Tamriel Trade Center no longer works... unless if you disable ad-blocker

virtus753

cyx54tc wrote: »

Alright it feels like I need to explain the situation here a bit. So I started TTC 7 years ago, built an addon + website for everyone to use for FREE. I have quit the game for more than 4 years already but I am still maintaining the site using lots of my free time.

The business model is simple. People uses the addon to collect data and the website's ad revenue will keep the whole project going. From day 1 I already knew people are using ad blockers and the percentage is not low. But I wanted to believe in people, I wanted to believe people will help the project they really love so I did not force ads for the past 7 years.

I have tried like 5 different banners to explain the situation and the need for Ad revenue to keep the project alive. But 7 years past and the result was pretty disappointing. Percentage of ad block users went up significantly and the number of people who donated was less than 0.02% of the entire user base.

The donation I have collected over the course of the past 7 years was just barely able to pay for 2 years of the server's cost. If everyone was using adblocker it will mean that I would have paid 5 figures out of my own pocket in additional to all the free time I have spend to maintain and develop this project.

Based on the growth rate of adblock users I will probably have to shutdown the entire project in about 2 years from now. So there are only 2 options before me if I do not want that to happen

1. Force ads on everyone and allow people to sub for ad free content
2. I start selling the data by offering premium(paid) customers access to real time API when a cheap item is made available.

I do not like the level of P2W #2 brings even though it will probably yield me much higher revenue compared to #1

It was a hard decision but something has to be done. Prior to turning the anti-ad block wall on I further reduced the ad load (slider is lowered to about 20% mark) and made the change so that you will never see more than 2 ads on your screen (1 for smaller screen) and there are at most 3 ads per page (2 for small screen). Full page ads are set to about <1% chance of appearing. Regular users shouldn't see the full screen ad more than once per day.

So please. I am not asking for too much. Having some ads on your screen is not the end of world but no ads will be the end of TTC.

I appreciate this explanation, but (as mentioned above and in other threads) please be aware your site is showing many “mature” ads, and they’re definitely not targeted. Asking us to pay not be shown such things is extremely distasteful.

Jaimeh

RaikaNA wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

No, you're wrong. You have a choice to continue using his service or not. And moreover, you're telling the addon creator what to do with his creation. Again, if you are not satisfied with the current situation, then don't use it. You are not paying for it.

Telling someone what to do and making suggestive advice are two separate things... And no you're wrong, once again. if someone is not satisfied with the current situation.. you speak up rather than not use it...How can the creator improve or make adjustments if people don't speak up? The key is communication.

The thing is the creator has said what kind of things could help, like donations, etc. They had given avenues that could have kept the site ad-free, but it wasn't working. You are using a service for free, and then 'suggesting' the creator should sell their work that they've put effort and time in, so that you can continue to use it for free, because you don't want to disable the ad blocker and you still want to use the site (a 'having my pie and eating it' scenario). The level of entitlement is absurd. Also, what does whether the creator is playing or not playing eso has to do about it? The person who designed esohub, arguably one of the biggest sites devoted to the game, is not an active player, does it mean they have to give up their work if someone has an issue with how their site is run... Anyway, back to the OP: I personally like to block ads, so I won't be using the site anymore, but if it's the only way to keep it afloat then so be it, it's better to have it like that, than not have it at all.

RaikaNA

Jaimeh wrote: »

RaikaNA wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

No, you're wrong. You have a choice to continue using his service or not. And moreover, you're telling the addon creator what to do with his creation. Again, if you are not satisfied with the current situation, then don't use it. You are not paying for it.

Telling someone what to do and making suggestive advice are two separate things... And no you're wrong, once again. if someone is not satisfied with the current situation.. you speak up rather than not use it...How can the creator improve or make adjustments if people don't speak up? The key is communication.

The thing is the creator has said what kind of things could help, like donations, etc. They had given avenues that could have kept the site ad-free, but it wasn't working. You are using a service for free, and then 'suggesting' the creator should sell their work that they've put effort and time in, so that you can continue to use it for free, because you don't want to disable the ad blocker and you still want to use the site (a 'having my pie and eating it' scenario). The level of entitlement is absurd. Also, what does whether the creator is playing or not playing eso has to do about it? The person who designed esohub, arguably one of the biggest sites devoted to the game, is not an active player, does it mean they have to give up their work if someone has an issue with how their site is run... Anyway, back to the OP: I personally like to block ads, so I won't be using the site anymore, but if it's the only way to keep it afloat then so be it, it's better to have it like that, than not have it at all.

