Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Deleted]

Oh boy... you really dont get it.

[Deleted]

If Nos thinks what they do is perfectly legal, then man up and continue operating the servers. Take Blizzard on a court battle and let's see what happens. All this arguing on the sidelines when we don't have all legal details and are not lawyers is pointless.

Go ahead and challenge Blizzard. Do it for the oppressed little people of Azeroth!

Get a grip. It doesn't matter if its legal or not. Court battles aren't cheap, they have very little to do with law, more to do with whoever has more money to throw on long battle and more lawyers to come up with more accusations.

Companies just throw bunch of accusations and hope some won't get outright dismissed. Then they battle for each of those accusations for long time, which requires both sides to spend money. In mean time they can throw bunch of injunctions preventing other side from doing stuff, such as shutting down servers until case is resolved. Legal battles end in ether bankruptcy of one side or some deal. Legality has nothing to do with it.

Nos or anyone else in similar situation don't stand a chance, no matter if they broke any laws or not. That's how big companies operate. It is most often used to shut down or purchase small competing companies.

Want case related to WoW? Look at botting companies. Even though I hate bots with passion, they aren't doing anything illegal. Yet Blizzard shut down all of them, except for one that was in reasonable country (almost anything other than USA will do) and had resources to fight in court. That one company that survived is causing more harm to WoW that all private servers combined, which are causing no harm, yet it lives. Where is justice in that?

[Bethrezen]

Vanilla will never die. Blizzard's actions are only going to unite and strengthen the Vanilla community. Upcoming Vanilla servers are already discussing how they can avoid Blizzard's greedy, blood-sucking lawyers. And there are ways. Not every country allows American companies to bully them.

And that is their time to waste, illegally.

[Wass]

Glad it's been shut down, shame it didn't happen sooner before it got so many players. Hopefully a few of its users will start playing the real game and paying towards it.

"Oh no people are having fun, why must they have fun? This makes me so sad."

Fyi retail is not in financial danger because of nost. I do just feel a bit sorry for those that made friends and communities on the server, that's all.

[Tackhisis]

It has loads of data mined content! You're enjoying stolen content!

It is client content.
The database was created out server-only data, therefore illegal.

[Duronos]

If anyone didn't know, they didn't use Blizzards code since nobody actually has that. Nost wrote their own source code for it and the reason it got so big was because their code was pretty damn top notch as far as private servers go. Also they had fantastic GM's that would help you out within 30 minutes of submitting a ticket.

Nost was great because outside of the occasional 13k online huge server lag shit (truly the vanilla experience), their non-profit customer service was great and the code was very well done. Should they have made a 2nd pvp server... Yeah probably, anything over 9k online is to much in my opinion. I'd say 7-8k on one server is amazing since every zone is bustling but not to the point of it being annoying. Also they implemented something called dynamic respawn to deal with the amount of people logged on, essentially halved mob respawn time.

[Redroniksre]

Get a grip. It doesn't matter if its legal or not. Court battles aren't cheap, they have very little to do with law, more to do with whoever has more money to throw on long battle and more lawyers to come up with more accusations.

Companies just throw bunch of accusations and hope some won't get outright dismissed. Then they battle for each of those accusations for long time, which requires both sides to spend money. In mean time they can throw bunch of injunctions preventing other side from doing stuff, such as shutting down servers until case is resolved. Legal battles end in ether bankruptcy of one side or some deal. Legality has nothing to do with it.

Nos or anyone else in similar situation don't stand a chance, no matter if they broke any laws or not. That's how big companies operate. It is most often used to shut down or purchase small competing companies.

Want case related to WoW? Look at botting companies. Even though I hate bots with passion, they aren't doing anything illegal. Yet Blizzard shut down all of them, except for one that was in reasonable country (almost anything other than USA will do) and had resources to fight in court. That one company that survived is causing more harm to WoW that all private servers combined, which are causing no harm, yet it lives. Where is justice in that?

Actually a better example of those who also try to just not show up to court, look up the case of WoWscape, a previous private server that Blizzard sued.

