Should Private World of Warcraft servers be allowed?

[DirkGently]

That's like asking whether or not Open Battle.net should be banned from Diablo II. But no, it shouldn't. The private servers aren't causing any problems, so why worry?

The way some people look at it is that Blizzard is loosing an extra $15 a month for every player that plays on private servers. This might not seem like much, but that's $15 x 12 = $180 per year per EACH person that plays on private servers.

Sure, you could look at it like that. But really, the amount of money they're losing is negligible, considering their millions of paying members.

Those that play on private servers also don't get to interact with the millions of others that are on the public servers, so they don't get the same experience.

Wait, how are they losing money? If you're not using their servers, you're not costing them anything. That's like saying everybody who plays Guild Wars is costing them money because they're not playing WoW.

No it's not. WoW is supposed to have a monthly fee in order to play, so playing on private servers for free technically is losing them money. Guild Wars is a completely different game.

Look at it this way. Louis buys WoW to see what all the hype is about. He plays for the free month that comes with the game but decides it's not his thing and decides to instead play Guild Wars.

Louis does not cost Blizzard anything.

Louis's friend Bill also buys WoW. He plays for the month of free time that comes with WoW, but decides that he wants to level faster, and a classmate, Francis, points him to a private server that is free to play on and has quicker leveling. Bill and Francis enjoy this private server. Since they are not playing on Blizzard's servers, they cost Blizzard nothing.

Zoey plays Guild Wars. She doesn't ever play Blizzard money, but doesn't use any of their games. She costs them no money.

 

[BubbleGumSnareDrum]

\

The only thing that annoys me about private owned servers for games if when they fuck around with the games default settings when they shouldn't.

Yeah, or worse yet, make up rules pertaining to tactics that scrub admins are bad at countering.

It's a shame that simply having money lets people put themselves in charge of something. The scope ranges from game servers to governments.

 

[Xojins]

That's like asking whether or not Open Battle.net should be banned from Diablo II. But no, it shouldn't. The private servers aren't causing any problems, so why worry?

The way some people look at it is that Blizzard is loosing an extra $15 a month for every player that plays on private servers. This might not seem like much, but that's $15 x 12 = $180 per year per EACH person that plays on private servers.

Sure, you could look at it like that. But really, the amount of money they're losing is negligible, considering their millions of paying members.

Those that play on private servers also don't get to interact with the millions of others that are on the public servers, so they don't get the same experience.

Wait, how are they losing money? If you're not using their servers, you're not costing them anything. That's like saying everybody who plays Guild Wars is costing them money because they're not playing WoW.

No it's not. WoW is supposed to have a monthly fee in order to play, so playing on private servers for free technically is losing them money. Guild Wars is a completely different game.

Look at it this way. Louis buys WoW to see what all the hype is about. He plays for the free month that comes with the game but decides it's not his thing and decides to instead play Guild Wars.

Louis does not cost Blizzard anything.

Louis's friend Bill also buys WoW. He plays for the month of free time that comes with WoW, but decides that he wants to level faster, and a classmate, Francis, points him to a private server that is free to play on and has quicker leveling. Bill and Francis enjoy this private server. Since they are not playing on Blizzard's servers, they cost Blizzard nothing.

Zoey plays Guild Wars. She doesn't ever play Blizzard money, but doesn't use any of their games. She costs them no money.

Louis - It's called a free trial. They give those out to anyone in hopes that they will want to continue playing with their character on a public public server, which they would have to pay for. Also, it does cost Blizzard something, but they are gaining so much more that it doesn't matter in the long run.

Bill (Francis as well, I guess) - Ok, he can level faster, but he can't use the same character on different servers (unless he pays to have it transferred). The subscription money goes to pay for game upgrades, or rather a small portion of that money: the money that isn't just schlurped up by the CEOs or whoever. Therefore, the people who play on private servers aren't contributing to this, so yea they're losing money.

Zoe: Irrelevant.

