Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server • Hacker News Board

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#11

Post by kibwen » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 3:45 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

Meekro wrote: post #4

I used to be involved with this sort of thing, and it's actually pretty interesting stuff. There are enormous open source projects, operating largely out of public sight, that have recreated the WoW server backend in most of its glory. The lower-level content works quite well these days, though a lot of complex raid scripts are missing or broken. This one is probably the most popular: https://github.com/TrinityCore/T…

One could argue that the Lich King was the last "good" patch for WoW. What I've never understood though was there is clearly some residual demand for "down rev" versions of the game where the mechanics favored a more engaged play style, why not facilitate it? How much does it really cost to run a single realm at the Vanilla, TBC, and LK levels? So many new players where their first experience with Onxyia was soloing…

My personal intuition is that splitting your userbase like this is disastrous for a game in the long-term (to say nothing of my intuition that 90% of people longing for "the old days" are just looking for a quick hit of nostalgia, with no intent to pay long-term).

However, it's worth mentioning that Runescape now officially offers a "classic" version of the game alongside (and separate from) the modern version, which should be an interesting experiment to watch.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#12

Post by Zancarius » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 3:46 AM UTC

hoodoof wrote: post #6

Seems the classy thing to do would have been for Blizzard to ask politely instead of sending in the dogs.

I'm wondering if their objective here was to make an example out of this particular server as they have with others. Once they reach a particular critical mass, they gain Blizzard's interests and down comes the legal hammer.

Although you have to wonder what sort of impact this is going to have, if any. I'd wager most of the players are unlikely to pay for a retail subscription if they aren't already simply on the merits that they were actively looking for a 1.x vanilla server. Further, it has to be a bit like a game of whack-a-mole: For each server they shut down, one or two reappear to take their place, but it does serve as trademark/copyright protection against dilution and illegal use of game assets.

I've read a few threads on the official forums out of shear curiosity, and it almost reminds me of the discussions that occurred during the height of Napster et al. The primary difference being that the private servers recreate a product that effectively doesn't exist anymore (not justifying the legality of it, but if you ignore the copyright/trademark issues, that's essentially the underpinning issue). Blizzard claims there's insufficient interest in prior expansions to justify re-implementation (and maybe they're right) but the number of private servers surely can't all be populated with freeloaders.

Part of me wishes there was a better resolution to this. WotLK was my favorite expansion, and it'd be nice to play it again with some of the more recent improvements mixed in (minus the spell culling and talent nonsense--it feels far too dumbed down).

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#13

Post by minimaxir » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 3:50 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

Meekro wrote: post #4

I used to be involved with this sort of thing, and it's actually pretty interesting stuff. There are enormous open source projects, operating largely out of public sight, that have recreated the WoW server backend in most of its glory. The lower-level content works quite well these days, though a lot of complex raid scripts are missing or broken. This one is probably the most popular: https://github.com/TrinityCore/T…

One could argue that the Lich King was the last "good" patch for WoW. What I've never understood though was there is clearly some residual demand for "down rev" versions of the game where the mechanics favored a more engaged play style, why not facilitate it? How much does it really cost to run a single realm at the Vanilla, TBC, and LK levels? So many new players where their first experience with Onxyia was soloing…

> Just not the same as 40 people trying to bring her down without falling to the whelp adds.

It's worth noting that Wildstar launched targeting the hardcore WoW raider experience.

It failed miserably since targeting only a single-digit percentage of WoW's playerbase is not a profitable business decision.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#14

Post by Zancarius » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 3:59 AM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #11

ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue that the Lich King was the last "good" patch for WoW. What I've never understood though was there is clearly some residual demand for "down rev" versions of the game where the mechanics favored a more engaged play style, why not facilitate it? How much does it really cost to run a single realm at the Vanilla, TBC, and LK levels? So many new players where their first experience with Onxyia was soloing…

My personal intuition is that splitting your userbase like this is disastrous for a game in the long-term (to say nothing of my intuition that 90% of people longing for "the old days" are just looking for a quick hit of nostalgia, with no intent to pay long-term). However, it's worth mentioning that Runescape now officially offers a "classic" version of the game alongside (and separate from) the modern version, which…

I think the first concern could be countered somewhat by 1) the nature of Battle.net's integration with WoW and 2) either doing it via their phasing mechanics or having a means to copy a character over at the expansion's level cap. This way, you could see what friends are playing, which expansion level, and opt to join them.

Otherwise, I do see your point. As much as I'd enjoy it if they offered new players/characters the option of playing revised post-Cataclysm content for leveling or "classic" content instead, it might pull away enough of the existing population to make early group quests painful. (Although, that could be mitigated somewhat in the same manner their cross-realm stuff currently works.)

You may be right about the nostalgic effects, although it is a pretty powerful effect and certainly got one particular company's side venture off to a good start [1]. In the times I've toyed around with TrinityCore, I find I'd play it at least 2-3 times a week if I had friends who weren't absolutely terrified of the potential for permanent bans--the old content was that enjoyable to me. Nevertheless, I recently re-subscribed to retail this February, and I enjoy it, but it feels like it's missing something. It doesn't have the same charm, but I do appreciate a few of the improvements (the "spell crunch" is miserable, however).

