I have a question I would like some of you smart people to answer me. I searched over Google and seems like private server is easy to do as its a 127.0.0.1 connection.
If one has a hosting server and domain etc, how could one host a WoW server? I know of course it is against ToS and other IP infringing issues, however I do not plan to make it 'pubic' just personal to see how it can be done. I am sure there are some old WoW players in this community and since Nostalrius has been taken down, I am curious how 'hard' is it really to run a Vanilla server? Is it so 'hard' as Blizzard say it is?
Well I mean.... Yeah... But this is not the place to ask as thats illegal (technically piracy). Sorry about that 3:
Though, others do host. I can't tell you how, nor am I going to, but if you google "Private WoW Server" you'll figure it out. Also be aware that it takes significant hardware to do so as I believe the entire world runs all at once.
how is it piracy? People who modify their client to play his server are violating their client's t&c - so hosting is technically legal. How he presents his server may be copyright. Server application does not contain any copyright material - only the client contains it as the client has all the textures, models etc ~ server only servs information about location and behavior 'ai' of them etc.
Here are some links that might be of interest to you. In general it is not legal to host your own private server, because Blizzard has never actually released a server version for you to buy and not intended the game to be used for non official servers. Therefor they have always kinda "crushed" private servers with legal force, except for one in the latest times:
Its a pay to play game. Playing without paying and running a system that is not open source or available to the public AT ALL is priacy and blizzard has made that clear.
now again people are dressing things up to what they aren't. Hosting a server side on its own is not a crime. Server code used in private servers is written entirely on open source with GPL license. Nostralrius was using website that resembled/looked exactly the same as blizzards wow site. This was mean drive reason for legal battle. People who violate the copyright are the players who connect to their server - not the other way. People should really easy off on using piracy for everything, the copyright holders don't like.
The legal case didn't end in one or the other side winning or loosing. Both sides came into agreement where owners of that certain private server will shut down their server - we don't know any details of this. But they've provided their whole distro with anonymized player data so that anyone can re-create it. I strongly believe Blizzard agreed to creation of legacy server/s. In legal point of view server side creators (programmers), and hosters didn't violate any copyrights by hosting that application as not even a single line of code was taken from their server side software, and server itself does not contain any copyrighted material. Few other companies like 'Cipsoft' from Tibia made a legal battle against 'OTS' private tibia server and lost - due to this very reason. I'm sure Blizzard knew that there is already precedence to them loosing, thats why they made agreement - and save their face. No one should call it piracy - unless they were profiting from the server - in a way of cash shops etc. -- then yes so it was piracy. *(from legal standpoint it would be still gray matter, but as computer enthusiast i'd say it would be immortal thing to do - and we should be better than that.)
there were some other battles from EA, on Ultima online private servers... it ended the same way - EA lost. As server code was not stolen from them, and was written on open-source community with GPL license.
The person guilty of copyright violating is the player as they are modifying the clients code with ip-changer, and or other things to connect to that private server. (EA used to ban players whom they found out were also playing so called 'freeshards' aka. private servers)
It's so hard that you have to simply download that game, emulator, and database. For that website I dont know whats the difficulty curve, but for experiment purposes you can toy with it just by yourself.
How well it works though depends from emulator & database combo, and these private servers usually claim that everything is their own doing, but havent ever seen more than handful of tiny tweaks here and there.
I'd say that it only becomes difficult when you have to start fighting cheat engine hackers, or have to step up your game to get it perfect.
Just to chime in here as a long time WoW player, running a "private" server in and of itself is not Piracy, hosting a "private" server anywhere that can be accessed by other players is Piracy. So hosting a server that just you can play on in a sense isn't piracy, but also has no point whatsoever. Running it for your own use is still a somewhat "grey" area.
The "piracy" comes into it as the actual IP (Intellectual Property) is owned and copyrighted by Blizzard. So running a "pure" World of Warcraft server is pretty much illegal (as others have stated). Trying to get around the IP argument doesn't work, the GPL is actually designed to protect IP and keep everything open by forcing changes to be shared and made public. Also the GPL has safeguards against all kinds of EULA (End User Licence Agreements) which have to be accepted when you log into wow on any server. Blizzards EULA is NOT GPL compatible, neither is its artwork, game assets, trademarked logos or any of the underlying engine needed to run WoW servers.
If you're setting up a "private" server that is only local and for "testing" I guess you could argue that in a court. If its hosted for players on the internet then you're breaking the law as Blizzards server side components for WoW are not Public or GPL (just because they can run ontop of Open Source doesn't mean its legal).
As a kind of example imagine Valves Steam being copied (name and trademarks) ripping out say the workshop and store components leaving it just like the original Steam. Then being hosted as a "Pure" version of Steam they would have Valve ripping them a new one within days. Not just because of the underlying tech but also because of using the name.
Nostalrius team did an amazing job, even managing to fix bugs within Blizzs original coding (look at the pathing issues they fixed).
Neither of those are included in private server. All of those are sitting in the game client.
the break point happens when client does the ip-change by modifying the client, and thats completely irrelevant in server application that has nothing to do, and does not contain any of copyrighted material. The server application used to host wow private servers is completely unrelated with blizzard, was not written by blizzard and was written by private people. Not a single line of code from blizzard servers resides on private wow servers.