17 ms·

Warcraft fans' fury at Blizzard over server closure

157 points by sea6ear 11y ago

mwest 11y ago
Incredible to see this hitting the BBC, although it's been discussed on HN already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11448908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11448908 What is interesting is that they will apparently be releasing their work as open source: "With that said, as far as we are concerned, this amazing journey would not have been possible without the contribution of the open source World of Warcraft community, especially those who were behind MaNGOS. We believe that we significantly improved their code base, with several interesting algorithms (for example the ongoing work on clustering). For now, our source code may be release 30th of April (educational purposes only) in the hope that it will be useful, and that it may help developers understand how a big project like ours was handled from the inside." (from https://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=43600 https://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=43600)
- minimaxir 11y ago
  The fan reaction is new information, although the article doesn't go in-depth. Apparently there were ritualistic suicides of in-game characters on the server in light of the news, among other things: https://reddit.com/r/wow/comments/4e6zee/nostalrius_memories/ https://reddit.com/r/wow/comments/4e6zee/nostalrius_memories...
  - oxide 11y ago
    That's hilarious. There were also huge gatherings, etc. I found it easy to relate to the players as far as mourning the loss goes. It reminds me of watching an MMO I loved, The Realm Online, die slowly. It's still technically around, but development has all but ceased and the player count is ~25. IIRC it was purchased by a family who eventually let all the programmers and artists go.
    - TaylorGood 11y ago
      Would love to play Unreal Tournament here and there.. N64 Goldeneye multi-player shall suffice in the meantime
      - Mendenhall 11y ago
        Two all time great shooters. Goldeneye, pistols only, health turned down. I also loved all the boards an things you could do on UT, teleport disk and jumpboots for flag running etc.
        seanp2k2 11y ago
        Quake 3 Weapons Factory Arena mod was my jam. 16 vs 16 on dial up in ~2000-2002 was amazing. Tribes was also fun, as was UT2k3 with low grav. I always liked ridiculous mods. TF2 was / is also great, especially the madness that was 3-pg: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=egGAPrNCj0M https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=egGAPrNCj0M and the Wacky Races maps: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oPP7PnEtTmQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oPP7PnEtTmQ
      - eropple 11y ago
        I still have UT99 LAN parties once in a while (maybe twice a year). Laptops and mice all over the apartment.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - zipwitch 11y ago
    The server was packed even (perhaps especially) in its final moments, with the kind of crowds the official version never sees anymore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y86hk_93d4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y86hk_93d4c
    - Falcon9 11y ago
      My initial thoughts were that such density in Ironforge is not much compared to Vanilla or TBC high pop realms(1) from back in the day(2), and that latency is painful to watch. Then he went outside and that explained the latency and also represented probably the largest crowd I've seen in one place. I hope Morhaime and some of the other guys at Blizzard see this video. (1)By calling it a realm instead of a server I suppose I out myself as a former WoW GM. (2) Fairly typical player density early in Vanilla (in an atypical and hillarious situation): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ_WdYvwrDA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ_WdYvwrDA
      - gthtjtkt 11y ago
        The server had 5x the population of a reatil Vanilla realm. Those were capped at 2,500 but Nostalrius regularly peaked near 13,000 concurrent players. Their second server was also reaching ~5,000 players at the time they were shut down.
      - cozuya 11y ago
        I was a raid leader/main tank for the guild who got the first ever Nefarian kill. We announced on forums that he dropped a head quest similar to Onyxia that turns in at Stormwind and people started flooding our server with new humans, thousands of them. It was insanity. To no one's surprise turning in the quest crashed the server...
    - andersen1488 11y ago
      It was honestly better in every single way than any vanilla WoW server ever was. Average online at any given time was >10,000 people.
    - jason46 11y ago
- drivers99 11y ago
  Something limited to "educational purposes only" is technically not "open source". (It doesn't fit the Open Source Definition, and licenses such as GPL would not be compatible with such restrictions either.)
  - notJim 11y ago
    I'm not normally a wonk about this kind of stuff, but this distinction seems significant in the context of blizzard apparently threatening fan-run servers with legal action.
  - ekianjo 11y ago
    Open source is ambiguous the only term thats clearly defined is Free Software. And GPL is Free Software RMS would jump at your throat for calling it Open Source.
    - cwyers 11y ago
      RMS is not the only person allowed to define words.
      - chris_wot 11y ago
        The OSI would be pretty pissed at that definition also.
        cwyers 11y ago
        The GPL is an OSI-approved license. (Or do you mean the point that started this thread? I was only responding to the narrow point about the GPL and open source, not the larger one about the license for this server, which I think I agree with you on.)
  - jtmarmon 11y ago