 

[Reep]

Private servers are so much better than the normal blizz servers.
I remember a constant AV battle server which reminded me of the old WoW days, not the shitball it was/is now in BC/WOTLK.

 

[DirkGently]

That's like asking whether or not Open Battle.net should be banned from Diablo II. But no, it shouldn't. The private servers aren't causing any problems, so why worry?

The way some people look at it is that Blizzard is loosing an extra $15 a month for every player that plays on private servers. This might not seem like much, but that's $15 x 12 = $180 per year per EACH person that plays on private servers.

Sure, you could look at it like that. But really, the amount of money they're losing is negligible, considering their millions of paying members.

Those that play on private servers also don't get to interact with the millions of others that are on the public servers, so they don't get the same experience.

Wait, how are they losing money? If you're not using their servers, you're not costing them anything. That's like saying everybody who plays Guild Wars is costing them money because they're not playing WoW.

No it's not. WoW is supposed to have a monthly fee in order to play, so playing on private servers for free technically is losing them money. Guild Wars is a completely different game.

Look at it this way. Louis buys WoW to see what all the hype is about. He plays for the free month that comes with the game but decides it's not his thing and decides to instead play Guild Wars.

Louis does not cost Blizzard anything.

Louis's friend Bill also buys WoW. He plays for the month of free time that comes with WoW, but decides that he wants to level faster, and a classmate, Francis, points him to a private server that is free to play on and has quicker leveling. Bill and Francis enjoy this private server. Since they are not playing on Blizzard's servers, they cost Blizzard nothing.

Zoey plays Guild Wars. She doesn't ever play Blizzard money, but doesn't use any of their games. She costs them no money.

Louis - It's called a free trial. They give those out to anyone in hopes that they will want to continue playing with their character on a public public server, which they would have to pay for. Also, it does cost Blizzard something, but they are gaining so much more that it doesn't matter in the long run.

Bill (Francis as well, I guess) - Ok, he can level faster, but he can't use the same character on different servers (unless he pays to have it transferred). The subscription money goes to pay for game upgrades, or rather a small portion of that money: the money that isn't just schlurped up by the CEOs or whoever. Therefore, the people who play on private servers aren't contributing to this, so yea they're losing money.

Zoe: Irrelevant.

Louis didn't buy that two dollar trial disc. He bought the box copy of the game from his local games store. This costs like $20 and gives you an install disc which should have the majority of patches already on it, and when you activate an account with that CD Key, you get one month of game time. Louis uses this time, and only this time, and then he decides to play something else. He costs Blizzard nothing because they give him that time.

Bill & Francis aren't *costing* Blizzard any money. Private servers are not run by Blizzard, and they don't cost Blizzard anything. Francis and Louis bought legitimate box copies of the game from their local games store, and have only played on Blizzards servers with an active subscription. They're playing on a private server does not cost Blizzard any money. Since they're not paying for access to that server, they're just playing a game they bought.

Zoe: You insisted that by not giving Blizzard money, they were costing them money. Ergo, relevant.

I mean, it's all moot since private servers are against the WoW ToS, but seeing as how plentiful they are and how many ranking circle jerks there are, and how many of them aren't being slapped with Cease and Desist orders or being subpeona'd, Blizzard is clearly too busy making D3, SC2, and WoW: Level 90 and More Broke-Ass-Characters to care about them.

 

[Sewblon]

I feel that private servers should be legal so long as the parties that run them own a copy of the software.

 

[The Madman]

Who cares? Lets be honest here: If you're playing on a private server you're basically getting a crappy outdated version of the real game. Oh look, everyone's special and you're instantly a level 9001 who can shoot fireballs out yer ass and solo raid instances. Great....

Now what? What's the point? There's no challenge or dedication. No guild-mates to chat with or upcoming content to enjoy. No thrill in taking down a badass boss because, hell, half the players on the server are likely GM's and can solo anything they want. The thrill of ANY MMO is the community aspect and the competitive element, neither of which private servers can really supply.

