Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Vineri]

Please, explain to me how you think that using assets that Blizzard owns a copyright for is anything other than evidence of IP theft. I'm legitimately curious.

@Duronos, I don't know why you keep trying to invent loopholes. They're using copyrighted materials to run their server. Blizzard has every fucking right in the universe to shut down their server. If it went to court, the court would 100% side with Blizzard because they own the fucking copyright and that is literally the reason copyright protection even exists. I don't know why you say there are grey areas here. The lengths you're going to defend Nost against something that'll likely never happen is positively mind boggling.

If it went to court.

The only known case linked was 2009, which Blizzard won because the private server was shown to directly prevent customers from purchasing TBC. As a secondary factor, the site was also located in the USA (same jurisdiction as Blizzard HQ), so the risk vs. reward was justified to pursue.

If Blizzard really want to go to court, perhaps they could try. But they aren't trying now are they. Oh but we do love backseat lawyers on this site

By all means continue telling us what they should do, as they stand with professional lawyers and continue to do nothing.

[Relapses]

With your logic it implies that they should have done that and actually would yet there is a huge private server community on <popular Wrath server> and they haven't been touched. You're making it sound like Blizzard could 100% win and it would be worth their time, it's obviously not for whatever reason.

I'm saying that Blizzard would win (easily) but it isn't worth their time. Obviously when you have $3M in a PayPal account, Blizzard has to do something as they did with Scapegaming. But the principles upon which Blizzard prosecuted Scapegaming would be identical to the ones which Blizzard would utilize against Nost or literally any other private realm. Simply because they don't doesn't mean that they feel like there's a chance they might lose, it means it's not worth their time.

In a perfect world they'd litigate against every popular private realm that ever popped up but we both know that'll never happen. As a result, private realms are operated in a state of eternal peril whereby they're liable to be shut down at any moment the second Blizzard's legal team determines their server is a potential threat. If that's fine with you, by all means, take that risk. But it's extremely frustrating that you guys try to invent all of these scenarios where Blizzard loses a very clear case of IP theft on the basis of extenuating circumstances which are completely irrelevant.

[Deleted]

But the principles upon which Blizzard prosecuted Scapegaming would be identical to the ones which Blizzard would utilize against Nost or literally any other private realm.

That was a private lawsuit in a US court against a US citizen who hosted a US server to which the defendant didn't bother to show up and lost by default.

Not applicable at all in the case of Nostalrius or pretty much any other private server currently running.

[Vineri]

I'm saying that Blizzard would win (easily) but it isn't worth their time. Obviously when you have $3M in a PayPal account, Blizzard has to do something as they did with Scapegaming. But the principles upon which Blizzard prosecuted Scapegaming would be identical to the ones which Blizzard would utilize against Nost or literally any other private realm. Simply because they don't doesn't mean that they feel like there's a chance they might lose, it means it's not worth their time.

In a perfect world they'd litigate against every popular private realm that ever popped up but we both know that'll never happen. As a result, private realms are operated in a state of eternal peril whereby they're liable to be shut down at any moment the second Blizzard's legal team determines their server is a potential threat. If that's fine with you, by all means, take that risk. But it's extremely frustrating that you guys try to invent all of these scenarios where Blizzard loses a very clear case of IP theft on the basis of extenuating circumstances which are completely irrelevant.

But that is what you were saying, the crux of your offense to Legacy. They would win but not worth their time is a cop-out, IMO. If it is such an open / shut case, they would be having offending servers pay their legal defense. Perhaps it's not so easy.

SRC:

I don't know why you keep trying to invent loopholes. They're using copyrighted materials to run their server. Blizzard has every fucking right in the universe to shut down their server. If it went to court, the court would 100% side with Blizzard because they own the fucking copyright and that is literally the reason copyright protection even exists. I don't know why you say there are grey areas here. The lengths you're going to defend Nost against something that'll likely never happen is positively mind boggling.

The biggest issue right now is when private servers shut down to update to Nostalrius. A popular one is doing this now and currently undergoing stress testing for the next 2 weeks. /sigh

The alternative is to not play a version of WoW that was immersive and fun. Many take the risk and play on unofficial Legacy servers. Statistically, a total shutdown is improbable.

