Codie (CodeBastard Redgrave) and Gabby [Panacek], visualized in World of Warcraft!

The supergirls have taken over yet another metaverse!

Done with ArcEmu, a free, open source World of Warcraft private server. Avatar seen to the right is me, testing and building my Elementalist custom class.

(C) 2007, All Rights Reserved to Blizzard Entertainment. (Graphics)
(C) 2008, All Rights Reserved to Smiley Barry. (Work)
(C) 2006(?), All Rights Reserved to CodeBastard "Codie" Redgrave and Gabby Panacek. (Names and identities.)

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Comments

~Kitty says:

To note, the emulator is both illegal and unstable.
Posted 6 months ago. ( permalink )

Smiley Barry says:

To note, it's only used for a personal experiment. Also, Illegal how? It's open source code not stolen from Blizzard's server. :-P
Posted 6 months ago. ( permalink )

~Kitty says:

Read the EULA and Terms of Use agreement. You are not allowed to develop code that bypasses blizzard's protections on its intellectual property. Being open source does not preclude it from violating the contract.

It's illegal, just like playstation emulators are illegal. No one pursues emulators because the people that write them couldn't possibly afford to pay for the damage to both blizzard's name/reputation and loss of profits, as many people do take their opinions of a platform from an emulator experience and blizzard loses funds on their investment.

I worked on the development of Ultima Online shards. Just because we wrote the server side code, doesn't mean it wasn't illegal. The biggest difference between us and them is we only utilized the client in minimal fashion, we redid every sprite and every texture. They use the full client, they use all of blizzard's textures and content. That is a direct violation of the blizzard EULA.

You can call a mule a horse, it's still a mule. This is still theft.
Posted 6 months ago. ( permalink )

Smiley Barry says:

"They" did not steal the client. No one has. I guess you really have no idea how the World of Warcraft framework is - the client does about 85% of the job managing the game, contains the materials for every single thing (you can't add even a texture by just patching the server. You need to write a Blizzard archive and attach it to the client) and barely has anything to do with the server. The only thing the server does is tell it what and who the player has around him, the damage he did, what he has and his character data. That's it.

The client, however, calculates the physics, dictates the server where it is (which is the reason why there are so many speedhack, flyhack and "positonhack" applications), chooses what to do and asks the server if that's ok. The server is a mere router + firewall, it connects the players together and keeps the illegal actions out according to permissions. That's it.

Again, to emphasize how they have only violated that "do not connect or make emulators" rule, custom textures, models, animations and just about everything that is not created by Blizzard has to be hacked in locally to work. And even then, it is not certain this will work. I tried to add a little campfire island to Booty Bay and WoW crashed just as I entered the Booty Bay area trigger. If you're wondering about the above two NPCs and me, those are all using the stock textures and models, legally. (They could be illegal if the user has stolen the client. But since I did not steal the client, they are perfectly legal on my end.)

P.S.: In the case you represent, OpenSim is illegal as well as it emulates a Second Life server packet-by-packet. Hurray.
Posted 6 months ago. ( permalink )

~Kitty says:

I did not suggest anyone stole the client. You obviously didn't read what I wrote, or the EULA. I recommend you do. Everything you wrote is irrelevant to the topic of legality in this situation.

You obviously have no clue how any client server game runs. Second Life is the only game that serves nearly all its content. UO had a distributed client, and as you yourself said, in order to add content to wow, you have to further violate the EULA and TOS by replacing in game textures and content. If you'll note, wowme, patchzer and all the other texture packs are also illegal.

The method in which you connect using the client violates the EULA and terms of agreement, and the server itself was developed against the existing client, unless you care to suggest it was created using guesswork and fairydust. You can get down to all the sematics you want to, but it does not change the fact they are violating Blizzard's right to their intellectual property by stealing business from a subscription service, using an application developed against their own working client. This is a point you yourself made, as that is how you are running it.

Open Sim is not illegal because it's officially approved by the Linden Labs open source project.

I'd suggest getting over yourself.
Posted 6 months ago. ( permalink )

Smiley Barry says:

Well, I don't think Blizzard would mind I'm using an emulator. No one but me logs into it and it's not even public. :-P

Also, to justify my actions of playing regularly on a private server (WoWscape, not this one. 3-5k players online concurrently), I really have no will to pay $15 per month and even further, get the crappiest drop rate to ever hit MMORPGs or even just RPGs. But it's more to the point of $15 a month. Second Life is $6-10. There used to be $10. (Now it's $10 one-time) If it were just $10 I could let the drop rate slide and move on to retail, but honestly, I can't afford $15 a month right now. Which is actually the main reason I insist to play on private servers. (Ironically, the one I play on only has a boosted drop rate and nothing custom and says it is "a holding tank for those who cannot afford retail due to a bad financial status", yet it is the most successful in terms of numbers and loyalty.)
Posted 6 months ago. ( permalink )

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Codie (CodeBastard Redgrave) and Gabby [Panacek], visualized in World of Warcraft!

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~Kitty says:

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~Kitty says:

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