Nostalrius Begins - Quality wow vanilla realm (1.12)

Truth - Private servers are abusing the copyright of Blizzard, and will ALWAYS leave the owners/operators open to legal consequences.

Truth - The vast majority of people want to play games legally. (not all people in the "legacy" crowd feel this way, but the piracy aspect of vanilla servers has kept away many people who want to play vanilla but dont want to "steal" it)

Truth - The only way for this community to survive in the long run is for blizzard to officially endorse it in some way.

Truth - There will be a highly vocal minority of players who will be highly critical of Nost for not releasing the core, these are not people who want a legit blizz server. These people want to play for free on private servers and or probably make money from the server. They are not the type of people the rest of the community wants to listen to.

Truth - The player database can't be released. Each and every one of those accounts has an email attached to it - none of us gave Nost permission to provide those emails to a 3rd party (let alone the entire internet, u release the database and anyone with half a brain just gained access to everyones email addresses) Simply put, any ethical, logical person would realize the player database can't be released. All characters from Nostalrius begins are gone forever - deal with it.

Truth - No other private server has taken it upon themselves to add back to Mangos, how bout you start throwing shit at them while you're busy throwing Nost under a bus.

TL:DR - Not releasing the core/database is the only logical course of action - anyone who disagrees doesnt want a strong, stable, legitimized Legacy community.

Couldn't have said it better !

I get that people are angy - There was a small chance of people getting their characters back with someone else using Nostalrius' code und databases but now this is no longer an option.

I have actively been playing on vanilla WoW private servers for the last five years and I certainly know how it feels to lose a character one spent hundreds of hours on, but people really have to see the big picture here.

The only way we can get vanilla WoW AND the certainty that we won't lose our characters to a server shutdown or the mood swings of some shitty admin (obviously not talking about Nost here) is if Blizzard changes their stance on legacy servers.

Up until a few weeks ago the "fight" for legacy servers seemed like a battle we would never be able to win, since all we've got from Blizzard was the "Wall of No"..but look at what happened since then:

A quarter million people signed a petition to get Blizzard to change its mind on the matter, famous streamers and youtubers spoke out about the topic, former WoW team lead Mark Kern joined the effort and even news outlets like the BBC talk about it and now Blizzard is not only responding to us, but they also claim to listen.
They even invited the Nostalrius team and Mark Kern to their headquarters to talk with them about legacy servers.

For the first time ever the legacy WoW movement is more or less united in their efforts and Blizzard is listening.

If this can lead to official Blizzard vanilla WoW server I'd gladly sacrifice 10 more characters if I could.

But yeah, that's just my two cents on the matter. Don't lose hope guys, we're closer to legacy servers than we ever were before.

Untrue. Let me explain this yet again.

Back when Sony Entertainment was running a game called Everquest, they had the first real lawsuit against a private server in a US court. Sony Entertainment lost. The laws enforced with the ruling have NOT been altered ever since that time. It goes like this.

The court's opinion was that a purchased copy of computer programs or media becomes the property of the person buying it. Then can take it home, dissect it, change it, do whatever they want with it within the confines of their home, and they are NOT legally forced to use that program on any specific brand of hardware. Furthermore, they could legally make a single digital or physical copy of their purchase for their own use as a provision for ensuring the longevity of their purchase.

It was related to earlier cases involving both music and recorded video media in that no company could dictate the hardware the content must legally be used on, as that was opening the door to a form of sales monopoly. Now, here's the good part involving that ruling.

In the United States, if 10 people all bought a copy of World of Warcraft and took them home, and some of those buyers made a home brew, scratch built piece of software to emulate a game server for the 10 people to connect to, and they start playing their own game, this is entirely legal to do and the company who made the product in the first place can't do a damned thing. Even if the company making the product forces a user to sign a EULA involving the product, that EULA is NOT legally binding IF it violates consumer laws, which much of hte EULA indeed does. And even IF the sales of the product is done as a Lease agreement of the user and the software, and that it is implied that the software remains the property of the company, that again is not legally binding and the person making the legal purchase does not need to conform to that agreement.

If you buy a copy of Microsoft Office and crack the software protection and then use that software in your own home for non profit use, Microsoft has no recourse. It's the same with Blizzard and their products.

So. What happens if a group makes an emulated scratch built server piece of software, and has a bunch of people connect to it using their legally purchased client software, and form a private server? Absolutely nothing. It's legal, period. But the following guidelines must be followed.

1) All players on the server must possess their own legally purchased version of the game client software. The administration of the server does NOT need to confirm this on their own. Legally, they just have each player click on an " I Agree " button that they claim they own it.

2) The server host cannot make a profit from running the server project. Any money changing hands between both the players and the staff must be done as gifts, with 'no goods or services implied or recieved'. Money changing hands in the open, even as a gift, invites the game maker to make a legal financial investigation on all parties of the game project.

