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Turtle WoW classic server announces shutdown after Blizzard wins injunction

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Re: Turtle WoW classic server announces shutdown after Blizzard wins injunction

#131

Post by throwaway27448 »

saadn92 wrote: post #29

I ran a private server years ago. Two things people in this thread are getting wrong: The engineering is way harder than anyone gives credit for. You're reverse engineering a server protocol from the client binary, writing your own spell systems (thousands of spells, each with edge cases), pathing, instancing, combat mechanics. Then scaling it for a few thousand concurrent players on hardware you're paying for out of…

> Blizzard is right to protect their IP

No, it's inevitable. There's nothing positive about using the law to crush competition.

Re: Turtle WoW classic server announces shutdown after Blizzard wins injunction

#132

Post by lenerdenator »

SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #28
Someone1234 wrote: post #6

Just background in case you don't know: Turtle WoW tried to turn Classic World of Warcraft into a Roguelike, but in doing so wound up creating a bunch of new mechanics, and a gameplay loop that was quite unique even relative to other Roguelikes. So my position on this is; two things can be true at the same time: - Turtle WoW violated Blizzard's copyright, tried to charge money for some services, and Blizzard are well…

Why not just buy it then? It reminds me of Valve’s treatment of Black Mesa, which made the community love the company even more. It’d be hilariously easy for Blizzard to spend some money on the thing and just buy the devs out, fans love you for it and it builds good will with a fanbase. Corporations can’t see past the legal aspect of things I guess.

Valve is run by one guy (so far as I know) and he's only accountable to himself. Since he's got pretty much everything he wants from the arrangement, he has no problem with spending money on what most companies would consider cost centers and turning them into something bigger.

Activision Blizzard is run as a publicly-traded company. 86% of it is held by institutional investors [0] who are never satisfied. Most are managing portfolios of assets which are, in turn, often backing retirement accounts held by individuals. There is no ceiling because of factors like inflation, "executive incentives" that the board proposes, and the ever-increasing demands of retirees. If they can get another nickel out of the business, they'll absolutely go for it.

So really, it's about the mindset of the people making the decisions.

[0] https://www.investopedia.com/activision-blizzard-top-shareho...

Re: Turtle WoW classic server announces shutdown after Blizzard wins injunction

#133

Post by wiseowise »

Xunjin wrote: post #23
Someone1234 wrote: post #6

Just background in case you don't know: Turtle WoW tried to turn Classic World of Warcraft into a Roguelike, but in doing so wound up creating a bunch of new mechanics, and a gameplay loop that was quite unique even relative to other Roguelikes. So my position on this is; two things can be true at the same time: - Turtle WoW violated Blizzard's copyright, tried to charge money for some services, and Blizzard are well…

That's one of the things that Blizzard does so bad and private servers try to solve, which is previous expansion content: Let's say you loved playing Battle for Azeroth. Later Blizzard launches Shadowlands, the content for BfA gets irrelevant, the raids are not doable anymore at the same difficult, the power creep feeds in. Even if you buy the expansion just to get the “feel” on how it was, it's impossible. MMOs like…

> Let's say you loved playing Battle for Azeroth.

Well, here’s your problem. You need to fix that and eat whatever shit they throw your way, pay the money and say thanks.

Re: Turtle WoW classic server announces shutdown after Blizzard wins injunction

#134

Post by Folcon »

nozzlegear wrote: post #106
AngryData wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You gotta give capitalist first principles and ideals and policies the boot. When you can use money to buy anything and earn money without practical limits, gaining access to more and more capital at any and all costs, even at the cost of everybody else's life and freedom and rights, is the natural result.

Valve is very much a capitalist company though. Gabe Newell is a billionaire, he owns six yachts, and Valve practically invented the concept of the loot box. So if the question is "how do we get more Valves and fewer Blizzards," it doesn't seem clear to me how giving capitalism the boot helps.

Honestly I'm not sure, but I suspect it's because for Gabe, Valve is his iterated prisoners dilemma

He's got to take care of it or no more yachts

Though part of it just might be helpful knows and respects hit market, at least well enough to understand them, I vaguely recall he left Microsoft to start a game company after seeing how much people fell head over heels with games and thinking there was value there

Re: Turtle WoW classic server announces shutdown after Blizzard wins injunction

#135

Post by zythyx »

lenerdenator wrote: post #132
SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just buy it then? It reminds me of Valve’s treatment of Black Mesa, which made the community love the company even more. It’d be hilariously easy for Blizzard to spend some money on the thing and just buy the devs out, fans love you for it and it builds good will with a fanbase. Corporations can’t see past the legal aspect of things I guess.

Valve is run by one guy (so far as I know) and he's only accountable to himself. Since he's got pretty much everything he wants from the arrangement, he has no problem with spending money on what most companies would consider cost centers and turning them into something bigger. Activision Blizzard is run as a publicly-traded company. 86% of it is held by institutional investors [0] who are never satisfied. Most are m…

That article on Investopedia is from 2021, before the Microsoft acquisition. Activision-Blizzard is no longer a publicly-traded company and instead a subsidiary of Microsoft. Whatever Microsoft wants under this arrangement is what they'll get from now on.