    open source means the source is open. that's all it means. free software is what you're referring to and it's something entirely different
- tazjin 11y ago
  MaNGOS is GPL-licensed so I would hope that they release their changes :)
mesozoic 11y ago
I can understand their desire. Some of my best gaming was on non EA Ultima Online shards that ran the version of the game before it was "ruined" or many thought it was.
- marak830 11y ago
  That's how I learnt to code! Running a runuo server :-) it was amazing to have a fully fleshed out world and see my changes effect players immediately. I doubt I would know how to program at all if it was not for that server.
lsiebert 11y ago
Sadly, the Library of Congress Exemption for server based games (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2488067/2015-27212.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2488067/2015-2721...) doesn't apply here.
Kenji 11y ago
The pain when your favourite private MMORPG server goes down - I know it too well (I've been programming for private MMORPG servers myself, though not WoW). It really is an entire world just disappearing. If I was the head of a large game company, I'd make good friends with the modding/private server crowd (unless it's in direct competition with one's own product), they often create tight-knit communities that provide value for many years.
- linxzu 11y ago
  Considering the server is the driver for a majority of the game, what stops people from recreating the client but modified enough to not mimic the original title?
remwfnnz 11y ago
Relevant: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-past-how-runescapes-official-legacy-server-avoided-kemp https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-past-how-runescapes-... A Jagex employee's view on how they managed to reopen a legacy server and keep it alive (and growing).
chris_wot 11y ago
I'd love to see a full refund for all those people who bought the game - on the grounds they can't use it for its intended purpose in any way. And this is why its best not to get too involved in games where you have no control or have no possibility of control over the infrastructure that underpins the game.
- Falcon9 11y ago
  Huh? You're buying an account that gives you the ability to further buy monthly access to a living, changing world, and nobody reasonable who forked over money to Blizzard expected or expects otherwise.
  - GavinMcG 11y ago
    I totally would expect that I would be able to play without buying expansions. What would actually happen if I logged in now with my account that I haven't used since vanilla? Would I be told I'm SOL?
    - MLR 11y ago
      You can play all the content available on the original continents(though revised to the latest version of that content/area) up to a maximum level of 60.
      - efaref 11y ago
        I think vanilla accounts automatically get the battle chest version, which is expanded to included the previous expansion during each expansion. It looks like the battle chest includes everything up to Pandaria, now. https://eu.battle.net/shop/en/product/world-of-warcraft https://eu.battle.net/shop/en/product/world-of-warcraft
- developer2 11y ago
  Or... not. MMOs are "Massively multiplayer _online_". They are expected to require mandatory updates. Anyone who is opposed to the very concept should avoid MMOs entirely and enjoy single-player campaigns and LAN networking with friends. Games evolve. Expecting every game to maintain a live production environment of what - every previous release? - is simply unrealistic. WoW is bad enough with its expansions where different subsets of players can access any given area. Can you even imagine people complaining about not having access to play Season 1 of League of Legends? It makes no sense - to the business or the average player - to have tiny populations on old server versions that need to be maintained. >> its best not to get too involved in games where you have no control or have no possibility of control over the infrastructure Unless you are a professional competitive player, why would anyone become so deeply connected to a _game_ such that future updates, and/or the publisher shutting down the game entirely, would result in such a vehement reaction? If you're the type to cry "lawsuit" over a game getting updates, you may want to avoid playing such games. tldr; For some people, "its best not to get too involved in games where you have no control" probably starts and ends with not installing an MMO to begin with.
beloch 11y ago
The original Everquest ran a variety of different servers under different rulesets. I just checked and, suprisingly, they still do! At one point this included an unpatched version of the game as it was on release day, but no longer. At this point in time the only appeal of the game to me is nostalgia. I don't think I'd care to log in and immediately upgrade my formerly maxed out character with 40 levels of free exp just so I can go to the latest newbie zone and not get slaughtered. That would sort of trivialize the entirely excessive amount of time I put into that character. I played WoW's beta but then went entirely off of MMO's for good (such a waste of time!). I'm sure there are lots of people who would love to revist the release version of the game. Clearly, the demand is there. Instead of shutting Nostalrius down, the Blizzard team should be buying the server config and data off of the team that was running it and then keep it online. They have to protect their IP, but the cost of keeping long-time loyal fans happy (even if they aren't currently paying ones) happy is pretty minimal.
- endemic 11y ago
  Or even turn it into a paid service! Seems to be an underserved niche fan base. I'm sure most of the players would be happy to fork over $15/mo. for an official "oldschool" server.
etiam 11y ago
