Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Tharkkun]

In America you don't own the media that comes with video games and that's the point. The software that private servers are using is not the same as Blizzard's, so only the art assets and related things are copyrighted on which grounds Blizzard have been doing their claims.



Then start posting some sources or any kind of argument proving me wrong on whatever you think I'm wrong.

The private servers are based off the original source code that was stolen back in 2004 when Blizzard was compromised. I highly doubt these developers re-wrote the client/server code from scratch and changed every variable and line of code to avoid copyright. If that was the case they wouldn't offer Blizzard's original client as a download with a modified server list.

[Chaelexi]

I don't care how much it potentially cost, i already paid that cost in 2004. I am not expecting them to rebuild something new, i am not expecting to add the game anything new. I just want the old stuff back which already exist. They can use Nostalrius codes if they want to, i don't mind.

Is Guild Wars 2 a charity game? Are their servers running with air? I am not asking anything free, i am paying sub. Asking me pay for same game again is greed.

The old stuff does not exist and you thinking it does shows how ignorant you truly are to how much software and hardware has changed as well as the level of security risks have changed in 11 years. So yes it will be a rebuild of something new.... There is no way for a Vanilla Legacy server to function properly without rebuilding it to run on current server and consumer hardware.

Second they will not use Nost's code because it does not meet internal Blizzard standards for security, hardware integration, reliability and scalability. It also does not include Battle.net account management, features and login, which any blizzard game will need to include.

So no it is not asking you to pay for the same game as it is not the same game but you can continue along in your beliefs that are built on unicorns and rainbows and no substance if you wish to remain blind to the reality of it.

- - - Updated - - -

Like every other MMO in existence? Like WoW was before the new Battle.net?

SO you are saying they should develop a second account management system that still has to tie into battle.net because it handles all the account information.....yes that is so very logical.......NOPE

[Dormie]

The old stuff does not exist and you thinking it does shows how ignorant you truly are to how much software and hardware has changed as well as the level of security risks have changed in 11 years. So yes it will be a rebuild of something new.... There is no way for a Vanilla Legacy server to function properly without rebuilding it to run on current server and consumer hardware.

Second they will not use Nost's code because it does not meet internal Blizzard standards for security, hardware integration, reliability and scalability. It also does not include Battle.net account management, features and login, which any blizzard game will need to include.

So no it is not asking you to pay for the same game as it is not the same game but you can continue along in your beliefs that are built on unicorns and rainbows and no substance if you wish to remain blind to the reality of it.

Oh, didn't realize you worked for Blizzard and had access to all of their information.

[Relapses]

RIP pristine realms. Ion just officially squashed that idea.

No new info on Legacy but it definitely would seem as if the pristine server compromise floated by Blizzard is dead in the water.

[kary]

Pristine realms was PR-ese for "go away, stfu"

Legacy, lol.

[DeadmanWalking]

We are not getting Legacy servers, it's not going to happen. Time to grip reality and come to the understanding that just because we want something really badly doesn't mean we are going to get it. Time to go through the 5 steps of grief and get along to acceptance and get along with our lives rather than continue to march along for something we are not going to get.

[Chaelexi]

Oh, didn't realize you worked for Blizzard and had access to all of their information.

No but I as stated before I am an IT manager, former programmer and server administrator for a major international company, so I have experience in a lot of these situations and most of it is common sense, so while I do not have access to Blizzard information, I can go off of the information they gave us and prior experiences in coding and administration and provide and educated and experienced opinion.

So what you are saying is hardware is completely the same from 11 years ago..... Lets start with the first part, WoW vanilla client is 32 bit current clients are going to 64 bit to increase possible performance(so it would have to be rewritten to use 64bit). On the server side the top level processors available were Intel Itanium level procs that ran at 1.6 GHz and were 8 cores with initial DDR1 ram, current are Zeon E7 series with 24 cores and run at up to 3.2 GHz and uses DDR3/4 at significantly higher amounts of RAM. But hey throwing old code at this will not have any issues. And Blizzard has stated theat they do not have the complete code base from WoW Vanilla servers. SO guess what it will take time to rebuild the code and make it integrate into the new Battle.net account management system,

Second part is Blizzard will not use Nost's code because it is an emulator and that means it is not efficient or secure as a program run natively on a system, and since it is an emulator it will not easily integrate into their battle.net environment and server infrastructure....but what do I know it is not like I have not had to move stuff over from an acquired company before.....

