
Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server - bbunqq
https://en.nostalrius.org/
======
Meekro
I used to be involved with this sort of thing, and it's actually pretty
interesting stuff. There are enormous open source projects, operating largely
out of public sight, that have recreated the WoW server backend in most of its
glory. The lower-level content works quite well these days, though a lot of
complex raid scripts are missing or broken.

This one is probably the most popular:
[https://github.com/TrinityCore/TrinityCore](https://github.com/TrinityCore/TrinityCore)

It's pretty rare for Blizzard to go after these companies in court, but it's
happened here and there. Look up "Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. v. Alyson
Reeves" if you're curious what such a lawsuit looks like! Every patch since
Lich King, though, has attacked these reverse engineers on the technical front
by adding layers upon layers of obfuscation to the protocol. That's had some
effect, and many private servers have stuck with the old Burning Crusade or
Lich King releases.

~~~
ChuckMcM
One could argue that the Lich King was the last "good" patch for WoW. What
I've never understood though was there is clearly some residual demand for
"down rev" versions of the game where the mechanics favored a more engaged
play style, why not facilitate it? How much does it really cost to run a
single realm at the Vanilla, TBC, and LK levels? So many new players where
their first experience with Onxyia was soloing her with a Paladin. Just not
the same as 40 people trying to bring her down without falling to the whelp
adds.

Sure I don't think you could get $15/month for it but certainly $5/month or
$10 a month. And they already let you "play for free up to level 20" why not
just let you play for free on a vanilla server up to level 60?

~~~
kibwen
My personal intuition is that splitting your userbase like this is disastrous
for a game in the long-term (to say nothing of my intuition that 90% of people
longing for "the old days" are just looking for a quick hit of nostalgia, with
no intent to pay long-term).

However, it's worth mentioning that Runescape now officially offers a
"classic" version of the game alongside (and separate from) the modern
version, which should be an interesting experiment to watch.

~~~
zanny
You know that is an argument about expansions in the first place? Significant
player dropoffs in WoW happen in the last patches before new expansions. The
userbase usually spikes up on new releases, but almost always drops lower
every time, predominately because new releases gate players who were on old
versions against those on the new one. Friends stop being interested, unsub,
and never come back because the player base is fragmented across every level
cap WoW has had.

I've always thought that level caps in MMOs, particularly the WoW variety
slash-and-burn where you basically make a new theme park every two years and
throw the last one in the dumpster in terms of player viability, is a
destructive cycle not conductive to building real living worlds.

~~~
bitwize
Blizzard isn't _interested_ in "building a living world" and never has been.
From its inception the purpose of WoW has been to farm the likes of you for
gold.

~~~
Margh
And how do they continue to "farm" you for gold if you unsubscribe because you
no longer feel a part of the world?

~~~
zipwitch
By getting a small subset of players to buy premium cosmetic content and in-
game gold. Blizzard came up with a clever mechanism involving game time and
other players for the latter, both in order to obfuscate what they were doing
somewhat and to give them a little more control over their economy.

The Blizzard Warcraft Store:
[https://us.battle.net/shop/en/product/game/wow](https://us.battle.net/shop/en/product/game/wow)

Information on the "WoW Token" mechanism for turning $ into gold:
[http://www.tentonhammer.com/guides/guide-to-buying-and-
selli...](http://www.tentonhammer.com/guides/guide-to-buying-and-selling-the-
wow-token)

------
bbunqq
Here's a petition written by the Nost team asking to legalize Legacy servers:
[https://www.change.org/p/michael-morhaime-legacy-server-
amon...](https://www.change.org/p/michael-morhaime-legacy-server-among-world-
of-warcraft-
community?recruiter=10263686&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink)

------
sergiotapia
Wow, this is eerie for me! I literally just sat down on my computer to create
an account to play on Nostalrius and see this on HackerNews.

Talk about synchronicity!

Here's a neat info graphic of what Nostalrius had achieved (found on /r/wow):
[http://i.imgur.com/jxtOQlu.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/jxtOQlu.jpg)

------
minimaxir
> Today is also the day where Nostalrius will start being community-driven in
> the truest sense of the word, as we will be releasing the source code, and
> anonymized players data (encrypting personal account data)

This will be interesting. Apparently, there are open source reverse-
engineerings of the old WoW code already, but having them release the source
code may allow for some interesting applications.

