The Struggle For Private Game Servers 125
A story at the BBC takes a look at the use of private game servers for games that tend not to allow them. While most gamers are happy to let companies like Blizzard and NCSoft administer the servers that host their MMORPGs, others want different rules, a cheaper way to play, or the technical challenge of setting up their own. A South African player called Hendrick put up his own WoW server because the game "wasn't available in the country at the time." A 21-year-old Swede created a server called Epilogue, which "had strict codes of conduct and rules, as well as a high degree of customized content (such as new currency, methods of earning experience, the ability to construct buildings and hire non-player characters, plus 'permanent' player death) unavailable in the retail version of the game." The game companies make an effort to quash these servers when they can, though it's frequently more trouble that it's worth. An NCSoft representative referenced the "growing menace" of IP theft, and a Blizzard spokesperson said,"We also have a responsibility to our players to ensure the integrity and reliability of their World of Warcraft gaming experience and that responsibility compels us to protect our rights."
Re:WoW (Score:5, Insightful)
there will likely be class action suits against companies like Blizzard in the longer run and they will likely loose them. Having that in mind it might be smarter if they open up their servers and focus on getting paid for content they create
That is just completely absurd. Or are we going to sue every company now that doesn't publish their server infrastructure or for-internal-use made software? Or companies that object to industrial spying?
Not that there's anything bad with subscription model either. People pay it for cable TV, for Internet, for mobile, for rent. Or are you not using those either? $15 per month is actually pretty cheap for the amount of game play those games create, considering most people play them quite a lot.
Re:WoW (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The poor corporate victim (Score:2, Insightful)
Those poor, poor mega-billion dollar corporations. So victimized.
Mega-billion dollar corporations? I guess if 'mega' translates to 2.9 (in 2007), then yes. For ALL of Activision-Blizzard, not just Blizzard...remove console sales from their and you lose between 1-2 billion. But assuming you meant 'mega' just as a pejorative, sure. Still, I'm not sure what your point is. Are you saying that simply because they're successful, that they rescind all legal rights to protect their interests? That if someone steals from them, it's OK because they're a big corporation? Never mind the fact that a big corporation is funded by thousands or millions of stockholders, both individually and through portfolios (including 401K and retirement funds). That big, bad corporation represents the financial interests far beyond some CEO paycheck. And even if it did, that doesn't mean that someone else is entitled to harm them or infringe on their work, just because they don't have the good graces to not make a profit.
Re:Legality (Score:3, Insightful)
Why bother with reverse engineering a commercial game server and putting your work at risk in the first place? Why not instead contribute to one of the real OSS MMO projects, such as Worldforge, Open NEL or Planeshift?
Re:Irony (Score:2, Insightful)
problem is most people whom just want to "play" don't seem to realize that in order for private servers to work... we have to reconstruct all the server side logic that the client doesn't have access too. There are numerous projects for making private servers for pretty much every mmo and all face this issue, so unless there is an insider to dump the server side logic. Its an uphill battle to get the same playability.
If you want your quests to happen just like in game, capture the dialog, get an idea of what the quest is. Then join a project and help script that quest into the server side!
Re:Why don't we see more OSS MMO contributors? (Score:4, Insightful)
Time and Effort and Expectations.
The thing is, reverse engineering an existing game and duplicating whatever scripts or behaviours are needed on the server side to allow the commercial client to connect is far less work than doing it from scratch.
To put it another way, for most OSS projects, you are your own master. You write the code when you feel you have the time and (unless you have some sort of mutually agreed deadline) there's no particular pressure to fix a bug other than the pressure you put upon yourself. For an MMO, there are players, live, playing on your server all the time. There's constant pressure - technical improvements and bugs to squash, desire for new content, need administration and various disputes to solve. MMOs are 24-7 and likewise so are the demands from your player base.
When you create a server for an existing MMO, you only have to match what already exists. No one will be hounding you to add new content - the original developers will be doing that. You also have the momentum of an existing game with an existing fan base and it's own momentum and quite often a world that's been fleshed out with history, lore and so on. Create your own and you have to do that from scratch, you have to let people know you exist and you have to create both server *and* client.
Projects like Planescape show that it can be done but ultimately it's the harder path. MMO players tend to have a reputation for whining too, so I doubt it's the most thankful development hobby you could have!
(I have no first hand experience either way but this seems a likely explanation to my mind)