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

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#21

Post by tikhonj » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:31 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…

As an interesting illustration of this idea, RuneScape (a popular freemium MMORPG) has done just this: they split up into the modern game and "Old School" (OSRS) which is based on the game in 2007. Some people heavily prefer one or the other, and by now the communities feel very distinct.

I don't know exactly how well it's working out for them. Now they have two games to support and promote, with about the same number of users. This number might (likely?) be higher than if they had stuck to providing a single game, but I'm not sure. It's hard to tell.

There seems to be some business risk to doing this. Apart from possibly cannibalizing your main product, it also requires two teams to support and run the two games. If you actually want the experience on the old-style server to be at all stable or compelling, you'll have to put some time and energy into them—it's more than just running the server.

Honestly, I have no idea if what RuneScape did was the right move, but it's a really interesting case study.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#22

Post by soared » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:33 AM UTC

A lot of commenters are suggesting a server that runs old patches, like Jagex and RS. This is essentially the definition of cannibalization and almost never a good idea. IMO Jagex only got away with it because they explicitly released a new version of the game that was totally different. Unless WoW's next expansion is WoW 2.0 with totally different mechanics, I don't see them hosting an old server.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#23

Post by jacksonsabey » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:38 AM UTC

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…

there's also this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDY_Industries,_LLC_v._Blizzar... when they managed to get glider, one of the first bots taken down

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#24

Post by grrowl » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:39 AM UTC

MichaelBurge wrote: post #10

I wonder if it makes sense to charge the monthly subscription for the client, rather than the server. That way you could play on whatever server you want, but still had to pay a monthly fee.

They'd probably be worried about "watering down" the player counts on their One True server.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#25

Post by emmab » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:46 AM UTC

tikhonj wrote: post #21

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…

As an interesting illustration of this idea, RuneScape (a popular freemium MMORPG) has done just this: they split up into the modern game and "Old School" (OSRS) which is based on the game in 2007. Some people heavily prefer one or the other, and by now the communities feel very distinct. I don't know exactly how well it's working out for them. Now they have two games to support and promote, with about the same numbe…

Runescape has enough grinding to provide near perpetual play. WoW you get the best end-game raid gear and there's a lot less left to do.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#26

Post by bbunqq » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:53 AM UTC

Here's a petition written by the Nost team asking to legalize Legacy servers: https://www.change.org/p/michael-morhaime-legacy-server-amon...

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#27

Post by bigpoppa » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:57 AM UTC

these guys need to put their game server in a blockchain!

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#28

Post by scrollaway » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:59 AM UTC

bottled_poe wrote: post #18

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?

Generally, when Blizzard goes after private server owners, they go after them for copyright and trademark infringement. In fact, the very popular case of MDY Industries linked above is exactly that: trademark infringement, copyright infringement etc.

The silent rule is "don't tarnish the Blizzard trademarks". It's generally the most unethical servers with tons of microtransactions that get taken down first. This is also why plenty of them are left alone.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#29

Post by scrollaway » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:02 AM UTC

wcummings wrote: post #5

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…

There's also a cool community around reversing the battle.net protocol(s).

The Battle.net 2 protocol is almost entirely Protobuf based and the protos can be recreated from the HS decompiled code or the Diablo 3 in-executable protobins.

https://github.com/hearthsim/hs-proto

https://github.com/hearthsim/proto-extractor

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#30

Post by mjrpes » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:05 AM UTC

bottled_poe wrote: post #18

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?

I think it's because players have to download an old version of WoW in order to play. This is a full game download and includes artwork and music IP content. Not to mention it means there is no need to pay a monthly fee to Blizzard.

Blizzard is fully in their right to shut it down, but it's unfortunate the current state of things.

This is not about getting around paying for WoW. Vanilla WoW is practically abandoned-ware. Blizzard has been clear they have no plans to launch a Vanilla server, and they don't even seem sympathetic to the idea. There is content and gameplay in Vanilla that you cannot experience in the current version of WoW. There are many old school players who have fond memories of Vanilla (including me), and we have no way to get our nostalgia fix other than a server like Nostalrius.

I have moved on from WoW and have no interest in the current game, but I would enjoy experiencing Vanilla again, just like I enjoy playing old SNES RPGs, listening to 80's music, or reading the same books or watching the same movies over and over. With other forms of media you can do that, but not here. I understand the legal reasons, but still, it's unfortunate.

I see this as another new and lamentable consequence of things moving to the cloud. I find similarities here with the Nest/Google fiasco. It used to be you could buy something and it was yours, completely, forever, to do with whatever you want. Now, not as much.