. Clozer's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Cattyrin View Post
    I hope Blizzard gets annoyed by this as well cuz then they'll send out the lawyers to do (hopefully) good things for once.
    Why would they? Is it against any laws to host wow addons? The developers don't want to host their addons for free on github to never see any kind of return. They host it on overwolf to generate something back for their hard work. Can't blame them either.

    In the end, the users are at fault for wanting everything for free. Besides that seeing ads while updating add-ons once a month is really no dealbreaker..
  1. Delekii's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Clozer View Post
    Why would they? Is it against any laws to host wow addons? The developers don't want to host their addons for free on github to never see any kind of return. They host it on overwolf to generate something back for their hard work. Can't blame them either.

    In the end, the users are at fault for wanting everything for free. Besides that seeing ads while updating add-ons once a month is really no dealbreaker..
    The users can get their addons for free anyway. The manager software adds only convenience. Monetizing addon development is absolutely insane, I cannot believe that Blizzard is ok with it going as far as it has even now, let alone further, without jumping on the bandwagon.

    Overwolf is a virus.
  1. klaps_05's Avatar
    Wowup has always been superior especially in functionality, shame that so many streamers promote cursebreaker.
  1. McNeil's Avatar
    Blizzard should just make their own addon manager
  1. niztheundead87's Avatar
    overwolf is so shit they even had a remote execution "bug"

    https://portswigger.net/daily-swig/g...hained-exploit
  1. Ange's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by McNeil View Post
    Blizzard should just make their own addon manager
    What would be the point? The game allows addons and it got a build in version check and you can enable/disable addons, since a while even without restarting the game.

    Some people use no addons at all, some use broken addons and update them daily (target audience for this addon managers) and some use custom addons that many times dont even need any updated, not even between expansions.
  1. procne's Avatar
    Can someone explain this is in more details? From what I read those 3rd party addon managers were using Curse servers / resources to download the addons, so Curse was taking the costs of hosting, but at the same time Curse was getting no money from it. Why is it unfair that they want to limit this? And on top of that they aren't doing a hard block.

    Or am I missing something?
  1. ClownPrincess's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by McNeil View Post
    Blizzard should just make their own addon manager
    Blizzard should just not be a billion dollar company relying on rando volunteers from the internet to fix their game's UI
  1. Noznatation's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by klaps_05 View Post
    Wowup has always been superior especially in functionality, shame that so many streamers promote cursebreaker.

    You didn't read the post, did you?
  1. DarkAmbient's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by klaps_05 View Post
    Wowup has always been superior especially in functionality, shame that so many streamers promote cursebreaker.
    Agreed. Shame this is happening now. Fuck Overwolf.
  1. Flarelaine's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Esper View Post
    "World of Warcraft is on a major downward trend... how can we capitalize on that to make money?"
    "How about we make it so people can't download addons easily without installing our spyware client?"
    "Great idea!"

    People that have been teetering on the edge of leaving the game are going to just leave.
    Last I looked all addons were available and downloadable from the page directly, without any client being involved.
  1. ClownPrincess's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Flarelaine View Post
    Last I looked all addons were available and downloadable from the page directly, without any client being involved.
    Ah yes let's janitor dozens of add-ons by visiting each download page to check for updates by hand like cavemen
  1. TommiTMX's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by procne View Post
    Can someone explain this is in more details? From what I read those 3rd party addon managers were using Curse servers / resources to download the addons, so Curse was taking the costs of hosting, but at the same time Curse was getting no money from it. Why is it unfair that they want to limit this? And on top of that they aren't doing a hard block.

    Or am I missing something?
    It's not really unfair and they're entirely in their right to do this imo.

    They pay addon developers through a rewards program for ads that people view when downloading addons or subscribing to the ad-free experience. It's pretty bizarre for people to expect them to develop the app, host the addons, develop the API and STILL pay the add-on developers when people are bypassing their source of revenue using third party applications.
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