I'd love to play around with that data dump as well.

~~~
zanny
There are actually dozens of WoW private server implementations (called cores)
on github, for every version of the game. Their patches will be immensely
useful to the various vanilla cores to improve their out of the box support,
but this is actually the second shutdown server this year that is dumping its
full scripting as open source after a server called Sunwell did it for WoW
3.3, and those scripts produced a dramatic increase in quality among other
servers at that version very quickly.

~~~
cyanbane
Is there a project that focuses on portability between these "cores", for
example taking your AD&D Character sheet with you between all these different
cores?

~~~
zanny
Series of the cores share common functionality amongst themselves, but the
character data structures between them are radically different because of
changes in character info between versions (ie, they added achievements in
wotlk, and then made them account wide in Cata / MOP), and in MoP / WoD they
removed several item slots on certain classes).

The problem with most private servers is not character portability, but
scripting portability. A quest scripted for a vanilla core probably won't work
on a Burning Crusade one because the API used is different.

The WoW private server scene is actually fascinating to read from a code study
perspective, because its all entirely hobbyist and often novice software
development. Common solutions to problems like delegation or templates are
often unused because the people writing the code just didn't know they existed
and never formally studied software best practices.

------
goda90
My friend logged on last night to see the response to the decision and found a
huge number of players online. They were gathering together and mourning,
doing things together one last time. It's kinda sad to think about a community
destroyed.

~~~
JackdawX
Here is a gif of the action from the reddit thread:

[https://gyazo.com/945aa97382bd4a2f4e49a662b5ff6399](https://gyazo.com/945aa97382bd4a2f4e49a662b5ff6399)

This is more populated than any live server event since the dark portal opened
(the first time).

------
marak830
I learnt programming from running an ultimate online server back in the day.

A little sad to seeing an(I assume), open source server like this being taken
down.

As an admin we use to run on the premise of, if we weren't told not to run it,
we could. Probably not 100% legal but it seemed to work.

It does make me wonder if they take the server down, is it because their
subscription dropping so much?

~~~
bottled_poe
Assuming the open source software was freely licensed, why would hosting an
alternative server not be legal?

~~~
mjrpes
I think it's because players have to download an old version of WoW in order
to play. This is a full game download and includes artwork and music IP
content. Not to mention it means there is no need to pay a monthly fee to
Blizzard.

Blizzard is fully in their right to shut it down, but it's unfortunate the
current state of things.

This is not about getting around paying for WoW. Vanilla WoW is practically
abandoned-ware. Blizzard has been clear they have no plans to launch a Vanilla
server, and they don't even seem sympathetic to the idea. There is content and
gameplay in Vanilla that you cannot experience in the current version of WoW.
There are many old school players who have fond memories of Vanilla (including
me), and we have no way to get our nostalgia fix other than a server like
Nostalrius.

I have moved on from WoW and have no interest in the current game, but I would
enjoy experiencing Vanilla again, just like I enjoy playing old SNES RPGs,
listening to 80's music, or reading the same books or watching the same movies
over and over. With other forms of media you can do that, but not here. I
understand the legal reasons, but still, it's unfortunate.

I see this as another new and lamentable consequence of things moving to the
cloud. I find similarities here with the Nest/Google fiasco. It used to be you
could buy something and it was yours, completely, forever, to do with whatever
you want. Now, not as much.

~~~
Omniusaspirer
Legally they might be within their right, but cases like this really
demonstrate to me that there ought to be some legal concept of abandonware
when a product is substantially modified from its original state.

What precedent does it set that you have no legal right to retain access to
software in the form that you've paid for it? If Gabe Newell went insane
tomorrow and fired all employees then shipped patches making all Valve titles
unplayable is there really no legal recourse for the people who bought those
games? This is a case of the law being behind the technological realities in
my opinion.

(and yes I know there's probably some EULA cop-out about how you don't own the
client and merely paid for a temporary license to it or blah blah blah)

~~~
mjrpes
Library of Congress did change DCMA rules last year to allow consumers to
modify an abandon-ware game to bypass authentication servers that no longer
exist. However, they specifically excluded MMO-like games, only covering
"video games that can be played by users without accessing or reproducing
copyrightable content stored or previously stored on an external computer
server". Still, it's at least acknowledgement that abandon-ware is a
legitimate form of media that rightfully deserves preservation.

