"Private" servers for MMOs

[rivan]

While reading another thread about MMO server requirements, someone mentioned non-corporate servers for some games, and apparently there are a bunch out there, for a number of games. I'm curious how & why someone might make a private server for an MMO.

Developing the server-side code seems like it would be difficult, and once developed, maintaining a server environment would seem pretty expensive.

Is the server-side code captured somehow, or is it reverse-engineered somehow and what can't be reversed is just approximated? For instance, I see no way someone could get the code that defines the combat behavior of a given boss mob - do they just approximate it for these servers?

Presumably, these servers are free (thus, little/no money to be made), so I don't get it - why would someone go to all the effort and expense?


Note: To keep this thread clean, please do NOT mention or link anything that might lure a lock. This includes links to servers, instructions on how to set one up, etc.

 

[Harabec]

Private? Pirate, maybe.
I can tell from experience (little brother plays WoW on a pirate server despite my efforts to convince him otherwise) these servers are crap.
Broken quests, mobs, locations, of course no updates, multiple "GM"s with the best equipment running around doing nothing interesting and so on.

I suppose I can see the attration of the younger crowd since its like being given free candies. Only later do you realize there's more to life than cheap, pointless sugar.

 

[KaOTiK]

Some do it to experience what classes are like in the end game without having spend tons of time getting the characters up to that level. Others do it just to see the end game content. They either don't have the time/skills/chance to get into a end game guild and never see any of those cool boss fights outside of youtube and want to experience it for themselves.

Some are just cheap and want to experience the game in one form or another without paying for it and then there are those who just want to basically have cheat mode enabled so they can do all the stuff they can't normally do on a real server.

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: Harabec
Private? Pirate, maybe.
I can tell from experience (little brother plays WoW on a pirate server despite my efforts to convince him otherwise) these servers are crap.
Broken quests, mobs, locations, of course no updates, multiple "GM"s with the best equipment running around doing nothing interesting and so on.

I suppose I can see the attration of the younger crowd since its like being given free candies. Only later do you realize there's more to life than cheap, pointless sugar.

Originally posted by: KaOTiK
Some do it to experience what classes are like in the end game without having spend tons of time getting the characters up to that level. Others do it just to see the end game content. They either don't have the time/skills/chance to get into a end game guild and never see any of those cool boss fights outside of youtube and want to experience it for themselves.

Some are just cheap and want to experience the game in one form or another without paying for it and then there are those who just want to basically have cheat mode enabled so they can do all the stuff they can't normally do on a real server.

You're both describing why someone might PLAY on one of these servers - I'm asking what might motivate someone to MAKE one of these servers.

Based on the first response, I'm assuming there's a lot of guesswork in the back-end code that makes quests and encounters run - who exactly is coding this stuff, and why? Just for the challenge?

Still, who pays for the servers? I'd imagine the bandwidth used by a server with even 100 players isn't trivial, especially if they're providing/trying to provide decent pings?

 

[ViviTheMage]

Originally posted by: KaOTiK
Some do it to experience what classes are like in the end game without having spend tons of time getting the characters up to that level. Others do it just to see the end game content. They either don't have the time/skills/chance to get into a end game guild and never see any of those cool boss fights outside of youtube and want to experience it for themselves.

Some are just cheap and want to experience the game in one form or another without paying for it and then there are those who just want to basically have cheat mode enabled so they can do all the stuff they can't normally do on a real server.

This is why blizzard has PTR

I have thought about setting up my own WoW server, or back in the day, I wanted to set up a Priston Tale server/ Ragnarok ...reason being-- because I wanted to see how it worked, how to do it...what abilities you have, etc...it was fun when I got it up and running, but I only played in it with my little brother, to see how it felt with 100000000000% exp gains, and other stupid crap.

all in all, I wanted to see what kind of load it put on my 'server' I had...just like why I host a TF2, and CS 1.6 Server ...it's fun in my books, and I love knowing the server side stuff.