[Eleccybubb]

RIP pristine realms. Ion just officially squashed that idea.

No new info on Legacy but it definitely would seem as if the pristine server compromise floated by Blizzard is dead in the water.

Pristine was a shit idea anyway. Idea is no looms, no lfd/lfr etc. Leveling in the world is piss easy without looms and that already.

[MoanaLisa]

Ah I mistook my statement then. I did say I think with Russia but I thought China for sure since a lot of piracy goes on down there.

Signing a treaty like WIPO or the Berne Convention and enforcing it strictly are two different things.

[Zyster]

Oh look someone that talks about other people being fueled with hate and then insults those '2-3' posters without naming names. Yeah sorry I have no intentions of leaving this thread so it turns into some circle jerk.

If Blizz announces Legacy during Blizzcon I won't be pissed off. I'll just wait and see what happens after that announcement when a can of worms is opened with people demanding everything under the sun. And if Legacy fails shortly down the road I'd get frustrated at that point because I think it will hurt retail.

Nah, you will put on your tin foil hat, move your goal post and make up another fallacy.

[Gadzooks]

We are not getting Legacy servers, it's not going to happen. Time to grip reality and come to the understanding that just because we want something really badly doesn't mean we are going to get it. Time to go through the 5 steps of grief and get along to acceptance and get along with our lives rather than continue to march along for something we are not going to get.

I kind of have to agree, even though I'm not against them actually doing it. I was curious to see how they'd handle it, and and still am. I think Chilton's "We'd like to do that someday" was the real final nail in the coffin, at least for now. If they had even a vague path forward, that would be reflected in their comments - and who knows, they could pop up in Blizzcon and say the discussion is still ongoing internally, and they're still weighing their options. The ultimate no would be "We have no plans at this time" - which they havent said, yet. So there's a glimmer of hope.

At the very least, they're aware of the problem, and are looking at what legacy offers players that they're not offering now. They're too far into Legion to really do much, but the next expansion could see a return towards that kind of game. Maybe.

I think the best thing moving forward is to keep telling Blizzard what it is you get from legacy servers, and hope to get - and not get mired down into arguing about druid tanks or aspects of copyright law you have no clue about or accusing Blizzard of lying - tell them what it is they're not giving you. They're listening, at least for the moment. Take advantage of it. They read these forums. They read most of the WoW related sites.

- - - Updated - - -

Second part is Blizzard will not use Nost's code because it is an emulator and that means it is not efficient or secure as a program run natively on a system, and since it is an emulator it will not easily integrate into their battle.net environment and server infrastructure....but what do I know it is not like I have not had to move stuff over from an acquired company before.....

A more accurate description is what Chilton said - they were guessing at how Blizzard calculated things and scripted things, through an emulator, so Nost could have had a line of code that x+y=z, the real code on Blizzard's servers were m*n/p +f=z. They're not compatible, and reworking the Nost code to work would be the same as just starting from scratch with what they have remaining, and having to rework the entire system to what they think was happening 11 years ago - and if the code was poorly documented, it's even more work.

Some of the more stubborn posters here hold Blizzard to unreasonable standards for data retention, expecting them to hold every scrap of code, every change, every iteration of their databases, forever - and expect them to have seen their code as something that would need to be reused a decade later, back in 2004. That's just...laughable. They didn't even know if WoW would be around another 10 years, so when they overwrote data in the databases, what used to be there didn't matter.

But none of this will matter - they'll still throw tantrums and insist that it's easy, or that Blizzard is lying, or that the guesswork Nost did can just be copied and pasted onto a live Blizzard server. It's the same mentality and childish tantrum throwing that has fueled this thread from page one.

[sabe]

The old stuff does not exist and you thinking it does shows how ignorant you truly are to how much software and hardware has changed as well as the level of security risks have changed in 11 years. So yes it will be a rebuild of something new.... There is no way for a Vanilla Legacy server to function properly without rebuilding it to run on current server and consumer hardware.

Second they will not use Nost's code because it does not meet internal Blizzard standards for security, hardware integration, reliability and scalability. It also does not include Battle.net account management, features and login, which any blizzard game will need to include.

So no it is not asking you to pay for the same game as it is not the same game but you can continue along in your beliefs that are built on unicorns and rainbows and no substance if you wish to remain blind to the reality of it.

It is not my problem if old stuff does not exist. This just shows their working quality standards are low. I do machining for gas and petrol sectors and we keep every document and samples of what we produced for long years. Documents are kept digital and physical.

