Warcraft III Gone Gold 740
0x00 writes "Shacknews seems to be the first to report that Warcraft III has gone gold. The press release is here. Blizzard have announced that the game will be available July 3rd around the world - just in time for my mid-year University break (great timing!)." Update: 06/13 15:16 GMT by M : Please consider the fact that Blizzard is suing people who write software to interoperate with theirs when deciding whether you want to purchase this game.
Please consider the fact... (Score:5, Insightful)
Say what you like about Blizzard, they make some pretty damn good games.
Who Cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
Some people just like to have a cause.
Re:And? (Score:2, Insightful)
"No one should buy this game because Blizzard X
Nor did he say:
"Everyone should buy this game because Blizzard X
All he asked was that you keep it in mind when making your own decision. Geez, even the whining is sub-par on slashdot...
Justin Dubs
You're not serious- others may be different... (Score:4, Insightful)
If it doesn't run on Linux, I'm not terribly interested in buying it. If a company's going to pull the stunts Blizzard has went at lengths to do, I'm definitely not going to buy it.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
2. it's questionable just how much they apply to traditional news outlets. Most newspapers and TV news shows are quite free with the editorializing, and usually far less honestly than above. And besides,
3. No specific course of action is advised by the comment. It's just an objective piece of information: a reminder that Blizzard is currently suing the authors of bnetd. Insofar as any product announcement implies an imperative to go out and buy the product (what, you think it's world news?) they are simply providing more information about the product - that the company making it is engaged in a lawsuit against open source developers.
Re:Please consider the fact... (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, and more importantly, maybe YOU don't take boycotts seriously, but many others do.
Thridly, who's the "we" in slashdot? As if you could EVER get 100% of readers (hell, even 85%) to agree on anything?
Oh no! (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Michael is forgetting one crucial bit of information -- BLIZZARD GAMES ARE NOT OPEN SOURCE. Blizzard built it, people play it; Blizzard has the legal right to choose who they allow to interact with their game at any level. Not to say that interop software would be a bad thing -- id Software and Valve have proven that a game or gaming engine's longevity is closely tied to how accessable it is to the modding community. But if Blizzard has no desire to venture down that path, so be it.
Blizzard makes good games, period. If you don't want to buy them, that's your beef. But don't try to turn this into an open-source crusade -- you're wrong, they're right, end of story. Deal with it.
Re:Please consider the fact... (Score:3, Insightful)
Har har har. If by "many others" you mean "extreme minority", then you are right. Most people here on slashdot are blow-hards that sacrifice their ideology as soon as the new cool gadget from comes out. Quit being so naive.
Re:Please consider the fact... (Score:2, Insightful)
Indeed. I've been a fan of the entire Warcraft series, and I still play Starcraft, oh, twice per week, with a few friends.
Sure, they sued the bnetd guys. Big deal. BattleNet is FREE. It may be laggy, at times, but, overall, it's a good service, and there's really not much of a reason to spend the time reverse engineering the protocol and writing a new server for it.
Oh, but, wait! BattleNet checks keys! Maybe bnetd was invented so people with pirated copies of the game could play it without being hassled by the BattleNet servers?!
Support great software. If it happens to not be free, so what? Buy it.
Don't buy, but don't copy either (Score:4, Insightful)
guys (or gals), please do not sink yourself to that level. While we agree on the fact that Blizzard sueing bnet.d is questionable (okay, dead wrong and full of malicious intent), we also all know that copyright infringement is wrong. not necessarily as wrong as MS and BSA make it appear to be, but still wrong non-the-less. copying their software will not make things any better. in the end they will just come back with the statistic and say -- look, of COURSE we need to take these legal actions.
the future rests in each of our hands (gosh that sounds lame), that may seem to be insignificant at first, but i really believe that it's an important responsibility.
think it through -- i mean, it IS just a game you know.
Great looking game but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Nows the time to make our feelings known by NOT making a purchase.
Sorry Blizzard, great looking game but I'm passing.
Operating Systems != Games (Score:4, Insightful)
Please consider the fact that Blizzard is suing people who write software to interoperate with theirs when deciding whether you want to purchase this game.
Somehow I don't think that a game publisher needs to be held to quite the same interoperatibility standards as an operating systems publisher ... because it's a game. Odds are, no matter how much they sue or how inoperable they are, they're not going to push all other games out of the market.
Am I going to buy it? I'll wait for the reviews on the single player campaign. I never liked warcraft I or II multiplayer - it seemed to be the simple art of running exploding suicide troops at the enemy.
Which borders on unpatriotic these days, now that I think about it.
