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Games Entertainment

How bnetd Developers Reverse Engineered Battle.net 221

Posted by timothy from the looked-at-the-label dept.
battlebot writes: "O'Reilly's ONlamp.com is running an interview with the bnetd developers that goes into great detail about how exactly they reverse-engineered Battle.net. This is by the same guy who wrote the recent Salon article, though is far more technical. They talk a little bit about their legal troubles too, and even sheepishly admit that perhaps talking to a lawyer earlier in the process would have been a good idea. Has this project been successfully squashed?"
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How bnetd Developers Reverse Engineered Battle.net

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  • Article says (Score:2, Funny)

    by flewp ( 458359 )
    BNETD supports all the major features of battle.net, such as chat, channels, user icons, and gameplay! Well I'd sure hope it does!

  • The real question (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dynedain ( 141758 ) <slashdot2&anthonymclin,com> on Sunday May 12, 2002 @01:08AM (#3504846) Homepage
    The article says that they have made BNETD virtually indistinguishable from the real battlenet through reverse engineering. What I wanna know is, what function did they assign to the gem in the Diablo 2 client?

    • Re:The real question (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      None, since the gem is completely client side and doesn't send any info to the server.
    • I think, that Blizzard should have an anti-trust lawsuit brought against them, for packaging the Battle.net connection software, in with their software, thus cripiling their competitors, and creating an online multiplayer monopoly.
    • Could someone explain the joke for me?

      • Re:The real question (Score:3, Informative)

        by nsanders ( 208050 )
        There is a GEM on network screen of D2. No one has any clue (does any one?) as to WTF it does. You press it, it says activated (or something. been a while since I played). You can turn it on or off. The joke is funny because we wonder what BNETD assigned it to do since no one really knows.
        • And if you press it often enough, it says something like "super gem activated" or "MOW MOW"
        • From the battle.net FAQ [battle.net]:
          What is the function of the Gem in the Diablo II Battle.net Chat room?

          When it has been clicked once, it activates -- causing a blue glow to appear through the Gem. When it is clicked again, it deactivates and the glow disappears. Rarely a perfect gem activation will occur instead of the usual Gem activation.


          Basically, it does exactally what it does: you click it, it turns on, you click it again, it turns off. It has no effect on anything else, anywhere, in the game... it's just for fun. For a long while, no Blizzard employee was allowed to say anything about the gem, under pain of loss of their job. They said what it did around the time the expansion pack, Lord of Destruction, came out, IIRC. Just some fun trivia for you....

  • Money talks... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by brooks_talley ( 86840 ) <brooks AT frnk DOT com> on Sunday May 12, 2002 @01:09AM (#3504851) Journal
    Thing is, anyone with any kind of reasonable knowledge of law, patents, and copyright knows that the Blizzard lawsuit is, to be blunt, bullshit.

    Blizzard has no chance, or interest, in winning on the merits of their case. They know that open source developers have limited resources and are unlikely to mount a decent legal defense. So why not sue? It's not a legal decision so much as a strategic one: given the chance to squash potential future competitors for free, why not?

    It's a smart move on Blizzard's part. American IP laws favor corporations to such an incredibly laughable degree, it's amazing that Disney isn't suing everyone who uses a wheel (Steamboat Willie, 1928, and anyone who claims to have invented it before then had better have a notaraized motion picture).

    Bottom line: disgusting on the USPTO's part, dispicable on Blizzard's part, par for the course for the good old USA. Oh, wait, this is *good* for consumers. I must have missed that edict somehow.

    -b
    • Ah but it's publicity and publicity = free advertising!
      • Your an idiot. Free Advertising != Sueing about 10,000 fans. Im sorry. But you haven't a friggin clue what this issue is about, and your making inane comments.
        • It was meant to be humourous not inane.
          • Well you didn't succeed. Regardless. IT was a poor attempt at humour, if indeed it was. Im not the brightest bulb in town, but i can certainly recognise most sarcasm. Your's didn't make the grade. NEXT!
            • It be easier to realise how I meant it if you could have heard how I would have said it - I'm really not bothered if a few people don't understand my sense of humour. I have had posts modded up to 5(Funny) before so prehaps today is just one of my off days. There is no "grade" for humour. It's like the saying "What's one man's meat is another man's poison"

    • Jim wants to be elected into the government. Where does Jim get the money for his campaign? Chances are, from a large corporation. One that will have his ear a year from now when his job is to pass laws.

