Official Reply to Vanilla Servers and Nostalrius

Onlydreams said:
Probably has something to do with the amount of publicity nostalrius had. There were lots of big streamers that streamed it, and then after they were told not to they still talked about it often - on stream, on twitter, etc.
Even AT which is a very well known thing in the pvp community isn't/wasn't spoken about publicly nearly as much.
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AT was not really that big it had around 1-2k players at max during its prime.

But meh I think all this drama circling around Nostalrius and these new something Pri server or what they call it is bullshit.
I raided seriously for NOPE on Nostalrius up until we cleared BWL and few weeks after. Sure Vanilla is good but its also very outdated in alot of things.

Imo if you want to play vanilla play on a private server of your choice and shut up.
Blizzard should NOT under any circumstances open some form of "legacy / pri? server" Adapt to how the game is currently being played / updated or find another game that you enjoy..
 
@Onlydreams Ofc Blizz shut down Nostalrius for Copyright/IP reasons. That just further proves those of us in the community are right saying that specific Private Server was making Blizz look bad by PROVING that there is a large Player base that does in fact like the original WoW better than today's variant. Keep in mind, for those who don't know, Nostalrius was as close to the original Game as the ~30 part time folks could make it, meaning it wasn't the super easy mode that most Private Servers are that contain tons of hacks/cheats/exploits/etc so Players can literally solo Raids at Level, do 1 Million DPS at 60, etc.

The bit Blizz said about why not License just Nostalrius to those guys saying it would hurt their IP is right and wrong. It's right in the sense that Nostalrius was proving that WoW today is not as good as Classic/Vanilla WoW in the eyes of a growing community. That looks very bad for Blizzard's PR team. And it's entirely possible, though not probable, that Nostalrius could've eclipsed Live Servers at some point, which would've been utter disaster for Activision's Bank Account. It's wrong in the fact that they could VERY EASILY add a few sentences/paragraphs to their IP/Copyright Legal paperwork to state that a one time License would be given to whatever named entity ran Nostalrius for a period of XX Months/Years, renewing only if both parties agree to further terms at that time as a "test" to see if the public was truly genuine about wanting Legacy Servers or if it was just a temporary fad.

Giving a Legal channel for Nostalrius, and only Nostalrius, protects them from future issues, especially if they take the route that it's a test subject, and no real money can be made from the test, i.e. the folks running Nostalrius would have to continue doing so 100% at their own cost. There are a ton of different things they could do with this very bad Blizzard PR in recent weeks (Nostalrius isn't the only issue facing Blizz lately), but status quo with Activision (the real controlling entity) they literally don't seem to care. They say they're listening but they do the exact opposite of what Players are asking for, screaming for, begging for, and have been doing so vocally for a decade.

Those of us pushing and pushing for Blizzard to listen to our cries are not doing so because we hate the game, we're doing so because we love the game and want to experience more of the love we've had for it over the years. Some folks loved TBC, others hated it, some hate Panda and others loved it, some hate Hunters and others love them. This is why the complaint "if you don't like it stop playing it" is moot. We're not saying we don't like it, we're saying we have issue with something currently and want it addressed, when it goes unaddressed for months or even years we get more vocal to the point of getting angry, but why wouldn't you do the same if you loved some product and felt the Company making it was ruining it?
 
DeLindsay said:
The bit Blizz said about why not License just Nostalrius to those guys saying it would hurt their IP is right and wrong. It's right in the sense that Nostalrius was proving that WoW today is not as good as Classic/Vanilla WoW in the eyes of a growing community. That looks very bad for Blizzard's PR team.
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on 1st page:
Onlydreams said:
This doesn't however prevent them from licensing the rights to their IP to others such as the nostalrius team, obviously. The problem you face there is that Blizzard, being the big company they are, wouldn't put their brand in the hands of something as unprofessional as a small team of volunteers. But of course they can't write something like that with the state the community is in right now.
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I believe that's the main reason they aren't simply licensing their IP to the nostalrius team. Blizzard has always been very careful with licensing their brands and only do so with already established and very professional companies.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/partners.html

I've thought about the theory that they also wouldn't do it because it would be "admitting" in a sense that vanilla is better like you're suggesting. I'm not sure I agree though because blizzard still sells their older diablo, warcraft and starcraft games even though newer versions are out. You can also still buy Reign of Chaos without Frozen Throne, etc.. I believe the only reason they're not doing it with WoW is because of the technical complications that comes with it being an online game that needs servers and constant support.

And yes I still agree with you that the "if you don't like it stop playing it" point is moot. I wasn't one of the people saying that.
 
Nodoka said:
There are several servers that have a bigger playerbase then what Nostalrius had that are still up and running.
How come servers like Molten/warmane or that russian owned circle thing are still up and running both of them have 25-30k playerbase (according to their numbers which could be faked like Nostalrius did during their first weeks)
Both servers generate a large income and have been up and running for 5+ years.
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better lawyers
 
I've played since Beta, and played every single day of Vanilla pretty much. Did every raid when current, and PVP'd as Grand Marshall and kept it.

I've played damn near 100% authentic private servers that are Vanilla or BC locked. This is done by people who've never worked for Blizzard, and are basically a bunch of inexperienced people who are just gamers who missed it.

It is pure crap that they can't do it. They can, but they do not want to because it goes against what they've always used as the excuse (Besides being too difficult), they want to move forward and not backward.
 
Selaya said:
better lawyers
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Doubt it has anything to do with lawyers.
Lawyers for what? Are they going to prove to the court that they are using a legal method of running a private server from a gaming company that does not allow private servers of their games?
 
