what do you suggest Blizzard do? this is entirely outside of their control. This is a business decision from CurseForge, and a !@#$ up from WowUp
Dear Addon Developers,If you want me to use your addon, you'll ensure WowUP has access to it. I will never use overwolf.
"using WowUp to download from Wago will require enabling ads."Well that doesn't seem predatory at all. Web ads have a long history of being incredibly invasive, and sometimes nefarious. This is pathetic. Better to monetize via pay-for-download or subscription if they're so hellbent on compensating addon creators.
Hopefully blizzard steps in. For me personally, wow's decline is accredited to the ones who've monetized the game such as boosting and these addon managers. The game should be 100% playable without addons and if addons are made, they should be for flavor.. not core functionality.
Well this is a huge friggen bummer. I really really really really don't want to use spyware to update my addons.
I'd gladly pay a sub to wago/wowup over the malware and spyware riddled %^&* from overwolf.
Ah the hot takes completely uninformed as usual “overwolf bad”.Since overwolf took over, the updater has been made much faster and more reliable, all while being less bloated than twitch one ever was and paying authors a lot more.wowup framing themselves as victim all along has worked. Stealing from curse, stealing from addon authors, all while making overwolf sound like the big bad for not wanting to lose money to scrapers using their site to make their own profit.This week alone, more than 60 hours went into DBM. It's not easy working on 9.2 mods while also adding new mechanics to BWL while also redesigning the UI while also maintaining custom wow datamining tools for journal while also providing near 24/7 support to a lot of users, Paying for web hosting and moderation, etc etc.Addon authoring is a hobby for some, like small vendor price addon or something that only needs 5 minutes of maintenance every patch to change toc. However, if people think making a big addon like DBM or weak auras is just some 1 hour a week hobby are sorely mistaken.When something like wowup was literally stealing from authors all while collecting donations for doing so, is disgusting. At the very least their partner with wago is legitimate, as long as users OPT in though. But if a wowup user doesn't opt in, it just grabs the addon off wow interface or github with no compensation to author of said addon or those sites. So, for the wago partnership to actually be legitimate gain to wago and authors, sites like wow interface have to be collateral and that makes me sad.I wish authors got more support for their work through volentary donations and support, but truth of matter is the quoted author in article is right, most users don't see what we do as legitimate. They'll respect a youtuber or a streamer as a content creator but a coder who's putting just as many hours into creating content mods for their gameplay experience? forget it. This is coming from the one guy who's had the most success getting at least temporary support on patreon. Ultimately though, it turned out most of that support was charity and sympathy support for my health issues 3 years back and NOT for my actual work.It's still been radically hard convincing users that the actual work deserves ongoing long term support and any time I even dare speak up about it it's treated like begging and attacked as if I'm trying to freeload or something. People wouldn't dare speak that way to an artist doing commisions or providing any other service, but addon authors are highly stigmatized as free slave labor and even attacked when we don't provide it fast enough. This is why authors like venture plan quit all t gether. The toxicity of community to authors is pretty disgusting.If I'm being honest, it stresses me out every single day, but i still continue doing it because i also love my work and am passionate about it, plus there really aren't enough work from home opportunities that let me care for a parent that needs 24/7 supervision do to physical and cognitive decline. So yes, I need this JOB. Yes, working on DBM is a JOB not a hobby.So for all of you framing scraping from curse or wow interface or github by apps like wowup as a good thing, need to understand how wrong it is. I'm glad CF is closing that door, and wago is making wowup host ads to do it on their platform.As for wowinterface, I've already disabled future updates to DBM being sent there going forward just to make sure the updates can't be scraped by updaters. This actually really saddens me since wow interface has been nothing but good to me over the years, and they become victim of the combination of a community not seeing addon authors as content creators, and 3rd parties exploiting that community by selling them them a "free better way" to dodge the very people that actually try to support us as content creators.Oh, and last point saying microsoft should go after addon authors or sites like curseforge?. Have you even read the policy? It prevents paywalling addons or addon features, and prevents advertising in game. Ie you need free public access to the addon without having to pay money to do so. Making you see an ad isn't making you pay money. You also don't have to pay money to use any addon features, and that addon can't bug you game trying to solicit money or show ads there. Basically blizzard doesn't want unfair advantage to players vs other players through paywalls and they don't want in game experienced ruined by advertising (well minus the spam bots they still refuse to add filters for that oh guess what, addon authors have filters for that work well, imagine that.)
I'm sympathetic to the devs that want to be compensated for their efforts on addons, especially big addons like DBM or the like, but I'm not going to support Overwolf.
Next up.....Overwolf disables the ability to manually update add-ons. All add-ons must be updated directly through the Overwolf app.
I don't think radio ads or TV ads were collecting my unique personal data and creating an extensive profile of me based on what I do in my everyday life.