ElvUI leaves Curse - What do you do?

[Deleted]

I think you are going a bit overboard m8, stop making Curse out to be the be all and end all.

I for one will stick with Tukui/Elvui regardless if i have to download it manually!

[Shoridayo]

I'll never pay for any addon. Period. You're a fool if you do.

Period.

It's simply too easy to find other UI's that can do the exact same thing every other UI does, and if not, you can make your own.
Still no? Then use the outdated version. Outdated versions usually work for retarded amounts of patches.

I use Curse, and shall continue to do so.
I also use Grid, because I'm not a dumbass hipster who thinks everything used by the masses is worthless.

[Stumpurin]

I already left Elvui. I liked the idea of being able to update my addon via the curse client so easily
Hopefully Elvui change their mind

[Deleted]

The revenue goes straight from the adverts into the managers pockets, sure they'll do the occasional give-away or competition to give the appearance that they give a shit, but they are still a company at the end of the day, one based around profit.

Actually, we do get a share of the profit. In addition to free Curse Premium, all addon authors also earn Reward Points which can be redeemed for Amazon gift certificates (or direct PayPal money transfer at higher amounts).

You can call Curse "not as holy" all you'd like, that's your personal opinion, and I'm fine with that. But I'll have to answer that they're also not the devil incarnate that some people seem to view them as.

PS: There's no way an addon (which is only a folder of plain text files that runs in the WoW sandbox) can be infected. Period. They can't do any network communication outside WoW, they don't have access to any of your account information. They can't even see your RealID friends' real names. The most malicious thing they could do is trade away your money. (Actually, nope, that's a hreq function.)

[dazmar]

Hello forum,

So I have made up my mind, and I will simply not download any addon that is not maintained through curse. That is THE addon-database of WoW and should stay that way. This is my way of supporting that community and also my way of showing my disgust with tukui for trying make it into a profit organisation, which is ofcourse their right and perfectly understandable. I'm just not following them.
In short, I'll abandon ElvUI and settle for whatever I find on curse.

If you were/are using elvui, what do you plan to do?

-
You can consider this rant or free commercial, either would be accurate.

tukui has always been free, afaik, they had a donation enabled portion of their WEBSITE not ADDON. last time i checked, curse premium costs money.

Also, ElvUI isn't 'leaving' curse. Curse stopped hosting their addon because they stopped donating to Curse.

TL;DR:

Your post is completely hypocritical and fueled by misinformation.

[Deleted]

[...]Wowace are used to host addons before they are posted on curse[...]

WowAce is one of the two developer backends for curse, with the other being CurseForge. All non-alpha files on (non-experimental) WowAce projects are automatically synced to the curse download page, with the Curse Client's 'alpha' preference setting fetching files from WowAce.

---------- Post added 2012-04-19 at 09:14 PM ----------

Curse stopped hosting their addon because they stopped donating to Curse.

Could I get a source on that? I'm not sure why Curse would do that - it's in their best interest to have well-known addons hosted on their site after all.

[Deleted]

I'm fairly sure I recalled Tukz saying he didn't have his UI on Curse simply because it was too difficult/annoying to manage. He started out on wowinterface but eventually moved to his own website as his own project grew too large.

PS: There's no way an addon (which is only a folder of plain text files that runs in the WoW sandbox) can be infected

The download itself could contain malicious files.

[matters]

Well since it is no longer on curse i simply go to tukui.org and update it through that site. Sure curse makes it easy, especially if you have the client, but i simply like Elvui too much to not use it anymore just because i can't get it on my curse client. In simpler terms i update all of my other addons through the curse client but when it comes to Elvui i just go to Tukui.com to find updates for Elvui and some addons that go along with it (one extra action bar, micro menu etc).

I believe you are overreacting a bit OP, if you really like the ui then dont shun it just because it isnt featured on curse.

[Merite]

Curse doesn't offer developers a share after amount of downloads? That's a bit surprising. I approve them leaving Curse, being a developer (not of WoW modules) myself, going fully open source and giving to the community through someone else's website after years and hundreds of hours of work for zero pay just becomes almost a second job that doesn't pay off. Obviously increasing your payoff definitely helps.

I don't think it's about greed at all, I'm sure if you could calculate out their "wages" for the addon you'd be surprised.

[Sunshine]

The download itself could contain malicious files.

Every file on CurseForge goes through an automatic scan and manual approval. "Unsafe" files (.exe, etc.) aren't allowed unless specifically necessary, and in that case, they are scanned meticulously by CurseForge admins.

[Deleted]

I wasn't implying that Curse contained viruses in any way. However I'm simply stating that downloading an addon (from wherever) is not necessarily 100% safe just because in WoW, addons are sandboxed.