I couldn't care less if you played on a private server, and apparently Blizzard doesn't much care either since they put minimal effort into shutting the things down every now and then, and usually only targeting the ones that charge to play on em. (Seriously, pay to play on an illegal crappy server? WHY!!!)

 

[Myselfe]

I feel that private servers should be legal so long as the parties that run them own a copy of the software.

This.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Private servers are against the EULA, but Blizzard hardly enforces it- how can they? It's the same for RO, but most folks on this side of the pond use a private server for obvious non Korean speaking reasons.

That's like asking whether or not Open Battle.net should be banned from Diablo II. But no, it shouldn't. The private servers aren't causing any problems, so why worry?

The way some people look at it is that Blizzard is loosing an extra $15 a month for every player that plays on private servers. This might not seem like much, but that's $15 x 12 = $180 per year per EACH person that plays on private servers.

Sure, you could look at it like that. But really, the amount of money they're losing is negligible, considering their millions of paying members.

Those that play on private servers also don't get to interact with the millions of others that are on the public servers, so they don't get the same experience.

Wait, how are they losing money? If you're not using their servers, you're not costing them anything. That's like saying everybody who plays Guild Wars is costing them money because they're not playing WoW.

No it's not. WoW is supposed to have a monthly fee in order to play, so playing on private servers for free technically is losing them money. Guild Wars is a completely different game.

Look at it this way. Louis buys WoW to see what all the hype is about. He plays for the free month that comes with the game but decides it's not his thing and decides to instead play Guild Wars.

Louis does not cost Blizzard anything.

Louis's friend Bill also buys WoW. He plays for the month of free time that comes with WoW, but decides that he wants to level faster, and a classmate, Francis, points him to a private server that is free to play on and has quicker leveling. Bill and Francis enjoy this private server. Since they are not playing on Blizzard's servers, they cost Blizzard nothing.

Zoey plays Guild Wars. She doesn't ever play Blizzard money, but doesn't use any of their games. She costs them no money.

Louis - It's called a free trial. They give those out to anyone in hopes that they will want to continue playing with their character on a public public server, which they would have to pay for. Also, it does cost Blizzard something, but they are gaining so much more that it doesn't matter in the long run.

Bill (Francis as well, I guess) - Ok, he can level faster, but he can't use the same character on different servers (unless he pays to have it transferred). The subscription money goes to pay for game upgrades, or rather a small portion of that money: the money that isn't just schlurped up by the CEOs or whoever. Therefore, the people who play on private servers aren't contributing to this, so yea they're losing money.

Zoe: Irrelevant.

Louis didn't buy that two dollar trial disc. He bought the box copy of the game from his local games store. This costs like $20 and gives you an install disc which should have the majority of patches already on it, and when you activate an account with that CD Key, you get one month of game time. Louis uses this time, and only this time, and then he decides to play something else. He costs Blizzard nothing because they give him that time.

Bill & Francis aren't *costing* Blizzard any money. Private servers are not run by Blizzard, and they don't cost Blizzard anything. Francis and Louis bought legitimate box copies of the game from their local games store, and have only played on Blizzards servers with an active subscription. They're playing on a private server does not cost Blizzard any money. Since they're not paying for access to that server, they're just playing a game they bought.

Zoe: You insisted that by not giving Blizzard money, they were costing them money. Ergo, relevant.

I mean, it's all moot since private servers are against the WoW ToS, but seeing as how plentiful they are and how many ranking circle jerks there are, and how many of them aren't being slapped with Cease and Desist orders or being subpeona'd, Blizzard is clearly too busy making D3, SC2, and WoW: Level 90 and More Broke-Ass-Characters to care about them.

But what if Bill OH GOD HE STARTLED THE WITCH SHIT SHIT SHIT RUN WTF IT'S A TANK AHHH!

 

[vxicepickxv]

For the most part Blizzard is too busy counting their huge piles of money to go after private servers, especially if they aren't charging a fee to play.