Defective by design, sadly. While I was gaming a lot, before the turn of the century, it usually seemed like when you bought a game you owned it. WoW was to me one of the earliest salient examples of a game you didn't really own, but only were permitted to rent. Even though the community has apparently overcome the challenges of getting a working, large scale server running and maintain a community, that spirit of "not really yours" seems to shine through here. Poor form, Blizzard! Adding to a design that was better off without additions to sell it all over again is one thing, but smashing the original for those who loved it that way and don't want the extra cruft is just mean.
- incepted 11y ago
  > before the turn of the century, it usually seemed like when you bought a game you owned it. That was never true.
  - nickspacek 11y ago
    You're correct in that software (including games) is almost always licensed, but I think you're also being a little pedantic. There were certainly fewer games that required "phoning home" for verification and fewer games that had required content served remotely from servers that could be shut down. The (obvious) spirit of the post was that when you purchased a license/the game the developer would typically not mess with your copy and you were free to do what you wanted with it.
  - sevensor 11y ago
    Maybe not in the literal sense, but I can still play my copy of the original Panzer General 22 years after it was released, because there are no technical impediments to doing so and because the license permits it. (And because of DOSbox.)
  - wonderlust 11y ago
    It used to be that you bought a license. Now you rent one.
- a_small_island 11y ago
Aelinsaar 11y ago
I can understand the frustration, it must be painful to be that much of a fan and lose such an enormous community.
Pyxl101 11y ago
The elephant in the room, and the aspect of this issue that no one wants to talk about is that players can play on these servers for free. Any player who drops their WoW subscription in favor of a private server is a loss for blizzard, and some players are thrifty enough to do this. Thus, even though the server might not be charging, it's certainly draining revenue from Blizzard. If the population was 150k, then some % of those were paying customers anyway, and some would play only if it's free, while others might pay for WoW if a free server was not available. WoW currently costs $15/mo. Blizzard is in a much better position to have numbers for this, but let's say that the existence of the free server might have discouraged 50 K people from having subscriptions who otherwise would have. Assuming 50K, then that's a monthly loss of $750,000 in revenue; or if all 150K did not subscribe but would have, it's $2,250,000/mo. Given that servers are relatively cheap, probably a good portion of that would be profit. The people who say that the servers do not threaten blizzard are naïve or at worst disingenuous. They threaten Blizzard exactly as much as they discourage people from having wow subscriptions whenever they would otherwise. A player who spends a lot of time on a private server is probably not going to see a lot of value in keeping their WoW account active, after all. Given the way network effects work, a popular server could have a runaway success effect (people tend to play where a critical mass of their friends play). Furthermore, it is probably quite difficult to convince a player to reactivate their account once the successfully play for a while on a private server and have friends there; the server is probably very sticky. Rather than asking Blizzard to bring back old versions of the game, perhaps Blizzard should embrace a model where players can run their own servers and list them in a public directory, such the players still require a subscription in order to play. And perhaps the server gets song cut of the profit from players who predominantly play on their server, like 10%. Perhaps this could align the interest of Blizzard and server hosts too much greater degree. The analog of a gameplay mod in other games is more like a custom server in wow, and think of all the good that's come from mods like DOTA. There are still a number of reasons why Blizard would not want to do this, such as the fact they lose control of customer experience, but maybe it's closer to a workable model.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  The real elephant in the room is that we have no right to preserve a game that we are entitled to entering public domain at some time, unless the copyright holder feels like it.
yAnonymous 11y ago
What were the server setup and monthly costs like? It should be clear that Blizzard are ridiculously overcharging people with 10$/month when fans can run something like this and offer it for free or based on donations.
- thenomad 11y ago
  Much as I'm in favour of private servers in general, this statement doesn't really work. Blizzard have to - legally have to - pay the people who do customer support, development, art, writing server ops, etc. That adds up to a lot more than just server costs.
  - yAnonymous 11y ago
    That argument doesn't hold, considering WoW players also have to pay for the games themselves, not just the monthly costs. On top of that, you can buy character boosts, too. No, this isn't covering development and support costs, it's shameless profit optimization.
    - thenomad 11y ago
      They release a lot of additional free content (or used to, anyway. Not so much these days I believe), and the support burden is far higher than it would be for a release-once local game.
      - yAnonymous 11y ago
        WoW provides Blizzard three sources of income (game price, monthly fee, ingame store) and I hear their support is quite bad. Many other MMOs get along just fine with only one or two while providing an equal or better level of support. But Blizzard can get away with all that thanks to people like you buying their marketing crap.

