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EFF asks for the right to revive “abandoned” online games
- neito 12y agoI'm kinda disappointed that they're carving out a huge exception for MMO-style games. If anything, I think that (if only due to the social structures that evolve within them) they're the most valuable but fragile types of online games.
- Zikes 12y agoAllegiance [1] is an example of this happening in the MMO space. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiance_(video_game) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiance_(video_game)
- FranOntanaya 12y agoAnd for further reference: http://www.freeallegiance.org/forums/index.php?act=home http://www.freeallegiance.org/forums/index.php?act=home This game has really great mechanics with a really huge emphasis on teamwork. It was probably ahead of its time when it was released.
- viewer5 12y agoAt work so I can't click the link--is that game still alive? I played it a little when I was in high school.
- FranOntanaya 12y agoFriday nights and weekends, although I haven't played it in years, basically since I switched to Linux.
- thefreeman 12y agoMy first instinct was that they wanted to avoid going head to head with Blizzard on this, at least initially.
- mahouse 12y agoI wish this could apply to old WoW expansions.
- teepo 12y agoFor sure. Or offer "Vanilla" servers. I remember back in the day Ultima Online servers would pop up form time to time with the classic UI.
- crazypyro 12y agoFWIW, there is a long history of illegal private servers that offer Vanilla and specific xpac servers for WoW. They are especially popular with people that are into player versus player because people tend to have certain xpacs that they believe were more fun for a variety of specific reasons, mostly related to balance between different character classes.
- drivingmenuts 12y agoSomewhere out there is a server populated entirely by retardins ...
- mahouse 12y agoEvery expansion has a "best class", that's for sure. Even if you try to balance everything, that's impossible to achieve; every class has dozens of spells, talents, buffs... and then, some of those spells, talents and buffs can interact with other classes (especially when in party or raid) improving or nerfing them. In that expansion I'm sure you're talking about, paladins are somewhat better, and shamans are worse. That's normal, and it's not a problem when you play in live servers, since they are making modifications to spells and everything constantly. But when you're stuck in some version, then, you're stuck with how classes work in that version forever. That makes the population lean towards one class. More information about FOTM here: http://wowpedia.org/Fotm http://wowpedia.org/Fotm
- AlyssaRowan 12y ago
- teddyh 12y agoSadly, I don’t think the game companies are going to accept this – they are probably afraid that legitimizing this will make development of replacement server code start early (in anticipation of the shutdown of the official servers) and that the existence of working code, even though it will somehow be illegal to run, will still be run by many people, loosening the company’s iron grip of the players through the official servers.
- 0942v8653 12y agoWhich is sad considering the "iron grip" is not really going to help them much; for an extreme example look at what server mods did for Minecraft.
- jiggy2011 12y agoMost of the minecraft money comes from selling copies of the client, not from server subscriptions as in the case of WoW.
- gizmo686 12y agoTo clarify this point, the Minecraft server is free to download [0], even if you have not purchased the game at all. [0] https://minecraft.net/download https://minecraft.net/download
- kruczek 12y agoI don't think that would loosen the iron grip of game companies - as you mentioned it would be "illegal to run" such servers then, just as much as it is now. And they would "still be run by many people" regardless.
- teddyh 12y agoNo, my point is that the eventual legality of such services will make them be developed earlier than they would be developed had they been illegal indefinitely.
- deanclatworthy 12y agoI believe EA gave permission for xwis.net to do this for Red Alert 2. You can sign up with a legitimate key and it works as normal as the protocol was reverse engineered and DNS taken over :) This was probably straightforward for an old game like this but I can't imagine that reverse engineering the infrastructure required for modern games is feasible. I doubt games companies will have the cash or resources spare to consider this from the beginning nor years after.
- jkscm 12y agoCorrect me if I am wrong but the statement "game’s audiovisual content is primarily stored on the developer’s server and not in the client" is not true for any mmo. 3D models and audio are saved to the clients disk. It's the state of the persistent world that is stored on the server.
- AlyssaRowan 12y agoIf you consider Second Life an MMO (not sure if I'd consider it a game as such, more of an avatar chat), then I think it would apply in that case.