 

[novasatori]

some people make server emulators for profit (some wow emulators), some make it just because, some do it cause they don't like the direction a game has gone, ultima online is a good example of this, fuze was started after OSI did away with the noto system iirc

as for the bandwidth numbers in the double digits can be hosted on a home connection, and most of the emulated servers with triple or even four digit numbers of players have donations or micro type stores where you can buy stuff on the server for cash to help pay for the dedicated server. (uogamers is a good example of this)

 

[Smilin]

You won't be in Kansas anymore.

Lions and tigers and pirates and rootkits OH MY!

 

[invidia]

They just emulate the servers and when a patch comes out, it takes a bit of time to revamp the server to the latest patch. The idea of it being not legit and having the bugs, crashes, downtime make it worth the 15 bucks for the real deal.

But I'm only speaking from experience playing early WoW (2005ish) and Lineage 2 before going legit and paying for the game.

 

[sactoking]

Back in 2005 or 2006, Cryptic/NC Soft released a patch to City of Heroes that just happened to contain the source code or something for the entire game. A quick patch forcibly removed it from the computers that DL'ed it, though some people had moved it to a separate HD before the removal patch came out. Some used it to create private servers, and at least one person used it to backdoor the public servers as an Admin and reboot them continuously.

 

[eggrolls]

Originally posted by: rivan
Still, who pays for the servers? I'd imagine the bandwidth used by a server with even 100 players isn't trivial, especially if they're providing/trying to provide decent pings?

"Donations" from players on the server help pay for the server. (e.g. pay $X, get items Y and Z)

Ads run on their website can help pay for the server.

 

[Pepsei]

blizz server emulator has came a long way. it used to suck. it is pretty good right now. about 2 -3 patches behind live depending on what database you're using.

i'm out of the "scene" for awhile due to work keeping me busy and warhammer.

 

[Juddog]

I've just started running my own private WoW server. As far as why bother?

Well... once you get going, it's hard to stop. You get to start making custom items, NPC's, and messing around with SQL on the server itself, and suddenly massive amounts of time have been used. Plus it's fun to have your friends play on the server with you, and there is no monthly fee. Of course the downside is having my server run constantly, eating up electricity.

 

[Aikouka]

You forgot the downside of how most scripted stuff doesn't work... at all. I remember for the longest time, the taxi service didn't even work :Q! I made one for the WotLK alpha but it didn't even work that well. I could've made one for the beta too but meh.

 

[drebo]

Originally posted by: rivan
You're both describing why someone might PLAY on one of these servers - I'm asking what might motivate someone to MAKE one of these servers.

Based on the first response, I'm assuming there's a lot of guesswork in the back-end code that makes quests and encounters run - who exactly is coding this stuff, and why? Just for the challenge?

Still, who pays for the servers? I'd imagine the bandwidth used by a server with even 100 players isn't trivial, especially if they're providing/trying to provide decent pings?

Speaking as someone who helped (in some small ways) to develop Sphereserver (UO server emulator, previously TUS) many years ago, there are a number of reasons. This particular project started as a college project by the leader of the group. It was fun to learn about server-side coding and what not, as well as learn the entire ins and outs of the game client. We didn't do it for profit or donations or anything like that. We did it because we loved the game and wanted to make our footprint on it.

Speaking as someone who developed custom worlds for Ultima Online to play on Sphereserver, I did it because I loved the game. I created an entire class/level-based world for Ultima Online and it was fun. Later on, when EA started taking the game in directions we didn't like, we started making "classic" servers. I built a necromancy book for Sphereserver well before it came out in the public servers. The day colored ore came out in public, I wrote a colored blacksmithy crafting script for one of the popular UO server emulators.

Speaking as someone who helped run servers, it was just plain fun. I GMed several very large servers, and it was great fun to create custom events for players. I started out as a player on one of the largest Sphereserver servers, and over time, I was allowed to be a Seer. I helped people out and did small player events. Eventually, they promoted me to GM. I played online games with the group of people that staffed that server for many years after that. The community aspect was great. Sure, they weren't very big servers, but the tight-knit community made it worth playing.