157 points by sea6ear 11y ago

mwest 11y ago

Incredible to see this hitting the BBC, although it's been discussed on HN already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11448908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11448908 What is interesting is that they will apparently be releasing their work as open source: "With that said, as far as we are concerned, this amazing journey would not have been possible without the contribution of the open source World of Warcraft community, especially those who were behind MaNGOS. We believe that we significantly improved their code base, with several interesting algorithms (for example the ongoing work on clustering). For now, our source code may be release 30th of April (educational purposes only) in the hope that it will be useful, and that it may help developers understand how a big project like ours was handled from the inside." (from https://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=43600 https://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=43600)

minimaxir 11y ago
The fan reaction is new information, although the article doesn't go in-depth. Apparently there were ritualistic suicides of in-game characters on the server in light of the news, among other things: https://reddit.com/r/wow/comments/4e6zee/nostalrius_memories/ https://reddit.com/r/wow/comments/4e6zee/nostalrius_memories...
- oxide 11y ago
  That's hilarious. There were also huge gatherings, etc. I found it easy to relate to the players as far as mourning the loss goes. It reminds me of watching an MMO I loved, The Realm Online, die slowly. It's still technically around, but development has all but ceased and the player count is ~25. IIRC it was purchased by a family who eventually let all the programmers and artists go.
  - TaylorGood 11y ago
    Would love to play Unreal Tournament here and there.. N64 Goldeneye multi-player shall suffice in the meantime
    - Mendenhall 11y ago
      Two all time great shooters. Goldeneye, pistols only, health turned down. I also loved all the boards an things you could do on UT, teleport disk and jumpboots for flag running etc.
      - seanp2k2 11y ago
        Quake 3 Weapons Factory Arena mod was my jam. 16 vs 16 on dial up in ~2000-2002 was amazing. Tribes was also fun, as was UT2k3 with low grav. I always liked ridiculous mods. TF2 was / is also great, especially the madness that was 3-pg: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=egGAPrNCj0M https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=egGAPrNCj0M and the Wacky Races maps: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oPP7PnEtTmQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oPP7PnEtTmQ
    - eropple 11y ago
      I still have UT99 LAN parties once in a while (maybe twice a year). Laptops and mice all over the apartment.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- zipwitch 11y ago
  The server was packed even (perhaps especially) in its final moments, with the kind of crowds the official version never sees anymore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y86hk_93d4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y86hk_93d4c
  - Falcon9 11y ago
    My initial thoughts were that such density in Ironforge is not much compared to Vanilla or TBC high pop realms(1) from back in the day(2), and that latency is painful to watch. Then he went outside and that explained the latency and also represented probably the largest crowd I've seen in one place. I hope Morhaime and some of the other guys at Blizzard see this video. (1)By calling it a realm instead of a server I suppose I out myself as a former WoW GM. (2) Fairly typical player density early in Vanilla (in an atypical and hillarious situation): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ_WdYvwrDA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ_WdYvwrDA
    - gthtjtkt 11y ago