      All laws will continue to heavily favor corporations as long as we keep voting for the guy with pretty lawn signs. They or the party they are affiliated with may have laudable goals, but like you said, money talks.

  • They talk a little bit about their legal troubles too, and even sheepishly admit that perhaps talking to a lawyer earlier in the process would have been a good idea.

    Damn, I should have known going to slashdot for legal advice was a bad idea!

  • Battlenet Clone HowTO (Score:3, Funny)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) <.mark. .at. .seventhcycle.net.> on Sunday May 12, 2002 @01:33AM (#3504910) Homepage
    ...that goes into great detail about how exactly they reverse-engineered Battle.net.
    1. Install packet sniffer on local network.
    2. Read lots of 1's and 0's into a huge dump file
    3. Familiarize yourself with UDP.
    4. Tear out clump of hair as stress relief.
    5. Create nifty diagrams that show the battlenet server as a black box with the game that you and your buddy have made online as the two other pieces.
    6. Look at the responses that the black box sends back to each of the machines.
    7. Ponder on whether or not a monkey would be a good programmer since a tail in addition to two hands that can hit those hard-to-reach keys.
    8. Create a prototype program that relays game packets from two client boxes.
    9. Play lots of StarCraft through this box.
    10. Debug lots and lots.
    11. Decide against implimenting cheats on the server box against your other cohorts that are helping you develop this
    12. Create a chat room interface.
    13. Do final testing on the program.
    14. Program into the server daemon random insult messages that will be sent to all of your friend programmers while testing, making them abandon the project out of anger.
    15. Profit.
    That was easy enough!
  • It seems this project was completely innocent at first (just some guys in a dorm trying to play StarCraft together without dealing with the basically beta version of Battle.net), but 1337 warez leechers saw it as a way to play their pirated copies of SC, Diablo, Warcraft BNET, etc.. online.

    I feel bad for these guys because they basically got used and now they're the ones in trouble. I'm sure they liked the 'fame' they got by creating and maintaining this software, and they kept pushing themselves to see how of programmers they really were.

    Ohh well, goes to show all of us OS people that while our intentions may be innocent, the user's of our software may not be noble. In the end (because of the DMCA) we are the ones that are going to be held liable, not the end users.

    Sux to be a [young] programmer right now...

    -- D3X
    • Since it isn't mentioned in the article, the reason the BNETD team don't have CD-KEY checking is because they don't have the algorithim that is used by Blizzard... If they did then everyone could see the source code to make perfect Blizzard CD-Keys and anyone could play on Battle-Net without buying the game.

      It's not the fault of Blizzard or of the BNETD team that they don't have CD-Key checking. It a no win situation either way.
      • Yeah, but let's think about that for a second. BNETD is open source, they add in a CD check. I want to play my pirated game, hmmmm, edit *snip* recompile and hot damn, I'm ready to go, all the features, none of the pain. I am gathering that is what you mean by the no win situation.

        If I was Blizzard, why would I ever want to give up the CD-checking code? How would they invalidate CD Keys for the pirated/warez versions if now the server does local checking for validation of the CD keys? The logistics of even contemplating such an update would be a nightmare.

        The only thing I could even begin to see is a simple packet forwarding mechanism to send the CD Key to Blizzard's servers and then get a response. It will never happen since you still have the problem of BNETD being open source. *snip* No CD-Key check and voila, suck it down evil Blizzard corporate bastards for not letting me play my pirated game!