If Blizzard can't even keep their work in a hard disk somewhere, this shows how low their quality standards are. Doesn't matter how big they are. If i can keep back ups why not them and how?
Outland, Kalimdor, etc. are hosted by seperate servers right? Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms didn't have huge map and instancing changes until Cata release. Cata released on 2010, Battle.net released on 2009. It is not compltely 11 years.

There may be changes until this time and i paid for those too with expansions and subs. I am not asking anything for free, i just won't pay for same game again except monthly sub. Any change they make, they make it for themselves, things i need do already exist.

I said they can use Nost code and i won't mind it. I don't care how they make it work.

As i said before in another post, if they delete the Diablo 2 server data tomorrow and again they have no back ups at all, would it be fair to ask people to buy the game again?

[Eleccybubb]

It is not my problem if old stuff does not exist. This just shows their working quality standards are low. I do machining for gas and petrol sectors and we keep every document and samples of what we produced for long years. Documents are kept digital and physical.

If Blizzard can't even keep their work in a hard disk somewhere, this shows how low their quality standards are. Doesn't matter how big they are. If i can keep back ups why not them and how?
Outland, Kalimdor, etc. are hosted by seperate servers right? Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms didn't have huge map and instancing changes until Cata release. Cata released on 2010, Battle.net released on 2009. It is not compltely 11 years.

There may be changes until this time and i paid for those too with expansions and subs. I am not asking anything for free, i just won't pay for same game again except monthly sub. Any change they make, they make it for themselves, things i need do already exist.

I said they can use Nost code and i won't mind it. I don't care how they make it work.

As i said before in another post, if they delete the Diablo 2 server data tomorrow and again they have no back ups at all, would it be fair to ask people to buy the game again?

They said they have the data for vanilla. Just not minor patches if I recall from the meeting. Also they would never ever use Nost's code as there are many risks associated with using an outside code. If they ever did Legacy it would be built up internally in house.

[Chaelexi]

It is not my problem if old stuff does not exist. This just shows their working quality standards are low. I do machining for gas and petrol sectors and we keep every document and samples of what we produced for long years. Documents are kept digital and physical.

If Blizzard can't even keep their work in a hard disk somewhere, this shows how low their quality standards are. Doesn't matter how big they are. If i can keep back ups why not them and how?
Outland, Kalimdor, etc. are hosted by seperate servers right? Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms didn't have huge map and instancing changes until Cata release. Cata released on 2010, Battle.net released on 2009. It is not compltely 11 years.

There may be changes until this time and i paid for those too with expansions and subs. I am not asking anything for free, i just won't pay for same game again except monthly sub. Any change they make, they make it for themselves, things i need do already exist.

I said they can use Nost code and i won't mind it. I don't care how they make it work.

As i said before in another post, if they delete the Diablo 2 server data tomorrow and again they have no back ups at all, would it be fair to ask people to buy the game again?

You are either illiterate or dense so I will use small words. THEY CAN NOT USE NOST CODE..... IT WILL NOT WORK.....

As for your statement "you don't care how they make it work", you are clearly lying to yourself as you do care how they get it done as you said you are not willing to pay for something you are requesting. So why would they do that.

And as for your example it is completely different as they did not make sweeping changes to the Diablo beyond balancing and it has been updated as hardware changes have been made but it is still the original game in the end. As WoW has went through complete changes in structure, balance, digital architecture, 7 version changes. And there is no real reason to keep code in a fully compiled form for hardware they no longer have as they have made changes to it in every sense of the game. But this is something you are asking for and once asking for it they have the right to charge for it. It is how free market works. They have a product you want they can charge for it if you like. So no it would not be the original game as you are asking for because they will have to sink development time into the game and your Vanilla wow disks will not be the same software used to play WoW Legacy, it will be all new code to play like Vanilla, just as Nost was. And it will have an additional cost over and above the monthly sub fee too as it will need to pay for itself.

- - - Updated - - -

A more accurate description is what Chilton said - they were guessing at how Blizzard calculated things and scripted things, through an emulator, so Nost could have had a line of code that x+y=z, the real code on Blizzard's servers were m*n/p +f=z. They're not compatible, and reworking the Nost code to work would be the same as just starting from scratch with what they have remaining, and having to rework the entire system to what they think was happening 11 years ago - and if the code was poorly documented, it's even more work.