Nodoka said:
Doubt it has anything to do with lawyers.
Lawyers for what? Are they going to prove to the court that they are using a legal method of running a private server from a gaming company that does not allow private servers of their games?
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They say that in their ToS and EULAs yeah, but for all that`s worth they can tell you to shoot yourself; it matters little.
I think I`ve heard of Blizz trying to sue some pservers in the EU before, didn`t really work out
 
Selaya said:
They say that in their ToS and EULAs yeah, but for all that`s worth they can tell you to shoot yourself; it matters little.
I think I`ve heard of Blizz trying to sue some pservers in the EU before, didn`t really work out
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Does not have anything to do with EU below but still


The way that US copyright law works puts private servers in a very complicated area, legally speaking. Blizzard only has legal claims against people reproducing or distributing (almost) identical copies of their code, landscapes, characters, etc. If you (and everyone else on the server) legally purchased vanilla WoW, then the code and graphics are all being legally reproduced without infringing Blizzard's copyrights. The way that servers work is that they take the information that is (potentially legally) on your computer, and allow multiple people to interact with each other and the in-game world. This requires a lot of coding that is being produced and distributed by the server (in this case nostalrius).

Now, Blizzard DOES have a copyright for their original server-side code. However, a copyright in code does NOT protect the ideas/algorithms/etc. behind the code, only the exact code itself. Private servers that re-write the code on their own, using different naming conventions, and whatever else, arguably do NOT infringe Blizzard's copyrights. If you write a code to add 1 to a number, you might say something like sum_result=sum_result+1; I can change that to do the same thing, but say Add=Add+1. I haven't infringed your copyright because although they do the same thing, they are written differently.

Two tricky areas that comes in is that under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), it can be considered infringement to merely "circumvent" security that has been implemented, and the way that Blizzard writes their Terms of Service agreements can be interpreted to mean that you are infringing their copyright if you play the game in a way that they prohibit. This is how Blizzard successfully sued the Glider bot (fairly famous copyright case called MDY v. Blizzard). Their terms of use essentially state that the copyright license they give to paying customers is void if players use the game in a certain way. It's a rather bullshit way to make it so the player cannot use their own paid for game in a manner they want. It also brings up a much larger topic of licensing copyrights to paying customers instead of outright selling a copy of the game. This is something that is hotly debated, and is a giant topic in and of itself. In short, it used to be that if you bought a copyrighted item (like a book), you owned the book and the copyright owners not longer had ANY rights in the book (it's called the first sale doctrine). These days, many software companies say you aren't "buying" their products, you are merely "licensing" them, and they've used it to get around the first sale doctrine.

The main problem is that although private servers may not infringe, defending a copyright lawsuit can cost $100k+ easily. Most servers can't do that, so they just fold instead. While Blizzard did succeed against Scapegaming in 2010, it wasn't because they had a good infringement claim, it was just because the owner of the private server never showed up to court and default judgment was entered.
 
Mostly that, yeah.
I think EU laws for that are even better for pservers, also, iirc the wow client is basically distributed as a freeware (iono whether it was already like that back then in vanilla), what you purchase is basically a subsciption-based license to play on blizzard servers
 
Onlydreams said:
And yes I still agree with you that the "if you don't like it stop playing it" point is moot. I wasn't one of the people saying that.
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I know you didn't, and I guess I should've been more clear with the you word, I just meant people in general.

BTW, for those who are bashing us for "complaining" and telling us to go play another game, well it turns out that even a WoW Team Lead (yes, from Classic WoW) is encouraging Players to fight for what they believe in. I guess it just pisses you all off that nearly a Quarter Million Players disagree with your opinions and comments and will continue fighting passionately for Legacy Servers. See below:

Mark Kern
 
Eclipsis said:
No idea if this point has been made, but producing legacy servers because your community wants you to can be interpreted by shareholders as a lack of confidence in their current and future products. It might do blizzard more harm than good in the long run.
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I think the opposit argument could be used as well, I think a lot of the time your community reflects how well your game (product) is doing. Surely you might be able to cash in a lil more right now on the short run, by releasing an unfinished, yes I said unfinished, expansion every second year or so. But that will only last for so long! Games like runescape and plenty of others have explored this opportunity long ago and listened to their community in regards of releasing the first versions of their products and that has payed off by a mile! Besides from that who wouldnt prefer a stable and happy community over a community that is falling appart and only comes back for 2-3 months every second year to try out a new shitty expansion?. Sometimes you simply gonna take the cut in order to make something work on the long run.

Aaaaaaaaaaand

DeLindsay said:
The fact is, the ONLY reason they shut down Nostalrius is that is was proving how much Blizzard has failed WoW consumers in recent years.
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They have to shut it down in order to protect their IP... no matter if they wanted to shut it down or not.
 
Selaya said:
No they didn`t.
They could`ve licensed them, for once.
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Which I hope they do, but I bet a company like blizzard wants to explore the possibilitys of doing it on their own at first. Dont get me wrong I want legacy servers just as much as you, and yes I did play on nostalrius and the only reason I havnt created a character on kronos is because I will wait and see how the launch of the nostalrius clone will go in 2 days. That being said I am sure blizzards first priroty was to protect their IP by shutting it down, and then look at the possibilities afterwards and hopefully we will get a legit legacy server.
 
Selaya said:
No they didn`t.
They could`ve licensed them, for once.
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Onlydreams said:
The problem you face there is that Blizzard, being the big company they are, wouldn't put their brand in the hands of something as unprofessional as a small team of volunteers. But of course they can't write something like that with the state the community is in right now.
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Onlydreams said:
I believe that's the main reason they aren't simply licensing their IP to the nostalrius team. Blizzard has always been very careful with licensing their brands and only do so with already established and very professional companies.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/partners.html
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