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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

#191

Post by Ygg2 »

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…

> I mean you can't get a clearer case of copycatting than this

I'm pretty sure Turtle WoW has its own storyline, quests, etc. The story focuses heavily on extending Vanilla.

In other words, it's not a simple copycat but a fan project.

Rather than hiring and vying for talent, Blizzard is CnD their fans away.

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

#192

Post by rincebrain »

pfdietz wrote: post #118
Waterluvian wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t kill a competitor and then ban their customers from your product.

If you can scare the hell out of other people from using pirate servers in the future, you could come out ahead. And the money from shakedowns could be quite lucrative, if the volume could be made high enough.

In general, "you are never allowed to use our products again" is a horrible idea in any industry where all the focus is around trying to get _more_ people to try them.

It's part of why a lot of places might ban your account but they won't ban you-the-person if you make a new one, necessarily - even if every ban was accurately assessed, shrinking your potential player base permanently by even 0.5% annually compounds really badly over time.

(The notable exceptions usually include things where they're banning you for exposing them to legal liability in some fashion, because the risk of you doing it again is so large.)

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

#193

Post by rincebrain »

jimbob45 wrote: post #55
surgical_fire wrote: post #32

The irony is that the Turtle team released what was probably the best version of WoW, ever. Blizzard had to get it shutdown because it was fucking embarrassing that a fan project more artistically cohesive and more fun to play than anything Blizzard could spit out in decades despite having virtually unlimited resources. Obviously, the most competent people at Blizzard are lawyers. That Turtle would eventually shutdow…

I’m pretty sure the myriad WoW Classics are money-laundering operations. I’ve known several guilds over the Classic revivals since 2019 and every single member is buying gold. The bots are egregiously obvious and Blizzard only patches the game if people are making too much gold, not if the bots are spoiling the experience. It’s possible that Blizzard just happens to be incompetent in the exact way that would perfectl…

It might be true that that's how most of the money gets made on them now, but famously for many years they refused to try to make such a thing officially, so I doubt that was the nominal reason to start them.

I wonder what makes botting that much more trivial/productive on Classic.

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

#194

Post by whywhywhywhy »

Folcon wrote: post #138
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

I’ll never understand modding in this day and age, I got it back in the quake and half-life 1 days when teenagers didn’t have access to commercial game engines but modding total seems crazy to invest time into building on infrastructure you don’t own, you can’t successfully monetize and will likely be taken from you if you do.

Instead of just building something you own.

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

#195

Post by ionwake »

I find it almost comic how large companies make terrible decisions.

I dont need to have played Turtle Wow to know how bad this looks for optics.

Game company with lots of money tries to take money of a few people who are make a mod for their game, breaking it in the process.

It doesn't matter how you try to spin this, "ACHTUALLY Blizzard has the right..." etc

Its almost like some MSC Business intern started the meetings and they took this course of action without thinking much about it.

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

#196

Post by zorked »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #194
Folcon wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I’ll never understand modding in this day and age, I got it back in the quake and half-life 1 days when teenagers didn’t have access to commercial game engines but modding total seems crazy to invest time into building on infrastructure you don’t own, you can’t successfully monetize and will likely be taken from you if you do. Instead of just building something you own.

> you can’t successfully monetize

this wasn't the goal of modding.

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

#197

Post by p0w3n3d »

throwaway27448 wrote: post #131
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.

Turtle WOW is not a competition to the blizzard's in my point of view. I played on Turtle WOW from time to time with my kids, like once a month, because this is the amount of time I have.

I won't buy 4 subscriptions and pay them monthly, because there is no point of paying 63$ a month for one-a-month session. So obviously I am not interested in it. Also the new gameplay that is really crippled by a lot of un-skippable tutorials and too-much-experience first levels gameplay is appalling to me, so I won't teach my kids to play this new broken WoW version, sorry.

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

#198

Post by p0w3n3d »

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…

> ran a private server years ago.

Do you share any code then?

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

#199

Post by cylemons »

zythyx wrote: post #135
lenerdenator wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Microsoft itself is 73% owned by institutional investors, so more of the same really.

see: https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/msft/instituti...

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

#200

Post by annnoo »

Subdivide8452 wrote: post #179
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) ?

Yes kind of. You have to differentiate between all the different kinds of data. A lot of data was already included in the client files, but for the rest you had to sniff packages, analyse combat logs, watch 360p videos of boss fights and try to figure out exactly how mechanics are working. It got very ugly after a new expansion has been released, because it was not possible anymore to sniff for the older expansion.

It was always a “best effort”, but also very rewarding if you got a specific fight “somewhat” close how it was on the official servers.

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