[Renwin]

Update and download it from their website? It's just a few more clicks, but you'll be fine. Feel like going back to ElvUI because my current one is too complex to use.

[Deleted]

Quite glad Elv went back to just being on tukui.org, they can use the traffic and the motivation to keep working.
I never really understood the move to Curse, it's just a messy site for a package that often gets updated 10 times a day, and there's plenty of healthy discussion/addons on the forum as well. Personally, I say good riddance.

For the couple of "enlightened" that think you need to pay to get ElvUI, stop being ignorant, addons are all free, if you want to donate you just get a coloured name, a rank on the forums, access to beta testing and the feeling you're helping some developers.

[Deleted]

I'll never pay for any addon. Period. You're a fool if you do.

Period.

It's simply too easy to find other UI's that can do the exact same thing every other UI does, and if not, you can make your own.
Still no? Then use the outdated version. Outdated versions usually work for retarded amounts of patches.

I use Curse, and shall continue to do so.
I also use Grid, because I'm not a dumbass hipster who thinks everything used by the masses is worthless.

This is basically what I'm trying to say. ElvUI / Tukui has nothing that you can't get elsewhere. I don't know if they made it first or stole it from others, but all of the one-bag, money display, warnings, timers, castbars, funny healthbars, raidframes.... you can get elsewhere with exactly the same customization. I haven't read the fine print and they may grant whoever they stole from (if that's what they did, they might be the ones who got stolen from) some credit. I like the onebag and auto-vendoring, luckily I had that ages before I had elvui as well.

And to strike at the virus talk... antivirus +/- authenticator ... <_<

In the end I think tuk is losing a ton of users by abandoning the curse project.

[Samin]

Update and download it from their website? It's just a few more clicks, but you'll be fine. Feel like going back to ElvUI because my current one is too complex to use.

Exactly those few clicks are what made the curse client so popular as the go-to source for addon downloads.

What sucks is that to me, it feels they try to hide their incentive to generate some income out of this project behind how sucky all the other distribution methods are supposed to be. I might be biased here because to me, user comfort ranks higher than developer comfort when it comes to deployment, but still I think they should be open about their motives. If they spent a large amount of their time on this project it's completely fair to ask for donations. Also their premium system reeks of future plans with the project. Not to mention that the whole way they wiggle around saying why exactly they don't want to work with curse sounds pretty suspicious to me, never heard someone talk themself around something like that (I don't talk about why exactly to keep this short but still I talk about not talking about it, just believe me I totally have some reason) without having ulterior motives. In the end there is no good reason to not have only sporadic/important/larger updates on curse while having a much up-to-date and possibly in-development version on their own website, including donations and all

The splintering of the addons over various services, direct download or even specific clients (i.e. per addon) always bothered me. I guess it's a side effect of addons not being developed in a professional environment, leading to less concern for the end user and more for the own self profit (e.g. ease of deployment, bug tracking etc.). When I develop software, usability has highest priority.

Especially with such a unified target system (WoW) it should be easy to work on a centralized addon database. Hell, let various companies provide clients with premium features like bulk/automatic updates, integrated bug tracking, no ads and what not (ofc they would have to compete with non-profit alternatives) but have them all access the same addon repository, that is obviously always also accessible without any client other than your browser. Work with the addon authors to also make it easy for them to push updates to this system (e.g. svn).

Edit: I'm totally uneffected by this because before this story started circulating the webs a couple of days ago I didn't more than read of TukUI in forum thread titles. Still I feel this indicates a user-unfriendly trend in addon development/distribution. Also I hope it becomes clear that I don't wish everyone being on curse. I don't care where I get my addons if only I could get them all from a centralized place.

[Deleted]

Work with the addon authors to also make it easy for them to push updates to this system (e.g. svn).

In fact, this is already in place. WowAce allows the author to choose between SVN, git and Mercurial for repositories with automated packaging. Using SVN as an example, making a new version is as simple as:
1. Make the edits to your addon.
2. Right click -> Commit. Type change log. Hit OK.
2a. (If it's not an alpha version) Right click -> Tag. Enter tag name. Type change log for the tag. Hit OK.
3. Done. The packager will detect your commit immediately and queue it for packaging.
4. Within a minute or two, the most recent versions of all library embeds you specified have been fetched from their repositories, all automated edits you tagged in the addon's files have been completed (commenting/removing debug code), and your zip file has been uploaded to WowAce.
5. Another maybe five minutes later, the file shows up both on curse.com and in the Curse Client.

Not included is the one-time setup of a subversion client of your choice that takes around 3 minutes. If you want extra security, you should also configure SSH. Yes, there's even a guide for that.

In all honesty, I don't see how you could make the system even more convenient for authors and frankly can't understand the complaints posed by Tukz with the information available to me.

[Theiea]

I support Elv and Tuk with their decision to drop Curse/WoW Interface etc.