Re:Oh no! (Score:2, Insightful)
(1) AOL should be allowed to cut off clone AIM clients because its THEIR network.
(2) MS should be allowed to cut off clone IM clients because its THEIR network.
(3) MS should be allowed to modify Exchange server to keep the Ximian connector from functioning.
(4) ISPs should start banning the use of Linux because its THEIR network.
Look pal I know my comments here are coming off as krass and I understand how you feel in regards to
Of
Its going to end up just like the DeCSS thing were
The hypocricsy has always been here and it will continue to stay here until the day these baboons close up shop. But until that time - I suggest you either learn to live with it (as I have) or leave well enough alone.
J
Re:Please consider the fact... (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe not. Maybe it was invented casue BattleNet sucks ass. Maybe it was invented because we live in whats called 'a market' where people are encouraged to supply a demand. Sure, it doesn't check keys. Is ID software going out of business? Nope. Hell, gamespy.com owes their entire business to ID (and arguably to the pirated game market.) and nobody's firing off intimidating letters to them.
So can you explain to me why Blizzard wouldn't just do a key check in the game client against a blizzard-owned key database, independant of server-finding mechanism? Can you tell me why they insist that it takes a full blown player-community environment to do a simple key check? Sounds to me like, if anything, Blizzard made a crucial architectural mistake, and now they're being forced to toss out all babies with their bathwater. Thats their own deserts, and I dont have a modicum of sympathy for them. They arnt in any danger of living on the streets, and to use the argument always used against those who have to endure tough situations, if they like what they do, why grub for every last penny?
Re:Oh no! (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not in the Open Source community's best interest to try to strongarm or coerce companies to open their source (or to allow interoperability, or any other changes to their business model).
Blizzard (through Vivendi) is accountable to its shareholders. This means, as a corporation, they are legally obligated to protect their property and assets, and also obligated to select a tested, proven business model which represents a minimal risk and maximal chance of profit.
If you think Open Source is ALWAYS better than Proprietary, then why the hell is Blizzard's software so fucking good? Now that they've proven you wrong, the only way you can rectify the situation is by boycotting the software.
Great software should thrive. Blizzard makes great software. And they have the right to keep their systems open or closed as they see fit. Would it be cool if there was an open version available? Yes. I know there are several open RTS systems under construction on Sourceforge. They don't attempt interoperability with BattleNet, so there is no legal issue. And guess what? THEY ALL SUCK! They all look like derivative, amateurish, sloppy game systems. They lack the Blizzard polish.
And if you're a RTS player who decides not to buy WCIII because of this issue, well then, it sucks to be you!
Re:nice! (Score:3, Insightful)
And that was the point of mentioning Blizzard's efforts to shutdown bnetd.
Blizzard is pursuing a model where it won't matter if you've pirated the CD because in order to play the game you'll have to use their server. And in order to use their server, you'll have to pay.
The model goes like this:
And this is why they've shut down bnetd; a server not controlled by Blizzard ruins this marketing plan.
I would not at all be surprised to find out that your illegal copy of the downloaded CD remains useful only if you never play online, and only if you never play Multiplayer with anyone else who's played on-line.
The first time you see the neat new features they're holding back to the "improved gameplay balance" update, you'll be buying a retail copy of the CD (which you'll already have a perfect copy of) just to get the serial number.
After all, we could consider WCIII to be the "now you must pay me" update to WCII, and you've already indicated your interest in playing, even though it hasn't even been released.
Re:Please consider the fact... (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you spent any time at the bnetd.org site? Read about the conversations bnetd tried to have with Blizzard about incorporating a method by which to authenticate CDs? Read about how Blizzard said, "Nuh uh" and then sued bnetd?
Apparently not.
But lets look at all the games that have suffered by not having centralized key authentication systems that require the key for play (and I'm just going to list the ones I've owned and played in multiplayer):
Tribes 1-2, Mechwarrior 2-4, Quake 1-3, Doom 1-2, Duke Nukem 3D, Midtown Madness 1-2, Serious Sam 1-2, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Half-Life, Jedi Knight 2.
Well, there are more, but that's 18 games right there that didn't bankrupt their creators by allowing people to run servers at a LAN party. Admittedly, you can't set up public servers with Midtown Madness, but you can with the rest.
So what's keeping Blizzard from allowing people to set up their own servers? It must be assumed that people with pirated copies of the above games connect to public servers and play. Why hasn't there been a collapse of the game industry as a result?
... Maybe because enough legitimate copies are sold regardless to support those companies and that the extra sales due to widespread adoption of the multiplayer aspect makes up for the small losses to piracy. This is similar to Microsoft's approach - they hate piracy, but they know that without it, they'd be on a LOT fewer desktops. That's why the XP SP1 will merely disable future updates and won't shut down the OS itself - they can't afford to lose the numbers of users who have pirated XP.