Re: Turtle WoW classic server announces shutdown after Blizzard wins injunction

#136

Post by justsomehnguy »

mmanfrin wrote: post #46
breakfastduck wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve aren't owned by private equity and other giant corporations so they make good decisions and do things fans like. A lot of their entire platform is built on mods they've bought and turned into proper 1st class games (cs, dota, Garys mod etc)

Their entire company owes its history to mods. HL's engine GoldDrc was originally a mod for Quake. Team Fortress Classic was based on a quake mod. Counterstrike was a HL mod they bought out. Portal was a student game they bought. Dota 2 was based on a WC3 map. Left 4 Dead was a mod made by Turtle Rock while working on CS:CZ (so, yet again a mod, although a mod based on their own engine this time and build in house).…

You are confusing an engine and an idea.

GoldSrc is a continuation of Q1 engine but it's development is of separate lineage even from Q2 and it was a fully licensed agreement. Setting and ideas are all original for HL.

TFC is a re-imaging of TF from Q1 but it's codebase is separate from Q1 TF.

TF2 is a sequel developed in-house.

HL2 is a series of sequels developed in-house.

EDIT: Portal has the same core developers and the same game mechanics, but both the setting and script are Valve original.

Sure, Steam pivoted their path of a game developer studio to a game publishing house but that's doesn't mean they never did anything themselves.

Re: Turtle WoW classic server announces shutdown after Blizzard wins injunction

#137

Post by wiseowise »

AngryData wrote: post #78
idiotsecant wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like every large public corporation inevitably turns into a rent seeking parasite. How do we build a system that has more calves and fewer blizzards? How do we incentivize that?

You gotta give capitalist first principles and ideals and policies the boot. When you can use money to buy anything and earn money without practical limits, gaining access to more and more capital at any and all costs, even at the cost of everybody else's life and freedom and rights, is the natural result.

Valve is literally the capitalist utopia, they have pretty much unlimited money for their size and can spend it on anything they want.

Re: Turtle WoW classic server announces shutdown after Blizzard wins injunction

#138

Post by Folcon »

saadn92 wrote: post #29

I ran a private server years ago. Two things people in this thread are getting wrong: The engineering is way harder than anyone gives credit for. You're reverse engineering a server protocol from the client binary, writing your own spell systems (thousands of spells, each with edge cases), pathing, instancing, combat mechanics. Then scaling it for a few thousand concurrent players on hardware you're paying for out of…

I could be wrong and being a bit naive, but what prevents them from creating an original game now?

The team have proven credentials at this point surely?

Not to mention at least some of their players must actually like what they do vs wow, unless I'm mistaken about that part and it's still mostly nostalgia

Re: Turtle WoW classic server announces shutdown after Blizzard wins injunction

#139

Post by zythyx »

protocolture wrote: post #122
Someone1234 wrote: post #6

Just background in case you don't know: Turtle WoW tried to turn Classic World of Warcraft into a Roguelike, but in doing so wound up creating a bunch of new mechanics, and a gameplay loop that was quite unique even relative to other Roguelikes. So my position on this is; two things can be true at the same time: - Turtle WoW violated Blizzard's copyright, tried to charge money for some services, and Blizzard are well…

>and Blizzard are well within their legal (and moral) rights to shut that down. Moral? Nah. They had done work, and they should be able to charge for that work. Its not Moral to shut a competitor down using tricky IP laws. If anything this is yet another great example of how immoral IP actually is.

By that logic, I should be able to sell Taylor Swift merchandise and music without asking her, but only if I make it myself. I'll call it Turtle Taylor Swift and charge a little bit less than official Taylor Swift merchandise and music. I'll record a mix tape with her songs on it and sell it as a 'new' album.

Re: Turtle WoW classic server announces shutdown after Blizzard wins injunction

#140

Post by zythyx »

rhdunn wrote: post #8
Someone1234 wrote: post #6

Just background in case you don't know: Turtle WoW tried to turn Classic World of Warcraft into a Roguelike, but in doing so wound up creating a bunch of new mechanics, and a gameplay loop that was quite unique even relative to other Roguelikes. So my position on this is; two things can be true at the same time: - Turtle WoW violated Blizzard's copyright, tried to charge money for some services, and Blizzard are well…

So it's similar to Defence of the Ancients that resulted in DotA and other MOBAs. It wonder if they'll be able to create a version of this with the new mechanics/gameplay loop but with different art/assets.

There's 3 scenarios they could follow:

1) Create a new IP with the knowledge they have from Turtle WoW, create a similar game and market it 2) Contact Blizzard, apologise and maybe be brought into the team to develop updates for Classic or Retail 3) Drop the whole thing, leave the project and disappear

Would be great to see #1, but I'm more expecting #3

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