Blizzard shutting down WoW emu...

[Windcatcher]

You know, I'm getting tired of this nebulous "intellectual property rights" mantra as if it means anything the vendor wants it do mean. It does not. There are certain rights they have, such as copyright, which means that no one can distribute anything they create without their permission. They also have the right to ensure that people can't duplicate work that is uniquely their creation--this means that a rival could create an MMORPG featuring elves, dwarves, humans, etc., since SOE didn't create those, but creating a new game featuring Erudeans, for instance, would probably be prohibited (just as no one can distribute anything featuring a Disney character--they are creations solely attributable to Disney). Software vendors also have the right that their products not be altered, but they do not have the right that their products not be replaced.

There is no right granted to a vendor that says they can prohibit anyone from creating an add-on to their product, and no law exists that requires obtaining permission from such a vendor. If Edelbrock wants to create aftermarket parts, they do *not* have to obtain permission from Ford, GM, et. al., and any "intellectual property rights" claim from said vendors would be laughed out of court. To the best of my knowledge there is no special provision for software vendors. The reason for this is antitrust law: vendors in the past used anticompetitive techniques to lock in customers and lock out competitors (including potential competitors in the aftermarket area), and antitrust laws were created to bring competition back to the market (any captalist worth his salt knows that capitalism *requires* competition to work properly). So when people start throwing the "intellectual property rights" charge around, beware: there are rights they may wish to have and rights they actually have. The right to deny third-party add-ons isn't one of them.

In the case of EQEmu, the situation is even more clear: it is neither an add-on to their client nor does it alter it in any way. It is a drop-in-replacement for one of SOE's products, one they have never released to the public (strictly speaking, it constitutes competition against SOE and that is definitely protected under antitrust law). At the most SOE might be able to allege a trademark violation (in the sense that MS made Lindows change their name), and if I were running the emu I would have removed the letters "e" and "q" from the emu's name ages ago. This was how Blizzard shut down Freecraft, by the way--purely via a trademark suit against the name, since that was all they could charge (and that, friends, is exactly why I will never buy a Blizzard product again--anyone who would do something that lame and/or despicable deserves not my money).

All this said, if it were Blizzard instead of SOE, I'm sure the emu would have been shut down years ago--not because they might actually win a suit, but simply because Blizzard seems in my opinion to be more apt to play the legal extortion game--"expend your life savings defending yourself from us, or give us what we want." Anti-SLAPP lawsuits only come into play after you've suffered damages in legal fees, and of course there is no guarantee that you'll win (and not all states have anti-SLAPP statutes, though mine sure as hell does).

In the end if SOE wants to shut the emu down I suppose they could play the Blizard game and just issue a C&D nastygram, regardless of its merits. Why they haven't is a mystery to me. I want to think there's someone there who is actually interested in obeying the law rather than using extortion, but with Blizzard's antics nothing anymore surprises me so I can't make that assumption.

[Virus11]

Damn, WoW Emu was fun.

[Woodlife Treestrider]

It was fun for awhile. Most EMUs I found where really poorly put together, and pretty crappy. People did try, but I think this community has had the most accomplished version of a modern day mmorpg game.

[kharmakazy]

Wow... didnt see much movement on the forum here before.... but jesus you guys sure came out of the woodwork to vent there for a min...

I agree that people should have to have had an acount to use the emu... people who just want to essentially bootleg the game should be shot. ..

I would be playing on live now had i not been booted off, as I suspect is the reason at least a few people are here.

I want to play again... bless my heart.... You think sony will still hold a grudge about that incident 3 years ago? will they even check if I just open a new account?

On that note... I would be glad to packet collect if I can get back on live. But it seems that most of the stuff you guys need is from the high end game. Is there any call for packet collecting low level stuff?

[Windcatcher]

I think the concept of an emu of an existing MMORPG (any of them, for that matter), is fundamentally flawed and ultimately doomed to failure. When it comes to attempting to recreate the experience of a commercial server, no group of enthusiasts can hope to compete. There is simply too great a disparity in terms of available effort. From the start I've thought that the only viable way for an emu to really flourish (read: provide an enjoyable experience for its playerbase) is to quickly and irreversibly migrate from an emu to a non-emu: that is, to become a unique game in its own right, from rules all the way to content. Otherwise players will always be subconsciously comparing it to the real McCoy, and that's always a losing proposition.

