Hello, friends.
We're launching Curse Premium today and I'm sure some are wondering about the effect that Premium will have on authors.
All authors will have complimentary premium. Yes, this could lead to gaming the system and creating fake projects for the sake of it, but we have a manual approval process, and we will investigate any reports of said gaming. Please, don't ruin it for the real authors. It will be one or two weeks before complimentary premium is provided for authors.
We are also launching our Author Rewards Program (ARP). 20% of the revenue generated from Curse Premium will go towards the ARP. Some of you may have heard about it, but I'll describe it now:
One of the main reasons Curse.com has become so successful is due to the addons it distributes. These addons obviously are created by the addon authors, our content producers. As a way to reward our content producers, we are launching the ARP. We will grant addon and library authors Reward Points (henceforth called points) based on said addon's popularity; for libraries, it will be based on the popularity of the addons using said library.
Points will start accumulating now that premium is launched, but the CurseForge author store will not be available to redeem from until details have been worked out, likely a month from now.
We aren't going to release the full details of the algorithms we use to calculate points, to help limit gaming the system, but the general idea is as such:
- Every day at 16:00 UTC, we start the point generation
- An addon (or library)'s score is generated with our algorithm.
- Score is then compared against all other addons, to calculate the percentage.
- We then multiply that percentage by the amount of points we're granting that day, and grant the result to the project.
- The points of the project are then subsequently divvied up based on the project manager's reward splits.
- Points can then be spent at the CurseForge store to redeem for various items, currently Amazon Gift Cards (we will expand our inventory in the future). Note: we will support some non-United States goods and more may be added on request.
There are some complications with all this, though:
- If you redeem more than 12000 points in a given year, we will need extra tax information from you. Since this will occur for only a handful of authors, we will work with you on a one-to-one basis.
- Due to tax issues and the like, there will be a new terms of service agreement that you will have to agree to in order to accrue points. Our lawyers are currently reviewing this and it should be ready soon.
- For non-United States authors, there may be extra tax issues related, which we should be able to work out on a one-to-one basis. Authors who have already opted-in will have to agree to the new terms of service in order to use the store.
We've already started granting points to authors. To see your points, go to http://www.CurseForge.com/home/ and check the bottom-left.
Update: Authors should now have free premium if you have a project with at least 1000 downloads. The 1000 number should hopefully limit gaming the system somewhat. If you have a legitimate addon, getting 1000 downloads should not be hard to do, especially with the number of users that use Curse.
Simple question. Does WowMatrix charge for the same exact service?
This is going to be Curse's curse.
*grumble* *grumble* *grumble*
It seems quite a few people are "mad" about Curse's decision to make the better parts of their updater client a pay service. The reason for their anger is that they were convenience features, and now they're "gone." However, there is nothing that says you can't manually download addon updates for free. Just like you can brew your own cup of coffee at home before work.
Although, some people enjoy the convenience of stopping at a Starbuck's and getting a cup within minutes on the go. If you truely enjoy the convenience of the Curse Premium Client - as your anger insinuates - the price shouldn't be a huge trade off. As of the time of this post, the price is about two Starbuck's coffees a month.
That money goes toward keeping Curse running, and a portion goes to supporting the authors who are essentially the linchpin of the site. Think of Curse as a friend; would you buy a friend two coffees a month as a thank you for the work he does?
@Gumurak While I'm sad to see you go and the timing may of been unfortunate there was nothing dirty about Curse's move. Let's get past that.
You don't need an addon updater program to update your addons. Once your UI is stable you should not need to download updates for it. If you do it's for needed optimisations and bug fixes that you know about it. You certainly do not need to be doing it every single day. A week to every 2 weeks should be sufficient.
Since it's a task that you aren't going to be doing very often then it doesn't matter how you do it - updater program, email alerts , bookmarked sites , RSS feed.
http://community.livejournal.com/worldofwarcraft/7776364.html
http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/showthread.php?p=134917
PS Last time I updated was coming up on 15 days ago. My UI is perfectly stable.
You know what, i really don't care. I have an opinion and thats that. The simple fact is they didn't give us a choice. What they think is a choice is now the only option. The software works but its clunky, and poorly designed and unfriendly. I really give a shit less about the fundamentals of this stuff. or anyone of yalls opinion on the matter. the simple fact is they played it dirty. Had they not, I wouldn't be so opposed to it. Like i said before, I don't mind supporting the people who put in the work. But I'll do that individually. But I won't support the software.