      The server had 5x the population of a reatil Vanilla realm. Those were capped at 2,500 but Nostalrius regularly peaked near 13,000 concurrent players. Their second server was also reaching ~5,000 players at the time they were shut down.
    - cozuya 11y ago
      I was a raid leader/main tank for the guild who got the first ever Nefarian kill. We announced on forums that he dropped a head quest similar to Onyxia that turns in at Stormwind and people started flooding our server with new humans, thousands of them. It was insanity. To no one's surprise turning in the quest crashed the server...
  - andersen1488 11y ago
    It was honestly better in every single way than any vanilla WoW server ever was. Average online at any given time was >10,000 people.
  - jason46 11y ago
drivers99 11y ago
Something limited to "educational purposes only" is technically not "open source". (It doesn't fit the Open Source Definition, and licenses such as GPL would not be compatible with such restrictions either.)
- notJim 11y ago
  I'm not normally a wonk about this kind of stuff, but this distinction seems significant in the context of blizzard apparently threatening fan-run servers with legal action.
- ekianjo 11y ago
  Open source is ambiguous the only term thats clearly defined is Free Software. And GPL is Free Software RMS would jump at your throat for calling it Open Source.
  - cwyers 11y ago
    RMS is not the only person allowed to define words.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      The OSI would be pretty pissed at that definition also.
      - cwyers 11y ago
        The GPL is an OSI-approved license. (Or do you mean the point that started this thread? I was only responding to the narrow point about the GPL and open source, not the larger one about the license for this server, which I think I agree with you on.)
- jtmarmon 11y ago
  open source means the source is open. that's all it means. free software is what you're referring to and it's something entirely different
tazjin 11y ago
MaNGOS is GPL-licensed so I would hope that they release their changes :)

mesozoic 11y ago

I can understand their desire. Some of my best gaming was on non EA Ultima Online shards that ran the version of the game before it was "ruined" or many thought it was.

marak830 11y ago
That's how I learnt to code! Running a runuo server :-) it was amazing to have a fully fleshed out world and see my changes effect players immediately. I doubt I would know how to program at all if it was not for that server.

lsiebert 11y ago

Sadly, the Library of Congress Exemption for server based games (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2488067/2015-27212.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2488067/2015-2721...) doesn't apply here.

Kenji 11y ago

The pain when your favourite private MMORPG server goes down - I know it too well (I've been programming for private MMORPG servers myself, though not WoW). It really is an entire world just disappearing. If I was the head of a large game company, I'd make good friends with the modding/private server crowd (unless it's in direct competition with one's own product), they often create tight-knit communities that provide value for many years.

linxzu 11y ago
Considering the server is the driver for a majority of the game, what stops people from recreating the client but modified enough to not mimic the original title?

remwfnnz 11y ago

Relevant: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-past-how-runescapes-official-legacy-server-avoided-kemp https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-past-how-runescapes-... A Jagex employee's view on how they managed to reopen a legacy server and keep it alive (and growing).

chris_wot 11y ago

I'd love to see a full refund for all those people who bought the game - on the grounds they can't use it for its intended purpose in any way. And this is why its best not to get too involved in games where you have no control or have no possibility of control over the infrastructure that underpins the game.