Is it possible to create a hybrid, where there is some emulation and some uniqueness? Sure, and there are emerging examples of that trend. However, it still only scratches the surface of what's possible, and still leaves such servers under the commercial game's shadow in more ways than one.

This next part might sound like a dig at the devs; it isn't, and I'm really trying to provide food for thought here. Case in point:when you dig through the server code, just about everything is hardcoded for the EQ client, but it doesn't have to be. For example, instead of having netcode in source files, they could reside in a loadable DLL instead. There would be zero loss of speed, but it would allow servers to branch out toward different client types, like (gasp) a client that we could create with our own protocol. It can happen.

With respect to client-server communication, a client depends on many things, but certainly these: a method of packaging data (i.e. a network transport layer), a packet protocol (structs, opcodes, and sequence of usage), and game rules (formulae, for instance). It might be possible for the server to use DLL modules or something similar, so as to decouple it from the live client. How about a server that used AD&D rules instead? (either 1E, 2E, or 3E). Or maybe DragonQuest? (once again, pick your revision, there are several) Or a skills-based ruleset of our own creation? Using DLLs can allow these things. I think that for an emu to wish to be perceived as more than just a pale impersonator demands taking a serious look at this sort of thing. What's more, it makes it hard to legally justify going after such an emu: if an emu has several server modules, only one of which was an EQ module, then that's a whole other ball of wax (though the "eqemu" name would *have* to go at that point, and I'd urge the devs to do that anyway, based on the FreeCraft lesson). I don't know about anyone here, but I *detest* the EQ ruleset

[Woodlife Treestrider]

In reply to WindCatcher. I know your feeling. EQEmu will forever be exactly that, an EverQuest Emulator. Untill the devs and/or operators put some serious effort into making a server truely unique, then it will be a while before we finally see something new. I, along with two other people, are trying to go further with custom content then any server has even considered. Unfortunately, with the best developers stuck onto their own server, attempting to get them all under one server would be near impossible. A big problem Kerosh, Luft, and myself are facing is that us three do not know certain aspects of our customization. For one, we are having a hard time finding a person to help us with creating custom zones. So far, I have seen that Khan is the best with modeling and zone creating. But that is one person. Expecting one person to make all of our extensively large custom zones is unfair and unfortunate.

But, back on topic. I know what your saying, and your very true. If you want to play EverQuest the way it was meant to be, than Winter's Roar is the only way to go. But, for those of us who want to see something never done before, then I urge you to make a difference.


P.S.: To anyone who read the above and wants to help out with Kerosh, Luft, and myself, then PLEASE contact one of us. We are here for the long run, and we need people skilled and who are also willing to stick around to really see this thing work. If you want more information, or would like to help in develop this server, please contact one, if not all, of us.

[iwantavr4]

I had a big thing typed up, but in the interest of this project, im going to let it die... :P

Windcatcher is onto quite a few concepts... Long story short: Legalities speaking though, this place really is *not* into the clear... Youre not modifying the ford, youre recreating it.

[Sakrateri]

Thanks to people like Wind , Khan , Cofruben, and all of the Devs on here I am in the process of replacing every zone with handmade zones from the grass to the buildings to every object in the zone. The only thing I have yet to learn is how to make my own NPCs , It is my long term goal to only be using the game engine and nothing more , I am stepping in that direction as I have three totaly unique zones and working on my fourth and largest which I am almost finished with, It will be a brand new starting zone where all classes and races will begin and the way of starting a new character itself will be unique. There still remains the problem of the EMU trying to always stay up with the big dog and I cant understand why that is, There have been a couple versions out that with time spent on them would have been pretty close to perfect if not perfected but the reasoning as to why the game of catchup eludes me. It seems most people had lost the passion for EQ about the time luclin and the mess that insued came about so why do we try so hard to keep up if no one even likes the new expansions and content? Wll I guess I am getting off track here but if we are to alienate ourselfs from being an Emu and a clone then I think we must forgo trying to stay up with Sony.

[Sarepean]

I think what the devs, the packet collectors, and the quest team are doing is perfect. Every time they go forward in order to try and keep up with Sony, we gain new features that can be added to any modified content we put in. We gain new database columns to be manipulated.

One day, this game is going to disappear and, unlike games in the past, Sony's content isn't going to go down the tube with Everquest because we'll have it. I'm one of those people who hates not being able to find things because they've been lost to aging and everything else and I get a good feeling everytime I think that, as far as Everquest content, it's only a download and a CD burn away from not being lost to time.

Custom content is great, but the Original was heaven. Keep up the good work, guys!