  • Consulting an attorney earlier... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sterno ( 16320 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @01:34AM (#3504913) Homepage
    If we assume for the moment that they had thought of consulting an attorney when they first embarked on this project, would it have made a difference? I mean, seeing as the DMCA didn't actually exist in '98, how could they have made some plan to defend themselves against prosecution under it. As for the straight up copyright issues, it's total hogwash, but at least they could have gotten the lawyerly advice of, "well they haven't got jack on you, but can you afford to fight it?"

    I was thinking about this earlier, and the really frustrating thing is how much of computer related tinkering seems to need to be run by a lawyer. I mean if you have a hobby like building kit cars, or constructing furniture, you have no need for attorneys. But if you want to get deeply involved in tinkering with software, etc, you suddenly need a law degree. Companies talk a lot about the damage that piracy has on the software economy, but I have to wonder how much more damage has been caused by the chilling effect on independent developers by this legal morass we call intellectual property.

    • Re:Consulting an attorney earlier... (Score:5, Informative)

      by markb ( 6556 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @02:03AM (#3504973) Journal
      If we assume for the moment that they had thought of consulting an attorney when they first embarked on this project, would it have made a difference?

      Well, I did seek some legal device back in 1998, when I receive a cease and desist letter from the Software Publishers Association. The letter (well email, actually) came less than 12 hours after I published bnetd 0.1.

      The lawyer was from the Student Legal Services office at my university, and didn't know much about IP law, but I did seek legal advice early on. :)

    • Re:Consulting an attorney earlier... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Seth Finkelstein ( 90154 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @02:12AM (#3504986) Homepage Journal
      If we assume for the moment that they had thought of consulting an attorney when they first embarked on this project, would it have made a difference? I mean, seeing as the DMCA didn't actually exist in '98, how could they have made some plan to defend themselves against prosecution under it.

      This is addressed in the last part of the article [onlamp.com]:
      (emphasis added)

      Crittenden: We probably should have talked to a lawyer years ago to get an opinion on whether what we were doing was legal or not. I'm not sure how much it would have helped in this case. But it might have gotten us into a conversation with Blizzard much earlier, and perhaps in a less confrontational way.

      Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

    • You talk to a lawyer, you get an opportunity to find out what kind of things you need to do to keep yourself legal. Reverse engineering is legal if done in some ways, illegal if done in others. The lawyer can inform you as to what standards you have to maintain in order to keep your reverse engineering legal. Since different standards will apply in different situations, it isn't just a list that could be posted on a web site somewhere -- it is a list tailored to what you are trying to do.

      Where I work, a product "A" reused component "B" which we licensed from a vendor for product A. When we wanted to extend product A and widen its distribution, the original license didn't apply. In negotiations with the vendor, we decided that it would be more cost effective to create our own version of component B instead of license it.

      As a result, everyone on our team has a "clean" or "dirty" status (I'm dirty): everyone who has every used product A or component B is dirty. Only clean people can work on our internal version of the component. There are all kinds of restrictions about what we can and cannot do if we are clean/dirty. And some questions cannot be asked/answered. All of this had to be figured out by lawyers. To try otherwise is just asking for a lawsuit.
    • One of the tasks I often find myself doing is figuring out how someone else's code works. The internet isn't a superhighway - it's a superrailroad, with everyone's train cars attached to everyone else's. A flatbed one minute is a locomotive the next - it's all interconnected. BUT - under the DMCA you have to pretend it's not. I don't see how you can be a programmer without occassionally opening up someone else's objects to figure out how they did it, if for no other reason than your code must peacefully coexist with theirs. The only programmers who don't do this are the ones who do the MS/Oracle "cookie cutter" application development using exclusively the tools created by those companies. If the process doesn't stop, all programming will be limited to the few monopolistic companies that "own" all the code. Under the DMCA *ALL* programmers are criminals, sooner or later.
    • Lets say they had contacted a decent, non-student-union type lawyer early on. Couldn't they have lobbied the court for a pre-emptive ruling against blizzrd? And, if they had, would they be kinda like, covered? ex post facto, grandfathered, etc? Not that anyone ever pays any attention to those concepts, but hey. Hmm. I wonder if I should go ahead and sue Cisco to get a pre-emptive ruling against them on my NACS system? [changestorm.com] I don't think it would have actually been the end of the story, but it would have put the burden of proof with Blizzrd.

