How do all the private wow servers stay connected, aren't they illegal ?

[foolish501]

Being a wow player since it came out, i was googling something, and i came across a website where people voted for their favourite private server.

I was wondering how these things existed. Are they using blizzard's server code ? Are they emulating a server ?

Anybody know first hand, i'm just curious about these.

 

[Aikouka]

Really poor imitations that don't provide nearly as much. I'll admit that I toyed with one for a bit on a separate computer to see what it was like. It's most certainly not a replacement for the real thing.

 

[foolish501]

Originally posted by: Aikouka
Really poor imitations that don't provide nearly as much. I'll admit that I toyed with one for a bit on a separate computer to see what it was like. It's most certainly not a replacement for the real thing.

does that mean they aren't using blizzard's server code so they can't shut them down ?

 

[Skott]

Probably illegal copies taken from the Net. Wouldnt be as fully functional as the actual Blizz WoW servers and certainly wouldnt be supported by Blizzard. Good hackers can pretty much make anything work though given enough time. Good enough to run a private server anyway. The private servers are probably not in U.S territores either where Copy Right laws can touch them. At least if the guy running it is smart it wont be.

 

[exdeath]

Keep in mind a game like WoW is basically nothing more than a database engine and a network language from client to server to update the database and from server to client to update the view of the world.

Having played the game and knowing what it should do and how it should do it, and capturing the packets and decoding all the possible client/sever commands, it wouldn't take much to write your own WoW back end. At least the simple stuff like moving around, validating player->world collisions, random mobs wandering around on the server, etc.

 

[RyanW2050]

Private servers are nice for fooling around and learning about some of the behind-the-scenes things... but actually trying to play the game on one is dumb.

 

[Noema]

Specially because the e-peen factor in them is practically null, and that's the reason a majority of the players are in the game.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: foolish501
does that mean they aren't using blizzard's server code so they can't shut them down ?

I can't remember exactly how they got it, but I believe it is Blizzard's code and they can be shut down.

The real issue with them is their databases for the most part and some are laggy to hell. My friend got banned from the real servers for paying for power leveling and he showed me some char on a emu server... god the server quality was horrible.

I remember summoning Onyxia in Ironforge on my server. I attacked her as a level 255 character and she two shot me . Then she ran through the wall in Ironforge and didn't just take the wall down... she took the whole server!

I'd let people make horde characters and I'd summon them to me... in the middle of Ironforge :laugh:.

I remember making one a long, long time ago when no one had any T2 armor and I put the T2 on Mangorn Flinthammer (the guy to the left of the bank in Ironforge that you can repair at). One guy had a priest on the server and he bought the priest T2 set, put it on and we all kind of looked at him funny. This was before they were reskinned and Transcendence looked really... really bad. So I henceforth dubbed it, "Transgender" armor .

 

[pontifex]

just send the game's company and email about these private servers. I've done it several times with different MMOs, even ones I've never played. I don't know if they ever do anything about it though.

 

[Genx87]

Ultima Online has a bunch of private servers. My understanding of it is they were able to reverse engineer the backend so they cant be shut down. Basically all the server is doing is interacting with the client. It is blizzards job to lock down their client in a way that keeps people from being able to hook into it and simulate their backend. It is kind of like a patent. I believe the law allows for somebody to reverse engineer another patent and be legal.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Ultima Online has a bunch of private servers. My understanding of it is they were able to reverse engineer the backend so they cant be shut down. Basically all the server is doing is interacting with the client. It is blizzards job to lock down their client in a way that keeps people from being able to hook into it and simulate their backend. It is kind of like a patent. I believe the law allows for somebody to reverse engineer another patent and be legal.

Thanks to the DMCA, reverse engineering is illegal. A prime example of a stupid law neutering natural human ingenuity and curiosity. Everyone is too wrapped up in making money to see that we as a race are going to stifle ourselves to death eventually.

 

[Modelworks]

DMCA doesn't mean anything if you locate the server in a country where its not applicable.

 

[exdeath]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: Genx87
Ultima Online has a bunch of private servers. My understanding of it is they were able to reverse engineer the backend so they cant be shut down. Basically all the server is doing is interacting with the client. It is blizzards job to lock down their client in a way that keeps people from being able to hook into it and simulate their backend. It is kind of like a patent. I believe the law allows for somebody to reverse engineer another patent and be legal.

Thanks to the DMCA, reverse engineering is illegal. A prime example of a stupid law neutering natural human ingenuity and curiosity. Everyone is too wrapped up in making money to see that we as a race are going to stifle ourselves to death eventually.

Unconstitutional laws are also illegal, especially when those laws were allowed to pass only because "someone knows somebody" in congress who is out to protect their pocket as long as they get a cut...