I'm a sample size of one, though, and that's certainly not enough to make any time investment worthwhile on Blizzard's behalf.

[1] http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/21/5913763/gog-com-back-catalo...

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#15

Post by marak830 » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:08 AM UTC

I learnt programming from running an ultimate online server back in the day.

A little sad to seeing an(I assume), open source server like this being taken down.

As an admin we use to run on the premise of, if we weren't told not to run it, we could. Probably not 100% legal but it seemed to work.

It does make me wonder if they take the server down, is it because their subscription dropping so much?

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#16

Post by anexprogrammer » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:09 AM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #11

ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue that the Lich King was the last "good" patch for WoW. What I've never understood though was there is clearly some residual demand for "down rev" versions of the game where the mechanics favored a more engaged play style, why not facilitate it? How much does it really cost to run a single realm at the Vanilla, TBC, and LK levels? So many new players where their first experience with Onxyia was soloing…

My personal intuition is that splitting your userbase like this is disastrous for a game in the long-term (to say nothing of my intuition that 90% of people longing for "the old days" are just looking for a quick hit of nostalgia, with no intent to pay long-term). However, it's worth mentioning that Runescape now officially offers a "classic" version of the game alongside (and separate from) the modern version, which…

If done at least semi-officially it could equally be a way to bring back lapsed players as much as any splitting of user base. Many leave in major updates or exciting new releases. WoW lost loads since LK. In other games LotRO horse riding update lost 30% of the users. GW2 redesigned for the intellectually challenged. I'm sure some would want to come back to the game before it was wrecked. Maybe not so much GW2 - it was always too easy to hold interest for long.

The problem I see is old versions would be unlikely to get updates like new content or dungeons so even those hoping to play long term would get bored eventually.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#17

Post by cyanbane » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:10 AM UTC

zanny wrote: post #3

minimaxir wrote: post #2

> Today is also the day where Nostalrius will start being community-driven in the truest sense of the word, as we will be releasing the source code, and anonymized players data (encrypting personal account data) This will be interesting. Apparently, there are open source reverse-engineerings of the old WoW code already, but having them release the source code may allow for some interesting applications. I'd love to p…

There are actually dozens of WoW private server implementations (called cores) on github, for every version of the game. Their patches will be immensely useful to the various vanilla cores to improve their out of the box support, but this is actually the second shutdown server this year that is dumping its full scripting as open source after a server called Sunwell did it for WoW 3.3, and those scripts produced a dra…

Is there a project that focuses on portability between these "cores", for example taking your AD&D Character sheet with you between all these different cores?

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#18

Post by bottled_poe » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:11 AM UTC

marak830 wrote: post #15

I learnt programming from running an ultimate online server back in the day. A little sad to seeing an(I assume), open source server like this being taken down. As an admin we use to run on the premise of, if we weren't told not to run it, we could. Probably not 100% legal but it seemed to work. It does make me wonder if they take the server down, is it because their subscription dropping so much?

Assuming the open source software was freely licensed, why would hosting an alternative server not be legal?

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#19

Post by zanny » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:14 AM UTC

cyanbane wrote: post #17

zanny wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are actually dozens of WoW private server implementations (called cores) on github, for every version of the game. Their patches will be immensely useful to the various vanilla cores to improve their out of the box support, but this is actually the second shutdown server this year that is dumping its full scripting as open source after a server called Sunwell did it for WoW 3.3, and those scripts produced a dra…

Is there a project that focuses on portability between these "cores", for example taking your AD&D Character sheet with you between all these different cores?

Series of the cores share common functionality amongst themselves, but the character data structures between them are radically different because of changes in character info between versions (ie, they added achievements in wotlk, and then made them account wide in Cata / MOP), and in MoP / WoD they removed several item slots on certain classes).

The problem with most private servers is not character portability, but scripting portability. A quest scripted for a vanilla core probably won't work on a Burning Crusade one because the API used is different.

The WoW private server scene is actually fascinating to read from a code study perspective, because its all entirely hobbyist and often novice software development. Common solutions to problems like delegation or templates are often unused because the people writing the code just didn't know they existed and never formally studied software best practices.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#20

Post by ohyes » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:22 AM UTC

Zancarius wrote: post #12

hoodoof wrote: post #6

Seems the classy thing to do would have been for Blizzard to ask politely instead of sending in the dogs.

I'm wondering if their objective here was to make an example out of this particular server as they have with others. Once they reach a particular critical mass, they gain Blizzard's interests and down comes the legal hammer. Although you have to wonder what sort of impact this is going to have, if any. I'd wager most of the players are unlikely to pay for a retail subscription if they aren't already simply on the mer…

I agree that it's making an example rather than actually trying to shut down private servers. probably more about copyright and being able to maintain that they were defending theirs, rather than being scared of multitudes of private servers depriving them of business.