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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

#171

Post by saadn92 »

cedws wrote: post #62
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…

On the client side how did they do this? I worked with a team reverse engineering another MMO a few years ago and it was because of a plain XML config and game launch args that we could make the client connect to a private server easily without modifications. Blizzard could just implement DRM and put an end to all this, right?

WoW (classic era through MoP) stores all game assets in MPQ archives. The client has a built-in override system it loads patch files in order (patch-1.mpq, patch-2.mpq, ... patch-A.mpq, patch-B.mpq etc...) and later patches override earlier ones. So to add custom content, you just drop a new patch-X.mpq into the Data/ folder with your modified files and the client picks them up automatically.

For something like Turtle WoW's custom races and zones that means shipping modified DBC files (the client-side database tables ChrRaces.dbc, CharBaseInfo.dbc, etc), new models/textures, modified Lua for the character creation UI, and map data for new zones. All packaged in an MPQ that players download alongside the client.

As for DRM Blizzard moved away from MPQ to CASC (their own proprietary archive forma) starting in WoD, which makes this kind of modding significantly harder on modern clients. But the classic-era client binaries have been in the wild for 15+ years, so that ship sailed.

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

#172

Post by KeplerBoy »

hsuduebc2 wrote: post #112

Once again, someone is doing Blizzard’s work better than Blizzard, so naturally they have to be punished. Last time, they even shut down a few major Classic servers before realizing that people had gone there because they did not want to play Blizzard’s shit mutilated version of the game they loved. All we can do is hope Blizzard copies this idea in time as well. Activision Blizzard is, without a doubt, one of the wo…

Which idea? Offering someone else's product for free by copying 99% of the effort?

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

#173

Post by saadn92 »

_nhh wrote: post #61
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…

Why did u stop?

I had to get a job and I just stopped working on it as time flew by. Fun times though

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

#174

Post by cernocky »

noobermin wrote: post #166
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. They should have just taken their binaries, trained on the outputs (frames may be) run a few simulations games, and produced WoW-GPT. Blizzard would be working out to acquihire them for millions. Wrong move Turtle WoW.

This is interesting point. I think lot of people assume that training gathers new "metadata" based on the original data and ignore what the training optimises for which is direct copy of the input. Training a model results in a fancy copy paste (unless incentivised differently).

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

#175

Post by gsich »

charcircuit wrote: post #76
drbscl wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-Strike Every MOBA that exists (DotA, LoL, HoN, etc) Team Fortress Killing Floor PUBG Natural Selection Undoubtedly, many more that I can't recall off the top of my head.

>Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Natural Selection These games used the GoldSrc engine. Any game built on this engine gets called a mod. But this is not what most people actually think of when people are talking about mods. Rust is not a mod of Unity. These are game engines that people built a game using. >DotA This was a custom map. Not a mod. >LoL, HoN These were built on in house game engines and were not a mod. >P…

>This was a custom map. Not a mod.

This is even better. Because it's a map you can start it without modifying your game installation.

There were "real" WC3 mods, but it was always cumbersome and worked reliably only in singleplayer.

Gameplay-wise it's a mod obviously.

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

#176

Post by hhh »

codezero wrote: post #100

I don't even remember the name of the server or software, but even back when WoW was contemporary I had a lot more fun playing on free servers with extended XP, even though pretty often bosses would be buggy or not quite the same as in the real game. It was so much more playable and casual compared to the early WoW (or worse, EverQuest which came before). It's a shame game companies can't find a way to embrace or eve…

MaNGOS, ARCEMU are the two that come to mind. I was really young and it took me so long to figure out how to use svn to get the code and then to compile it, so i always used repacks. Some guy on MMOWNED helped teach me all this stuff, he still makes private server content today.

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

#179

Post by Subdivide8452 »

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…

Out of curiosity, as a fellow dev I'm interested in how you go about reverse engineering these types of things. I assume for networking, you keep track of what goes in and out of the live game. How do you go about pathing? How do you reverse engineer spells, how they scale over levels, and how bosses work, when they spawn, and how they spawn (based on non time based factors) ?

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

#180

Post by Subdivide8452 »

Folcon wrote: post #141
throwaway27448 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Blizzard is right to protect their IP No, it's inevitable. There's nothing positive about using the law to crush competition.

I mean, I don't disagree with you in this case, but if not this, then to a degree, what is IP for? This just happens to be a positive example, IP still exists to restrict certain kinds of competition I mean you can't get a clearer case of copycatting than this, as much as I'm a fan of pirate servers, assuming that they don't stifle the original game and considering calling Blizzard an 800 pound gorilla is quite an un…

Totally agree with this. Blizzard nowadays is a giant, but nobody would have blamed them if they remained a small studio, trying to protect what they've worked hard for to create. Just because they have a lot of money now, doesn't legally change a thing. It sucks because Blizzard has become a shitty company, and I'd like these types of devs from Turtle WoW to be able to continue their work, but you have to draw the line somewhere.
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