Not original title, I know.
Also, excuse me for my bad english.
Since the loss of WAU I became more and more interested in alternative solutions to the addon update problem, I tried Curse Client and it pretty sucks at the moment.
JWowUpdater has been updated recently to support multiple sites, but it looks like a downgrade to me: it lost the no-embeds capability (if I understood correctly, didn't check the source code for now) and you should specify the url for each and every addon you want to update. Not very funny, indeed.
From the FAQ I see that WAU is dead due to high bandwidth usage and no (enough) return from ads.
I guess that large bandwidth usage is normal, when you have a potential user base of millions: Blizzard has adopted one solution to distribute large files to all users, Bittorrent.
So, if the real problem is bandwidth cost, why ACE (and other download sites, too) could not adopt that solution?
Or maybe the problem for update sites like Curse is more about "control", and "power", and "more subscribers = more ads = more money"?
BTW.
I'm thinking about a client that downloads the addon list via torrent, then downloads each addon also via torrent. And shares installed addons (maybe it should be left open while playing to provide b/w to others? that could be nice and you can also throttle the b/w). There are plenty of opensource Bittorrent clients and libraries that can be used as reference.
And, of course, since embedded libs sucks, it should support no-libs addons.
Now to the tricky part, there are my concerns about a similar client.
Security concerns:
It should hash-check, or better, signature-check the addon to detect bad contents
The torrent publishing infrastructure should allow publishing only from trusted users (eg. addon author)
Performance concerns:
What about Bittorrent performance over small files?
It is a decent idea, and one I am considering. However, it's a very complex solution (both to implent and for the enduser), and generally not needed on the small / non popular addons.
I have some other ideas to cut down on bandwidth, for example using compressed diff's or a binary diff, and support for multiple, redundant download locations.
Unfortunately it has been established that distribution though bit-torrent is not viable, please stop asking, use search feature on forums; THANK YOU have a great day!
As for the hosting sites.. well, it's in the hands of the authors first and foremost. the individual authors decide where to host their own addons. End of Story, you as the end user have no right and no place in this regard. Curse.com, ui.worldofwar.net, wowinterface.com do not choose what authors are hosted there but the authors for the most part choose. So before you start crucifying curse.com for being the badguys, they really are not to blame.
As for the curse client... there are other threads to answer your problem.
I have seen some decent ideas, but i doubt the curse thing is gonna change, they already made the move, they are happy with it.
We can talk different ideas all day long but this is the way it is, the curse client isn't so bad now and its getting better little by little, just people have to use their brains abit now to set it up which isn't bad.
i think people need to read some more faqs too, because if it wasn't for curse this place would have been gone a long time ago, so much for the big bad curse eh?
Yes, it will work, that is the idea behind BT. However, you also have to take into consideration that BT works well as long as people keeps their BT client (or BT-powered Updater in this case) open for the "decentralized" downloading to work. If only a few keeps it open, worst, no one keeps it open, then we're still back to getting the files from one source, which is no different than a centralized repository.
^_^
It is a good idea, no question about that, but BT works as long as there are sources keeping their BT client running.
And as a gamer, #1 rule - shutdown all bandwidth eater applications. In other words, no BT when playing.
Unfortunately it has been established that distribution though bit-torrent is not viable, please stop asking, use search feature on forums; THANK YOU have a great day!
I did use search feature, but it didn't turn out very much results with "bittorrent" and "torrent" keywords... Who established that distribution via bittorrent is not viable? And why?
I understand the problem of lack of seeders, I could think of some solutions to that too:
Force clients to remain open for a determined timespan or bandwidth (eg. if you download 1mb, then you should keep client up till you uploaded 1mb. It's fair.)
BT bandwidth could be enforced... I think I can "waste" 1% of my total bandwidth even while playing... if every user can do that you get a lot of bandwidth and since WoW is a global phenomenon, you can cover most of the peak-demand
You could sell banner space to Curse (or whatever) into the client if they provide one 24/365 seeder per addon
Addon authors, friends, guildmates could keep their client open to spread their work
As for the hosting sites.. well, it's in the hands of the authors first and foremost. the individual authors decide where to host their own addons. End of Story, you as the end user have no right and no place in this regard. Curse.com, ui.worldofwar.net, wowinterface.com do not choose what authors are hosted there but the authors for the most part choose. So before you start crucifying curse.com for being the badguys, they really are not to blame.
I'm not crucyfing curse.com, nor everyone else, the authors should be free to choose whatever hosting solution they want, I'm talking more about infrastructure change, than author habits change...
Bittorrent has never worked well with large numbers of small files, the overhead outweighs the benefit. Addons are hardly large alone, the issue is only when a large number of people download a large number of them.
Bittorrent has never worked well with large numbers of small files, the overhead outweighs the benefit. Addons are hardly large alone, the issue is only when a large number of people download a large number of them.
Bittorrent has never worked well with large numbers of small files, the overhead outweighs the benefit. Addons are hardly large alone, the issue is only when a large number of people download a large number of them.
Indeed. I've discussed the idea of using p2p to help distribute mods. Hell we've even talked to bit torrent's designers. End conclusion: Torrent is good because the files are too small. p2p in general is possible but would require something custom.
