WoWScape's Lawsuit Ended...

[flux]

I'll chip in if we are buying him a gnome :P

Regarding the lawsuit though. WoWScape was a huge target from bringing in tons and tons of cash as people see with the 3 million. If blizzard went around sueing everyone that ever hosted a server, they would spend insane amounts of money and be clogging up the legal system, pissing off judges considerably. The bigger you are, the more likely a target you will be. I am honestly surprised huge servers like M****N-WoW are still able to operate smoothly. (I censored the name to make sure I'm not breaking any forum rules) Smolderforge isn't like a lot of servers I've seen where only a few people are online, but the place isn't on par with some of the much bigger places either.

I could tell from the start that Hennhouse isn't out to make this some big money making scam. If he was, the TBC server wouldn't have a $5 donators area. He would do like most places and charge insane prices for just one piece of gear.

If you want to play it safe and stay behind in the expansions, I'd be ok with that idea. Cata is making some changes I don't really agree with anyways. If you wanted to keep the smolderforge network based around having good classic servers from previous expansions I think the idea would work. Besides, god only knows when all the new stuff in cata will properly work for private servers anyways, and whoever does get it working the fastest would be a nice target for the blizz legal team.

[Henhouse]

Besides, god only knows when all the new stuff in cata will properly work for private servers anyways, and whoever does get it working the fastest would be a nice target for the blizz legal team.

From what I've seen, sadly, the beta is perfectly replicable. HOWEVER, this was only possible during the early alpha when it was mainly map design changes, and not interface, etc.

I am, and was at the time able to emulate a Cataclysm alpha server, however it was very buggy, not much worked and NO NPCs, items or anything from Cata was even in the game, just map viewing. I didn't want to open it due to legal issues as there were some servers back in Wrath alpha days that got in trouble from Blizzard.

I do hope that Blizzard finally integrates the realmlist.wtf file into WoW. Not kidding, I personally think with Cataclysm the game is going to take a complete OVERHAUL on all the developers work at MaNGOS and TrinityCore. Numerous things will have to be rewritten and the ENTIRE WORLD Database for Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms has to be redone from scratch.

If we're expecting the developers to help finish all the bugs and features in Wrath THINK AGAIN because they will never stop working their butts off on the ever changing Cataclysm which is why I strongly hope the end of progressing private servers is near.

Most developers abandoned all TBC work, or don't even continue to fix and implement new changes, which is where OregonCore came along and I'm so glad to be a part of -- we continue, yet slowly the work to progress development and bug fixes for 2.4.3 servers. When Cataclysm comes out, the same would happen to Wrath, but on an even larger scale of unfinished work.


So I hope, they stop private servers and allow developers to finally make really stable and little to no bug servers! But it's just my opinion.

[Toast]

3 Million is a lot, but to sue someone 89 million over the 3 million they made is rediculous and in my opinion disgusting. Sue'ing for the money she made and then banning her from further use of the internet for a year or two may slap a good hit or two, but 89 million just makes someone suicidal to be honest.

Hey if it was me I would agree to pay, then take my 3 million and run like hell, disappear somewhere ;)

[Melvior]

3 Million is a lot, but to sue someone 89 million over the 3 million they made is rediculous and in my opinion disgusting. Sue'ing for the money she made and then banning her from further use of the internet for a year or two may slap a good hit or two, but 89 million just makes someone suicidal to be honest.

Hey if it was me I would agree to pay, then take my 3 million and run like hell, disappear somewhere ;)

plastic surgery, name change, and gogo to some not so known country

[Toast]

Yup, or I'd just sit there in the court room like "ha the only thing I'm paying for is a 6 foot long peice of rope on the way home, gg blizzard"

[flux]

Most developers abandoned all TBC work, or don't even continue to fix and implement new changes, which is where OregonCore came along and I'm so glad to be a part of -- we continue, yet slowly the work to progress development and bug fixes for 2.4.3 servers. When Cataclysm comes out, the same would happen to Wrath, but on an even larger scale of unfinished work.