Falcon9 11y ago
Huh? You're buying an account that gives you the ability to further buy monthly access to a living, changing world, and nobody reasonable who forked over money to Blizzard expected or expects otherwise.
- GavinMcG 11y ago
  I totally would expect that I would be able to play without buying expansions. What would actually happen if I logged in now with my account that I haven't used since vanilla? Would I be told I'm SOL?
  - MLR 11y ago
    You can play all the content available on the original continents(though revised to the latest version of that content/area) up to a maximum level of 60.
    - efaref 11y ago
      I think vanilla accounts automatically get the battle chest version, which is expanded to included the previous expansion during each expansion. It looks like the battle chest includes everything up to Pandaria, now. https://eu.battle.net/shop/en/product/world-of-warcraft https://eu.battle.net/shop/en/product/world-of-warcraft
developer2 11y ago
Or... not. MMOs are "Massively multiplayer _online_". They are expected to require mandatory updates. Anyone who is opposed to the very concept should avoid MMOs entirely and enjoy single-player campaigns and LAN networking with friends. Games evolve. Expecting every game to maintain a live production environment of what - every previous release? - is simply unrealistic. WoW is bad enough with its expansions where different subsets of players can access any given area. Can you even imagine people complaining about not having access to play Season 1 of League of Legends? It makes no sense - to the business or the average player - to have tiny populations on old server versions that need to be maintained. >> its best not to get too involved in games where you have no control or have no possibility of control over the infrastructure Unless you are a professional competitive player, why would anyone become so deeply connected to a _game_ such that future updates, and/or the publisher shutting down the game entirely, would result in such a vehement reaction? If you're the type to cry "lawsuit" over a game getting updates, you may want to avoid playing such games. tldr; For some people, "its best not to get too involved in games where you have no control" probably starts and ends with not installing an MMO to begin with.

beloch 11y ago

The original Everquest ran a variety of different servers under different rulesets. I just checked and, suprisingly, they still do! At one point this included an unpatched version of the game as it was on release day, but no longer. At this point in time the only appeal of the game to me is nostalgia. I don't think I'd care to log in and immediately upgrade my formerly maxed out character with 40 levels of free exp just so I can go to the latest newbie zone and not get slaughtered. That would sort of trivialize the entirely excessive amount of time I put into that character. I played WoW's beta but then went entirely off of MMO's for good (such a waste of time!). I'm sure there are lots of people who would love to revist the release version of the game. Clearly, the demand is there. Instead of shutting Nostalrius down, the Blizzard team should be buying the server config and data off of the team that was running it and then keep it online. They have to protect their IP, but the cost of keeping long-time loyal fans happy (even if they aren't currently paying ones) happy is pretty minimal.

endemic 11y ago
Or even turn it into a paid service! Seems to be an underserved niche fan base. I'm sure most of the players would be happy to fork over $15/mo. for an official "oldschool" server.

etiam 11y ago

Defective by design, sadly. While I was gaming a lot, before the turn of the century, it usually seemed like when you bought a game you owned it. WoW was to me one of the earliest salient examples of a game you didn't really own, but only were permitted to rent. Even though the community has apparently overcome the challenges of getting a working, large scale server running and maintain a community, that spirit of "not really yours" seems to shine through here. Poor form, Blizzard! Adding to a design that was better off without additions to sell it all over again is one thing, but smashing the original for those who loved it that way and don't want the extra cruft is just mean.

