TL;DR
Blizzard is in US. Warmane is in EU. They can't do anything about it
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Member
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Member
Actually Blizzard can and they would shut all of this down if they wanted to. Remember when all of us started playing in the beginning and the agreements we had to sign? This game, though purchased, is still their "property" so to speak. They are the creators of this and hold copyrights to it that is recognized the world over. Why Warmane has to write their own code. Sure people know this already. Don't know if true but heard it said that private servers have to keep the realms to a certain extent buggy as an unsaid agreement with Blizzard. That way those that are so mad with bugs will go retail. But as to making a WoD realm...sure but not for a while in my opinion. Would love to see many more things fixed in MoP. So many realms as it is. To be honest, get rid of the Cata realms when you create a WoD realm.
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Member
LOL. This is not true...
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Member
Almost none of this is true:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/1...rver_Owner.php
If I had to guess, the only reason why Blizzard isn't going after Warmane (among others), is because there are too many out there now to try and stop the "private server industry." That being said, when subscriptions really do collapse on retail, you can be damn sure they're going to target private servers a lot more to protect their final ROI of this game.
They absolutely would want every private server, old or current expansions, removed immediately to protect their copyright (ie, no concept of "Abandonware". No offense to the amazing Warmane staff, but the quality of the "WoW Experience" observed here no where near that of what retail is/was, and I'm sure they do not want their brand "tarnished" in the way it is here. Meaning, I am sure a lot here NEVER played the various expansions when they were live, and therefore are judging Blizzard's work based off their "broken" experiences here. This is the sole reason trademarks exists to begin with...ie, to protect a company's perceived quality...and, believe it or not, EU has copyright/trademark law exactly like the US--DMCA or not.
I personally don't care to see WoD show up here, but that's because if I had any interest in it I'd play it on retail -- I'd much rather see all the WoD resources be put on perfecting the current realms (specifically MoP -- as I'm waiting to jump to that one when it's a little further along). But, it certainly won't be the reason Blizzard comes after Warmane -- if they're going to sue, they're going to do it anyway.
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Member
That's what every admin is saying. Ask em.
It's not that i don't agree, but let's not forget how Aegwynn defeated Sargeras (more or less)
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Banned
Well the balance in WoD is even worse imo.
And i don't like the new 2 capitals for horde and alliance.
Of course if WoD is released more and more players will come, leading to an even bigger playerbase.
Anyway i'm more concerned about blizzard taking action against us. Because if warmane ends.... WoW basically ends for me. I don't have ****load of $ in order to pay their new released expansion somewhat designed at least in class balance by ****ing Holinka.
completely ******ed designers hired by blizzard to **** up their own game. brilliant
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/12978007892
P.S
I would want warmane staff to keep working on wotlk/cata and new released mop and make them perfect instead of.. risking their server being shut down by blizzard and creating a pretty ****ty expansion, but thats just me..
sorry for crappy english, not my main language
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Head Moderator
Just to clarify, we currently have many devs, each expansion with its assigned groups, so there isn't this thing called "resources pulled away from expansion X to Y". Plus when certain bug is similar to a bug of the other expansions, they all get fixed.
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Member
But if the developers dedicated to WoD were to work on let's say MOP, its development would be much faster, wouldn't it?
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Member
There is no point to argue with staff members as they always have right. Atm three expansions is too much but well. I just hope they know what are they doing.
Thats not true also. After moltdown molten cant get their numbers back. (population). Im not saying its low - but blackrock/warsong/nelt and sarageras are empty.Originally Posted by Synx7
K.
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Member
some people forget that blizzard has servers all around the globe and not just north america.. :D
I would like to see more dev's on the expansions we got atm than in a new one.. but it's another opinion in an ocean..
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Head Moderator
Perhaps, but each group of devs work with their expertise. Some are more used to work with cata scripts, others with LK scripts. Sometimes a bug is similar between expansions and can be shared.
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Member
I understand, thanks for answering.
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Member
Past WoW expansions and versions are not a violation of Blizzards distribution rights of the game client in any way they really care about, because they have always distributed every WoW version freely. You could download the game without buying it or subbing, and it was always distributed via bittorrent internal to the launcher and downloader.Most distribution of abandonware is still illegal in the first place, even if something has been abandoned by its developer they still hold the legal rights to it and will continue to do so for a very long time.
While in the US that really does not matter, and Blizzard's TOS and license still restrict distribution to on their own terms only, it is not a profit loss to target the distribution of the game client. Even setting the realmlist to connect to an alternate realm server is just changing a line in a text file, and does not involve decompiling binaries or decrypting secret keys. Changing plaintext files in a directory is not a very defensible claim of data modification. Model editing is a much more indefensible modification of game files than the equivalent of setting your AA level outside of the in game options screen.