I will continue to use ElvUI, and help when I can on their forums.

[Fitzbert]

In the end I think tuk is losing a ton of users by abandoning the curse project.

Not really. They had millions of users on the TukUI website before the UI package was uploaded to Curse (which they had to jump through a ton of hoops to make happen in the first place). Because everyone just downloads via the Curse Client instead of going to specific websites like TukUI.org, the communities on those sites are dying. If the only place you can get an addon or a package is from the developers themselves, how is that anything less than a bad thing?

Say a new version of ElvUI ships with an unanticipated bug that prevents half of it working. In order to upload a fix to Curse, they'd have to submit it and wait for an approval process which can take up to twenty-four hours. Or.. they can just upload it instantly on their own website. I know which I'd rather.

Also, why are you against TukUI having a donation/premium membership system.. but not against Curse having the same thing? TukUI.org has had a premium membership since the UI exploded into popularity during Wrath of the Lich King. Tuk and Elv no longer even play WoW any more, so they're doing this for the benefit of their community which was diminished since the addon was hosted by Curse.

I literally do not get the issue. TukUI.org has an automated updater that they've just released and all you need is an account on the website. A free account. Not a premium account. You can elect to donate and become a premium member, which grants you such benefits as helping test beta versions of the UI package on PTR and beta realms. That's it. It doesn't get you anything super sparkly. It's your way of helping out the community and the developers because that's what you want to do. If you don't want to do that.. don't do it. Just get a regular account and use the auto updater. Or don't, and just click the download link at the top of the site and copy paste the folders in the zip archive into your addon directory.

I'm going to assume people who are complaining about this didn't use the TukUI package before Tuk added the in-game configuration tool. We used to have to manually edit the LUA files to configure the UI, and what was the best place to learn how to do that? TukUI.org. I don't see any such support network on Curse. What Curse is also missing is all the community-created skins and addons for the UI package that are hosted on TukUI.org. My DBM, my Quartz, my Recount, my everything matches my UI. All because I spend a few "precious minutes", as the OP put it, to check a website for an addon instead of using the fire-and-forget Curse Client.

/endrant

[tukz]

In all honesty, I don't see how you could make the system even more convenient for authors and frankly can't understand the complaints posed by Tukz with the information available to me.

Someone linked me in our chat this topic, I'll reply for both Elv and me some of main reasons.

1- Slow approval process. Takes hours to approve an update and some of our approval was still on pending after 12-15 hours. Sometime we need to deploy an update quickly and its totally impossible. Imo, Curse should add a system for popular addons (random number example: over 100 000 downloads) and trusted developer to avoid this issue, by just scanning the file sended with automatic approval. This is the #1 reason why we decided to move back to our site and implement our own tools for dealing with everything.

2- Two weeks ago, I remember Elv complaining that he was unable to update his addon 10 days in a row due to various issue on Curseforge and if I remember correctly, often it was because CurseForge was innacessible.

3- The donation buttons are not really optimised/visible on their current site layout. We never had any donation by users from curse. We always had them only from our site users and WoWInterface back in 2008 when our projects was available here. I don't know about their windows update client, but imo it should be the same with the same poor visibility. At least I can applaud WoW-Interface for this, they did a much more better job with the donation visibility.

4- The reward program. I'm sorry but it's too low for popular addons. It look like it's shared equally via every author, which is bad in our opinion. In ~8 month, approx 1.5 millions downloads generated ~100$ amazon gift cards. Gift cards are bad and a Paypal payment from Curse require 500$ minimum, which would take over 3 years if you stick with 1.5 millions download per 8 month. I cannot tell ads revenu due to google policy but the 100$ amazon card we managed to earn in 8 month from curse, we are making it easily under 10 days via our site since the change we made with only just 1 single ad. I would also add that I'm canadian, Amazon gift cards are useless to me because we can't use them on the canadian amazon site. This is my opinion, but I think Curse is making too much money from addons developers which is, again, in my opinion, abuse.

5- Tukui is not only an addon, it's a big community since 2008, we wanted to merge everything on our site and expand, which is something we did. We are a valuable resource for people who want to make the most of their World of Warcraft user interface, from customizing the look and feel to adding new functionality. It happens regularly that one type of addon does not exist anywhere, and in this area we proudly help people satisfy their need. We also give a lot of support for our addons, which is something rare today in the addon community.

Overall, that's it and that's the main reason why we did this change. Curse is a great site for players, really, but it just doesn't fit with us for some reasons. If one day this change, we could change our mind, but if it stay like this, we will never go back.

Sorry for my bad english, i'm a poor french guy.

[ergonomic]

One of the major reasons they moved off of Curse is because they can push out updates much faster from their own website; they complained that Curse is sometimes slow to show updated versions of addons.