What is extremely frustrating is how retail fans are trying to force people to play a game they don't enjoy.

[Ielenia]

The part you fail to comprehend is that courts need evidence.

You have a pirate server using assets that do not belong to them, nor do they have permission from the assets' owner to use them. There is no clearer evidence than that.

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For whatever reason he thinks that using the copyrighted material is considered evidence, it's not as black and white as that. You can make a case that it's not the base game anymore and it really then goes down to whatever the judge or jury (if a jury is used) thinks, it's an extremely grey area because client side stuff isn't technically illegal.

It doesn't work like that. The trademark still belongs to Blizzard. The IP still belongs to Blizzard. It's not about giving free vanilla copies, it's about using said vanilla assets. And they do use it.

The EULA says it's illegal but the EULA wouldn't really even apply in court, it would be thrown out terribly fast if used as an argument and Blizzard's lawyers wouldn't even bother with it.

EULAs are still valid in civil court, AFAIK.

[Darktbs]

But that is what you were saying, the crux of your offense to Legacy.

SRC:


The biggest issue right now is when private servers shut down to update to Nostalrius. A popular one is doing this now and currently undergoing stress testing for the next 2 weeks. /sigh

The alternative is to not play a version of WoW that was immersive and fun. Many take the risk. Statistically, a total shutdown is improbable.

What is extremely frustrating is how retail fans are trying to force people to play a game they don't enjoy.

No retail players is forcing you to play on retail.Unlike Legacy players that are like a plague yelling that (insert expansion) was better and that blizzard SHOULD make Legacy server.

You don't want to play on retail,fine.But don't force blizzard to make a special server to catter to a minority group of players.

[deth2munkies]

OK, fine, I'll bite, I'm bored and feel like I can explain. I am familiar with the legal stuff, but I am not a copyright attorney or licensed in California so grain of salt on this. Here's the answer to this and some other FAQs:

You do realize you need to link it to actual people that's the hard part?

Okay, I'm also curious, since you're such a legal expert let me ask you, who exactly does Blizzard sue here, where and for what?

Let's say you have one guy in one country who developed the code, another in a second one who runs the server, a third who handles the money located in a third country, login server is located in a fourth country and the server proper in a whole nother, fifth country altogether.
And that's simplifying things here, because there's more people and more countries...

It's likely that you sue whoever runs the Nostalrius website and/or whoever administrates the actual server. Who is the primary infringer is an interesting question, but they're all at least secondaries, and the person running the server is obviously A primary so they can all get sued.

Why sue them?

Simple: it makes it a lot harder to defend future copyright cases against other infringers. Copyright violation requires intent to violate the copyright, so if someone can say "well all these people were doing it so I thought there must not be a copyright", they might be able to win in front of a jury.

Why not grant them a license?

A lot of reasons: they're just a small group of fans with no accountability that suddenly have to represent Blizzard as a whole, they cannibalize their own game's profits, and they suddenly have to offer tech support for an outdated system that requires a lot of new staff and training. Not to mention it's a bad precedent to set and there will be a ton of license requests in the future which would compound those problems.

Why not make an actual vanilla server?

Updating the code to run on Battle.net is not a trivial task and would take significant time, effort, and money; changes to Battle.net which also have to be accommodated by every other game; and as above, they have to hire more staff to support it and cannibalize the playerbase of another one of their primary moneymakers for the sake of a relatively tiny group. Remember, an MMO with 10,000 active players based solely on subscriptions is a failing MMO, the only reason those smaller MMOs can remain afloat is through copious microtransactions.

If Nostalrius gets sued, could they win?

Doesn't matter. Costs of defending the lawsuit would easily be six figures but more likely millions and they don't make that. No matter how much they may fundraise, they're going to go bankrupt trying to defend the lawsuit to the point where they'll have to settle and any settlement would include shutting down the server.

Why is it so expensive?