  • blizzard's suing the wrong group (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Frizzled ( 123910 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @01:35AM (#3504916) Homepage
    warforge has been the team working on a warcraft 3 server (which caused all the problems with blizzard). they started with bnetd's code, but now the projects are basically separate.

    shame blizzard didn't do some research before turning the lawyers lose. even if they get an injunction against bnetd, they'll be shutting down the wrong group.

    _f
    • What is easier to sue, a well defined group with names and a good site that explains what they are doing; or a group that works over irc, never uses their real names, might not even have distributed their data over their own computers, and have a website that says nothing of their work (and just distributes it).

      I mean, its a hell of a lot easier suing something somewhat established, which is what bnetd was. WarForge isn't exactly well established, they got a group, but who really knows who they really are? I can bet that blizzard doesn't know, and why find out when you can set an example with the established group?

      This entire thing was enough to scare the shit out of the several other groups working on warcraft3 support (warforge isn't the only one). This is the main reason why warcraft3 bnetd modified servers are not in distribution (binary or source). Just the client side crack for the exe is given out. (This also is the reason for the insanely low amount of bnetd war3 servers)
    • Yeah lets sue an IRC channel. That will work!

      Seriously, the only thing that they can do is ask for the closure of war3pub.net. Though there on very shaky public support for that if that website is only distributing the beta. If anyone anywhere starts distributing the War 3 full game when its out, Blizzard/Vivendi WILL hunt them out and sue the living death out of them. Of this i have no doubt.
    • The first lawsuit can serve as precedent for the second, and so on, ad infinitum.

      What works once, can work again...

      (catch sig here)

    • Attacking the Hydra (Score:3, Insightful)

      by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 )


      shame blizzard didn't do some research before turning the lawyers lose. even if they get an injunction against bnetd, they'll be shutting down the wrong group.

      That was my first reaction too. But after giving it some additional thought, I have come up with a reason the Blizzard/Vivendi legal team might be acting with more insight than it appears to at first blush.

      There are several theories as to why Blizzard is taking action now. Possible movement of battle.net to a subscription service. Blizzard's announced future offering of World of Warcraft, certainly to be a subscription service. And the new release Warcraft III which is supported by the bnetd fork called Warforge. And there's the key. Warforge is a fork. A spinoff. Further development of a project that has been an annoyance to Blizzard since 1998.

      If Blizzard managed to kill Warforge, what is to stop another group from retracing those footsteps and modifying bnetd again? What about fans who decide they don't wish to continue paying a subscription to World of Warcraft and use bnetd as a basis for a new, freely available alternative? What if battle.net goes pay-to-play and private and public bnetd servers offer a much more attractive alternative?

      The fact is that bnetd makes a very sensible target to head off all these possible forks. And once the legal groundwork is laid in killing bnetd, it would be trivial to send out cease-and-desist letters to those whose work is based on bnetd.

      Sure. It will be almost impossible to wipe bnetd off the face of the net. But development is going to slow down considerably if bnetd source code is just as illegal as a warez copy of Warcraft III.

  • The BNETD developers say that BNETD was made as an alternative to Battle.net's oftentimes slow and buggy service. It was also meant to enable friends to play Battle.net-enabled games with each other on a private network, without having to deal with abusive strangers on Battle.net.

    Sounds to me like a strange little occurence that happened back in the 18th century. Seems a bunch of colonists got tired of being taxed without representation, dealing with pricks, and in general wanting a place of their own to live their lives as they saw fit. I think it was called the American Revolution.

    Maybe England can sue the U.S. and ask for back taxes with interest collected in arrears...