[http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-10/28/dmca-game-
pre...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-10/28/dmca-game-preservation-
exemptions-abandoned-games)

~~~
Omniusaspirer
It also doesn't allow for copying of games beyond personal use as I understand
it, so it's really hitting MMO emulation from two directions as it's currently
defined. How many of your potential players still retain the original install
disks, especially after 12+ years? I can't imagine very many.

------
unknownzero
It's worth noting amidst all the debate about whether it's feasible or
worthwhile to offer older versions of the game as server options, blizzard has
already done this for a long time with Diablo 2. You could (can still) choose
to play classic or expansion on the legit battle net servers, and both had (
possibly still have ) vibrant communities. So it's not like this would be
particularly novel as an idea to them, I'm surprised they haven't done it with
wow already.

~~~
Shivetya
with their constantly dropping subscription numbers it might just be a good
idea for them business wise to open specific expansion set servers.

~~~
debacle
I would honestly pay to play pre-BC WoW again.

The real problem that Blizzard seems to have is listening to their users -
they're constantly making changes based on the feedback of vocal groups of
players or trying to simplify their games to be more appealing. They have some
of the most valuable IP in gaming and I feel like they're not making the most
of it.

------
darkstalker
I used to work for a private server that shut down in 2010 (Phoenix Wow). It
was my first exposure ever to a big code base, teamwork with version control
and some reverse engineering. The "cores" were usually forks of the Mangos
project (TrinityCore, R2) written in C++ and pretty unstable (uptime was
usually only hours). If Rust existed in that era it would've been much better.

------
EugeneOZ
My opinion is not popular, but I think Blizzard are absolutely right in this
case, by many reasons (not only because of money).

~~~
yarou
Care to elaborate on your reasoning? The people playing on Nostalrius aren't
suddenly going to switch to the latest expansion, so there's literally zero
incentive for them to go after it.

~~~
EugeneOZ
It's exactly main reason: Blizzard have right to control the history and
evolution of the WoW universe. Players can still play on old locations even on
official servers, but things like game balance, economics - it's all was made
by Blizzard and they have right to change it, for good or bad.

~~~
sheepleherd
you sound like a libertarian invoking libertarian principles which I don't
agree with so I don't see the "obviousness" of it that you see.

Even if Blizzard hired Howard Roark himself as their architect, seems to me I
should be able to make alterations to the design of my own building in which I
wish to park a Howard Roark designed car, no matter how angry it makes Howard,
Eugene, and Blizzard.

And a court may rule in my favor even if you seem to think I should take your
word on it, from your perspective of the zany libertariangasm you guys get
from thinking about the ownership of ideas and not having anybody tell you
what you can't do so long as you get to tell other people what they can't do.

~~~
EugeneOZ
Even if I have different opinion, it doesn't mean I want to offend you, so
please don't be so aggressive. I have no relations with Blizzard (I don't even
play WoW, it was long time ago). Thank you for letting me know who are
libertarians - and yes, looks like I support this idea, but in minarchism form
:)

~~~
sheepleherd
sorry if I offended you, I was making a point in debate-style, I wasn't
attacking you.

I also sense that you are not a native speaker of English: so, just
mentioning, what you wrote comes across in English as very "there is only one
way, the way I am saying". It sounds like you didn't mean it that way, so
sorry it triggered, when I saw that debate blip on my radar screen, I decided
to shoot it down :)

------
clevernickname
Suddenly Blizzard's April Fools tweet seems cruel.

 _Re-Live the old worlds of warcraft with our legacy servers coming this
june!_

 _Starting with vanilla!_

[https://twitter.com/Blizzard_EN/status/716004308043624448](https://twitter.com/Blizzard_EN/status/716004308043624448)

~~~
victorp13
That's a fake account.