Some of the more stubborn posters here hold Blizzard to unreasonable standards for data retention, expecting them to hold every scrap of code, every change, every iteration of their databases, forever - and expect them to have seen their code as something that would need to be reused a decade later, back in 2004. That's just...laughable. They didn't even know if WoW would be around another 10 years, so when they overwrote data in the databases, what used to be there didn't matter.

But none of this will matter - they'll still throw tantrums and insist that it's easy, or that Blizzard is lying, or that the guesswork Nost did can just be copied and pasted onto a live Blizzard server. It's the same mentality and childish tantrum throwing that has fueled this thread from page one.

Thank-you, for going more indepth, I initially did not want to go into these detail and had missed the Chilton explanation on this. But yes Nost would have cut corners for making things work but blizz would have thought ahead as putting a few optional variables in a formula gives the ability to balance values better than a straight x+y=z code base.

As for data retention, just think about the shear volumes of hotfixes and quick server reboots that have been released after a new patch to fix this bug/exploit/crash. All of these changes would add up to ridiculous large amounts of storage that you would need to also keep backed up, for zero to no reason. Then you would need to figure out the version of server software and hopefully match up the version of client software and still have to fix it. And since it is being provided for a cost by a major company there would be an expectation that this software be updated to fix known and newly discovered bugs, possibly cycle in events(things like the Naxx/demon/ invasions and AQ opening.

[sabe]

Some of the more stubborn posters here hold Blizzard to unreasonable standards for data retention, expecting them to hold every scrap of code, every change, every iteration of their databases, forever - and expect them to have seen their code as something that would need to be reused a decade later, back in 2004. That's just...laughable. They didn't even know if WoW would be around another 10 years, so when they overwrote data in the databases, what used to be there didn't matter.

Are you a working person? If so did you ever work in a large company or with a customer that is large?
There are written quality standards in our world and they are universal. You can see most succesful companies obey these standards. Look what used to be there matters now. So lets look at what ISO says from ISO web page

"ISO International Standards ensure that products and services are safe, reliable and of good quality. For business, they are strategic tools that reduce costs by minimizing waste and errors and increasing productivity. They help companies to access new markets, level the playing field for developing countries and facilitate free and fair global trade."
Bolded part says it all, by not keeping back ups, theyincreased costs, couldn't minimize waste and couldn't increase productivity.

Why every company keeps their financial data, tax return etc. even after years? Do they know they will be around after a decade?
Yes, there are standards for keeping back ups.

They said they have the data for vanilla. Just not minor patches if I recall from the meeting. Also they would never ever use Nost's code as there are many risks associated with using an outside code. If they ever did Legacy it would be built up internally in house.

I understand Nost part and i will be happy to see them have the data for Vanilla.

You are either illiterate or dense so I will use small words. THEY CAN NOT USE NOST CODE..... IT WILL NOT WORK.....

As for your statement "you don't care how they make it work", you are clearly lying to yourself as you do care how they get it done as you said you are not willing to pay for something you are requesting. So why would they do that.

And as for your example it is completely different as they did not make sweeping changes to the Diablo beyond balancing and it has been updated as hardware changes have been made but it is still the original game in the end. As WoW has went through complete changes in structure, balance, digital architecture, 7 version changes. And there is no real reason to keep code in a fully compiled form for hardware they no longer have as they have made changes to it in every sense of the game. But this is something you are asking for and once asking for it they have the right to charge for it. It is how free market works. They have a product you want they can charge for it if you like. So no it would not be the original game as you are asking for because they will have to sink development time into the game and your Vanilla wow disks will not be the same software used to play WoW Legacy, it will be all new code to play like Vanilla, just as Nost was. And it will have an additional cost over and above the monthly sub fee too as it will need to pay for itself.

I said i don't care how it works and how are you %100 sure it won't work with some changes? Is Blizzard using a different language from another world?
Please prove me how it is impossible for Nost code to work with Battle.net. Listening..

[Jerichofr]

I said i don't care how it works and how are you %100 sure it won't work with some changes? Is Blizzard using a different language from another world?
Please prove me how it is impossible for Nost code to work with Battle.net. Listening..

Directly from Chilton's mouth:

Schreier: Don’t the Nostalrius people have that data?

Chilton: No, they don’t actually. So what they did is went back and reverse-engineered it. They spent countless hours researching on YouTube, looking at, ‘OK how many hit points do you think that monster has, I think I saw a video that showed it with, you know, 2,152 hit points, so that’s the number of hit points we’re gonna give it.’ And they’re just kinda guessing and approximating on a lot of stuff. Which is cool, and they did an amazing job of making it feel like a very authentic experience. But ultimately the way they implement their data is in no way similar to the way we do it. So it’s not like we can even take that data and put it in the game, because they actually aren’t even really compatible - they have a completely different approach to creating content.