Is Blizzard/Vivendi the first company to sue over server emulators? Naw, Ultima Online did the same thing. But I had already quit by the time that happened, so I didn't have much weight behind my protests.
Re:Please consider the fact... (Score:4, Insightful)
Bnetd sort of short-circuits this plan, as whoops, all of a sudden anyone can create a Battle.Net type server. As a result, any revenue-generating potential Battle.Net had is significantly decreased.
The DMCA/piracy argument is merely being used as the most politically expedient way for them to eliminate what they see as a threat to their earnings potential. If they'd come out with a 'hey, this *totally* wrecks the Big Plans we had for Battle.Net!' argument, they'd have been laughed right out of court. Much easier to transform it into a piracy-based argument, especially since that seems to be a hot political topic at the moment.
This is all speculation, of course.
Re:Please consider the fact... (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean people who posses unauthorised copies of the game. "Piracy" has to do with armed theft of tangable goods (often involving murder, rape, and other nasty business). It has nothing whatsoever to do with sharing fun or useful software with your friends.
There is nothing morally wrong with this activity in and of itself, only the economic argument that some unpaid copies might have been paid copies otherwise. The moral argument is on the other side, where I'm forced to refuse to help to a friend or neighbor when asked, just so someone else can make economic gain off of them. I don't say this as a hypocritical lawbreaker, but as someone who actually tries to comply with the law, and is sick of constantly annoying friends and family members to do so.
The reality of the situation doesn't look so cut-and-dried to most people. How many people do you know who've never in their life copied or lent a game, CD, album, book, or video or audio tape to a friend? None for me. So the media companies try to brainwash us into thinking its some horrible criminal act to share media by using words like "theft", "property" and "piracy". Please don't support the media companies attempts to braiwash the public with inappropriate terminology. They have enough money to do it all by themselves without our help.
False Dichotomy (Score:2, Insightful)
You can boycott and still play the game. I don't recommend that you obtain the game illegally, but then I wouldn't recommend that Blizzard abuse the idea ownership system either.
It's your conscience.
Re:Consider what? (Score:1, Insightful)
Sorry, Blizzard's baseless copyright infringement suit does nothing to help the hack situation. I wish they would drop harrassment tactics against fans and attack the real cheaters and pirates instead.
Re:Ah man (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's an idea.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just go out and buy Neverwinter Nights (in a week or two when it hits stores) and forget all about WC3. If Blizzard's tactics don't appeal to you, support the competition instead! You get a great game, and that should make it a lot easier to let go of your pain and get on with your life.
Re:You're not serious- others may be different... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Next time read the message more carefully before commenting...)
I just really don't have a desire to buy software for anything other than Linux. Now, as far as Loki's demise, it had less to do with a lack of market and more to do with pure mis-management (I know a lot of the goings on there while they were still in business- I've got more than a couple of online acquaintances that worked there and they said all kinds of things that map back to what's been said, etc.). Now, what I am saying is offensive is that they're suing the bnetd people, claiming infringement, etc.
That's bogus, they know it, but since they've got money and lawyers, they're going to try and beat down the little guy anyway. THAT is what I definitely won't be doing- paying for a corporate bully. I don't buy/use Disney stuff for the same reason.
Re:The issue is not Open Source versus Proprietary (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Zzzzzz (Score:3, Insightful)
Wolf 3d, Doom, Doom II, Duke Nukem, Quake, Quake II, Quake III, Half-life, Unreal Tournament, Return to Wolf, SoF, etc, etc, etc.
These lists can be made for almost any type of game-when something sells (FPS, RTS) people copy it, update it, and so forth. There really hasn't been any innovation in computer games in years, but that doesn't stop new games from being a lot of fun, nor old ones. I just can't stand it when people rant about gameplay being "old." Come up with a new idea yourself, see how easy it is.
Grr.
Colin Winters
Re:Please consider the fact... (Score:2, Insightful)
There's also a huge distinction between "fair use" or lending and what you're talking about. Books, and even most types of media, are not easily duplicated by the recipient of the loan, unless he/she is particularly tech-saavy or has free photocopier privileges. When you "lend" computer software or easily-copied digital media, it's going to become a permanant copy. Thus two copies exist where (presumably) one was paid for. (I do make a distinction within a family, though there's no justification for this; we always used the same copy of Word on all our computers. Lending it to a neighbor, on the other hand, would have crossed the line for us. The fine points are, of course, debatable, and the media companies don't care much about these cases.)