3) The server host cannot host a means of communication that facilitates a player to obtain the client software by any means other than legal purchase. So if the server host has a forum board, torrent links or download links are always removed the moment they are posted, and players are constantly reminded not to post such information at all.

4) The server and players must constantly be vigilant against players seeking to make a profit from the game through the sales of virtual content (gold coins, items) or through play services (power leveling, etc). Evidence of such 3rd party sales can invite an investigation and a legal closure of the project.

If the above steps are followed, a private server can be hosted on United States soil with no recourse from the game company.

So what about that scratch built server program core that the hobby people made so players could connect and play? It's theirs legally. Not a drop of retail code is in it. Blizzard can not ask for it legally. They can not touch it. If it is GIVEN to them, that's a different situation, as it's a crowd sourced piece of software available to all of the public.

So. When Nostalrius staff members said they were going to release the core, that was actually what they were SUPPOSED to do involving the agreement of using the Mangos core as a base in the first place. Blizzard had no grounds to suggest or demand anything, and this server staff made the decisions that they made all on their own involving the core and not releasing it.

crime wrote:
Truth - No other private server has taken it upon themselves to add back to Mangos, how bout you start throwing shit at them while you're busy throwing Nost under a bus.

untrue. both the Bloodcraft 3.3.5 WoTLK private server project directly gave back to the Trinity core project with the fixes and scripts they developoed as well as the Rebirth 1.12.1 project returning fixes and scripts back to Mangos.

They can release their changes to MaNGOS without releasing their player data. I don't know why people keep conflating the two.

mozibake wrote:They can release their changes to MaNGOS without releasing their player data. I don't know why people keep conflating the two.

Doubt they want to do that before trying to work it out with Blizzard, which makes the most sense if you want a legal and legit option.

@redcap - Im no lawyer, and im going to guess you arnt either. You write a long, and well worded reply - but I doubt its as simple as you make out. If it was, then there'd be huge popular servers hosted in North America. But there arnt, they get C&D letters, and the internet providers pull the servers down. Im not saying your wrong, im just saying you present yourself as an expert - would be nice to know your qualifications and whether your actually correct or just regurgitating partial facts from the internet.

Also, my point about Mangos (not Trinity) is still pretty much true - i didnt know rebirth has contributed, but my point here was its hypocritical of ppl to flame nost while not also making the same demands of Kronos/Feenix.

@mozibake - i dont think anyone was confused about the two, my original point was that a) the player database cant be released and b) nost isnt the only group of developers to not provide there fixes back to the mangos project. Two separate issues.

The Nostalrius private server project had a MASSIVE, I mean, an absolute ASTOUNDING amount of RMT (real money transactions) going on with 3rd party websites. It was unreal, and unlike anything a non retail WoW server ever saw.

The only thing that makes sense to me as to why the core wasn't released as promised is that Blizzard might have (and still could) legally launch a financial investigation into the staff members in relation to their history with the project. If Blizzard was pressuring them in that manner, the whole situation makes sense.

For six years I was a paralegal working for a law office in Santa Monica that primarily did work for divorce case law and commercial real estate. To put in in short - I created a LOT of documents involving the throwing out of people from their homes when they didn't pay the rent.

I played on the Bloodcraft 3.3.5a server from 2008-2012 and was a part of the staff, primarily as a tester and chat moderator as well as forum mod. In 2010 Bloodcraft got their first C&D and the project lead, named Talonsco, had a family member who was an attorney agree to look into the matter. I offered to spend a week researching the US case law on the issue and submitted my findings to the attorney and more or less worked with the fellow off and on during the month that the matter was debated.

In the end, the server continued to operate here in the US because Talonsco and Svannon (Trinity Core lead who played and did bug fixes on the server) were able to shift to a new internet ISP host that had a spine and would stare down legal pressure from Blizzard. I left the server in 2012 as I mentioned, but a bit after that the project closed not for legal reasons, but because the people running it were moving on to other things in their lives. The players ended up migrating to TrueWoW.

I assure you that all of the above was correct as of 2012. If changes have been made to the law since then, then yes, ya got me. I sincerely doubt changes have been made though.

To address the issue of "there would be servers all over the NA if it was so easy" - it's not. ANY TIME money changes hands between staff members or players of a project, it invites a financial investigation to be made. Those are a big headache, Talonsco had to go through one to keep the server going and it sucked, and it really closes an easy door to ask for donations to keep a server running. That's the big issue why you don't see NA servers very often. The person running it more or less has to foot the bill themselves entirely for the costs, or be investigated every two years.

Redcap wrote:The Nostalrius private server project had a MASSIVE, I mean, an absolute ASTOUNDING amount of RMT (real money transactions) going on with 3rd party websites. It was unreal, and unlike anything a non retail WoW server ever saw.

The only thing that makes sense to me as to why the core wasn't released as promised is that Blizzard might have (and still could) legally launch a financial investigation into the staff members in relation to their history with the project. If Blizzard was pressuring them in that manner, the whole situation makes sense.

How did you come by this information? You need to be able to back up something like this.