A reply to a private server test...Follow

I hate people who play on private servers because I align Lawful Evil. You better follow the rules or I will ******* kill you.

This whole side tangent of "people on private servers having active subscriptions" is taking attention away from the issue at hand. Blizzard says "don't ******* do it". The forum as a majority(including the official stance taken by the site itself) agrees with what Blizzard says. We also don't like people who break this rule. We don't break it and no one else should either, is our stance.

The fact that others out there are doing something that we feel is detrimental to the game upsets us. By even touching a private server, we feel you're no better than the people who play on it to avoid paying for the game itself because you're allowing yourself to be associated with them. Consorting with the enemy and all that. And as such, you will likely face the full penalty of the law of Allakhazam.com where the admins can apply it, and the full retribution of the forum posters where we see the opportunity to do so.

There are rules to this game and we have to draw the line in the sand as to where we feel the rules are breakable. We've decided that everything on this side of the line is sacrosanct. And that line is pretty far out front, we do not take violations of any of our game's rules lightly. Does this make us rabid fanbois? Probably. But this is our house. And we don't want rulebreakers in it.

Are you talking about the cursing thing? Because if not, I can't find what you're talking about.

Yeah I am -- although it seems kind of minor it shares the two aspects of not effecting your gameplay in the least and being copyright infringement.

I operate a small recording studio, that makes me a tiny insignificant part of the music/audio industry. I don't download music, movies, or software through illegal channels. The music is the product of my own hard work and the software I use are my tools. No one in the audio engineering community would give a person the time of day if they knew that they used pirated software. It's a niche market, though a VITAL one. If they few people who use these tools don't pay for them, the companies that make them shut down and the industry goes under. Best case.. I end up having to pay an extra $1000 per purchase because of piracy. I have to take the opposite viewpoint to yours. I don't look at music/video/software piracy as a minor thing to be shrugged off with "everyone does it". It's a plague of corruption that siphons money off of the cashflow of my industry.

By comparrison, running a private WoW server for testing mechanics (which would be flawed since it's not a Blizzard server) may seem victimless. Even running a live private server doesnt take $1000 out of my pocket every month. I appreciate the argument that these people are abiding by the "spirit of the law" but I reject it. If you *KNOW* that you're breaking the law, and you're not doing it to enforce a greater law, you aren't abiding by the spirit of the law. Someone imprisoned for some arbitrary crime that is made 100% legal the day after they were convicted deserves to serve their full time. When they did it, it was illegal -- they knew it -- they deserve to be punished. By contrast (and rather extreme), an American who raises a militia and fights to overthrow a corrupt/unjust/oppressive HOME/AMERICAN government (entirely hypothetical, no implications meant) IS obeying the spirit of the law as superceding all standing laws is the concept that it is the right and obligation of anyone with the means to overthrow such a government to do so. In fact, in such a case it is illegal (by the spirit of the law) NOT to do so. The whole idea of abiding by the spirit of the law hinges on not having other options without sacrificing the core fundamentals that the law was founded on.

Case at hand, a person had a choice. They chose to do what they knew was illegal, and they did not do so to uphold any core principles. They deserve to be a proverbial "leper" until they exhibit behavior that is acceptable in this community.

Edited, Aug 7th 2008 4:25am by Losie

On a semi-related note, I would like to see an in-game function that would allow for theory crafting....Sort of a combo between Dr. Boom and the dressing room. Maybe a test facility of some sort where your character could try on different outfits and work on spell rotation etc. without worrying about some boss knocking their teeth in. This would be helpful when trying to decide which upgrade is best for you.

The cursing argument is a poor argument due to the fact that there is an in-game filter to block said cursing (default setting is "on" I believe). Also, "damn" is a poor example of a curse word as it has been embraced by broadcast radio and TV.

Also:



This means whoever is reading your ticket is the one who decides whether or not you were offensive and unless it's the Pope reading it, then it is subject to human error.

I've seen good points from both sides of the fence, and to clarify my own, I do believe that private servers should remain illegal, for the reasons that there is at least the potential for people to play Blizzard's game for free, albeit a terrible version of it, and consequently stealing from Blizzard.

Losie makes an incredibly good point that the spirit of the law is meant to be invoked when it should supercede standing laws in point of morality. Using a private realm for personal testing purposes is not a situation in which breaking the law is one of the best possible courses of action to correct a wrong. Perhaps I misused the phrase to stretch it towards the idea that if you violate a law for a reason which is not why the law was implemented, it is not "actually" breaking the law, or at least it is not violating the idea that the law is protecting.

My first post on this thread didn't emphasize it enough, perhaps:
The person violated Blizzard's rule of No Setting Up Private Servers, and therefore broke the rule.
This rule should stay the way it is.
The person set up the private server for his own personal testing and for no one else.
The personal plays normal World of Warcraft regularly, does not host his private server for "playing", and does not host the server for other people to play on. (Following the music download analogy, this is akin to ripping your CD so that you have the MP3 files to play from your personal computer only, but you don't have to pull out your CD every time you want to hear the music. Or perhaps it's more like getting the MIDI of a song so that you can study and analyze the arrangement. Something like that.)

That's why I conclude that, while private servers are illegal for good reasons, the particular person in question should not have gotten the reactions that he did because he did not violate those reasons. He broke the rule, but I find that the reasons he did so as an exception to the rule. Even if you disagree with me that he is an exception to our disapproval, at the very least, the treatment he received (moreso from Wordaen than OzoneSSX (who was politely rude, talking down to him)) should be an indicator on how, as a forum, we should try to orient ourselves more towards considering each and every case of someone who violated a Blizzard rule, rather than blanket-ly accusing and assuming that every person who has touched a private server doesn't play retail WoW, aids and abets players who wish to take away from Blizzard's deserved money, and doesn't understand the extent of the impact of his actions.

Raglu, I see what you mean with the above reasoning and I agree with it - to an extent.

My main gripe is with people who host and play on private servers that act like free alternatives to the official servers, allowing people to play a craptastic version of the game for free. Those people are using Blizzard's property without giving credit where credit is due. People who also have an active account in addition to using private servers are breaking the rules just as much, but I personally don't care all that much about them, because in the end, Blizzard is getting paid.

If you have an active account and also run a private server locally (read: that no one else can enter), I really don't mind that. Test servers can be, and probably are being, used by a lot of dedicated players to optimize guides, etc. It's still as illegal as running a private server for a thousand freebies, but my personal opinion is that it's "okay."

However, this site doesn't condone the use of private servers at all, and as a part of the community here, that's what you have to accept. The guy did something you might argue is harmless - seeing as he (most likely) already has an active account - to the benefit of the community, but he did it by breaking the rules. His only mistake was to tell us.

That's how I see it, anyway.

Holy crap mazra I just noticed you have 22k posts. You didn't have nearly that much last time I frequented these boards 8 months ago.

Holy crap, that was funny. Got a real chuckle out of me.

I think that clause is as it is because Blizzard would rather not be the one having to deal with the headache of hosting the game in some countries, such as China(where I believe it's hosted by another company).