[Sanguinerd]

Well, we dont wanna play retard wow (retail wow) with the shitty expansions that totally destroyed the game and there is no other option. But hopefully someday Blizzard will take their heads out of their asses and actually launch a proper Vanilla again.

Playing on private servers and talking about "proper vanilla" ..what a joke. You can't relive the past chief, stop trying.

Why are you even here anyway? Made that account just to be insulting?

[Deleted]

Fair enough, but I would still argue that they were knowingly complicit in what was happening. It's like buying a bunch of stolen/counterfeit goods that you know are not legitimate and then getting upset when the police confiscate it from you.

Its not even close. Client software is available from Blizzard, server software had nothing to do with Blizzard. There is nothing stolen/counterfit. The only thing that could be argued is intellectual property infringement, which has nothing in common with your example.

Nothing was stolen. Its not piracy.

[Kokolums]

If you open your company's office supply cabinet, take everything in it, and give it to your friends, that's illegal even though you didn't make any money.
If you steal a wallet from someone on the subway and give it to a street person, that's illegal.
If you leak Madonna's working tape to the internet, that's illegal.
Basically, if you take something that's not yours, that's illegal. It may be an even worse crime if you charge people for access to your stolen property.
So, if it's not yours, don't take it, unless you are willing to face legal consequences.
Most of us if not all of us have stolen music and video and still images from rights holders. The fact that we haven't charged anyone to use what we stole doesn't negate the fact that we are thieves.

The problem arises when the law becomes unenforceable. We're working on legalizing drugs because there are SO many rulebreakers that we cannot enforce that law. We're running into the same problem with digital media.

Its also actually impossible to ever get caught pirating digital media. All you need to do is buy a laptop for cash off of craigslist or some pawn shop or even some random person. That laptop as no official ties to you. Then use a public wifi signal. Use both to download stuff. There is no link to you at all so you cannot get in trouble. Anyone who's ever been caught has actually been kind enough to use a computer or connection (or both) that is in their name.

[Deleted]

it was theft of intelectual property , someone who steals is called a thief , and blizzard had every legal right to shut them down

They did not theft it, they used it, theft is when you take something from someone (their property without given right by the owner) they did not steal the legal rights of the game from blizzard, neither did they took benefit from it, from a legal point of view it was not theft, but... blizzard can, and did, shut down the server, because they can "restrict" the game (the client side) to be used with private servers, and if they do use it, it be illegal.. The server code is not from blizzard, so blizzard doesn't own it, and can't do shit about it.. but about the clients and "fantasy" on the game they can. (all client side things)

Btw, you pay 50€ every expansion and don't even own it. Yeah, blizzard give you the right to use it (you, not your soon or wife) just you to use it to play on their servers, if you give it to a friend (cause he can't download, you're doing a illegal move also, and blizzard doesn't bother to "shut your license down").

my 2 cents..

[Deleted]

Guys, the reason the Blizzdrones are reacting like this is because it is showing they were wrong, it's not just a few people wearing nostalgia goggles, it's tens of thousands of people who realise the current game sucks and want to go back. We want our game back that the casuals have ruined.

500times this^ o/

[Deleted]

You spend months getting to level 60 in a "role playing" game and then you learn:

"Your role, it turns out, is to be a buff bot."

Or

"Your role, it turns out, is to be a resurrect bot."

Obviously Vanilla was perfect and Blizzard has never improved on the game since then.

10 years later you're either a DPS bot, tank bot or Heal bot.
With that kind of approach even god can be relegated to creation bot.

[Deleted]

Guys, the reason the Blizzdrones are reacting like this is because it is showing they were wrong, it's not just a few people wearing nostalgia goggles, it's tens of thousands of people who realise the current game sucks and want to go back. We want our game back that the casuals have ruined.

I agree, except for last phrase. Blaming any group for changes is wrong, developers did changes, not community.

However if you are looking at some group of players to blame, you are doing it wrong. Casuals didn't ask for those changes. Hardcore wannabe raiders did. They wanted to get FOTM class to max level as fast as possible, they wanted perfect balance (which was never achieved). Leveling, exploration, class depth, professions, character identity - all were ruined to allow players to reroll ASAP and push them to raiding.