- daeken 12y agoEntropia Universe has client-side assets, but the important information (how they go together) is 99% driven by the server, AFAIK.
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y agoHmm. This is true for WoW if you don't have a full install.
- grimman 12y agoThis only allows for a streaming install. It's without question definitely primarily stored on the individual users' harddrives. Once you've downloaded the textures/models/whatever, you will not be requesting them from the server ever again.
- sehugg 12y agoYeah there's even an open source map viewer, all you need is the DVD: http://wowmapview.sourceforge.net/ http://wowmapview.sourceforge.net/
- abakker 12y agoBungie specifically allowed this to happen with the old Myth franchise. They open-sourced their bungie net code when they shut it down. Since then, several fan sites have kept the servers alive. The game was published in 1997.
- Gracana 12y agoBungie released Marathon for free as well (including all assets and code).
- madsushi 12y agoThere was also some work by Bungie earlier this year to keep Halo PC (11 years old) online after GameSpy shut down. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-05-12-bungie-to-update-halo-pc-with-server-fix http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-05-12-bungie-to-updat... (disclaimer: I work for Bungie, but not on that project)
- joshmn 12y agoI believe it was actually the work of a member of the Halo PC community; one non-affiliated programmer aliased as "btcc22" who kept it alive. Soon after the GameSpy services shut down, he wrote an emulator to replace the official master server. Bungie then (shockingly) released v1.10 to point the game to the new server, and stepped in and ate the cost of the AWS services used to power the lobby. Source: I gave my life to that game for a very, very long time and still check in on the community every now and then. Fun fact: Eric Koger, the CEO of ModCloth.com, also spent quite a bit of time reloading his pistol and rifle.
- djyaz1200 12y agoSeizing the "moral high ground" in an attempt to get flappy birds back!
- ChuckMcM 12y agoDoes anyone know if the previous abandonware allowances are still in effect? [1] http://www.gamespot.com/articles/abandonware-now-legal/1100-6162308/ http://www.gamespot.com/articles/abandonware-now-legal/1100-...
- eli 12y agoNope, that exemption for video games was not renewed in 2012. The EFF lost that round. If you're curious, the Copyright Office discusses their reasoning for and the arguments on both sides starting on page 42 of https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/ruling2012.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/ruling2012.pdf
- marvin 12y agoI didn't read the reasoning, but in my opinion the requirement for giving "abandonware" special treatment has been reduced by the advent of sites like GOG.com which preserve old games. However, there are probably still games that are almost impossible to purchase in playable form, so in principle there should be an allowance for these cases.
- Flenser 12y agoFrom page 49 (emphasis mine) > The Register further found that even if proponents had satisfied their burden of establishing noninfringing uses, they nonetheless failed to demonstrate that video game console access controls have or are likely to have a substantial adverse impact on such uses. Proponents identified two broad categories of activities that were allegedly threatened by the prohibition on circumvention, scientific research and homebrew software development. So it looks like the EFF are going at it from the abandonment angle this time having failed with the science and homebrew arguments. I'd say they have a better chance of making their case this time.
- treehau5 12y agoIf we could get "NoX" by Westwood servers back online with clan matches and rankings I just may die a happy man
- jgh 12y agoHear, hear!
- austinstorm 12y agoThis is neat, so there's no chance it will happen.
- subless 12y agoI actually started a petition about this a year or two ago. Check it out and sign it: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/let-memories-live/ http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/let-memories-live/
- kissickas 12y agoAm I the only one still concerned that this is all still in the power of the Library of Congress? It's certainly nice when they're promoting openness and consumer rights, but I'm not sure I like the idea of leaving these choices up to unelected bureaucrats.
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- Shivetya 12y agoI am not a hundred percent behind this in the realm of where the game had no means to be played without the server active. This mostly concerns MMOs. If a stand alone game is hobbled by lack of authentication servers or cannot perform mulitplayer without them I see little issue with the idea of a work around. However the sub model that most MMOs work under feels more like a lease than ownership to me
- 0x5f3759df-i 12y agoMMO's are specifically excempt