~~~
pluma
It's not verified but I'm missing the obvious clue as to why you think it's
fake. They seem to post genuine tweets and link to official marketing
websites.

~~~
electroly
All of Blizzard's accounts are verified. Their official corporate account is
@blizzard_ent (note the "t").

------
hoodoof
Seems the classy thing to do would have been for Blizzard to ask politely
instead of sending in the dogs.

~~~
Zancarius
I'm wondering if their objective here was to make an example out of this
particular server as they have with others. Once they reach a particular
critical mass, they gain Blizzard's interests and down comes the legal hammer.

Although you have to wonder what sort of impact this is going to have, if any.
I'd wager most of the players are unlikely to pay for a retail subscription if
they aren't already simply on the merits that they were actively looking for a
1.x vanilla server. Further, it has to be a bit like a game of whack-a-mole:
For each server they shut down, one or two reappear to take their place, but
it does serve as trademark/copyright protection against dilution and illegal
use of game assets.

I've read a few threads on the official forums out of shear curiosity, and it
almost reminds me of the discussions that occurred during the height of
Napster et al. The primary difference being that the private servers recreate
a product that effectively doesn't exist anymore (not justifying the legality
of it, but if you ignore the copyright/trademark issues, that's essentially
the underpinning issue). Blizzard _claims_ there's insufficient interest in
prior expansions to justify re-implementation (and maybe they're right) but
the number of private servers surely can't _all_ be populated with
freeloaders.

Part of me wishes there was a better resolution to this. WotLK was my favorite
expansion, and it'd be nice to play it again with some of the more recent
improvements mixed in (minus the spell culling and talent nonsense--it feels
far too dumbed down).

~~~
morganvachon
> _I 'd wager most of the players are unlikely to pay for a retail
> subscription if they aren't already simply on the merits that they were
> actively looking for a 1.x vanilla server._

I can only speak for myself, but back when I played WoW (2005-2007) I started
exploring the private server scene after the first expansion. I liked BC and
continued my paid account for it, but I also missed Vanilla so I sought out
ways to play it without having to pay for two subs.

Needless to say, it was a whack-a-mole affair back then, with private servers
popping up and others disappearing constantly. Fun, but too much work for a
game that was already taking too much of my time. I quit playing altogether
when my then-girlfriend and I broke up (she was the one who got me into the
game and was really the only reason I kept playing).

------
thedudemabry
Something that to some small degree worries me is that video game preservation
is all but impossible for online-only services. WoW and its ilk have played a
large role in the evolution of video games, but in ten years we're unlikely to
be able to recreate anything like the experience of playing the game at any
stage.

I don't think there's a good solution, especially without market leaders such
as Blizzard, Sony, or NCSoft taking a pro-preservation stance. Legislation to
protect the rights of reverse-engineers seems troublesome, and existing
copyright law makes any kind of expiration period ineffective.

------
soared
A lot of commenters are suggesting a server that runs old patches, like Jagex
and RS. This is essentially the definition of cannibalization and almost never
a good idea. IMO Jagex only got away with it because they explicitly released
a new version of the game that was totally different. Unless WoW's next
expansion is WoW 2.0 with totally different mechanics, I don't see them
hosting an old server.

~~~
zanny
Each version of WoW in general has completely different mechanics. Between
different versions of the game they have changed effectively everything. If
you were to play the live version of the game today and compare it to vanilla,
it is much more different in both mechanics and technical implementation than
a lot of standalone independent games have been by significant margins. Just
think of Doom 1 and 2, or more recently Wolfenstein: The New Order vs The Old
Blood, or CoD Black Ops 1 and 2. All those pairs of games reused game assets
and engines almost verbatim, with much more similar or identical game
mechanics compared to how much Blizzard changes between versions.

The argument these players make is that the version of WoW today is _not_ the
game they bought or played in 2006 at all, and by every metric you would
measure "difference" in besides "is this the game Blizzard entertainment today
calls World of Warcraft?" it would be measurably more different than dozens of
games we consider independent products.

------
drunkcatsdgaf
I had a feeling this was gonna happen when I saw blizzard shilling WoW on
reddit the other day and these guys were all over the comments promoting.

------
jmnicolas
A bit off topic but anybody knows what kind of stack Blizzard is using for WOW
?

~~~
cdbattags
I'd love to know/dig into this as well! Any ideas?