But the traffic overhead even if it would be enormous is on the USER side! Hell, even if I transfer 300 kb/mod instead of 100kb it would still hurt addon sites less than transferring a zipped 80kb file + webpage.
Tracking is _not_ cost intensive (ask the guys at piratebay...) and could even be done decentralized via DHT.
However if you've already even talked to the BT-Devs themselves and ditched the idea, maybe it's better for us as well too look for other alternatives instead of trying to force people down the torrent-road...
What about small "patches" to existing addons instead of always downloading the whole thing?
A lot of the regulars are getting very tired of reiterating the same replies. I'm sure you can understand that.
Yes, I can. At at the same time, people developed these mods and released them to the public and as long as you keep providing them to the public you are going to have to deal with annoying things like answering the same question 9999999 times.
Since I am making a rare post, I would also like to say that I am very grateful for everything you guys are doing. Its essentially volunteer work, and it is not the most rewarding, but there are a ton of us out here who appreciate your efforts.
Also, excuse me for my bad english.
Since the loss of WAU I became more and more interested in alternative solutions to the addon update problem, I tried Curse Client and it pretty sucks at the moment.
JWowUpdater has been updated recently to support multiple sites, but it looks like a downgrade to me: it lost the no-embeds capability (if I understood correctly, didn't check the source code for now) and you should specify the url for each and every addon you want to update. Not very funny, indeed.
From the FAQ I see that WAU is dead due to high bandwidth usage and no (enough) return from ads.
I guess that large bandwidth usage is normal, when you have a potential user base of millions: Blizzard has adopted one solution to distribute large files to all users, Bittorrent.
So, if the real problem is bandwidth cost, why ACE (and other download sites, too) could not adopt that solution?
Or maybe the problem for update sites like Curse is more about "control", and "power", and "more subscribers = more ads = more money"?
BTW.
I'm thinking about a client that downloads the addon list via torrent, then downloads each addon also via torrent. And shares installed addons (maybe it should be left open while playing to provide b/w to others? that could be nice and you can also throttle the b/w). There are plenty of opensource Bittorrent clients and libraries that can be used as reference.
And, of course, since embedded libs sucks, it should support no-libs addons.
Now to the tricky part, there are my concerns about a similar client.
Security concerns:
Performance concerns:
I have some other ideas to cut down on bandwidth, for example using compressed diff's or a binary diff, and support for multiple, redundant download locations.
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Curse PremiumAs for the hosting sites.. well, it's in the hands of the authors first and foremost. the individual authors decide where to host their own addons. End of Story, you as the end user have no right and no place in this regard. Curse.com, ui.worldofwar.net, wowinterface.com do not choose what authors are hosted there but the authors for the most part choose. So before you start crucifying curse.com for being the badguys, they really are not to blame.
As for the curse client... there are other threads to answer your problem.
We can talk different ideas all day long but this is the way it is, the curse client isn't so bad now and its getting better little by little, just people have to use their brains abit now to set it up which isn't bad.
i think people need to read some more faqs too, because if it wasn't for curse this place would have been gone a long time ago, so much for the big bad curse eh?
Yes, it will work, that is the idea behind BT. However, you also have to take into consideration that BT works well as long as people keeps their BT client (or BT-powered Updater in this case) open for the "decentralized" downloading to work. If only a few keeps it open, worst, no one keeps it open, then we're still back to getting the files from one source, which is no different than a centralized repository.
^_^
It is a good idea, no question about that, but BT works as long as there are sources keeping their BT client running.
And as a gamer, #1 rule - shutdown all bandwidth eater applications. In other words, no BT when playing.
I did use search feature, but it didn't turn out very much results with "bittorrent" and "torrent" keywords... Who established that distribution via bittorrent is not viable? And why?
I understand the problem of lack of seeders, I could think of some solutions to that too:
I'm not crucyfing curse.com, nor everyone else, the authors should be free to choose whatever hosting solution they want, I'm talking more about infrastructure change, than author habits change...
I've read them already and I don't have a problem with Curse Client no more, I just uninstalled it, problem solved ;D
That was what I feared. :(
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AdminI'm going to quota Seerah's sig: ACE == Accidental Capslock Error.
It's Ace. :D
Indeed. I've discussed the idea of using p2p to help distribute mods. Hell we've even talked to bit torrent's designers. End conclusion: Torrent is good because the files are too small. p2p in general is possible but would require something custom.
Tracking is _not_ cost intensive (ask the guys at piratebay...) and could even be done decentralized via DHT.
However if you've already even talked to the BT-Devs themselves and ditched the idea, maybe it's better for us as well too look for other alternatives instead of trying to force people down the torrent-road...
What about small "patches" to existing addons instead of always downloading the whole thing?
edited to hopefully avoid ban
Yes, I can. At at the same time, people developed these mods and released them to the public and as long as you keep providing them to the public you are going to have to deal with annoying things like answering the same question 9999999 times.
Since I am making a rare post, I would also like to say that I am very grateful for everything you guys are doing. Its essentially volunteer work, and it is not the most rewarding, but there are a ton of us out here who appreciate your efforts.
<3
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AdminAnd a slice of pizza.