Fundamentally, the problem the media companies have is that this "sharing" you describe is done on a massive scale. Remember that there are people out there who take pride in piracy (again, not profiting personally) and intentionally redistribute digital media. It's one thing to lend Unreal to your friend for a weekend so he can see if he wants to buy it, or email an mp3 from a CD you bought. But if someone is serious enough to get into major online gaming, or burns a CD from that mp3, they should just buy the fucking product.
I don't understand why this is so difficult. I don't like paying for software either; that's why I use Linux and don't game. As for the word "piracy", it's common usage. Deal. No use ofone mixes up the teenage warez d00d with Blackbeard.
Re:Don't buy, but don't copy either (Score:1, Insightful)
And please don't give me the bullshit like "piracy = stealing." It doesn't. When you steal an object, its rightful owner loses it and has to get a new one. When you infringe copyright, nobody loses anything (other than the money you _might_ have given them). If that screws up their business model, tough. You can't make money off of everything. For example, you can't force everyone to buy air from you instead of just inhaling it from the atmosphere. I think the same should apply to software.
Re:Please consider the fact... (Score:2, Insightful)
You make it sound like your stealing bread to help feed thier family.. you not 'helping' them you stealing for them. They would be just fine w/o it to begin with.
Believe it or not there are people who work HARD to make good games, and their are companies who invest alot of money, these ppl deserve the money they make, and when you pirate the software that would normally be bought, you stealing. Period.
Now, I have aquired pirated software and music, but I don't justify it. It's wrong. Morally or leagally.
Rick
Re:Some questions about the "evil" of Blizzard (Score:2, Insightful)
And we care because...... (Score:2, Insightful)
I read earlier in this list of posts "I don't think anyone would argue that Blizzard makes good games" (paraphrased, but something to that effect). I am standing up right here and preparing to argue it soundly. This is not a troll, it's a statement of belief. Warcraft 2 was a great game. Since that point, Starcraft, Diablo 2, and WarCraft 3 (based on my experiances with the beta) have been simply TERRIBLE games. Buggy, unbalanced, uninteresting, lacking strategic or tactical depth (in the cases of StarCraft and WC3), using cheap workarounds to fix fundimental game flaws (i.e. Hey, if we let them only select a limited # of units at once, noone can rush right? right?), and always ALWAYS falling far short of the grand feature-scapes originally planned for them. Why would I want to play StarCraft or WarCraft 3 when I could play larger, richer games with far more depth (ohh...say...Total Annihilation comes to mind).
Now, to be fair, these comments relate to WarCraft 3 only through my experiance with the beta version. I honestly do not know if the game has changed since then, and if it has my opinions might change as well. But here is what I saw. The game was very pretty, it looks quite nice. However, the game mechanic hasn't changed or evolved at all since WC2. Same extremely limited unit selection, same "rock-paper-scissors" unit balance that makes "strategy" equal to "Just build some of each and run at each other". The "Hero" units were unimpressive and seemed to only be more powerful normal units that could somehow use Town Portal. The "Unaligned NPCs" were just weak units you killed to get at some resources. Games were fast and pointless, the races were unbalanced at that point, there was no strategy at all as you could never have enough units to enact a given strategy.
Maybe TA has spoiled me. I'm used to massive 2000-unit battles where you actually USE all 9 unit hotkeys, feint and probe, battle across a massive map. Strategy and production were vital tools as you pushed forward to conquer territory. Admittedly, maybe such things aren't everyone's cup of tea. But I don't understand how the RTS genre has remained the exact same game since the original C+C. Many people have tried to innovate somewhat, but where's the evolution? Shouldn't we demand MORE instead of eating up what's only vaguely satisfactory??
Actually, it did bankrupt them... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, actually, Dynamix *did* go bankrupt, partly due to the fact that virtually no-one actually bought Tribes 1. Why? Because people didn't need CD checks to play online, so they just warez'd it and played.
I remember talking to one of the ex-Dynamix staff, and they were saying that the figures for pirated people playing through their master server vs legal copies was something like 15-to-1.
Also, quite a few titles in that list *do* have centralised key auth'ing systems. Half-Life has WONID's based off serials, Tribes 2 did, Quake 3 did, and MoH:AA did. I don't think you can seriously count Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, since they were pre-internet gaming.
So before you go "Hey, it's not going to bankrupt them", it does.
(and as a side note: I'm going against the flow and supporting Blizzard here. It doesn't matter if bnetd heals a dying swan and fixes every bug in the game, it still gets around CD protection.
While that might be fine for the "Any use of the DMCA is evil, even if it means shooting off our feet"