I've played on both regular WoW and on private servers, and they both have advantages and disadvantages.

 

[Ultrajoe]

Louis's friend Bill also buys WoW. He plays for the month of free time that comes with WoW, but decides that he wants to level faster, and a classmate, Francis, points him to a private server that is free to play on and has quicker leveling. Bill and Francis enjoy this private server. Since they are not playing on Blizzard's servers, they cost Blizzard nothing.

Francis then pirates the updates blizzard releases to update his private server (Lets assume he owns it) and encourages more people to stop paying for Blizzards product when they can get it perfectly free from this free server.

He then downloads a new album and encourages people to do the same, because why buy it when they can get it perfectly free from a torrent?

Free servers: Piracy with some prettier bullshit excuses.

 

[Doug]

Not sure if this is already on here somewhere, if so then tell me once but don't tell me every other comment =P

For those of you who don't know much about the whole thing, World of Warcraft is an online RPG which you pay monthly for ($15 a month(I think it's around £7.99)) and around 10 million people pay this.
But many people have set up their own servers away from the main Blizzard hosted servers.
They are free to connect to, and are mainly made up of instant level 80 servers, although there are a few that try to be like the blizzard servers(e.g. starting level 1). These servers tend to be lowly populated (-1000 people) and have quite a few bugs.
Blizzard haven't really done much(To my knowledge) to prevent private servers, but what is your opinion? Should they be banned and made totally illegal? Should things carry on as normal? Or should people just pay for the real thing?

I'm pretty sure Blizzard can't make things illegal, unless they are the new world government (that explains it all!). They can say its against the terms and conditions, but thats more a civil matter than a criminal one.

I like them, and if you've bought a copy of the game, i think you should be entitled to use them. The only reason you pay fee's is to use Blizzards servers so if you don't it dosen't really matter.

Agreed. It would be ricidulous to pay for the same piece of software over and over, so the WoW official servers is what you are paying for, doesn't mean its right to block free to play services.

 

[Signa]

But what if Bill OH GOD HE STARTLED THE WITCH SHIT SHIT SHIT RUN WTF IT'S A TANK AHHH!

LOL!

There isn't anything morally wrong about private servers if they don't charge for access. The moment a player puts down money on WoW that doesn't go to Blizzard is the moment there is a problem.

Arguments pertaining to the ToS are irrelevant. The ToS was written for paying customers, and also so that Blizzard has a legal right to make more money. Most players on private servers aren't even going to play the game if the private servers weren't around. So, in the end, Blizzard lost nothing (no one connected), and gained nothing (never had paying customers to begin with).

 

[vxicepickxv]

Louis's friend Bill also buys WoW. He plays for the month of free time that comes with WoW, but decides that he wants to level faster, and a classmate, Francis, points him to a private server that is free to play on and has quicker leveling. Bill and Francis enjoy this private server. Since they are not playing on Blizzard's servers, they cost Blizzard nothing.

Francis then pirates the updates blizzard releases to update his private server (Lets assume he owns it) and encourages more people to stop paying for Blizzards product when they can get it perfectly free from this free server.

He then downloads a new album and encourages people to do the same, because why buy it when they can get it perfectly free from a torrent?

Free servers: Piracy with some prettier bullshit excuses.

Wait, people still buy albums?

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

trick is, the potential profit Blizzard loses due to the private servers balances out to nil next to the profit the 10-11 million monthly installments they get from their players. so why bother enforcing it, they're already the largest mmo producer and the producer of some of the worlds most hyped games EVER. so they got no worries since they know the millions of true fans are gonna buy whatever they're selling. so money really ain't that big of an issue.

I mean immagine the profit margins they have....

 

[DirkGently]

Louis's friend Bill also buys WoW. He plays for the month of free time that comes with WoW, but decides that he wants to level faster, and a classmate, Francis, points him to a private server that is free to play on and has quicker leveling. Bill and Francis enjoy this private server. Since they are not playing on Blizzard's servers, they cost Blizzard nothing.

