R.I.P WoWAce
WoWAce announced it's demise October 15, 2008
"Today has marked the day where this page has been officially discontinued in favor of the newer systems that have recently been deployed."
"A little over a year ago Curse.com started subsidizing our servers, and for a time that was enough to get us through the worst of it. But we just kept growing.
Things reached a critical mass during 2.4. We filled up the entirety of the 1 gigabit connection we where using and ended up pushing out more than 300GB an hour. With more than 500k users downloading updates for every small change things just couldn't keep up financially."
"We encourage all users who are looking for updates for their addons to head over to Curse.com and look around. "
As a user of many, many mods, this is very sad news. I've always really enjoyed the service WoWAce provided. Their mods were always extremely reliable and most importantly, perceived safety! Maybe it's all propaganda but curse gaming mods and the curse gaming site in my circle has an extremely bad reputation for being super PHISHY.
I have taken extra precaution by running extra spyware and protection software on my computers but nothing creeps me out more than having to dip back down into the curse gaming cesspool on a regular basis. The goods look attractive all the time, no doubt, but are they safe? I guess I'll find out. I suppose I can also look at wowinterface.com, ctmod, and wowmatrix for updaters and more mods. It just sucks that my staple is gone.
They said to stay tuned for what's next and that they needed to take one step back to take two steps forward. I hope we see their return in the future or at least an incantation of it.
Anyhow, THANKS WoWAce! I'll miss you.
7 comments:
*smiles softly* The more I read and listen to you the more I think we have played together even though I know we have not.
I too am EXTREMELY weary of Curse. Ever since the keyloging ordeal back just before, then after BC's release I have always told people to stay away from them. I also used wowace updater on a regular basis. I have moved to wowmatrix when the news came out in preparation.
A friend of mine said, ah Mike, they are not that bad anymore. So I downloaded the updater. It looked good. AVG was running. Started the game and yep, it sat in my task bar. Nope. . aint going to happen. THEN, get this. Watchdog reports a problem with an app.
Here is the deal. Curse = bad. And we need to let everyone we can know that. Sadly we are still forced to use it for some of the mods we love. But lets hope services like wowmatrix, and whatever is on the horizon *brain burst. Think Adobe Air update client. BWAHAHA* Anyway, as long as they are out there we can still get our fix.
On another topic, whenever I see someone mention thotbot, or worst, Ala in trad I about toss my cookies.
Ok. . enough ranting. . .I agree, and they will be missed.
Mike
aka Paravel, the resto druid looking for a home.
Its a perverse truth that the more popular a service becomes online, the more untenable it becomes to offer the content for free.
Not because of an unwillingness, but because of sheer economics, as they currently stand.
How is it that I've never even heard of WoWAce? I didn't know there was a "safer" way to shop for mods. I use Curse, but I'm extremely selective, using only updated versions from creators I recognize. And I only use like 3 addons anyway. I'll have to check out wowmatrix later today...
@Mercot
Hi friend. It is not so much the addons that you chose from Curse, ok well it is, but its also the all intrusive data mining and always running nature of there updater.
Do be careful of the mods you download. Never just download a link, even off of curse, because some level 1 troll on the O forums posts a link. You will be a gonner every time :)
My typical workpath in locating and researching mods, and I run around 140 mods (stop laughing) is to first head to wowinterface.com
WoWinterface is a hang out for "actual" mod developers. Much was the way with wowace, where the ace library was developed to provide a smaller memory footprint and library of commands for mods to use. Because "Mod authors" frequent wowinterface it tends to be more up on the latest and best mods. Places like curse or even a few others that I just ignore just suck everything into a big straw, blend it until it oozes and spits it out with sugar.
9 out of 10 times you will find the mod on wowinterface. Check the comments section and the number of downloads. If its a new mod with few downloads use caution.
Most ace mod authors, even though Curse has stanched up the repository site they loved and used for years, will still post there mods to wowinterface. As a matter of fact a trend you can notice now is that many of the old wowace mod writers are moving there code repository to google apps instead of relying on the curse engine. As a huge open source geek I love this idea.
Sorry, got side tracked in geekdom. So, if you can not find the mod on wowinterface I then will google it. And yes, most the time curse is one of the top hits. I will head to curse as a last resort. Why? Read my above comments about my opinion of curse, and for the simple fact that most of the time curse's mods are out of date. The new system that they stole. . err. . purchased from wowace might help with that for those authors that still write for them, but my gut says that as soon as the mod rush settles down you will again see that they will be 1 to 2 versions behind those offered on wowinterface of right from the authors google apps site.
That is where a service like wowmatrix comes in. Simply put wowmatrix goes out and keeps links to the latest mods. They will download from wowace, wowinterface, auctioneer's site, and even curse, all in an effort to make sure your mods are up to date with the latest version.
hehe, I was going to blog about this very topic, but now that alachia has offered this venue I will let it rest here. :)
@Jemimus You're right. It's the general trend with most services online. I think that's why we're seeing the demise of Web 2.0 applications. I guess I'm just sorry that some solution couldn't have been created for the wowace issues. I wonder how much they would have needed to keep afloat? I had no idea they were in a financial strain until they announced they were shutting down.
@manorton well as PC user, I'm aware of the security issues. Also, my account has been compromised twice now. During those times, I used curse gaming pretty regularly (you know that mentality you have where you think it can't possibly happen to you). Now, I don't care if people call me paranoid, I do my best to take any precaution I can that seems reasonable. And every person I know who has any tech savy (like uber software geniuses) in them always tells me to stay way from curse if at all possible.
Curse gaming took the road that most community services do...they provide something for free until they get enough users to make money off of it. which you can't blame them but at the same time, the users should probably be weary of how they are making their revenue. NOTHING in life comes for free.
@manorton
Thanks, I'll give WoWInterface a looksee as well :D
WoWMatrix is where it's at.
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