    • Nobody forces anyone to buy or pirate a copy of any of blizzard's games. It's not like paying taxes.
      • The comparison is to the community shaping its own environment. Engligh colonists becoming a sovereign nation which eschewed all the priveledges and benefits of England but which provided new opportunities and greater freedom...like being able to codify their rights. Compared to: Battlenet users who hate battlenet (which are many many) using nonstandard servers with very little centralized organization at the cost of non-legit records,items, what-have-you-that's-important-to-you-on-Bnet but allows for say...no korean channels :p The comparison wasnt software to taxes.
  • First off, this is not an issue with DMCA.

    The law suit has to do with "stealing code" and other non-DMCA type accusations.

    Even if it did, there's an old lawsuit that covers acceptable reverse engineering.

    Oh well.
  • I fully support the bnetd ideal. That is, supplying a different server then the blizzard one. You would be a lot less likely to find n00bs so to speak there. However.... I get sick of paying for the thousands of warez users that download the iso or image, then burn to cd, then are able to play fully on bnetd.

    Unfortunately, blizzard's key remains the copy protection stopping that, and bnetd weren't able to support that at all. So it's back to the beginning.

    Maybe if blizz could implement a central cd key verification server ie Half-Life's WON servers, it would be more beneficial. But still, the whole situation sucks. Blizzard aren't that bad, its more likely vivendi or just a complete miscommunication hogwash.

    Though i have heard, that blizzard must prosecute now, or they aren't able to prosecute pirates/cd-key removal later on. This true?
    • Though i have heard, that blizzard must prosecute now, or they aren't able to prosecute pirates/cd-key removal later on. This true?

      Not exactely. They can always prosecute for copyright infringement, but they must prosecute if they believe their trademark (battle.net) is being infringed (which I believe they are also claiming).
      • Hmmm, I wasn't aware of this. IANAL (obviously), but i could easily see bnetd as a trademark violation, considering its almost identical and it has an extra letter tacked on. Thanks for that.

        Mod parent up, i have no mod points.
    • You dont pay for warez users. The games will always cost as much as they think most people will pay for them. Capitalism works this way, they set the price at a place where they can make the most money. Stores have been using this for years as a reason why people shouldn't shoplift and why you should be mad at shoplifters, nice to see the softwar industry caught on to this silly lie. The only people who pay are the companies that make these products, and with software that is arguable because you can infinitly reproduce it at very little cost.
      • Just a note that Starcraft + Brood War only costs 10 pounds here in the uk, which is really really cheap for such a classic game. Not only that, but you get a dual cd that contains the pc and mac versions of the game.

        Even people on unemployment benefit can afford to play Starcraft, although 10 pounds will reprensent more to them than to the employed (1/5th of a week's money).

        graspee

  • I have legimate copies of every game/expansion pack they've ever produced, on up to Diablo II. Full retail price, too, not bargain bin or second hand. They _were_ the one company that you could be sure I would buy a game from, maybe not the day it was released, but I'd get it eventually.

    As I remember it, this news hit the very day that I couldn't hold out any longer for D2. Strangely, I'd never heard of bnetd until then. Being able to play on a server I could control though, would only have encouraged me even more, to buy their games. I had only played Diablo I on Battlenet once or twice, and not been at all happy... nice idea, but too many assholes. To think that I could fix that problem without extending several dozen ipxtunnels, etc... that is kickass.

    They should have hired these guys, not sued them. That would have been a cheaper way to stall bnetd, they would have gotten more for their money, and they wouldn't have pissed people like me off.

    Fuck you, Blizzard.

    To everyone on the bnetd team, keep kicking ass, and the best of luck to you.
    • I've been a loyal Blizzard customer as well. Until now. I agree 100% with all of your points. Blizzard won't see another cent from me, and I don't intend on even playing another Blizzard game. Not on a friend's computer, not on a pirated copy. Not at all.

  • Yeah, bnetd is TOTALLY DEAD. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Wakko Warner ( 324 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @02:40AM (#3505040) Homepage Journal
    Yes, [ugoth.net] BNETD [akardam.net] is [wyvern.org] completely [u-picardie.fr] dead [firehead.org]. The [greenend.org.uk] DMCA [mit.edu] has [orodu.net] prevailed [bitey.net].