So attorneys are really expensive, usually several hundred dollars an hour. These attorneys (and there would have to be multiple attorneys and staff on a case this big) would have to draft a response to Blizzard, which takes a good amount of legal research and time to draft the response, but that's the easieset part. Then, they have to request discovery (that's information) from Blizzard and other third parties like the service providers, payment provider, etc. All of that takes time because they have to figure out exactly who has what and how to phrase the requests to get the information they want without getting overloaded.

Then they GET all that, (and simply getting it actually costs a lot of money, because that much data being transferred is expensive) and then have to sort through it which takes attorneys and staff many, many hours. Add to that, those attorneys have to review EVERYTHING that Nostalrius has for privilege and other reasons to try to oppose Blizzard being able to discover it, then have to spend the money to get all of that data over to Blizzard.

Then both sides are going to file summary judgment motions which are very difficult and time consuming to draft, then they actually go to court. Then the judge may or may not decide to grant one and end the case right there. If they do, then whoever loses appeals. Appeals cost a ton of money because you have to put up a bond to stop the judgment from going into effect, which is often in the 5-6 figures in a case like this, plus drafting the actual appellate briefs and arguing the case.

I could go on (and I've skipped a ton of things that could happen), but see, all the time that all of that is happening, you're spending $300-500 an hour per attorney. Oh, and if Nostalrius loses, not only are they on the hook for damages, but they're on the hook for Blizzard's attorney's fees in addition to their own, and Blizzard has been doing the same thing.

But say money is no object, would they actually win on the law?

Probably not. The actual code for WoW is not and can't be copyrighted, but certain systems (Warden anti-cheat for example) and the characters, voice acting, names, story, and artwork all are. This falls way outside of the scope of fair use because they're using pretty much an entire copyrighted work for monetary gain. It's also probably not transformative because getting Vanilla to run on modern systems and patching up the code probably isn't enough to make it qualify as its own work, though it hasn't been litigated yet.

Well this sucks, shouldn't they be able to do something like this if Blizzard isn't doing anything with the copyright on Vanilla servers? Shouldn't games no longer for sale be able to be posted by fans and shared with people who want to play them?

I think so, but that's not what the law is. If you want it to change, call your Congressmen. I think getting a Vanilla WoW server is going to be a much longer shot than, say, the Star Wars Galaxies revival because Blizzard is still running a current version of WoW, but at this point, I'd take any pro-consumer change to copyright law I can get.

But...that's not fair!

Tough.

[Deleted]

You have a pirate server using assets that do not belong to them, nor do they have permission from the assets' owner to use them. There is no clearer evidence than that.

Putting aside that pirate servers actually do not use any copyrighted assets, but whatever, let's say they do because you seem incapable of grasping that even though several people already pointed that out to you...

Okay, where do you use that "evidence", which court and against whom?

I'll just quote myself from earlier:
Let's say you have one guy in one country who developed the code, another in a second one who runs the server, a third who handles the money located in a third country, login server is located in a fourth country and the server proper in a whole nother, fifth country altogether.
And that's simplifying things here, because there's more people and more countries...

Who does Blizzard sue?

[Ielenia]

What is extremely frustrating is how retail fans are trying to force people to play a game they don't enjoy.

Once again, you invent lies to support your narratives.

No one is "trying to force" you to play a game you don't enjoy. You don't enjoy WoW retail? Go play something else. The only ones "trying to force" something is the pro-Legacy crowd, by trying to get Blizzard, either by guilt-tripping ("you ruined WoW but we will return for Vanilla") or with empty threats ("give me vanilla or you're not getting my money"), to create Legacy servers for them.

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Putting aside that pirate servers actually do not use any copyrighted assets,

So you're saying every private server develops the client code and art assets themselves, without using anything from outside sources?! Wow, I didn't know that!! (/sarcasm)

[Deleted]

So you're saying every private server develops the client code and art assets themselves, without using anything from outside sources?! Wow, I didn't know that!! (/sarcasm)

There's much you apparently don't know.
Client code doesn't run on servers, it runs on clients, that's why it's called, surprise, a client.

