
Warcraft fans' fury at Blizzard over server closure - sea6ear
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36044000
======
mwest
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))

~~~
drivers99
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.)

~~~
jtmarmon
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

~~~
the_af
Even without getting into Free Software territory, there are reasonable
expectations about what open source means. It's not just "you are free to read
the code". See:

\- [https://opensource.org/osd-annotated](https://opensource.org/osd-
annotated)

\- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-
source_software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software)

~~~
arcticfox
What do you call source that is open to read then? It's definitely not closed-
source.

I have always thought of source as either open (with many flavors of
licensing) or closed.

~~~
brobinson
I've also heard "source available" used.

~~~
arcticfox
Thanks, this seems to be the best nomenclature.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software#Open-
sour...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software#Open-
source_vs._source-available)

------
Pyxl101
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.

~~~
paride5745
I disagree about the drain from retail to private.

7 millions+ people are not paying Blizzard already (me included) because the
game they sell now it's not the one I subscribed years ago. It is not an MMO
nowadays, you just hang around in your personal space, click to get in
instances, click to get a selfie, click to buy some gold. I miss the community
and the sense of exploration, and private servers, especially those on Vanilla
or TBC, are the only ones giving me that feeling.

It's years the community ask Blizzard to give us Vanilla/TBC servers, and let
us play the game we love. Most of us will pay an higher sub if required, so
it's not being cheap.

Closing Nostalrius will not bring more people in retail, but the opposite.
Most of the people I know are dropping their subscriptions BECAUSE of the
action Blizzard has taken. Instead of solving the cause, they are sticking
they head in the sands, telling us we don't know what we want, that they know
better. Well, numbers don't lie, and the game is empty.

So yeah, good work Blizzard, you managed to kill the biggest game in history.
And they could make a lot of money with a couple of legacy servers. Those have
no costs, except for limited maintenance, and the game development has paid
itself years ago. So it is virtually pure profit.

~~~
unlinker
>Those have no costs, except for limited maintenance, and the game development
has paid itself years ago. So it is virtually pure profit.

Sorry for nitpicking, but ancient versions of the game client don't really
work so well on modern hardware. Also, we don't know how much the server
infrastructure has changed since then. It's not that easy.

~~~
breul99
It is that easy, Nost did it. The WoW clients run perfectly fine on modern
machines.

------
etiam
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
> before the turn of the century, it usually seemed like when you bought a
> game you owned it.

That was never true.

~~~
nickspacek
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.

------
beloch
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
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.

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

------
remwfnnz
Relevant: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-past-how-
runescapes-...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-past-how-runescapes-
official-legacy-server-avoided-kemp)

A Jagex employee's view on how they managed to reopen a legacy server and keep
it alive (and growing).

------
Kenji
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
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?

------
mesozoic
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
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.

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

------
yAnonymous
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
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
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
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
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.

------
chris_wot
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.

~~~
developer2
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.

~~~
chris_wot
So you basically agree with my second sentence, just with more mouth frothing?