This was all many years ago, and I'm sure times have changed. But, for us, at the start of the server emulation times (before EQ came out, etc), we just did it for fun. We weren't expecting anything, we weren't looking to make a quick buck; we just loved the game and wanted to have fun in every way possible. I can't even count the hours I spent tinkering with scripts to get it to work just right or creating some of the first graphical menus in UO (gumps). It was just plain fun.

On the logistical side of things, running the server was pretty cheap. A typical home DSL line can host 100 players at least. Back in the day, I used to host a small group of friends on UO on a 28.8 dial up connection, running the server on the same Cyrix 166 I was playing the game on. Most people don't understand that online gaming packets (for MMORPGs especially) are very, very small. A modern cable internet connection (or ADSL2 in Europe) could host a couple thousand players. Server hardware is generally the same way. Because a private run server doesn't necessarily require the same failsafes and redundancy as a public server, the software footprint is much smaller and can be run very well on common hardware. It's really not that expensive to run.

 

[skace]

Private Servers / Server Code Emulation is usually done either by people with a deep interest in what goes on in the background or people who just want to cut out the middle man (because of fees, ridiculous admins or whatever). They do put a shit ton of their own time into these efforts, what they get out of them is a ton of knowledge and an escape from the fees. What you as a user get, is a free server, however without the guarantee of a character backup or restores, or any sort of help if things go wrong, or even that the admin gives a shit.

 

[Juddog]

I am having a friggin blast on my emulated WoW server right now. You can fly around, move any speed you want, create any item you want with any appearance and any stats you want. for the fun of it I just got done soloing my way through Black Temple and killing Illidan. When I was playing WoW a couple years ago I was raiding 4 nights a week, had a full set of T2 armor on two separate characters, yet our guild never made it past twin emps and ended up splitting up while trying to get through Ahn'Qiraj. After that I joined a few more guilds, but after dealing with so much drama I got sick of it. So I never got to see Naxx, then BC came out and I never really got back into the raiding game, ended up canceling my accounts and not playing anymore.

My initial reasons to create the EMU server was that I simply wanted to see the raid zones and boss mobs that I never got to see; now I can hop on, teleport straight to Sunwell and go solo Kil'Jaeden for the fun of it. To top it off, I can have my buddies join my server with Hamachi and we can all go on vent, make a party, and go destroy a whole raid zone with just our party if we want, or hit up some of those dungeons they never got to see. If you know SQL, even a small amount, you know enough to start tweaking out a server. Once you start fooling around with the model viewer and get to see all of the great item models in the game, it becomes extremely addictive to start making up your own sets of armor, weapons, etc..

Plus while WoW was extremely entertaining to me, it took up vast amounts of time just trying to grind, gather resources, and dailies. I would find myself logging in just mining and killing mobs in the way of the mineral veins for hours on end, falling asleep at my computer. With the emulator, if my wife needs me, I can just hop off and not have to worry about it.

Plus they already have Wrath of the Lich King emulators out, so lately I've been exploring over there as I didn't make it into the beta.

 

[IEC]

Originally posted by: skace
Private Servers / Server Code Emulation is usually done either by people with a deep interest in what goes on in the background or people who just want to cut out the middle man (because of fees, ridiculous admins or whatever). They do put a shit ton of their own time into these efforts, what they get out of them is a ton of knowledge and an escape from the fees. What you as a user get, is a free server, however without the guarantee of a character backup or restores, or any sort of help if things go wrong, or even that the admin gives a shit.

Private servers are often good ways to test out builds as well.

Some of these have like 30x EXP/Drop rates to facilitate this.

 

[Eeezee]

I've played a few emulated servers

Ragnarok Online - My friends got me into this one, it was alright. To my understanding the real game is a grind fest. To hell with that.
Lineage 2 - This game is definitely a bad grind fest. We even had 10x experience and it still felt like a lot of extra work. Still, very pretty!
WoW - I wanted to sample the game before I actually tried it. It went pretty well, played a warlock for a little bit.

