Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[samus]

bollocks, there are other servers that actually make money, and have been up for many years. Why they didn't shut these down? Bad move Blizzard, really bad move

Well it sends a message. Nost had a huge player base, by all accounts. People have taken notice and other private servers are probably wondering if or when they'll be hit.

[D3athsting]

All of these are pvp servers, have fun at stv

[samus]

No, it's being specifically targeted because it was the best of its kind and they were threatened by its success. Stop making shit up. There are private servers out there with more 50-60k people online and that offer p2w options. They've been at it for years.

I agree, the donation thing would be their legal reasoning. In reality, I'm sure there are tons that are profiting massively with P2W elements. I think it just comes down to sending a message.

[AeneasBK]

Well it sends a message. Nost had a huge player base, by all accounts. People have taken notice and other private servers are probably wondering if or when they'll be hit.

I'm pretty sure it would have crossed their minds in the past.

[Propainn]

You fail at analysis. LOL. It's not even worth pointing out the glaring, enormously faulty logic you've used, and the assumptions that are based on nothing but conjecture.

Besides, you cannot get past the cost it would take Blizzard to rebuild vanilla into a viable commercial product. You can try, but all we'll do is laugh at you.

Reading this makes me think of a kindergardener trying to explain how international monetary policy is created.

Please, do point out the faults. I would love to hear them. Those numbers were received from Blizzard themselves as far as I can tell (or at the very least, someone with much more industry experience than you or I), so this is not as much conjecture as you would like to believe.

I'll admit, there is absolutely an initial start up cost, but I cannot estimate that, only how many subs would be needed to maintain server costs. Guess what? That's way more than you have ever provided to this thread.

Refrain from the useless, extraneous comments. I will not be entertaining them.

[Vichan]

bollocks, there are other servers that actually make money, and have been up for many years. Why they didn't shut these down? Bad move Blizzard, really bad move

just because blizzard hasn't got to them yet, doesn't mean they won't. another big thing that got Nost took down was everyone constantly posting about it, i seem to remember twitch banning people that streamed nost, so it shouldn't be a surprise that it got to blizzard

[Gadzooks]

What? Then how did these guys maintain the private server for over a year without profit? They didn't spend millions of dollars, theres no way. Unless there is some rich tycoon who really wanted to play Vanilla supporting them in the background. If a legacy server was incorporated into WoW, you release the game in its final patch and thats it. Make it clear. There is no balance. No bug fixing. Nothing. Game remains as is. Bare minimal support.

I mean if a group of devoted people could maintain this private server for over a year, world wide, without profit; you're telling me Blizzard would have to bend over backwards to accomplish the same task?

They didn't have to maintain the same level of service, hardware, code, and support as Blizzard. Here we go again, the endless task of explaining to boneheads that the illegal server is a small fraction of what a real server is, in cost and support.

And, yet again, it has to be explained that the vanilla game does not exist anymore, and most of it would have to be rewritten to work on current technology - and they will not ever, under any circumstances, use the reverse engineered hack that the illegal server was running.

The illegal server could od it, because they're not Blizzard, were not offering the 24/7 uptime and support does, or Blizzard's connectivity.

But sure, it's exactly the same thing. Of course it is. Just because you say so.

[MoanaLisa]

I agree, the donation thing would be their legal reasoning. In reality, I'm sure there are tons that are profiting massively with P2W elements. I think it just comes down to sending a message.

Their legal reasoning is that they own the IP. The reason they actually made a move may be something else but they own the IP and art assets. There's this stupid argument making the rounds that all of the art assets are in the client so hey it's all OK, but from a legal perspective if any of the scripts they create touch or manipulate those assets (like player characters or spell effects among many others), that's infringement. There's very little grey area on this. Not every server is reachable by American or EU law. You can issue a cease and desist to some server in Russia--and I'm quite sure they do in the name of defending the IP--but if they cannot get co-operation for a take down from local authorities there's not a great deal that can be done. Nostalrius among other incomprehensible decisions was hosted in France. Really the only question here is why did Blizzard take so long to do anything about it. Maybe it was the donations, maybe not. That's between Blizzard and their lawyers and it's unlikely they'll ever go into that.

[AeneasBK]

Can we give some credit where it is most liekly due: Blizzard would have *known* about Nostralius before it even went live to the public.

[shoc]

just because blizzard hasn't got to them yet, doesn't mean they won't. another big thing that got Nost took down was everyone constantly posting about it, i seem to remember twitch banning people that streamed nost, so it shouldn't be a surprise that it got to blizzard

I think it comes down to the fact that Nost was the biggest private server in terms of population and cash flow.

Bigger the server, the easier the lawsuit.

Nost was the biggest server and therefore, the easiest lawsuit to win.

No court is going to indict a dozen friends playing together on an unadvertised emulated server.

But 150k active players? That's grounds for some serious copyright infringement.

[Deleted]

bollocks, there are other servers that actually make money, and have been up for many years. Why they didn't shut these down? Bad move Blizzard, really bad move

Legal court cases are really expensive - running them globally in different countries more so. The laws vary - but lawyers are expensive.
When you start a case, you want to be pretty damn sure to get the effect you're looking for - you don't want to get caught in the appeals for years and years or you don't want to fail on technicality.

This is why some servers are still up, while others have been shut down.