It's not working out because he's not putting enough time on the website to be worth of anything. Nothing really has changed over the past several years..The creator openly admitted to not being part of the ESO community as he quit the game 4 years ago... yet he still maintains one of the popular Auction House & Vendors addons to date. Why continue with this project if you're no longer part of the community? Wouldn't it be a better idea to pass on your work to someone else who is currently part of the community, and can possibly improve the site and addon... making it better?

Oh and this entitlement BS being thrown around is just ridiculous at best... The creator is using volunteers (you, I, and everyone else) to collect guild listing data to be added to the website using an addon. It's not like he's personally logging in each day, and collecting data himself. It is US who uses the addon that's doing the work so that his website can continue to maintain its usefulness.

This is what he wrote on https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1245-TamrielTradeCentre.html

By running our addon and client. Your guild listings as well as any item you seen by using guild store search function will be automatically upload to the site for other people to search and browse. The collected data will also be used to generate price info for everyone~

If you want to contribute more to the community or if you wish to help boosting up your guild's sale by uploading an entire guild's listings, you are more than welcome to do so!

So yeah it's not like I demand free stuff... just expecting to use a website in full that I help to grow and to prosper by donating my time uploading my guilds and other guild vendor's data to the website, and not getting bombarded with pornographic ads that some people are now reporting.

maxjapank

RaikaNA wrote: »

It's not working out because he's not putting enough time on the website to be worth of anything. Nothing really has changed over the past several years..The creator openly admitted to not being part of the ESO community as he quit the game 4 years ago... yet he still maintains one of the popular Auction House & Vendors addons to date. Why continue with this project if you're no longer part of the community? Wouldn't it be a better idea to pass on your work to someone else who is currently part of the community, and can possibly improve the site and addon... making it better?

Oh and this entitlement BS being thrown around is just ridiculous at best...

Here you go again trying to tell someone what to do with their hard work. It doesn't matter whether or not the addon creator is playing the game or not. He created something and owns the rights to what he created. I don't think you fully understand what entitlement means here. It means you feel you that you have a right to the author's creation to not only use for free but dictate how it should be run.

Laniecat

To everyone complaining about adult-themed and inappropriately pornographic ads: I've been using TTC for about a year now, and have never seen an inappropriate or adult-themed ad. I have, however, noticed that the ads reflect my browsing history, which I have to admit is creepy as f***, despite the fact that I manually turn on Do Not Track on every website that offers the option. Regardless, soon after I Google my cats' recent vet problems, I'm getting ads for prescription vet diets. I search Amazon for gifts and suddenly the TTC ads are offering me similar products. Yes, this feels like an invasion of privacy, but it's the same for every website on the internet that runs ads as far as I can tell. Perhaps if you don't want to see adult-themed ads, try using private browsing mode when you look at adult-themed websites, or whatever browser extensions have come out for stuff like that. I'm not judging your internet usage - to each their own - but based on my experience of using the site daily for almost a year now, if you don't look at adult content, you don't get exposed to ads with similar content. I seriously doubt the owner of the site has control over that kind of thing when it's based off each user's browsing history, creepy as that may be.
I, personally, was thrilled when TTC announced that they were offering the option to pay for ad-free service. I have to use dark themes and turn off most images to prevent migraines from bright backgrounds or flashing/moving content on any website that I want to look at for more than 2 minutes. When Safari was no longer able to block ads on the TTC site months ago I had to stop using it on my phone completely, because the ads were triggering frequent migraines, and it wasn't possible to resize the window to avoid them. Now I get to use a site that I find indispensable for trading on ESO with no more accessibility problems, for a small donation that I feel like it's more than earned based on how much I depend on it.
Yes, ESO should have a better trade system that doesn't require 3rd parties to invest years of their lives developing and maintaining and running these extra services to make our gaming experience easier. But it doesn't, and complaining about it constantly for years has obviously been ineffective. If you don't like the changes made to TTC, don't use it. If you're appreciative of the service provided, the monthly donation requested for ad-free use is ridiculously low - less than the price of a cup of coffee - and can save you hours of searching from trader to trader in dozens of zones like we used to have to do before TTC came along. It's your choice.

SainguinKrist

Yea, I really don't care about all this "you're entitled, don't complain" nonsense.

I'm going to complain.

Many people have pointed out the TTC creator could of gone about this in quite a few different ways, and they chose the worst possible.

The community that's been using the website/addon for 7 years has a right to complain and express their concern.