    - A.P.

  • Wrong target (Score:3, Informative)

    by sher0209 ( 246366 ) <<ude.nmu.ct> <ta> <9020rehs>> on Sunday May 12, 2002 @02:45AM (#3505046)
    It's unfortunate that Blizzard is targeting BNETD. The problem that Blizzard is facing, is leaked copies of the Warcraft III beta being played all over the internet. Every beta tester got a unique CD-Key with their copy of the beta, to play on Battle.net you needed a unique key (i.e. one that was not being used).

    The people with pirated copies of the beta want to play too, and since there's no single player in the beta, they need a Battle.net server to connect to. Now, Blizzard isn't about to let 10,000 illegal copies on to their server so the people running stolen copies turned to BNET.D.

    At this time, through some strange coincidence, BNET.D attracted the attention of Blizzard. BNET.D said "Ok, game pirates suck, we won't develop Warcraft III compatiblity", got sued, and pulled their code. A handful of the contributers of BNET.D wanted to keep pursuing WC3 and formed Warforge.

    Granted, there is a point or two in favor of developing a BNET.D server for WC3:
    [] Warcraft III doesn't allow for LAN play
    [] I forgot the second one
    They've been keeping up with Blizzards efforts to disallow use on non-battle.net servers very well (a patch is usually out in less than two days).

    As for my opinion: People are going to find a way to play/use the latest and greatest software without paying for it. Period. The more attractive it is, the faster it will be cracked. Companies need to realize this and make software more available (public betas, lower prices, no prices (free)...) Even then, people will find ways to get products for free, but just like the music industry is starting to realize, people will take path of least resistance to the software they want.

    That's my $0.03
    --
    dan
    • how bout they give away beta's with the pre order.. im sure you could have a million people pre order it and BAM you could hire some quick temp programmers and fix it up with all that cash... cause with a pre order its straight money... nothing like a quick infusion of cash to get some slowware or vaporware moving right along (ahem nintendo)
    • There is a very strong point in developing a bnet server for wc3.

      Alternative starcraft servers were very useful for nonhackers.

      Many starcraft communities were formed on non battlenet servers, many based on skill or country, and were very succesful.

      The good players would choose to go to another server, where people had to apply for membership, because then they knew they could kick out the ones that use hacks or are just annoying.

      Since most of the best warcraft players used to be starcraft players they will want to do the same thing.

    • Companies need to realize this and make software more available (public betas, lower prices, no prices (free)...)

      I don't think the point is, for a company, to automatically give everything free/public/open. Business is business. Sure, they wanted to do a beta so they could be certain that the game works and is balanced when it's released. No, they never wanted the world to play the game. Yes, they have this right as it's their creation. Battle.net is free as it is.

  • underground programming. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Restil ( 31903 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @03:04AM (#3505071) Homepage
    Its getting to the point where the open source movement will move further and further underground. All the benefits of the open source would still remain if the lead developers remained anonymous (except maybe for ego purposes). Nobody ever has, and probably won't challenge the majority of open source software, but why risk it anymore. Let the software companies and the movie industry waste a large sum of money trying to silence the small insignificant factions. If those factions ever do rise to power and the power bases lose their market as a result, then in time, most of this won't even matter.

    Take Microsoft and the northwest schools. It is not just ONE school district talking about mass migration here. If they do it, and pull it off, other districts will notice. They'll see that it actually CAN be done. They'll see that there really IS support available, and they'll see that it IS saving a lot of money, and they can safely tell the BSA to fuck off. They'll switch too. One at a time, one after another. Microsoft will lose them all. Now you have a whole bunch of high school students, ALL of them trained on linux or whatever open source suite appealed to the districts. They go off to college. You will now see the same movement there. And once that wave is done sweeping through, the corporate world is next. It really COULD start with one school district, and in 10 years, Microsoft will have completely lost their grip on the market, never to regain it.

