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The Struggle For Private Game Servers

Posted by Soulskill on from the let's-make-onyxia-fight-ragnaros dept.

A story at the BBC takes a look at the use of private game servers for games that tend not to allow them. While most gamers are happy to let companies like Blizzard and NCSoft administer the servers that host their MMORPGs, others want different rules, a cheaper way to play, or the technical challenge of setting up their own. A South African player called Hendrick put up his own WoW server because the game "wasn't available in the country at the time." A 21-year-old Swede created a server called Epilogue, which "had strict codes of conduct and rules, as well as a high degree of customized content (such as new currency, methods of earning experience, the ability to construct buildings and hire non-player characters, plus 'permanent' player death) unavailable in the retail version of the game." The game companies make an effort to quash these servers when they can, though it's frequently more trouble that it's worth. An NCSoft representative referenced the "growing menace" of IP theft, and a Blizzard spokesperson said,"We also have a responsibility to our players to ensure the integrity and reliability of their World of Warcraft gaming experience and that responsibility compels us to protect our rights."

6 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. WoW by sopssa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Blizzard haven't really fight against the private servers good afaik, and why would they - anyone who has ever tried any of them knows how crappy they are.

    Sure, it was fun to set up my own WoW server and get some friends to join it. I had fun with the console commands, made everyone admins and we got the max levels and best items and flying mode. Some fun moments messing around for one night with some beers - but to actually play the game on such servers? No please.

    MMO's are in good position because the private servers can never reach the same amount and quality of quests, other players (major part in mmo!), raiding, instances, battlegrounds or in-game economy. MMO's are a lot about the community and other people you play with - they make the world.

    The sad part here is people who might for cheapness reasons to play on those servers instead and think the game is crap, while in fact the server just sucks.

    1. Re:WoW by Tukz · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The best communites I have ever been a part of, was in MUD's (small communites compared to todays MMO's) and on "private" UO servers.

      --
      - Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
    2. Re:WoW by Snowtred · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I, too, messed with the private servers for awhile, with the same results. My friends and I messed around for a few hours, and then it got boring and we went back to our real characters.

      An interesting turn to this is training for raid bosses. So much time is spent clearing, ressing, gathering items, just for a wipe. You could reset to the beginning of a fight in less than a minute with teleport and item summon scripts. Get a whole raid of 25 with duplicated characters, getting 10-15 attempts on a hard boss in an hour, where it would take all day on a real server.

      Then with competitive Arena battles rising with real sponsors and cash prizes like the CAL league did for Counterstrike, it could become a big issue once people realize this advantage and get organized. Not just for WoW but the MMOs of the future, which I'm guessing will have substantial (and lucrative) competition-spectator components.

      A legit strategy, cheating, or just simply "unethical" by gaming standards?

    3. Re:WoW by your_neighbor · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It seems that a public private server is contraditory by simple inspection of its name. Some friends of mine host a private server, well, for private friends. The server is used mainly at night, since we work all the day. Once I was an addicted, lost one semester of college with UO. Now I dont have more the patience to PKs, being killed unadverted of a battle between those I dont care, and that sort of crap.

      I work 9h for day, mental work. My spare time, which is short, is applied mainly to have fun, no spaces to frustations. Being killed is normal to the game. Being abused is other history. This is why I look forward for these private server instead of public ones. And they are not -that- free, since someone is paying some sort of billing. I help my ppl with some bucks... less than the popcorn at the theater.

  2. a home for retired MMOs by spyrochaete · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wish decommissioned MMOs like Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault could be released to the public for private server admins to host. Unlikely to happen, so it remains my wish.

  3. Why don't we see more OSS MMO contributors? by dave1791 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Seriously, for all of the "corporate bashing" in this thread; either complaining about subscription models or justifying reverse engineering, why is it that open source MMO projects don’t thrive? I remember when Ryzom was up for sale and a former community manager launched a very public campaign to raise funds to open source it. There was a lot of buzz. After it fell through, at least two OSS MMO projects sprung up from it; one game project which died within a week and another framework project which has one active developer (me) three years later. At least four other framework and game projects (Planeshift, WorldForge, Open NEL, Peragro Tempus) also tried to recruit among that populace. Of them, three are limping along with 1-3 active developers with only Planeshift having an active development community.

    So why are people not clamoring to work on OSS MMO frameworks so that communities can run OSS worlds?