[Vineri]

No retail players is forcing you to play on retail.Unlike Legacy players that are like a plague yelling that (insert expansion) was better and that blizzard SHOULD make Legacy server.

You don't want to play on retail,fine.But don't force blizzard to make a special server to catter to a minority group of players.

The denial of awesome, official versions of this game conflicts your statement.

Along with all the haboo about how Private Servers need to be shut down, etc. Certain people are not forcing fans to play only on retail, but they are attempting to make that the only option to get a WoW experience, by continually speaking negatively about Legacy. No private servers, no official servers, etc. They have a very self-serving attitude, IMO.

EULAs are still valid in civil court, AFAIK.

Actually they aren't. Local jurisdictions take precedence over EULA's.

They may be looked at, but it's nowhere near as good as a paper signature, with no evidence to support exactly who clicked ACCEPT. It's more a deterrent than an actual enforcement.

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The only ones "trying to force" something is the pro-Legacy crowd, by trying to get Blizzard, either by guilt-tripping ("you ruined WoW but we will return for Vanilla") or with empty threats ("give me vanilla or you're not getting my money"), to create Legacy servers for them.

This is where your statements turn to dust. Noone is "forcing you" to leave retail. You never even need to step foot inside any of those servers. You attempt to turn the tables by forcing retail, then deny a force. But your argument is empty. People who want to play retail will play retail. People who want to play Legacy will play Legacy.

I'd like to have everyone happy.

[dmerriam005]

Putting aside that pirate servers actually do not use any copyrighted assets, but whatever, let's say they do because you seem incapable of grasping that even though several people already pointed that out to you...

Okay, where do you use that "evidence", which court and against whom?

I'll just quote myself from earlier:
Let's say you have one guy in one country who developed the code, another in a second one who runs the server, a third who handles the money located in a third country, login server is located in a fourth country and the server proper in a whole nother, fifth country altogether.
And that's simplifying things here, because there's more people and more countries...

Who does Blizzard sue?

you sue all the people involved because they are still stealing from blizzard, whether it be apples or oranges or the ARTWORK that blizzard owns

[Relapses]

But...that's not fair!

Tough.

And there is the fundamental problem. We've had 1,700 pages worth of people arguing that "tough" isn't an acceptable answer to their problem. I appreciate the thorough and concise breakdown of some of the commonly misconstrued concepts of copyright law and protection though I feel like it'll largely fall on deaf ears as the pro-Legacy folks insulate themselves in their safe spaces and pretend like those of us trying to weigh a voice of reason on this subject are just picking on them.

[Deleted]

us trying to weigh a voice of reason on this subject

lolnope

doublelolnope

[Ielenia]

The denial of awesome, official versions of this game conflicts your statement.

No. It doesn't. One statement does not imply the other, at all. Just because we don't want Legacy server, does not mean we are "forcing" you to play retail. Again, don't invent lies.

This is where your statements turn to dust. Noone is "forcing you" to leave retail.

Stop. You got nothing. You just keep making stuff up, at this point. Our argument against legacy server has never been about us having to 'leave retail' or even 'play vanilla'. Our arguments were never anywhere near that.

I'd like to have everyone happy.

Except you can't. In a perfect fantasy world, maybe. But this is the real world. You'll never have everyone happy.

[Vineri]

I feel like it'll largely fall on deaf ears as the pro-Legacy folks insulate themselves in their safe spaces and pretend like those of us trying to weigh a voice of reason on this subject are just picking on them.

When you have a voice of reason, get back to us!

There is much picking going on from each side. Retail fans trying to persuade Legacy fans via lawsuits, or server shutdowns, siting that is takes money away from Their game (which is currently bleeding money as we speak to other projects). Legacy fans saying retail is shit.

I wouldn't purchase retail Legions directly, but I would give is another go if it was included on a BattleNet account, with Legacy as an option. I did play Legions on a friends account prior to said person unsubscribing - it wasn't mind blowing, but it looks like a feasible alternative between Legacy raids. Perhaps an avenue to purchase Tokens in downtime.

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Again, don't invent lies.