    The point is, after a few years of this, everyone will be using open source software to some degree. People will EXPECT software to be free. And when Blizzard, or the movie industry or anyone comes along and sends out letters saying "you can't use that software" a whole lot of regular non-geek people will turn around and say "up yours!" to the respective finger pointer and tell them where they can shove it and take their money elsewhere.

    The music industry is already learning the hard way on this. They had their chance. They could have completely cornered the online market for years had they put in place a simple, inexpensive, non-intrusive music distribution system YEARS ago when they had the chance. But no, they were so concerned about rampant piracy and how it might affect their bottom line, they instead played stupid legal games to attempt to stifle the music trading. And for all the court cases, and all the laws that passed, trading has increased to massive proportions. They sue napster into the ground, 10 others pop up to take its place, only non-centralized and no way to easily shut them down. Who do you go after now? the programmers??

    Well, you can't if you don't know who they are.

    So undergound all this even potentially murky legal stuff. Wait a few years. All those who would threaten you will be overcome by the wave, and afterwards, they wouldn't dare.

    -Restil

  • so, you want to embark on a business enterprise? Better include LawyerCosts in your budget, thats a given these days.

    Its kinda funny, I would love to see the impact of Internet laws implimentation on Legal firms bottom line.

  • why imitate? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by lowwave ( 469952 )
    Bnetd's developers certainly do wonders with those reverse engineering hack. The only drawback I can see is their limited ambition.
    Why not implement an open protocol to offer a platform so that all the rest of the game developers can write networked games? It's certainly true that Blizzard has the advantage of popular games. But I doubt that those developers have enough resource to keep up with all the strange packets designed by Blizzard intentionally or unintentionally. I also doubt that other game companies will sit idly to let Blizzard grab all the share. Blizzard's lawsuit won't bear the results they expect. It is unthinkable that a gamer will sign up for a service just be able to play one or several games designed by Blizzard.

    Wish Bnetd's developers good luck.
  • Blizzard doesn't distribute a battle.net hub.

    BNETD does.

    Blizzard gets mad because BNETD doesn't check for warez copys.

    Shouldn't Blizzard then have distributed an official hub?

    Less users would then have been aware of warez friendly hubs. You can't stop the 10% who will do every thing they can to be warez puppies, but you can take steps to stop the 90%.

    Stopping the 90% this way though is morally bankrupt. Someone stepped in and created a product which adds value to your product. You want CONTROL OVER ALL, so instead of providing BNETD with help to implement copy protection, you sue them to take them down!

    Screwed.

    Barto
    • Content developpers are now coming in the position that inventors have had for a long time: to get maximum profit they need to keep working on it.

      Clones and competitors can be a source of innovation without being a real threat if you treat them right. Just look at Microsoft and Apple. In the games world you have ID Software that actually encourages hackers to work on some of its code by releasing old sources.

      Blizzard obviously dropped the ball:
      - they did not or were slow to copy innovations from BNETD
      - they didn't sell servers
      - they didn't work out a policy towards BNETD. Now they just want to destroy them and they seem too stupid to realize that they might actually profit if they were a bit more creative.

      Sure - there is the problem of the pirated copies that can play on BNETD and not on battle.net. But I doubt whether this is a real problem:
      - as we all know many software packages got popular because they tolerated a certain level of pirating.
      - Blizzard seemed able to live with piracy until BNETD was modified so that pirated copies of the beta of Warcraft III could be played. But to me the main problem here seems to be a lack of foresight at Blizzard.
      - Blizzard has planned an effective remedy with more content on the server. No hacker will match that.
      - BNETD is prepared to make include a check for the unique reistration number. I doubt that this will be very effective (it's opensource, so other people will remove it), but it may help a bit.
      - if Blizzard picked up the innovations from BNETD faster that would decrease its appeal.
  • I can't get very excited about a free server for a proprietary game running on a proprietary OS. Why not go all the way and design a free server and a free game?