The addon comes with a .exe! I mean come on. People should be skeptical of someone asking them to run a .exe along with their addon. Especially when that same person is pulling shady stuff with their website that hosts that data!

So no, I'm not going to keep my mouth shut and just not use it.

They need to be called out, and ZOS needs to do something.

This is taking advantage of their playerbase in a really shady way, and it's not going to get better unless someone does something.

RaikaNA

maxjapank wrote: »

RaikaNA wrote: »

It's not working out because he's not putting enough time on the website to be worth of anything. Nothing really has changed over the past several years..The creator openly admitted to not being part of the ESO community as he quit the game 4 years ago... yet he still maintains one of the popular Auction House & Vendors addons to date. Why continue with this project if you're no longer part of the community? Wouldn't it be a better idea to pass on your work to someone else who is currently part of the community, and can possibly improve the site and addon... making it better?

Oh and this entitlement BS being thrown around is just ridiculous at best...

Here you go again trying to tell someone what to do with their hard work. It doesn't matter whether or not the addon creator is playing the game or not. He created something and owns the rights to what he created. I don't think you fully understand what entitlement means here. It means you feel you that you have a right to the author's creation to not only use for free but dictate how it should be run.

I don't think you know what entitlement means either... this will be my last time replying to you before I add you to ignore...

The creator does NOT own the rights to the data and materials that he's siphoning off of ESO from the addon users like you and I... If you go to the website.. down below has this:

Tamriel Trade Centre was created using content and materials from The Elder Scrolls® Online: Tamriel Unlimited™ © ZeniMax® Online Studios, LLC or its licensors.

This proves that HE DOESN'T fully owns the content that he has on his website.. just partial.... He's leeching data that rightfully belongs to ZOS.

maxjapank

RaikaNA wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

RaikaNA wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

No, you're wrong. You have a choice to continue using his service or not. And moreover, you're telling the addon creator what to do with his creation. Again, if you are not satisfied with the current situation, then don't use it. You are not paying for it.

Telling someone what to do and making suggestive advice are two separate things... And no you're wrong, once again. if someone is not satisfied with the current situation.. you speak up rather than not use it...How can the creator improve or make adjustments if people don't speak up? The key is communication.

At the end of the day, you are not paying for the content that this creator made. So why don't you quit using it? In fact, you could try to create your own database and service for everyone and pay for it yourself. This is not me telling you what to do. This is suggestive advice.

How many times are you going to tell me to stop using TTC because I refuse to disable my adblocker? I believe I specifically said that the site is no longer functional for me because I have to disable my adblocker.

RaikaNA wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

RaikaNA wrote: »

It's not working out because he's not putting enough time on the website to be worth of anything. Nothing really has changed over the past several years..The creator openly admitted to not being part of the ESO community as he quit the game 4 years ago... yet he still maintains one of the popular Auction House & Vendors addons to date. Why continue with this project if you're no longer part of the community? Wouldn't it be a better idea to pass on your work to someone else who is currently part of the community, and can possibly improve the site and addon... making it better?

Oh and this entitlement BS being thrown around is just ridiculous at best...

Here you go again trying to tell someone what to do with their hard work. It doesn't matter whether or not the addon creator is playing the game or not. He created something and owns the rights to what he created. I don't think you fully understand what entitlement means here. It means you feel you that you have a right to the author's creation to not only use for free but dictate how it should be run.

I don't think you know what entitlement means either... this will be my last time replying to you before I add you to ignore...

The creator does NOT own the rights to the data and materials that he's siphoning off of ESO from the addon users like you and I... If you go to the website.. down below has this:

Tamriel Trade Centre was created using content and materials from The Elder Scrolls® Online: Tamriel Unlimited™ © ZeniMax® Online Studios, LLC or its licensors.

This proves that HE DOESN'T fully owns the content that he has on his website.. just partial.... He's leeching data that rightfully belongs to ZOS.

Please do add me to ignore. We are going in circles and you still are missing the point. You have done nothing to help create this addon and yet you want to use it free and not only that, you want to dictate how it is to be used. To be honest, replying to you is just continuing this thread, which would honestly die otherwise. Your issue should be with trying to get the Devs to create a similar addon, but in-game, for all to use. But for some reason you want to complain to the addon author because he changed the way his addon can be used, something that you have happily mooched off for years.

Psiion

Greetings all,

After review of this thread, seeing as it has run it's course and has derailed from being constructive, we have gone ahead and closed it down. We understand everyone has different views and opinions on things, but discussion should be respectful and within the Community Rules. Baiting and Flaming are never acceptable on the ESO forums.