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Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

en.nostalrius.org

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Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#131

Post by qu4z-2 »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #16
kibwen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Personally, I'd play a lot of Mabinogi Classic if they released that.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#132

Post by babatong »

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?

Because in every implementation I've seen so far, the server software won't run without certain copyrighted assets extracted from the client being present on the server for it to run in the first place.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#133

Post by Lawtonfogle »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #126
Lawtonfogle wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Blizzard have right to control the history and evolution of the WoW universe. Do they? They have the right to profit off of it and are allowed to set the only profit, but others are allowed to create evolutions of the universe in other directions as long as they don't profit. And if any of those are more popular, Blizzard has no recourse.

> but others are allowed to create evolutions of the universe No, I disagree. It's Blizzard's right to decide, who is allowed to do it. Only Peter Jackson was allowed to create movie about Tolkien's universe - and it was right of the author, without any doubts. It's the same case.

Anyone could've created a movie. Only those given rights could profit off of it.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#134

Post by dmazin »

speeder wrote: post #88
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…

I was involved in the Ultima Online scene. I submitted RunUO patches to our local forks (I then had no idea how to help with "upstream" stuff), and I also was fan of Sphere based servers. Also I GMed a couple servers, made maps, scripts, RPG Scenes, researched lore of the series to teach to people... One thing that happened interestingly, is that several servers over time ended rolling back expansions, even if they a…

It's funny you talk about fishing un UO, because my best memories of WoW were sitting on a ledge in Wailing Caverns, stocking up Deviate Fish.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#135

Post by vlan0 »

pvg wrote: post #121
vlan0 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually question how much interest there would be. Nostalrius reported 150k active players, with over 800k accounts. That is much higher than I would have thought.

Where did they report this? It seems like it had a few thousand players online at a time on a single server.

I originally saw those numbers stated in one of the first articles covering this topic, but I do not remember which site it was on. However, I did see they also mentioned it on their AMA.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/4droz4/we_are_nostalri...

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#136

Post by cLeEOGPw »

cynoclast wrote: post #129
Falcon9 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's hard to make the business case for leaving money on the table - with every expansion comes change and change much more than the expansion cost is really what is causing the gating effect.

Treating your customers as customers rather than cash cows engenders positive feelings toward your company, and ensures continued subscription. There's your business case.

Positive feelings don't always maximize profits.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#137

Post by pnathan »

odinduty wrote: post #58

I wonder if this will mean more and more servers are going to be sued. I've been playing on private servers since 2012, I play hours each day, and the future does not look very bright if this keeps happening I'm afraid... Just two days ago I started my journey as a blood elf hunter :-) The problem with private servers is that they seem to be addicted to OVH. I get it that it's cheap, has nice routes and usually they…

How much administrative effort does it take to operate a private server? I've always kind of conceptualized it as a duct-tape-and-baling-wire affair, but I have a sneaking suspicion things are a lot more professional these days.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#138

Post by taneq »

na85 wrote: post #106
zanny wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that is an argument about expansions in the first place? Significant player dropoffs in WoW happen in the last patches before new expansions. The userbase usually spikes up on new releases, but almost always drops lower every time, predominately because new releases gate players who were on old versions against those on the new one. Friends stop being interested, unsub, and never come back because the player…

Blizzard isn't and never has been trying to create a "living world". That dream died when Ultima Online showed us exactly what players will do in an unscripted world that's as close to living as the tech of the time would permit. WoW was, from the outset, designed to railroad players through content theme parks and give a hit of dopamine just often enough to keep them playing.

Wow was far more free in the early days. After about Burning Crusade they were under increasing pressure to allow players of all play styles and skill levels the ability to "see the content", which lead eventually to Raid Finder and gated progression. This ripped the last shreds of immersion away from the world and left the bare, creaking treadmill of "get tier X, farm tier X+1 tokens, get tier X+1, farm tier X+2 tokens..." exposed, which (for me) is what finally killed the game.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#139

Post by taneq »

minimaxir wrote: post #13
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…

> 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.

I played Wildstar for a couple of months after launch, and very sporadically since it went free-to-play. They basically built the game for people who loved early WoW, and (IMO) they did a rather good job of it.

The problem with Wildstar is rather like the problem with trying to get your highschool band back together. The drummer moved to another country, the lead singer has two kids, the bass player works shift work. Everyone grew up and no-one has the time (or inclination) to raid any more.

I think a lot of people (myself included) loved the idea of Wildstar but just weren't in a position to make the investment of time and effort required to really enjoy a game like that.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#140

Post by vlan0 »

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…

Once Jeff Kaplan left the designer team (Post-WoLK), WoW just never left the same for me.
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