~~~
ZenoArrow
You can get some clues here:

[http://us.blizzard.com/en-
us/company/careers/posting.html?id...](http://us.blizzard.com/en-
us/company/careers/posting.html?id=15000IO)

Linux, C++, SQL, etc...

------
jackgolding
Wonder if the popularity of Nostalrius will cause Blizzard to do a Jagex
inspired re-release of vanilla or the burning crusade? Not sure if I have the
commitment but it would certainly be nostalgic.

------
Aoyagi
I like how there are two versions of the title

>popular WoW private server

>popular WoW pirate server

------
MichaelBurge
I wonder if it makes sense to charge the monthly subscription for the client,
rather than the server. That way you could play on whatever server you want,
but still had to pay a monthly fee.

~~~
grrowl
They'd probably be worried about "watering down" the player counts on their
One True server.

------
jayhuang
A bit late to this discussion (understatement I know), but running this type
of private game server was partially what got me in this industry. In my case,
I was running relatively successful Maplestory private servers back in 2008,
on the order of 12,000~15,000 concurrent users.

Hundreds, probably thousands of these servers cropped up overnight after the
first "core" was created, and many many variations of that core quickly
followed. At some point, many of us in the private server community caught
wind of Nexon (creators of Maplestory) going after certain kids for their
private servers. This was an everyday occurrence. Almost always, it was in the
form of a Cease and Desist letter.

Many of these servers had < 10~50 users concurrently and were run on home
computers as many of us had non-existent budgets. Most servers were merely
carbon copies of each other, as the owner would be able to create the server
by using some reputable core and a setup guide. As with anything, a lot of
traction was gained by servers that put development effort into adding their
own touch into the game (alternative currencies like chickens, alternative
bosses like Sonic the Hedgehog, and rebirth systems that let you utilize the
skills of multiple character classes at once), and ones who were frequently
engaging with their community and hosting in game events/contests.

There were private server rankings. Everyone would be vying for votes to get
to the top 3 and gain visibility, which invariably resulted in them receiving
letters. Those of us that became significantly more popular and had players
actively going out and advertising for us quickly came under the spotlight and
received letters with the threat of legal action if not promptly shutdown.

In fact, these shutdown letters were such a big part of the scene at the time,
that some popular servers got shutdown by competitors sending fake Cease and
Desist letters (don't ask how I know)...the response would typically be a
quick and simple shutdown, waving goodbye to the community. Some owners with
more skin in the game would deviously "shutdown" their server, then "re-birth"
it as a different, smaller server since any communication sent in game was
unlikely to be seen by Nexon. Few brave souls would post the Cease and Desist
on their website while taunting and berating Nexon, though I never found out
what happened to those guys.

Seeing this post brings back so many memories -- Honestly, a lot of time was
wasted on that game but I would not be doing what I do today if it weren't for
the people I met while doing it (my next major project was with a friend of a
dedicated player on my server). It was also lots of fun.

------
sickbeard
Maybe blizzard might be getting ready to release a "classic" version of the
game because the nostalgia is strong (even though they've publicly decried it
many times).

------
odinduty
I wonder if this will mean more and more servers are going to be sued. I've
been playing on private servers since 2012, I play hours each day, and the
future does not look very bright if this keeps happening I'm afraid...

Just two days ago I started my journey as a blood elf hunter :-)

The problem with private servers is that they seem to be addicted to OVH. I
get it that it's cheap, has nice routes and usually they don't give a damn
about what you host, but it's a single point of failure. I wonder if many of
those servers are about to move to Ukraine (Russia) or something like that :-)

Ah, and believe me, some of them make ludicrous amounts of money, have paid
employees, etc. It's not just a community. They all forked MaNGOS or
TrinityCore and starting piling up their fixes on top of it (which they don't
have to share because it's GPL, not AGPL), but some chose to pay their
developers!

I'm happy to answer any questions about what it's like to play on private
servers or how some stuff works in the technical side, or the community, or
whatever!

~~~
pnathan
How much administrative effort does it take to operate a private server? I've
always kind of conceptualized it as a duct-tape-and-baling-wire affair, but I
have a sneaking suspicion things are a _lot_ more professional these days.