[corebit]

Get a grip. It doesn't matter if its legal or not. Court battles aren't cheap, they have very little to do with law, more to do with whoever has more money to throw on long battle and more lawyers to come up with more accusations.

Companies just throw bunch of accusations and hope some won't get outright dismissed. Then they battle for each of those accusations for long time, which requires both sides to spend money. In mean time they can throw bunch of injunctions preventing other side from doing stuff, such as shutting down servers until case is resolved. Legal battles end in ether bankruptcy of one side or some deal. Legality has nothing to do with it.

Nos or anyone else in similar situation don't stand a chance, no matter if they broke any laws or not. That's how big companies operate. It is most often used to shut down or purchase small competing companies.

Want case related to WoW? Look at botting companies. Even though I hate bots with passion, they aren't doing anything illegal. Yet Blizzard shut down all of them, except for one that was in reasonable country (almost anything other than USA will do) and had resources to fight in court. That one company that survived is causing more harm to WoW that all private servers combined, which are causing no harm, yet it lives. Where is justice in that?

So it's just another case of "put up or shut up." All this talk about morality and justice doesn't do jack squat. In the end, if you really really like vanilla servers there will still be people that put them up here or there. If you were a Nos player, you get the joy of leveling all over again And pray your next private server doesn't get any bigger than Nostalrius, or it will get the smackdown by Blizzard again, and all your hard work goes down the drain.

[Deleted]

I disagree. I think that private servers do a great deal to harm the game itself and its community. Firstly, by stealing customers away from the actual game, and secondly by dividing the community. I have seen so many comments by people fighting on forums using the fact that they are playing on a private server to fuel their arguments.

There's no such thing as WoW community. Only WoW playerbase divided into different sub communities.
Nostralius players did not viewed themselves as same as retail players? There was no kinship, no common love, no brotherhood.
Community was not fractured because there was no single community to begin with.

Honestly, if the server community on Nostalrius had just shut up and not tried to persuade people to leave/boycott WoW in favour of playing for free on their Vanilla server, it's highly unlikely that they would drawn the kind of attention they did to it, and it would still be up and running today.

Communities dont just grow on their own. Recruitment and convincing is a thing.

[Tackhisis]

server software had nothing to do with Blizzard. There is nothing stolen/counterfit.

Some datafiles are stolen, as they are taken from the client directly, other are Blizzard property either stolen (quests, items, etc.) or counterfeit (as with mobs and loot).

[Kolvarg]

It is client content.
The database was created out server-only data, therefore illegal.

Just because it's ilelgal doesn't mean they're thieves. As far as I know, it is possible every player there has played on Nost had bought WoW at one point or another, even if not currently subscribing.

What I do know is that there were people in there that were actively paying a subscription to Blizz while playing on Nost. Agaisnt the TOS, sure. But still thieves?

[Xilurm]

So it's just another case of "put up or shut up." All this talk about morality and justice doesn't do jack squat. In the end, if you really really like vanilla servers there will still be people that put them up here or there. If you were a Nos player, you get the joy of leveling all over again And pray your next private server doesn't get any bigger than Nostalrius, or it will get the smackdown by Blizzard again, and all your hard work goes down the drain.

Best option is to just get over WoW and leave it behind.

[Raelbo]

Want case related to WoW? Look at botting companies. Even though I hate bots with passion, they aren't doing anything illegal. Yet Blizzard shut down all of them, except for one that was in reasonable country (almost anything other than USA will do) and had resources to fight in court. That one company that survived is causing more harm to WoW that all private servers combined, which are causing no harm, yet it lives. Where is justice in that?

Yeah, botting companies are a great example of how something morally repugnant isn't necessarily illegal. And regarding the case you're talking about, I have to admit I felt a certain of satisfaction at the final outcome. Blizzard tried to follow the legal route and lost, and the botting co very smugly and arrogantly proclaimed victory. So how did Blizzard respond? Mass banwave against the offending players. Justice!

Blizzard gave them plenty of opportunity to come clean, but eventually their hand was forced. I feel no sympathy for any of the botters or the botting company whose "legitimate business" was harmed in the process.