Blizzard Responds to Nostalrius Server Closure Complaints

[Slenn]

I agree about popularity, Im merely pointing out that i do not speculate as to its popularity and that is not what my posts are about. that is a different subject.

I apologize, I might have been rambling. I thought that maybe the popularity might connect to the point Blizzard was trying to make when it said that it would be a difficult thing to achieve.

 

[RicoADF]

"Brack says that while Blizzard has "looked into the possibility" of working with private servers, there is no "clear legal path to protect Blizzard's IP and grant an operating license to a pirate server.""

That is bullcrap. If Blizzard wanted to let them continue to run they could write up some sort of licensing contract for the team to keep running. Weather it be a "you can run Vanilla WoW for x amount of dollars per month" which they can set to a low amount and allow them to charge a small fee to cover the license and running costs or they aren't allowed to make a profit but may be allowed to take donations upto the cost of running the server. There is always a way to get this stuff done if they wanted to do so, they own the IP and can control it however they want.

And this is coming from someone whom doesn't care for WoW, I loved Warcraft and am partly annoyed at how WoW has basically killed off the RTS game series, even I can see why some people want to play a specific version of the game which Blizzard no longer 'supports'. IMO the law needs updating to allow communities to step in and support games which developers/publishers no longer support.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I seriously do not think that many people now could go back with a fresh start and grind their asses off for weeks or months to get to 60, just to experience that raiding again. I just seriously don't.

Dude... Do you not know what WoW is about? Just saiyan.

 

[CritialGaming]

I seriously do not think that many people now could go back with a fresh start and grind their asses off for weeks or months to get to 60, just to experience that raiding again. I just seriously don't.

Dude... Do you not know what WoW is about? Just saiyan.

It aint about that.....not anymore. Leveling and getting raid gear took months.

Now it takes a week....or two.

I'm not saying that people won't do it. I'm just saying there wont be a justifable number of people that will do it.

 

[Politrukk]

This is just a blatant lie, a playerbase ranging from 100 to 200 thousand is absolutely not an amount one should neglect.

You're apparently thinking in some ludicrous EA kind of standard where you have to sell 5 million copies for your game to even compete.

If Nostalrius wasn't this popular it wouldn't have had to be shut down, this isn't even taking other private servers into acount.

It isn't a lie. 150k isn't that much.

And that's 150k people playing on a free server. How many of those stick around if they're paying 9.99 a month for it? (I don't know the US sub cost). Personally, I can't consistently afford the regular WoW sub cost, and I'm not the only one.

Plenty of people dropped WoW because they felt the newer expansions ruined the game and private servers tend to offer paid incentives, they've been making money off of this that's why Blizzard went after them.

When WoW started all those years ago people were astonished at the playerbase reaching into the millions, a playerbase of 100 thousand players is still a significant addition.

 

[CritialGaming]

This is just a blatant lie, a playerbase ranging from 100 to 200 thousand is absolutely not an amount one should neglect.

You're apparently thinking in some ludicrous EA kind of standard where you have to sell 5 million copies for your game to even compete.

If Nostalrius wasn't this popular it wouldn't have had to be shut down, this isn't even taking other private servers into acount.

It isn't a lie. 150k isn't that much.

And that's 150k people playing on a free server. How many of those stick around if they're paying 9.99 a month for it? (I don't know the US sub cost). Personally, I can't consistently afford the regular WoW sub cost, and I'm not the only one.

Plenty of people dropped WoW because they felt the newer expansions ruined the game and private servers tend to offer paid incentives, they've been making money off of this that's why Blizzard went after them.

When WoW started all those years ago people were astonished at the playerbase reaching into the millions, a playerbase of 100 thousand players is still a significant addition.

As far as I understand it. Nostarius didn't charge people anything. They ran the game completely free, this included not even having a donation or patreon page set up. That is what helped add so much fuel to the fan rage at this issue in the first place. The people running the private server did it competely out of their own pockets and did not accept anything in return.

That was my understanding of it anyway, I could be wrong. But if they had micro transactions or even a donate button in which they could receive funds for Blizzards IP, then all argument they have for running the server is thrown away because now suddenly it is not only theft, but robbery. They CAN NOT have received ANY funding from this server in any way, or Blizzard would have further recourse to sue them outright.

 

[Dragonbums]

No. If Blizzard did nothing then they would still have the ability to close down any server they didnt like.

No. They literally wouldn't. If they let Nostralious continue as it is they lose any rights in the courts to take down any servers using their Vanilla game.
That's the whole fucking point. You can't say 'nu uh' because you don't believe it. If they let that server continue to run than in the eyes of US copyright law Blizzard through inaction has taken action by stating that this is okay with their IP so if some other server comes along, starts making bank simply booting up their old game on a server and Blizzard tries to take them to court, they would have no standing and their case would be dismissed.

 

[Politrukk]

This is just a blatant lie, a playerbase ranging from 100 to 200 thousand is absolutely not an amount one should neglect.

You're apparently thinking in some ludicrous EA kind of standard where you have to sell 5 million copies for your game to even compete.