The legal trouble is in reverse engineering their servers. That is against the TOS of the game client, so practically what users are all "violating" playing on private servers is that terms of service that pops up when you first start the game. I'm pulling these from their latest TOS, but the lines that matter are these parts, at least in regards to the current WoD client - the wording may be different dating back to 1.0, but they have always included a clause like this:
So really, nobody is violating copyright, or even trademark, unless the website is using the imagery and branding of Blizzards product (Molten definitely did, Warmane does on its slides from game releases but not in the logo). We? are violating the terms of service of the game client. That is not even a criminal offense - it is a civil issue - and while I would not imagine any court case involving someone as powerful as Activision being based on facts, you can't even prove the server developers are using the game client to create the private server in the first place - if they are just capturing packets directed at their IP from someone elses game client that just thinks they are the realmlist, thats "not their problem". You never need to agree to the TOS to get that inbound packet stream, and that is all you really have to work with when doing a clean room reimplementation of a game server (besides decompiling the game client, and good luck proving anyone did that).E. host, provide or develop matchmaking services for the Game or the Service, or intercept, emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by Blizzard in any way, for any purpose, including without limitation unauthorized play over the internet, network play, or as part of content aggregation networks;
F. facilitate, create or maintain any unauthorized connection to the Game or the Service, including without limitation (a) any connection to any unauthorized server that emulates, or attempts to emulate, the Service; and (b) any connection using programs or tools not expressly approved by Blizzard;
So really the users are just violating the TOS of Blizzards copyrighted software, and that TOS has nothing to do with the DMCA or anything like that, it is older than modern copyright law, it is a terms of service and use you agree to when running the program. Even then, Blizzard would be hard pressed to even prove the end users who get the game client actually clicked yest to anything - while copyright law and legal cases involving it always devolve into folks with big money squashing those without, in reality the only responsible party is the original distributor who violated the TOS by not presenting it to those who get copies of the game client from him (which is a modification of it).
Basically any player of a private server is violating a civil contract Blizzard makes you agree to to use their software. If you did not get that contract, someone else violated it to give you a modified copy without it. And honestly none of this matters, because even in more sane European countries, Activision has money and Warmane does not to fight the legal battle in the first place, even if with what we know they have no evidence that Warmane has violated their TOS by writing their own software that can handle WoW packets. The only people they can really prosecute for playing on private servers are the users of their game client to actually play on them.
But as has been seen in the last five years, they have not targeted servers implementing older versions of the game because the abandonware defense has been used to validate users of SWG in many countries, and it would apply much the same here. You lose that obvious shield by writing software to accurately impersonate Blizzards WoD servers, even if you never touch their code or their legal documents surrounding it, combined with the giant bullseye on your head that Activision will only see as a threat to their cash cows revenue.
TLDR: Warmane is not violating any copyright, trademark, or patent that Blizzard holds with their servers, at least that Blizzard can prove without requisitioning their server code. At worst, they maybe violate the terms of service of the game clients they use to test their servers, but Activision would need evidence they used the game client after agreeing to the TOS to create the server code in the first place. The only violation of anything is that users violate the TOS they click yes to - if they even see it, if you get distributed a client that has the flag off you never even bind yourself to it - and that is a civil breach of contract, not a copyright violation. Someone is breaking contract here to make these servers work, but good luck actually proving who is. But then, it does not really matter, because Activision has so much money that the legality of their claims barely matters if they actually wanted to attack Warmane, even in Europe. Money replaces the law at enough scale, and Warmane certainly does not have the revenue to fight that battle.Edited: April 5, 2015
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Member
No one has stated the obvious, Warm ane or molten or whatever the next name will be can not get a decent cataclysm or MoP server out huge swathes of content missing quests either not working or absent you can not level up the way the game is designed for you have to grind they seem unable to cope with phased content and yet here we are talking about them bringing out a WoD realm that is phased from the word go there is more phasing in WoD than all the star trek series and movies put together.
The only semi decent xpac they have is WolK and even that is not that great but its playable. Cheating is all but accepted, I saw people getting 2 day bans the other day for exploiting well that sure showed them eh! The only time you get a perma ban is if you advertise other PS so cheat all you want by the looks of things.
WoD is one more xpac for them to have to deal with fix update and keep control of when they are unable to do it with what they have already. Its another cash grab thats all.
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Member
Mostly true. Still we shouldn't have WoD for now or even in next 2 years. They are rushing with it while all "famous" stramers and yt'ers leave wow cause of how bad it is now. Played WoD retail and stoped cause for real that expansion is one big misstake expect few thnings that made wow life easier.
