WowUp Prepares to Migrate Away From Curseforge - Find New Hosts for Addons

Live Posted 2022/05/10 at 7:48 PM by Archimtiros

deny WowUp API access to CurseForgepartner with addon hosting competitor Wago.ioa short guide to help its users prepare for the turnoveronly

Politely lobby the author of your missing addons to host them somewhere else, such as Wago or GitHub.

Lobby CurseForge to either give you a key for their new API or allow WowUp to host a solution that they agree to.

Use the CurseForge app.

somewhyads, revenue, and APIbegun shutting downCurseForge does not have an official API for 3rd parties who want to download files from its servers. The way some addon managers operate today, is by reverse engineering the calls between the Twitch Client and the CurseForge backend. A good analogy is someone reverse engineering the Spotify app to stream songs from Spotify’s servers without receiving Spotify’s or the artists’ consent to do so.
Unauthorized use of the CurseForge API introduces challenges that need solving. Most notably:

Authors did not give their consent to have their creations distributed outside CurseForge
Authors’ earnings will be impacted, as CurseForge has no way of monitoring engagement outside its own ecosystem, and changes are coming to the rewards program
Downloads originated from 3rd party services rely on CurseForge servers and CDN, incurring substantial costs and offering nothing to cover them

Comments on this news post are locked.

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Comment by soulyouthRemovedComment by Jagi79Guess it's back to vanilla settings for me, then. Zero addons.Comment by hakwea75% of my addons are "unknown". Some are abandoned by their creators and some are just only on curse. I guess I'll have to use the Overwolf app because manually doing it is a pain. Yes I know a "first world problem" but still would rather things get done with one click. I have nothing really against Overwolf either. I just hate that the Curseforge app is not stand alone and requires the main overwolf app installed as well.

I hated the extra bloat with the twitch app as well but at least it was one client.Comment by Derrek32WowInterface still exists and it even has its own addon updater. Talk to your favorite addon authors and see if they are willing to host their addons on WowInterface.

You can also just manually install addons, it's not hard.Comment by wohinRemovedComment by GiantMachineLet's be honest. Overwolf acquired curseforge because they thought they could make a pretty penny off of the WoW playerbase. It is our duty to deny them this profit. Make their wallet hurt until they give up.Comment by Elandura
Can you manually install them without Overwolf?
Finally, if you really want to use Curse but not Overwolf, you can always download from the website and avoid the issue of using Overwolf's program entirely. Again, nothing is paywalled and using an addon manager isn't even required - merely convenience.Comment by Archimtiros75% of my addons are "unknown". Some are abandoned by their creators and some are just only on curse. I guess I'll have to use the Overwolf app because manually doing it is a pain. Yes I know a "first world problem" but still would rather things get done with one click. I have nothing really against Overwolf either. I just hate that the Curseforge app is not stand alone and requires the main overwolf app installed as well.

I hated the extra bloat with the twitch app as well but at least it was one client.Comment by 2350822Screw you Overwolf.

Looks like it's back to manually installing add-ons, like the good ole days.Comment by SharemydreadThe best thing anyone here can do is contact the authors of your addons. Let them know you want their add-on on WowUpHub. Many already have GitHub that can be added to the WowUpHub.