Francis then pirates the updates blizzard releases to update his private server (Lets assume he owns it) and encourages more people to stop paying for Blizzards product when they can get it perfectly free from this free server.

He then downloads a new album and encourages people to do the same, because why buy it when they can get it perfectly free from a torrent?

Free servers: Piracy with some prettier bullshit excuses.

I never said it was right or legal, just that it doesn't cost Blizzard money.

Spoiler: snip

Private servers are against the EULA, but Blizzard hardly enforces it- how can they? It's the same for RO, but most folks on this side of the pond use a private server for obvious non Korean speaking reasons.

That's like asking whether or not Open Battle.net should be banned from Diablo II. But no, it shouldn't. The private servers aren't causing any problems, so why worry?

The way some people look at it is that Blizzard is loosing an extra $15 a month for every player that plays on private servers. This might not seem like much, but that's $15 x 12 = $180 per year per EACH person that plays on private servers.

Sure, you could look at it like that. But really, the amount of money they're losing is negligible, considering their millions of paying members.

Those that play on private servers also don't get to interact with the millions of others that are on the public servers, so they don't get the same experience.

Wait, how are they losing money? If you're not using their servers, you're not costing them anything. That's like saying everybody who plays Guild Wars is costing them money because they're not playing WoW.

No it's not. WoW is supposed to have a monthly fee in order to play, so playing on private servers for free technically is losing them money. Guild Wars is a completely different game.

Look at it this way. Louis buys WoW to see what all the hype is about. He plays for the free month that comes with the game but decides it's not his thing and decides to instead play Guild Wars.

Louis does not cost Blizzard anything.

Louis's friend Bill also buys WoW. He plays for the month of free time that comes with WoW, but decides that he wants to level faster, and a classmate, Francis, points him to a private server that is free to play on and has quicker leveling. Bill and Francis enjoy this private server. Since they are not playing on Blizzard's servers, they cost Blizzard nothing.

Zoey plays Guild Wars. She doesn't ever play Blizzard money, but doesn't use any of their games. She costs them no money.

Louis - It's called a free trial. They give those out to anyone in hopes that they will want to continue playing with their character on a public public server, which they would have to pay for. Also, it does cost Blizzard something, but they are gaining so much more that it doesn't matter in the long run.

Bill (Francis as well, I guess) - Ok, he can level faster, but he can't use the same character on different servers (unless he pays to have it transferred). The subscription money goes to pay for game upgrades, or rather a small portion of that money: the money that isn't just schlurped up by the CEOs or whoever. Therefore, the people who play on private servers aren't contributing to this, so yea they're losing money.

Zoe: Irrelevant.

Louis didn't buy that two dollar trial disc. He bought the box copy of the game from his local games store. This costs like $20 and gives you an install disc which should have the majority of patches already on it, and when you activate an account with that CD Key, you get one month of game time. Louis uses this time, and only this time, and then he decides to play something else. He costs Blizzard nothing because they give him that time.

Bill & Francis aren't *costing* Blizzard any money. Private servers are not run by Blizzard, and they don't cost Blizzard anything. Francis and Louis bought legitimate box copies of the game from their local games store, and have only played on Blizzards servers with an active subscription. They're playing on a private server does not cost Blizzard any money. Since they're not paying for access to that server, they're just playing a game they bought.

Zoe: You insisted that by not giving Blizzard money, they were costing them money. Ergo, relevant.

I mean, it's all moot since private servers are against the WoW ToS, but seeing as how plentiful they are and how many ranking circle jerks there are, and how many of them aren't being slapped with Cease and Desist orders or being subpeona'd, Blizzard is clearly too busy making D3, SC2, and WoW: Level 90 and More Broke-Ass-Characters to care about them.

But what if Bill OH GOD HE STARTLED THE WITCH SHIT SHIT SHIT RUN WTF IT'S A TANK AHHH!

Exactly. Which brings us the question of why we're sitting here talking when there's a tank ripping Bill in half.