Umm guys ..link to Premium isn't working :(
EDIT Opps PEBKAC guys. Need to be logged in to Curse to see the page :D
@Gumrak - A $75,000 bandwidth bill can't exactly be serviced with a residential bandwidth plan if that's what you're implying
@Gumurak: I'm going to make the assumption that's in your best interest that you meant 3GB/month (if you don't know the different between Gb, GB, GiB, etc, please leave now). Now I don't run a ton of addons, but all together they account for about 50MB worth in my addons folder (and yes I made sure not to include Blizzard's stuff in there). Let's assume that I update once a week and any given time I update I need to download around 1MB of data. That works out to 4.33MB per month, just for me. In order to reach your 3GB/month usage it would take a whopping 708 users just like me, and in case you're curious, 708/11 million = 0.00643% of the WoW population. Numbers don't lie.
And what happened during the last patch was to give you an idea. Your 3 Gb/month is so ridiculously low. That's nothing. I do maintain you have no idea.
I said per month, not during patch days. Every addon website will have fluxs during a patch day. I don't mind covering costs for bandwith. Just be sensible about it.
Gumurak, read this: http://apt.rikers.org/%23curseforge/20081015.html.gz IRC log of the curseforge channel when patch 3.0 hit. 4 Gigabits/s. That works out to 1.8 Terabytes per hour. 4*3600 sec, divided by 8 to go from bits to bytes.
Also note the cost mentioned. I don't think you realize what 11+ million players costs in terms of bandwidth.
Scamish,
My pc is quite up to date ty. Seerah, somehow I doubt it.
Quote by Balding_ape: "I would almost guess they are using more than 3gb of bandwith a month. And most providers offer way more than that for thier packages."
hahahahaha - you'd "almost guess"? Curse was doing 1.5-1.8 TERABYTES per hour during the last patch.
Gumurak did you actually take the time and look at the clients settings. I somehow dont think you did. Look at the "manage games" tab, you will see an option to uninstall the profiler, and also change what releases version of the mod you would like to download and install, the addons you say you downloaded from the site will be recognized by the client (unless you got them from wm, thinking you got them from curse, then no they wont be recognized). Dont forget to hit save after making changes. I know this may be hard for some to understand, seeing how you have to actually take the time to do this... Also how bad does your pc suck to the point "you can't run it worth a damn if you are online".
Balding_ape,
Whats so hard about it is, on several occasions now I have used the update all. it's loaded version that were older than the version I have already installed and broke and/or screwed with some kind of addon. And I really don't like the curse profiler being installed with no option not to intsall it. And unfortunantly you can't run it worth a damn if you are online. The interface is clunky and slow. Certain addons I don't wish to be updated by curse, yet it specifically scans them and starts doing certain downloads before being told to update. And other addons I got specifically from the site are unrecognized, and half of the addons gotten from wowinterface are not supported either.
I just really do not like having to use something for one site, something for another site, and something else ect ect ect. And thier reason of stealing bandwith is crap. I would almost guess they are using more than 3gb of bandwith a month. And most providers offer way more than that for thier packages.
I have over 1000 downloads, why do I not have the free premium access in the client?
@Dlougach: It appears that the "downloads today" section is now a 30-day average of downloads per day.
What the fuck is so hard about this:
http://www.screencast.com/users/balding_ape/folders/Jing/media/929c729d-dd25-472a-a6c7-df5cb658c4b4
Granted, you need to pay for the Update All button (a move I think is rather silly, and I hope when the next wave of features come out - like the multi-computer synchronization - that they will add this back into the free client), but as far as I can see, there is nothing wrong with the client. It's a sight better than WAU, and people still romanticize how good that was.
Seerah- Yes I do realize you can still use the free one. It's still intrusive and still runs like crap, and a plug is a plug regardless.
Honem- Doesn't matter to me how long ago they thought of it. It was a business move. I didn't say they were retarded for doing it. I just Ahhhh Haaaaaaa I see the light. Reality check bud. I haven't slammed them for doing it. I just slammed thier software as it works horrendously.
Luuc- I totally agree with you, and this is entirely what I mean. if they gave us something that works. i'd be glad to use it.
elfcookie, apparently you need to do some reading around ace and curse forums, everything you mentioned has been discussed... instead of posting, you should have been reading
by far the sneakiest thing they've managed to do here is create a barrier to entry to a previously free market.
if someone ever wanted to start another addon site they're going to have to provide money to addon authors too...