If Nostalrius wasn't this popular it wouldn't have had to be shut down, this isn't even taking other private servers into acount.

It isn't a lie. 150k isn't that much.

And that's 150k people playing on a free server. How many of those stick around if they're paying 9.99 a month for it? (I don't know the US sub cost). Personally, I can't consistently afford the regular WoW sub cost, and I'm not the only one.

Plenty of people dropped WoW because they felt the newer expansions ruined the game and private servers tend to offer paid incentives, they've been making money off of this that's why Blizzard went after them.

When WoW started all those years ago people were astonished at the playerbase reaching into the millions, a playerbase of 100 thousand players is still a significant addition.

As far as I understand it. Nostarius didn't charge people anything. They ran the game completely free, this included not even having a donation or patreon page set up. That is what helped add so much fuel to the fan rage at this issue in the first place. The people running the private server did it competely out of their own pockets and did not accept anything in return.

That was my understanding of it anyway, I could be wrong. But if they had micro transactions or even a donate button in which they could receive funds for Blizzards IP, then all argument they have for running the server is thrown away because now suddenly it is not only theft, but robbery. They CAN NOT have received ANY funding from this server in any way, or Blizzard would have further recourse to sue them outright.

I wonder if discussing other private servers is considered part of discussing piracy, so I can't go into this further.

 

[LetalisK]

No. If Blizzard did nothing then they would still have the ability to close down any server they didnt like.

No. They literally wouldn't. If they let Nostralious continue as it is they lose any rights in the courts to take down any servers using their Vanilla game.
That's the whole fucking point. You can't say 'nu uh' because you don't believe it. If they let that server continue to run than in the eyes of US copyright law Blizzard through inaction has taken action by stating that this is okay with their IP so if some other server comes along, starts making bank simply booting up their old game on a server and Blizzard tries to take them to court, they would have no standing and their case would be dismissed.

You're confusing trademark and copyright. Trademarks can be lost if the mark in question becomes common use. Copyrights are lost if you give them to someone else, you work for a company that owns all your work in the first place, or you die then 70 years later the copyright will be lost. There is also a three year statute of limitation on suing an individual for violating your copyright, but that is a far cry from "defend it or lose it".

Not to imply that is the end-all-be-all, considering we're discussing a topic that rivals the tax code in complexity. Rather it's the broad strokes.

 

[Strazdas]

No. If Blizzard did nothing then they would still have the ability to close down any server they didnt like.

No. They literally wouldn't. If they let Nostralious continue as it is they lose any rights in the courts to take down any servers using their Vanilla game.
That's the whole fucking point. You can't say 'nu uh' because you don't believe it. If they let that server continue to run than in the eyes of US copyright law Blizzard through inaction has taken action by stating that this is okay with their IP so if some other server comes along, starts making bank simply booting up their old game on a server and Blizzard tries to take them to court, they would have no standing and their case would be dismissed.

Nonsense. They loose absolutely no rights. There is aboslutely no requirement to police the internet for infringements and it is entirely up to the companys discretion to decide what to do whe they see such infringements. Just because some companies (IE: Blizzard) are stupid enough to attack all infringements does not make it a legal requirement.

the mental gymnastics required to even come to your conclusion is a wonder on itself. This is not how law works.

 

[LazyAza]

And we all know why they won't; fear. They're afraid if they cater to a specific niche crowd that only wants an old game that doesn't sell anymore they'll lose more people from their new products and those will sell less. Its all marketing business crap. They want big bucks and catering to the people that want old wow support would mean admitting they've failed to properly evolve the game and keep it highly successful. Which they absolutely have. WoW could have lived for forever and after countless idiotic decisions whether they be gameplay or even writing related, people are just sick of what they've been doing. Lich was the peak of the game, and its only gotten worse ever since and the insane drop in subscribers showcases that perfectly.

The claim that WoW could have lived forever does not sound realistic by any means. Nothing lasts forever, not even interest in a game. Regardless of content, or even if the quality of the story was on par with what WC 3 set up in the first place, the subscriber base would decay still. Wasn't it King Terenas that said that no king rules forever? People's lives and interests change. People get married, get new jobs, have kids, new interests. The vanilla servers came out when I was 14 years old. I'm 26 now, and in grad school getting payed to do physics research. And whatever leftover money is being used for cosplay and food. I don't have that much of an interest in playing WoW that much any more. Heck I had friends in high school that left soon after BC because of waining interest in the game.

Same goes for any game out there. The online servers for PS2 just shut down, over a decade after the console launched. It's a long time, and PS2 was an awesome console, but it doesn't make it immortal.

No shit sherlock. I was exaggerating to make my point. Its obvious the game wouldn't literally last for forever but it would be doing infinitely better now many years later (its basically lost 80% of its subscribers since lich) if they hadn't made bad choice after bad choice, whether it be reducing talent trees to nothing, making epics feel worthless, taking away the satisfaction of earning loot almost entirely by reducing it all to mere grinding, killing larger raid fights, dramatically lowering the difficulty of everything and generally making the game pander more to the twitchy 12 year old shooter crowd more than the methodical rpg crowd that made the game a success in the first place.