I tried the alpha before also using the sandbox server. It was interesting to fly around and see how all the maps changed, but got boring after that. The biggest challenge will be trashing years of work on the 1-60 zones and having to redo them.

I don't expect Wrath to fully die when cata comes out, but yeah, the development for it will drop like a rock once people working on cores and databases start working on cata. There are talents just now getting almost perfectly working after 2 years since wrath first came out, like Feral Spirit. I don't want to finally have stuff working then trash most of that to go play on a buggy core where half the stuff don't work properly. So I'll stick around a while wherever a good PreCata server is and have fun with stuff that actually works.

To avoid going fully offtopic, yes 89 million is insane for someone that made only 3% of that in donations, but being the biggest server made them an easy target for blizzard. Personally I think sooner than later Blizz will implement a free2play system. DDO did it, LotR is releasing one, and Sony is beta testing one for Everquest 2. The attraction of an item shop where you can sell stuff will be too much for Activision to pass up, and they will push blizzard to make something similar for WoW. Other servers I've seen charge prices like $55 for a Shadowmourne, and people happily pay it. Kotick will see the dollar signs fly by and want that for official servers. Even if its just a separate batch of servers like EQ2 is going to separate them from normal retail ones.

[Henhouse]

Personally I think sooner than later Blizz will implement a free2play system. DDO did it, LotR is releasing one, and Sony is beta testing one for Everquest 2. The attraction of an item shop where you can sell stuff will be too much for Activision to pass up, and they will push blizzard to make something similar for WoW. Other servers I've seen charge prices like $55 for a Shadowmourne, and people happily pay it. Kotick will see the dollar signs fly by and want that for official servers. Even if its just a separate batch of servers like EQ2 is going to separate them from normal retail ones.

There's been discuss about this for a while now with some of their developers saying it's possible down the road. To be quite honest I HOPE IT'S NOT.

Why? Well imagine, Blizzard has an extremely hard time keeping the servers running good with almost 12 million players, imagine within the first month that surpassing 20 million and eventually up to maybe like 50 million. They would go crazy, and knowing Blizzard, they are so money hungry they wouldn't drop the $15 monthly charge and rely of people to buy items from their game, it would ruin the environment of the gameplay.

It would also open up a portal for thousands of botters, spammers, gold farmers, hackers, etc. It would end up ruining the game completely.

Imagine the thousands upon thousands of support tickets being opened and having to wait around a month to get help -- a perfect comparison is universal health-care which idiots think will work when it's been proven in countries like Canada TO FAIL.

[Imperium]

Ya'll are taking this too seriously.
Blizz will never go F2P for the reasons Hen said. 89 mil is excessive, but to make 3mil illegally and getting caught is life in prison. Blizz could've sentenced her, but didn't. Blizz could've done a lot more than just sueing her. And I think the reason why it's 89mil, is because Blizzard wanted to make an example of her. Think about it. It's a fear factor, punish one person for life and their kid's life for running a private server off their game and making money is making an example. Probably to scare the shit out of other private server owners.

I.E., "Look what we did to her, you think it wont happen to you for making money off our game?"
I honestly don't think the amount was because of greed, but to seriously frighten p server owners.

[Henhouse]

Ya'll are taking this too seriously.
Blizz will never go F2P for the reasons Hen said. 89 mil is excessive, but to make 3mil illegally and getting caught is life in prison. Blizz could've sentenced her, but didn't. Blizz could've done a lot more than just sueing her. And I think the reason why it's 89mil, is because Blizzard wanted to make an example of her. Think about it. It's a fear factor, punish one person for life and their kid's life for running a private server off their game and making money is making an example. Probably to scare the shit out of other private server owners.

I.E., "Look what we did to her, you think it wont happen to you for making money off our game?"
I honestly don't think the amount was because of greed, but to seriously frighten p server owners.

Yet, unfortunately people from the current biggest private servers show no signs of frightfulness. I guess waiting on that DMCA letter from Blizzard.

[Imperium]

Ignorance is bliss, Henry.