[AeneasBK]

They didn't have to maintain the same level of service, hardware, code, and support as Blizzard. Here we go again, the endless task of explaining to boneheads that the illegal server is a small fraction of what a real server is, in cost and support.

Yes. Somewhere between it being too expensive to do that, and paying lawyers to C+D companies that are making *profit* out of this there must be a compromise though I'm not saying a compromise *must* be found, just that it exists. To say it is impossible to provide the 1.12 servers and make a profit is evidently untrue. Blizzard have, after all, taken a stand against gold selling on retail by taking a share of the market themselves.

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I think it comes down to the fact that Nost was the biggest private server in terms of population and cash flow.

This isn't even the case though.

[Lochton]

No, it's being specifically targeted because it was the best of its kind and they were threatened by its success. Stop making shit up. There are private servers out there with more 50-60k people online and that offer p2w options. They've been at it for years.

Not really making shit up, if you read it correctly. I, "I think" there's multiple reasons. Donations are illegal, sales are illegal, hosting them are illegal, advertisement are illegal. Nostalrius did at least two of them. And other servers might be, but there is human beings working, and they still need to process before they start dragging more to court.

[Gadzooks]

Please, do point out the faults. I would love to hear them. Those numbers were received from Blizzard themselves as far as I can tell (or at the very least, someone with much more industry experience than you or I), so this is not as much conjecture as you would like to believe.

I'll admit, there is absolutely an initial start up cost, but I cannot estimate that, only how many subs would be needed to maintain server costs. Guess what? That's way more than you have ever provided to this thread.

Refrain from the useless, extraneous comments. I will not be entertaining them.

Let's start with that the infographic is based on financial date from 8 years ago. Oh, you didn't notice that? Hey, did you know, things cost more over time? There's this thing called "inflation".

And, in other articles that discussed the PR release that included that data (which I've read, have you?) stated that the numbers did not reflect all of the costs, but that it was an overall cost in terms of just keeping the servers turned on - in other words, things like bandwidth were not included. And, I'm pretty sure they upgraded the data centers for Cata, along with the hardware.

But you keep thinking you discovered something.

[Propainn]

Let's start with that the infographic is based on financial date from 8 years ago. Oh, you didn't notice that? Hey, did you know, things cost more over time? There's this thing called "inflation".

And, in other articles that discussed the PR release that included that data (which I've read, have you?) stated that the numbers did not reflect all of the costs, but that it was an overall cost in terms of just keeping the servers turned on - in other words, things like bandwidth were not included. And, I'm pretty sure they upgraded the data centers for Cata, along with the hardware.

But you keep thinking you discovered something.

I guarantee you that 137k/day wasn't the electric bill. Also, I wasn't aware we were in 2018. 2010 isn't horribly far off (check the sources, thats when server info was obtained), and Blizzard would be using older, cheaper hardware. The old code runs on old hardware, not the new stuff. Blizz has said this themselves.

Did I miss anything?

[Gadzooks]

Yes. Somewhere between it being too expensive to do that, and paying lawyers to C+D companies that are making *profit* out of this there must be a compromise though I'm not saying a compromise *must* be found, just that it exists. To say it is impossible to provide the 1.12 servers and make a profit is evidently untrue.

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This isn't even the case though.

There's no compromise, this isn't a negotiation, except in your head. Blizzard said "No".

There's what you think "should be", and then there's reality. I prefer reality.

[Levyan]

1.Private servers are against ToS
2.ToS is an agreement everyone makes when installing the game.
2.ToS/EULA are a written contract.
3. Each person who has owned an account has promised to use Blizzard's services as they intend it to be used.
4. Contracts are enforced by Civil Law in the U.S.: where Blizzard headquarters are.

Basically if you run/play on private servers, you lied and broke your word. That is basic morality. You can always try to renegotiate the contract, but that is not what happened here. Such a renegotiation would need Blizzard to actually sanction a 3rd party to host a server or run it themselves. Other than lawful action, I don't have any personal grudge against private servers and do not begrudge others having fun in their own way.

[Drpizka]

Legal court cases are really expensive - running them globally in different countries more so. The laws vary - but lawyers are expensive.
When you start a case, you want to be pretty damn sure to get the effect you're looking for - you don't want to get caught in the appeals for years and years or you don't want to fail on technicality.

This is why some servers are still up, while others have been shut down.

I don't think that this is the reason.

As Samus said, Blizz probably wanted to send a message. But my objection is that, there are many servers out there, older than Nostalrius. Blizzard is obviously afraid of the amount of players that were playing there.

[Vichan]

I guarantee you that 137k/day wasn't the electric bill. Also, I wasn't aware we were in 2019. 2011 isn't horribly far off, and Blizzard would be using older, cheaper hardware. The old code runs on old hardware, not the new stuff. Blizz has said this themselves.

Did I miss anything?

they no longer have the old code/hardware from back then. it's long gone

[Legion]

Not really making shit up, if you read it correctly. I, "I think" there's multiple reasons. Donations are illegal, sales are illegal, hosting them are illegal, advertisement are illegal. Nostalrius did at least two of them. And other servers might be, but there is human beings working, and they still need to process before they start dragging more to court.

Dude, Nostalrius has been out for like 1.5 years or so. There are tons of more populated servers with donations option for 3+ years. How does that make sense?