I'd be interested in seeing all of the lvl 60 end-game content. I've always suggested that Blizzard should release all of the popular older dungeons as heroics. If they don't do that, most of the obsolete content never actually gets seen by anyone. I've heard Naxx is one of the coolest dungeons in the games, yet less than 1% of the players have seen it. That just seems odd.

 

[Juddog]

Originally posted by: Eeezee
I've played a few emulated servers

Ragnarok Online - My friends got me into this one, it was alright. To my understanding the real game is a grind fest. To hell with that.
Lineage 2 - This game is definitely a bad grind fest. We even had 10x experience and it still felt like a lot of extra work. Still, very pretty!
WoW - I wanted to sample the game before I actually tried it. It went pretty well, played a warlock for a little bit.

I'd be interested in seeing all of the lvl 60 end-game content. I've always suggested that Blizzard should release all of the popular older dungeons as heroics. If they don't do that, most of the obsolete content never actually gets seen by anyone. I've heard Naxx is one of the coolest dungeons in the games, yet less than 1% of the players have seen it. That just seems odd.

Yeah Naxx would be a fun heroic, but they would have to completely rewrite all of the boss encounters, etc.. Same goes for Molten Core.

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: Juddog

Originally posted by: Eeezee
I've played a few emulated servers

Ragnarok Online - My friends got me into this one, it was alright. To my understanding the real game is a grind fest. To hell with that.
Lineage 2 - This game is definitely a bad grind fest. We even had 10x experience and it still felt like a lot of extra work. Still, very pretty!
WoW - I wanted to sample the game before I actually tried it. It went pretty well, played a warlock for a little bit.

I'd be interested in seeing all of the lvl 60 end-game content. I've always suggested that Blizzard should release all of the popular older dungeons as heroics. If they don't do that, most of the obsolete content never actually gets seen by anyone. I've heard Naxx is one of the coolest dungeons in the games, yet less than 1% of the players have seen it. That just seems odd.

Yeah Naxx would be a fun heroic, but they would have to completely rewrite all of the boss encounters, etc.. Same goes for Molten Core.

I'm surprised to see this thread still going. A lot of perspectives on it I hadn't really considered.

Would that really be that difficult? And would it even be necessary - why not just tweak health levels and damage output while on heroic?

 

[DirthNader]

Originally posted by: rivan
Would that really be that difficult? And would it even be necessary - why not just tweak health levels and damage output while on heroic?

Naxx, like all of the other WotLK raid instances, will have a 10 man version.

 

[JD50]

Hmmm.....interesting, sounds like it'd be fun to try.

 

[Juddog]

Originally posted by: rivan

Originally posted by: Juddog

Originally posted by: Eeezee
I've played a few emulated servers

Ragnarok Online - My friends got me into this one, it was alright. To my understanding the real game is a grind fest. To hell with that.
Lineage 2 - This game is definitely a bad grind fest. We even had 10x experience and it still felt like a lot of extra work. Still, very pretty!
WoW - I wanted to sample the game before I actually tried it. It went pretty well, played a warlock for a little bit.

I'd be interested in seeing all of the lvl 60 end-game content. I've always suggested that Blizzard should release all of the popular older dungeons as heroics. If they don't do that, most of the obsolete content never actually gets seen by anyone. I've heard Naxx is one of the coolest dungeons in the games, yet less than 1% of the players have seen it. That just seems odd.

Yeah Naxx would be a fun heroic, but they would have to completely rewrite all of the boss encounters, etc.. Same goes for Molten Core.

I'm surprised to see this thread still going. A lot of perspectives on it I hadn't really considered.

Would that really be that difficult? And would it even be necessary - why not just tweak health levels and damage output while on heroic?

As mentioned above, Blizzard is planning on retooling Naxx for a smaller raid setting. They will have to scale back the encounters though. The retooling isn't enormously hard, but it's not as simple as tweaking hp / damage levels, they have to retool the encounter so that it simply requires less people.

For example, a 40 person raid would have groups of people assigned to specific tasks, so the creators of the dungeon had rolls assigned; some of these rolls would have to be pulled back a little and re-written as necessary. Not nearly as hard as creating a dungeon, but still a fair bit of work involved.