Your whole argument is based on propaganda and misrepresentation, and with self serving tid-bits here and there.

There were no lies, only your disbelief of how others feel is what others will see. I see a parallel to a recent election, but I'll let your mind wander.

[Deleted]

I see so many people complaining about not being able to "weigh a voice of reason" which basically mean that legacy realms are a big NO.

Funny thing is that those people are not really capable of making one strong argument against them. I mean seriously:

1) was legacy worse? who cares, should such realms ever be introduced - nobody will force you to play on them!
2) there is no old code and all this technical stuff BS = Blizzard basically told nostalrius staff that they have to code, and that this is not a technical issue.
3) people would get bored after a while = those realms have been around since I rember. Have any of you people actually played on nostalrius? I did, and many times I was actually frustrated at how many people would play on that realm. It didnt matter if I logged at the first month of the realm or at the 8th month - I still had problems with killing one mob.

etc etc.

The bottom line is that those realms make sense. If you still wont acknlowledge it then show me an MMORPG similar to vanilla wow. You wont find any! they whole genre changed dramatically over the years. It didnt simply get old like you all seem to imply - it changed! there is a difference. People miss the old system that's all.

I wouldnt even mind a few improvements like more graveyards or simple access to BGs or even the new models - because those type of change improve the game but don't change its core. LFR, LDF, flying, onhitting mobs, easy dungeons - all that kind of stuff makes the game different. For some maybe better, but still - different!

Allow people to play a game they want. Its not rose tinted glasses, it's just a simple demand of a game that doesnt exist on the market anymore. One last simple example - I love Warcraft 2 and I recently finished it. While it is old, it is still a great game. And I could play it. Unlike vanilla wow.

[Deleted]

This constant argument going back and forth is in vein at this point. Everything that can be said about this topic has already been said. Agree to disagree at this point, please. I support voices of both sides and I understand that it's Blizzard choice to make as a company.

I've played on private servers and retail together for 5 years now, and I've played retail since late vanilla. I was a part of Nostalrius from day one and I was a part of WoD and Legion from day one. They are two separate games at this point and I understand that the community is divided because of it. However, I don't understand why we are pointing the finger at each other saying that the other person shouldn't enjoy the game they play.

Blizzard has handeld this very poorly by saying it's nostalgia or that this part of the community don't know what they want. There is a lot of players enjoying vanilla at this very moment that never got to experience it, others that didn't have the time to complete certain goals that is now back doing so. I think that a lot could be done by Blizzard on this topic, just by talking. Be more open with us what is hindering you from actually bringing us legacy servers at this point, and be honest this time around.

It's also very amusing seeing how angry so many people over this topic. If you, mainly the retail community, don't want legacy servers and don't want it discussed you should stop talking for Blizzards behalf. Stay quiet and let the company answer the questions instead of fighting against it and fueling the fire.

[Relapses]

This topic is going to cause me to have an aneurysm at this point.

@Vineri - I'm convinced you just type up random words which only viscerally seem like they're on-topic because the second anybody tries to analyze what you're actually saying, it's plainly evident that you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. You just accused me of "trying to get people to play retail" when I spent the last ten fucking posts in this thread saying that I have no problem with people playing on private realms. I don't know how you can fail this hard at simple reading comprehension.

To wit, I don't give a shit if you guys play on private servers. What I give a shit about is when you try to make piss-poor arguments in favor of Legacy which either flat out ignore common sense or twist reality to fit your precious little victim complex narrative.

[Ielenia]

Your whole argument is based on propaganda and misrepresentation,

Your propaganda and your misrepresentations. That's what we're arguing against.

There were no lies

Oh, really? Let' see:

* Mark Kern ran Nostalrius
* Mark Kern shut down Nostalrius, which was "his server"
* Mark Kern shut down Nostalrius for personal gain so he could get a job or become an adviser for Blizzard

Also:
* Vineri claims that people against legacy want to force pro-legacy players to play a game they don't like.

And that's just five second in the search function. I'm pretty sure I can find more.

I see a parallel to a recent election, but I'll let your mind wander.

You assume I live in the US. How cute.