You're personal story has nothing to do with the overall situation, people came and went all the time, as they do with all mmos, but any that is healthy and well-maintained has a constant influx of new players and long time dedicated old players. Of course their would be a natural drop off over time, but like I said blizz dramatically spead up that process with their own stupidity. It was the only mmo to ever exist that had they evolved it correctly it would be maybe 70% of what it was today rather than 20%.

 

[Aeshi]

It was the only mmo to ever exist that had they evolved it correctly it would be maybe 70% of what it was today rather than 20%.

And are you basing this off of... what exactly? The idea that the people who played WoW when they were 16 will still be able to make time for the 3-5 consecutive hours Vanilla Raiding could take[footnote]Not counting all the grinding for the various resist gear you'd need to be considered for a raid in the first place.[/footnote] at 26?

Seriously, name one mainstream[footnote]i.e. No niche stuff that has the luxury of basically zero competition[/footnote], non-free MMO game anything that still has 70% of its original userbase after 10 years.

 

[Slenn]

No shit sherlock. I was exaggerating to make my point. Its obvious the game wouldn't literally last for forever but it would be doing infinitely better now many years later (its basically lost 80% of its subscribers since lich) if they hadn't made bad choice after bad choice, whether it be reducing talent trees to nothing, making epics feel worthless, taking away the satisfaction of earning loot almost entirely by reducing it all to mere grinding, killing larger raid fights, dramatically lowering the difficulty of everything and generally making the game pander more to the twitchy 12 year old shooter crowd more than the methodical rpg crowd that made the game a success in the first place.

You're personal story has nothing to do with the overall situation, people came and went all the time, as they do with all mmos, but any that is healthy and well-maintained has a constant influx of new players and long time dedicated old players. Of course their would be a natural drop off over time, but like I said blizz dramatically spead up that process with their own stupidity. It was the only mmo to ever exist that had they evolved it correctly it would be maybe 70% of what it was today rather than 20%.

No offense, but the story does have something to do with the situation at hand. Regardless of what decisions Blizzard has made to the gameplay or story, people are going to grow up. And I seriously doubt that the majority of people who played vanilla and BC would go back to return to play on a vanilla server. Simply because of their new time allocation. Sure a game can be maintained by a constant flux of new players to counterbalance old players leaving. But there comes a point when the novelty of the product wears off. WoW was indeed the first major mmo outside of Runescape, Everquest, and Ultima Online.

But now other MMOs are competing with WoW. There are far more streamlined games out there. And that crowd who played in Vanilla is more than likely going to be playing more contemporary games. The competition has grown and more companies come out with newer games.

And 70% seems extremely generous for a prediction.

 

[Neverhoodian]

I would like to offer a different take on the situation from all the copyright stuff swirling around, because quite frankly copyright law is a broken mess that needs serious revision for the digital age.

Speaking as a history buff, one of my concerns with gaming as a whole is the issue of preservation, from the industry's lack of interest in backwards compatibility to the forced implementation of patches that fundamentally change certain games forever. Video and computer games are considered art now, after all; would people stand for permanent changes to famous paintings or sculptures (this is commonly considered to be vandalism in the art world)? Would they accept explanations of "you think you want to see the Mona Lisa or Picasso's 'Guernica' in their original form, but you really don't?" Future generations will want to understand how the medium got to where it is, and they'll never get the full picture if original versions of games like vanilla WoW aren't available to provide at least a glimpse into their initial success.

 

[elvor0]

So many internet lawyers. Seriously guys, while it is a shame that Nost got shut down, from a museum, preservation perspective, you don't know your way around IP law. If that's the case, that is the fucking case. Unless you've got articles, clauses, specific laws and an actual argument other than "omg blizzard is lying, I KNOW THIS FOR A FACT BECAUSE I AM PSYCHIC AND NOT JUST RAGING.", shut up.

So many Blizzard employees too, who'da thunk it? Some dudes running a private server for a significantly smaller number of private customers is not the same as Blizzard as a company running Vanilla servers. You are literally comparing apples and oranges here.

Stop it.

 

[irish286]

Blizzard just needs to get off it's bloated ass and make legacy servers already. The market is there. They just don't want to risk the losses they will suffer to the main game. It's especially stupid because they'll be losses to something they own.

 

[Zepherus14]

What I've never understood with these sorts of situations, is why not just hire the people that are doing a job you 'can't do'. Blizzard is saying "We explored options for developing classic servers and none could be executed without great difficulty. If we could push a button and all of this would be created, we would. However, there are tremendous operational challenges to integrating classic servers, not to mention the ongoing support of multiple live versions for every aspect of WoW."

Well Nostalrius was managing to do it for over a year on their own, so why not instead just say. "Hey, you guys have been doing a real solid for our stuff getting this working, why don't you guys run our servers for legacy stuff to make it all legal. You guys get the servers, we don't have to run them fully ourselves, and we all get some money out of it."

Maybe I'm missing something here but this seems to happen time and time again where the company could be making more money than it already does, but doesn't. Or am I missing something in all of this?