Support them via Patreon or GitHub Sponsors. I'm personally going to set the challenge of only using open source add-ons from now on.Comment by AedionMorrisI feel like 99% of the problems with addons + developers + API complaints and all this worthless drama would be solved if Blizzard just came out and said "if your addon isn't hosted on the battle net app where we will help pay you for the addon, then your addon will not work inside of our games". This way Blizzard support them officially and addon devs get compensated plus monopoly problems get solved. Clearly trusting these people to figure it out on their own has been a complete disaster.Comment by ArchimtirosDude it's not just a convenience if you have 20+ addons that you want to keep updated so your WoW UI doesn't send you bug pop-up windows when a new patch comes or something gets fixed.
Manually doing them turns into torture from inconvenience in 10 seconds.Comment by Archimtiros Perhaps your editor should have focused more time on your prose and voice in the above. Facts are facts yes, but even I can see you’re pointing at Curse Forge saying “this is not ideal” while at the same time kicking WoWUp in the face. The judgment you give is not balanced while at the same time, if it were impartial, there would be no need for judgment at all. Find out the difference between news and editorial and you’ll become a better journalist and writer.Comment by ArchimtirosI feel like 99% of the problems with addons + developers + API complaints and all this worthless drama would be solved if Blizzard just came out and said "if your addon isn't hosted on the battle net app where we will help pay you for the addon, then your addon will not work inside of our games". This way Blizzard support them officially and addon devs get compensated plus monopoly problems get solved. Clearly trusting these people to figure it out on their own has been a complete disaster.Comment by ChaxtonAll this drama is genuinely stupid. All of it, even outside of the addon nonsense. On topic though, manually installing addons should be the norm. I don't trust third party software for anything, even if it is open source. I know how to manually install, and it takes less than one single IQ to do so. Sure, the convenience of automation is there, but as I have been taught by many teachers, repetition is a great way to build your skills. I can navigate to my addon folder in seconds without any shortcuts and from opening a new file explorer that starts in the desktop. That is objectively faster than waiting for a program to start, unless said program is actually optimized (ha, optimization in the current year. I can appreciate that WowUp is doing its own thing, and I fully support that over some company who is known to be shady and trashy, but I will always be a manual user.

It saved my car from being hijacked due to it being stick shift, and it'll keep the miners out of my computer.Comment by MomoiOk back to the roots it seems wont support overwolfComment by WanderingfoxThey are of course absolutely well within their rights to do whatever they want with the company they've bought, but so too are people to be leery of them for past practices or recent statements etc.

Part of the problem here is Overwolf's abject refusal to be a good steward to the community resources they've purchased. They straight up refused the very heavily requested option to just pay $x/month for api access. That tells me they value their software running on my system more than the ad revenue and that worries me, especially with personal past poor experiences with overwolf (bad ads, false-positive bans, ads during loading screens of games, running even after closing, resource utilization, etc). This whole thing goes away for a lot of people if they just figured out a reasonable price ($5/month? whatever) and let people pay that for an api key and let them continue using whatever client they preferred.

Again overwolf is perfectly within their rights to do that, but it's kind of a !@#$ move to jam a piece of software down people's throats. Most people wouldn't have even blinked if they just left the download client independent of their ad-framework platform and let people pay the equivalent average ad revenue for an api key.Comment by immoralsoulSo nothing will change for me anyway, been using overwolf/curseforge already.Comment by ArchimtirosThey are of course absolutely well within their rights to do whatever they want with the company they've bought, but so too are people to be leery of them for past practices or recent statements etc.

Part of the problem here is Overwolf's abject refusal to be a good steward to the community resource they've purchased. They straight up refused the very heavily requested option to just pay $x/month for api access. That tells me they value their software running on my system more than the ad revenue and that worries me, especially with personal past poor experiences with overwolf (bad ads, fals-positive bans, ads during loading screens of games, running even after closing, resource utilization, etc). This whole thing goes away for a lot of people if they just figured out a reasonable price ($5/month? whatever) and let people pay that for an api key and let them continue using whatever client they preferred.

Again overwolf is perfectly within their rights to do that, but it's kind of a !@#$ move to jam a piece of software down people's throats. Most people wouldn't have even blinked if they just left the download client independent of their ad-framework platform and let people pay the equivalent average ad revenue for an api key.Comment by daenerys37The best thing anyone here can do is contact the authors of your addons. Let them know you want their add-on on WowUpHub. Many already have GitHub that can be added to the WowUpHub.

Support them via Patreon or GitHub Sponsors. I'm personally going to set the challenge of only using open source add-ons from now on.

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