incepted 11y ago
> before the turn of the century, it usually seemed like when you bought a game you owned it. That was never true.
- nickspacek 11y ago
  You're correct in that software (including games) is almost always licensed, but I think you're also being a little pedantic. There were certainly fewer games that required "phoning home" for verification and fewer games that had required content served remotely from servers that could be shut down. The (obvious) spirit of the post was that when you purchased a license/the game the developer would typically not mess with your copy and you were free to do what you wanted with it.
- sevensor 11y ago
  Maybe not in the literal sense, but I can still play my copy of the original Panzer General 22 years after it was released, because there are no technical impediments to doing so and because the license permits it. (And because of DOSbox.)
- wonderlust 11y ago
  It used to be that you bought a license. Now you rent one.
a_small_island 11y ago

Aelinsaar 11y ago

I can understand the frustration, it must be painful to be that much of a fan and lose such an enormous community.

Pyxl101 11y ago

The elephant in the room, and the aspect of this issue that no one wants to talk about is that players can play on these servers for free. Any player who drops their WoW subscription in favor of a private server is a loss for blizzard, and some players are thrifty enough to do this. Thus, even though the server might not be charging, it's certainly draining revenue from Blizzard. If the population was 150k, then some % of those were paying customers anyway, and some would play only if it's free, while others might pay for WoW if a free server was not available. WoW currently costs $15/mo. Blizzard is in a much better position to have numbers for this, but let's say that the existence of the free server might have discouraged 50 K people from having subscriptions who otherwise would have. Assuming 50K, then that's a monthly loss of $750,000 in revenue; or if all 150K did not subscribe but would have, it's $2,250,000/mo. Given that servers are relatively cheap, probably a good portion of that would be profit. The people who say that the servers do not threaten blizzard are naïve or at worst disingenuous. They threaten Blizzard exactly as much as they discourage people from having wow subscriptions whenever they would otherwise. A player who spends a lot of time on a private server is probably not going to see a lot of value in keeping their WoW account active, after all. Given the way network effects work, a popular server could have a runaway success effect (people tend to play where a critical mass of their friends play). Furthermore, it is probably quite difficult to convince a player to reactivate their account once the successfully play for a while on a private server and have friends there; the server is probably very sticky. Rather than asking Blizzard to bring back old versions of the game, perhaps Blizzard should embrace a model where players can run their own servers and list them in a public directory, such the players still require a subscription in order to play. And perhaps the server gets song cut of the profit from players who predominantly play on their server, like 10%. Perhaps this could align the interest of Blizzard and server hosts too much greater degree. The analog of a gameplay mod in other games is more like a custom server in wow, and think of all the good that's come from mods like DOTA. There are still a number of reasons why Blizard would not want to do this, such as the fact they lose control of customer experience, but maybe it's closer to a workable model.

venomsnake 11y ago
The real elephant in the room is that we have no right to preserve a game that we are entitled to entering public domain at some time, unless the copyright holder feels like it.

yAnonymous 11y ago

What were the server setup and monthly costs like? It should be clear that Blizzard are ridiculously overcharging people with 10$/month when fans can run something like this and offer it for free or based on donations.

thenomad 11y ago
Much as I'm in favour of private servers in general, this statement doesn't really work. Blizzard have to - legally have to - pay the people who do customer support, development, art, writing server ops, etc. That adds up to a lot more than just server costs.
- yAnonymous 11y ago
  That argument doesn't hold, considering WoW players also have to pay for the games themselves, not just the monthly costs. On top of that, you can buy character boosts, too. No, this isn't covering development and support costs, it's shameless profit optimization.
  - thenomad 11y ago
    They release a lot of additional free content (or used to, anyway. Not so much these days I believe), and the support burden is far higher than it would be for a release-once local game.
    - yAnonymous 11y ago
      WoW provides Blizzard three sources of income (game price, monthly fee, ingame store) and I hear their support is quite bad. Many other MMOs get along just fine with only one or two while providing an equal or better level of support. But Blizzard can get away with all that thanks to people like you buying their marketing crap.