  • It's their game (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Soulseek ( 541743 )
    The thing is, I don't really feel Blizzard is wrong in not wanting other people to produce alternatives to its own servers. This isn't based on any understanding of the law (of which I have very little), but rather on what I feel is morally right. I feel Blizzard deserves to control how the game plays, offline or online. Incredible amounts of creativity, thinking, time, work and money went into making Diablo II (or any other Blizzard game), and I just don't see why anyone else should have the freedom to change how their games play. Bought Diablo II and became disappointed with the inflexibilty or slugishness of their servers? Fine, vow to never buy another Blizzard game again and set to create your own opensource game, client, protocol and server included.

    Don't try to take control from Blizzard by letting people use their client with your server. Blizzard sees it necessary for keeping their business to have that control exclusive to them, and you may not like it, or agree with it, but you need to respect it. Especially if you decide to play their games. This isn't an operating system we're talking about. Where an operating system is just a middleman, something to build upon, there is (usually) nothing more to a game than itself. You take it as it is, or not at all. Some game developers choose to give the user further liberties through game editors and programming interfaces, and that's great, but those liberties should be given, not taken by force.

    I'm sure this is going to be a very unpopular opinion with many of you, all I'm asking for is if you disagree with me, explain why instead of flaming, so that I can take your opinion seriously.

    Thanks, Nir

    • Blizzard sees it necessary for keeping their business to have that control exclusive to them, and you may not like it, or agree with it,

      I bought it. It's mine. I'll play it on any goddamned server I want. Of course, I won't be buying any more, so I guess that's really a moot point. Death to Blizzard!

    • I totally agree. It's so irritating, whenever this topic comes up on Slashdot, a load of AC's post big rants about how they own every Blizzard game ever, and now they are going to boycott the company because they don't like the thing with BNETD.

      Well, to them I say sock it. Soulseek has it right - it's their game, and I can totally understand them wanting to try and keep piracy down. Instead of bitching about it, write your own damn games.

    • You have paid for it, therefore you are free to do whatever you want with it within the bounds of copyright law. If you want to write a replacement for some service that they would like you to use, there is nothing, legally or morally, stopping you from doing so.

      Don't try to take control from Blizzard by letting people use their client with your server.

      The problem is that blizzard doesn't have control to begin with. Once that piece of software is bought and paid for, they have no control over what you do with it. If I want to alter that program in any way I like, I am free to do so as long as I'm not distributing copies.

      Blizzard sees it necessary for keeping their business to have that control exclusive to them, and you may not like it, or agree with it, but you need to respect it.

      No you don't. Just because some company wants something doesn't mean I have to do anything to make sure it happens.

  • From reading the article, it's clear that the developers and maintainers of the bnetd project are Blizzard supporters. They are doing for free what Blizzard had to pay programmers to develop, and from the looks of the article, their paid programmers did it somewhat suboptimally.

    Blizzard has a great resource at their disposal. The community that developed around their games has reached a point where they have started writing code to correct the flaws in Blizzard's system. How many companies can only dream of having such a devoted fanbase?

    Unfortunately, depressingly, Blizzard's response to this is not an enlightened response that embraces such a community for mutual gain, but one which aims to lobotomize it. There will be no winners from this course of action. bnetd will always exist (potentially with consequences for the original author) and Blizzard will only harm a community that for the most part supports them.

    Blizzard chooses to hide behind legislation to defend a business model that cannot naturally work , rather than innovate and develop one that benefits all, including themselves.

  • If Blizzard wants to make continued claims of "circumvention" and "piracy", then bnetd must also make accusations using "keywords" designed to upset the general population.

    So, therefore, Blizzard provides a service which is much more graphically violent than "DOOM", which we all know was resonsible for many teenager deaths around the country.

    They continue to push violence and killing upon the youth of America by releasing games which postively reward players [youth of America] for acts such as stealing, killing, misconception and deception of others.

  • They removed the source from their home page, but you can still get it over at debian [debian.org]'s site if you want to see what their talking about.

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