 

[Xojins]

That's like asking whether or not Open Battle.net should be banned from Diablo II. But no, it shouldn't. The private servers aren't causing any problems, so why worry?

The way some people look at it is that Blizzard is loosing an extra $15 a month for every player that plays on private servers. This might not seem like much, but that's $15 x 12 = $180 per year per EACH person that plays on private servers.

Sure, you could look at it like that. But really, the amount of money they're losing is negligible, considering their millions of paying members.

Those that play on private servers also don't get to interact with the millions of others that are on the public servers, so they don't get the same experience.

Wait, how are they losing money? If you're not using their servers, you're not costing them anything. That's like saying everybody who plays Guild Wars is costing them money because they're not playing WoW.

No it's not. WoW is supposed to have a monthly fee in order to play, so playing on private servers for free technically is losing them money. Guild Wars is a completely different game.

Look at it this way. Louis buys WoW to see what all the hype is about. He plays for the free month that comes with the game but decides it's not his thing and decides to instead play Guild Wars.

Louis does not cost Blizzard anything.

Louis's friend Bill also buys WoW. He plays for the month of free time that comes with WoW, but decides that he wants to level faster, and a classmate, Francis, points him to a private server that is free to play on and has quicker leveling. Bill and Francis enjoy this private server. Since they are not playing on Blizzard's servers, they cost Blizzard nothing.

Zoey plays Guild Wars. She doesn't ever play Blizzard money, but doesn't use any of their games. She costs them no money.

Louis - It's called a free trial. They give those out to anyone in hopes that they will want to continue playing with their character on a public public server, which they would have to pay for. Also, it does cost Blizzard something, but they are gaining so much more that it doesn't matter in the long run.

Bill (Francis as well, I guess) - Ok, he can level faster, but he can't use the same character on different servers (unless he pays to have it transferred). The subscription money goes to pay for game upgrades, or rather a small portion of that money: the money that isn't just schlurped up by the CEOs or whoever. Therefore, the people who play on private servers aren't contributing to this, so yea they're losing money.

Zoe: Irrelevant.

Louis didn't buy that two dollar trial disc. He bought the box copy of the game from his local games store. This costs like $20 and gives you an install disc which should have the majority of patches already on it, and when you activate an account with that CD Key, you get one month of game time. Louis uses this time, and only this time, and then he decides to play something else. He costs Blizzard nothing because they give him that time.

Bill & Francis aren't *costing* Blizzard any money. Private servers are not run by Blizzard, and they don't cost Blizzard anything. Francis and Louis bought legitimate box copies of the game from their local games store, and have only played on Blizzards servers with an active subscription. They're playing on a private server does not cost Blizzard any money. Since they're not paying for access to that server, they're just playing a game they bought.

Zoe: You insisted that by not giving Blizzard money, they were costing them money. Ergo, relevant.

I mean, it's all moot since private servers are against the WoW ToS, but seeing as how plentiful they are and how many ranking circle jerks there are, and how many of them aren't being slapped with Cease and Desist orders or being subpeona'd, Blizzard is clearly too busy making D3, SC2, and WoW: Level 90 and More Broke-Ass-Characters to care about them.

You're not listening to what I'm saying.

Louis is costing them money; he's costing them a month's worth of subscription. Blizzard, however, doesn't care about the money that they've lost by doing this because it's a negligible amount compared to how much money they gain from subscriptions. They give away these free trials in hopes that the one playing will want to continue playing, and subscribe. It doesn't matter how little they're losing, they're still losing it.

I get what you're saying about Bill and Francis, but keep in mind that everyone else has to pay $15 per month to use. So no, Blizzard isn't losing money in that sense, but in the sense that they aren't making the money they're supposed to from people who play on private servers.

I understand why you think Zoe is relevant, but in my mind it isn't at all.

 

[Thespamanator]

I understand it.... Just I don't understand why everyone on this forum is talking about Left4Dead 24/7 =P