[DeadmanWalking]

It is not my problem if old stuff does not exist. This just shows their working quality standards are low. I do machining for gas and petrol sectors and we keep every document and samples of what we produced for long years. Documents are kept digital and physical.

If Blizzard can't even keep their work in a hard disk somewhere, this shows how low their quality standards are. Doesn't matter how big they are. If i can keep back ups why not them and how?
Outland, Kalimdor, etc. are hosted by seperate servers right? Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms didn't have huge map and instancing changes until Cata release. Cata released on 2010, Battle.net released on 2009. It is not compltely 11 years.

There may be changes until this time and i paid for those too with expansions and subs. I am not asking anything for free, i just won't pay for same game again except monthly sub. Any change they make, they make it for themselves, things i need do already exist.

I said they can use Nost code and i won't mind it. I don't care how they make it work.

As i said before in another post, if they delete the Diablo 2 server data tomorrow and again they have no back ups at all, would it be fair to ask people to buy the game again?

Does it really matter what kind of completely logical reasons anyone gives you as to why it won't work? You're angry and you want something -roight naow!-. You are at the point of no return, that point where no matter what people tell you you're still going to jump off a cliff with explosives strapped to your back screaming bloody murder.

You are damned and determined to blame blizz and dont give a shit about logic, just bend everything to fuel your argument.

[sabe]

Directly from Chilton's mouth:

I am aware it is not the way to do it and thank you for sharing this.
Doesn't say impossible. I just wanted to know how the poster could be %100 sure.

Does it really matter what kind of completely logical reasons anyone gives you as to why it won't work? You're angry and you want something -roight naow!-. You are at the point of no return, that point where no matter what people tell you you're still going to jump off a cliff with explosives strapped to your back screaming bloody murder.

You are damned and determined to blame blizz and dont give a shit about logic, just bend everything to fuel your argument.

Do you people have a problem understanding? I don't care how it works as long as it works. I am not defending for them to use Nost code. I have been defending if Blizz asks a price for "vanilla expansion" as much as they do for Legion.
People are just reading one sentence and going for that one.

[Eleccybubb]

I am aware it is not the way to do it and thank you for sharing this.
Doesn't say impossible. I just wanted to know how the poster could be %100 sure.



Do you people have a problem understanding? I don't care how it works as long as it works.

You might not but Blizzard do. They don't want to use Nost's code due to risks that could be associated with using it.

[Chaelexi]

Are you a working person? If so did you ever work in a large company or with a customer that is large?
There are written quality standards in our world and they are universal. You can see most succesful companies obey these standards. Look what used to be there matters now. So lets look at what ISO says from ISO web page

"ISO International Standards ensure that products and services are safe, reliable and of good quality. For business, they are strategic tools that reduce costs by minimizing waste and errors and increasing productivity. They help companies to access new markets, level the playing field for developing countries and facilitate free and fair global trade."
Bolded part says it all, by not keeping back ups, theyincreased costs, couldn't minimize waste and couldn't increase productivity.

Why every company keeps their financial data, tax return etc. even after years? Do they know they will be around after a decade?
Yes, there are standards for keeping back ups.



I understand Nost part and i will be happy to see them have the data for Vanilla.



I said i don't care how it works and how are you %100 sure it won't work with some changes? Is Blizzard using a different language from another world?
Please prove me how it is impossible for Nost code to work with Battle.net. Listening..

It is run on an emulator......that is all you need to know. It is not run directly on hardware. Also as Gadzooks said they are using different equations to make it work from what standard blizzard code is. And secondly it is not safe practice to run third party code because you may not find if there is a backdoor hidden in the code without going over it with a fine tooth comb which could take more effort than just rewriting code to make the old fragmented code they have work, as they at least they made it and know there is no gaping holes in it. But hey you are blinded by the fact in your mind that blizzard is withholding something from you that you want...... GUESS WHAT(to quote the Stones)...... YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT......


Yes the keep financials for 7 years because they can be audited for that time and are legally required to keep them for that long, but there is no legal requirement to keep every version and edit of software ever made.


By not keeping all the backups they reduced costs as they are not paying for the storage and the cost of testing these backups.