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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

#231
post #25
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

FFXIV's level/stat sync system is also pretty cool for keeping the older stuff playable long past its original release, players get levels and stats and skills scaled down to the max level appropriate for the content 4-player dungeons still end up being a bit of a faceroll, but it's definitely possible to wipe on the 8-player bosses if mechanics are not observed

I found it very unfun. You end up in dungeons with a subset of the abilities you're used to. It felt especially bad, when leveling, if I queued for a random dungeon and got into a lower level one shortly after acquiring a new ability.

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

#232

All this C&Ds and shutdowns are possible, because whole WOW private servers community are against each other. Turtle WOW owners have long history of scams (gold selling) and DDOSing other servers then buying them or something like that. Warmane uses unpatched RCE in 335a client for their own Anticheat (yes, rofl) and their custom content changes. Project Ascension, worst Pay2Win there is. Someone said they have more…

I agree with your first statement, this match what I've witness when I learned coding by doing my own private sever.

But I can ensure you that my motivation wasn't money, and I don't think it's the case for most starting projects. How ever, with success come temptation, also if you can easily justify getting some cash

I could hire some dev, I could get a better server, do some promotion, etc...

And then when money arrive it's hard not to feel all your hard work doesn't deserve a bit of the share.

To me the main issue is that there is no legitimate way to license blizz IP and give back a share.

TurtleWoW wasn't a simple "recycle the content and don't pay for retail" type, and those are actually a lot of work interesting take on the classic game.

It's a shame there are no good legal way to make a legit business to explore those ideas more seriously and for the "private server scene" to grow up in it.

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

#233

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?

TurtleWoW wasn't a simple copy of the original game, you can see this as a legit extension it's a lot of work.

Sure it's no way comparable to the initial work of the original game but it's short sighted to think it's just a rip-off

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

#234
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hosting a wow classic server cost almost nothing, it's a 30 years old game running on modern hardware and software. You need couple of dedicated servers and a single db.

Former RuneScape private server[0] hoster here. Our infra costs would be about 200$/mo, but for a high quality server like in the OP, if you ever wanted to compensate any developer a respectable amount for their work, you would instantly be in the millions. We had about 20,000 hours of professional dev work put in over 5 years for our game. [0] https://2009scape.org

It runs in open source software. The costs are low.

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

#236
post #224
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So why didn’t they just make a game with their own IP and avoid this whole issue in the first place? Oh yeah, because people didn’t want a new game, they wanted free WoW.

Why do people write fanfiction rather than writing their original stuff?

> Oh yeah, because people didn’t want a new game, they wanted free WoW.

That's an error; Turtle WoW isn't a free WoW. It's WoW fixed to classic, with 2 new races, extra content. It's basically their flavor of WoW.

Free WoW exists and it's called a pirate server. This isn't it chief.

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

#237
post #201
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That's what I mean by a positive example A fan project still encroaches and Blizzard as many have pointed out is well within their rights to do this In case I wasn't clear enough, I'm not a fan of this move, I don't think it's a good thing they're doing, however I can't deny they can choose to do it If we want their behaviour to be constrained, then we've got to either convince them otherwise, regulate away their abi…

> A fan project still encroaches and Blizzard as many have pointed out is well within their rights to do this

Sure, but I'm sure that IP laws don't demand you send CnD any fan project[1]. In the past, they were way more lenient. I guess they got scarred by their DotA experience. And honestly DotA mismanagement was their own fault.

Stuff like that has a hugely detrimental effect; see Games Workshop and Warhammer 40k fan projects.

[1] As far as I know the law doesn't prohibit to giving the server a license to run as a non-profit or giving them a cheap, short term license.

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

#238
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…

WoW classic has been fully reversed engineered way before Turtle WoW released, the thing they did better is to extend the game with a lot of content, but the core wow experience has been emulated for a long time.

20 years ago I was already using Mangos to play wow classic. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=marenkay

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

#239
post #236
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why didn’t they just make a game with their own IP and avoid this whole issue in the first place? Oh yeah, because people didn’t want a new game, they wanted free WoW.

Why do people write fanfiction rather than writing their original stuff? > Oh yeah, because people didn’t want a new game, they wanted free WoW. That's an error; Turtle WoW isn't a free WoW. It's WoW fixed to classic, with 2 new races, extra content. It's basically their flavor of WoW. Free WoW exists and it's called a pirate server. This isn't it chief.

It’s WoW but it’s not WoW?

Sounds like they’re talented game designers and they sunk their whole project because they stole art and assets. Sounds like they could have made a cool, new game with their own assets and been successful if it stands so well on its own merits.

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

#240
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turtle WoW was also porting their fork to Unreal Engine 5 [1] but that got cancelled ~6 months ago due to a Blizzard lawsuit. For anyone unfamiliar with WoW, private servers have been a thing for most of WoW's history. It's unclear to me where the source code came from. I've heard different stories (eg from Chinese servers) and also that it was a greenfield development reverse-engineered from the client. All of this…

>For anyone unfamiliar with WoW, private servers have been a thing for most of WoW's history. It's unclear to me where the source code came from. I've heard different stories (eg from Chinese servers) and also that it was a greenfield development reverse-engineered from the client. All of this was a copyright violation of course and Blizzard have shut down such servers in waves. It was explained to me, a long time ag…

Completely backwards. The server is where the real logic happens, with the client mostly just doing what it's told.

It's a lot of work to replicate and no, dice rolls and quests are not client-side.

Beyond the graphics, pretty much everything in your post is wrong.

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