Green server and "operating under legal permission"

[BlackBellamy]

Originally Posted by pheerie [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Good point. I think I will skip Green. Best of luck to you all, and I hope Epstein doesn't shut you down.

What can we, as Concerned Players of Everquest, do to help you change your mind? Do you think we should reach out to Epstein? Try to get a new agreement, one that's actually worth something, not the tissue-paper one in place now? Let's brainstorm! Why don't you have your attorney send my attorney (DM me for email) a template contract that you're comfortable with? I'll forward what you sent to Chortles, our best legal authority and former Superior Court judge. We must have a dozen lawyers here just playing, so we'll get together and hammer something out.


(Listen, I apologize for that Rogean guy. He doesn't know what he's doing, we all just humor him, don't take him seriously).

[Jibartik]

I am starting a go fund me to get Pherire back.

[NegaStoat]

I used to be a support GM / Trinity Core dev for a WoW private server called Bloodcraft, which was the last private server of its kind hosted within the United States. It operated from early 2009 and finally closed its doors early 2013 to be adopted by a different project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXBxsFj_cqk

The project was able to be run legally by adhering very sharply to American consumer protection laws in a very similar manner that the old Shards of Dalaya EQ private server operated under. The key items that were required for this to work at all were as follows.

1) The original packaged software was sold as a product, and not as a lease use agreement. Blizzard adopted its terms of use as a lease use rather than a sale of a product later into its expansion stages, but the original 2004 release was as a product, so their attempt to close the barn door on that was foiled from consumer law's point of view.

2) The server side core had to be hand written and be substantially different from the original server code that Blizzard developed. Both Mang0s and its Trinity Core fork (which is what we were using and developing) solved that issue neatly. The reason for this stems back to consumer protection law that upheld the right of a customer to be free to use their purchased product in any manner they wished on any hardware they wished when it comes to audio, video, or computer media. This traces back to the music and video industries at one time trying to force a consumer to use special proprietary players for what a person purchased, which was shot down early on.

3) The persons playing on a private server had to provide their own legally purchased copy of the game client software. A fun fact about this one - When Blizzard successfully won a lawsuit in 2010 against the Scapegaming private server project, the court affirmed that if a player had at one time been paying an online subscription for the game in question and could prove they had done so from bank records, that was sufficient to show they had ownership of the product at some point in time. So for all of you folks obtaining a game client from digital means that had actually owned the game at one time - stop stressing over doing so.

4) The game host project could not provide a means to obtain the game client software. This one could be fought in court but it's just so much easier to avoid the point entirely.

5) No money can EVER change hands involving the running of the private server for profit. Honestly, it's a LOT easier to simply not accept money at all even as a donation or a gift 'without goods or services implied, received, or accepted' because the game company in question has a pair of methods still available to them to hinder or shut down a legally run private server. Note that these two methods largely hinge on where the private server hardware or staff members reside globally - and it's why current private servers are run outside of EU / NA trade law agreements.

A) The company can lean on the internet service provider company that is hosting the server hardware and have them drop the person(s) running the private server project as a customer. We had this happen twice until one of our players who happened to own his own ISP company offered us a home.

B) The company can launch financial investigations into any and all persons that are a part of the project staff to determine if there's covert profit being made with the private server being the source. The number of times they can do this a year as well as how thorough they make the investigations can ride a fine line into the area of harassment, but it's hard to prove that later point and it's just an obscene headache. I was investigated several times while I was a part of the project.

As a side note, third party companies or persons are not to be allowed to make a profit from digital goods or services associated with the private server project and this one can become especially hairy. Let's pretend that you are a fan gaming website that offers tips, tricks, and guides for playing the game in question and you run advertisements on your website and might offer the sale of clothing, mugs, or other items either real or digital. Now let's pretend that some of the guides or tips are demonstrated on the private server in question within their website, and even worse, some of the players of the private server talk about the website on project forums as an unintended means of advertisement for the site. The door has just been opened for the whole thing to be shut down.

Rogean would have been shut down LONG ago unless he had legal counsel assist him with a deal and I'm absolutely certain that whatever arrangement he made would cover issues that could crop up in the future, from either the project or the holder of the IP. So when it comes to the longevity of this server, I would place the agreement being made and its ability to hold up against the test of time to be dead last against the other factors that could eventually draw P1999 to a close.

[Deathrydar]

Originally Posted by NegaStoat [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I used to be a support GM / Trinity Core dev for a WoW private server called Bloodcraft, which was the last private server of its kind hosted within the United States. It operated from early 2008 and finally closed its doors early 2013 to be adopted by a different project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXBxsFj_cqk

The project was able to be run legally by adhering very sharply to American consumer protection laws in a very similar manner that the old Shards of Dalaya EQ private server operated under. The key items that were required for this to work at all were as follows.

1) The original packaged software was sold as a product, and not as a lease use agreement. Blizzard adopted its terms of use as a lease use rather than a sale of a product later into its expansion stages, but the original 2004 release was as a product, so their attempt to close the barn door on that was foiled from consumer law's point of view.

2) The server side core had to be hand written and be substantially different from the original server code that Blizzard developed. Both Mang0s and its Trinity Core fork (which is what we were using and developing) solved that issue neatly. The reason for this stems back to consumer protection law that upheld the right of a customer to be free to use their purchased product in any manner they wished on any hardware they wished when it comes to audio, video, or computer media. This traces back to the music and video industries at one time trying to force a consumer to use special proprietary players for what a person purchased, which was shot down early on.

3) The persons playing on a private server had to provide their own legally purchased copy of the game client software. A fun fact about this one - When Blizzard successfully won a lawsuit in 2010 against the Scapegaming private server project, the court affirmed that if a player had at one time been paying an online subscription for the game in question and could prove they had done so from bank records, that was sufficient to show they had ownership of the product at some point in time. So for all of you folks obtaining a game client from digital means that had actually owned the game at one time - stop stressing over doing so.

4) The game host project could not provide a means to obtain the game client software. This one could be fought in court but it's just so much easier to avoid the point entirely.

5) No money can EVER change hands involving the running of the private server for profit. Honestly, it's a LOT easier to simply not accept money at all even as a donation or a gift 'without goods or services implied, received, or accepted' because the game company in question has a pair of methods still available to them to hinder or shut down a legally run private server.

A) The company can lean on the internet service provider company that is hosting the server hardware and have them drop the person(s) running the private server project as a customer. We had this happen twice until one of our players who happened to own his own ISP company offered us a home.

B) The company can launch financial investigations into any and all persons that are a part of the project staff to determine if there's covert profit being made with the private server being the source. The number of times they can do this a year as well as how thorough they make the investigations can ride a fine line into the area of harassment, but it's hard to prove that later point and it's just an obscene headache. I was investigated several times while I was a part of the project.

As a side note, third party companies or persons are not to be allowed to make a profit from digital goods or services associated with the private server project and this one can become especially hairy. Let's pretend that you are a fan gaming website that offers tips, tricks, and guides for playing the game in question and you run advertisements on your website and might offer the sale of clothing, mugs, or other items either real or digital. Now let's pretend that some of the guides or tips are demonstrated on the private server in question within their website, and even worse, some of the players of the private server talk about the website on project forums as an unintended means of advertisement for the site. The door has just been opened for the whole thing to be shut down.

Rogean would have been shut down LONG ago unless he had legal counsel assist him with a deal and I'm absolutely certain that whatever arrangement he made would cover issues that could crop up in the future, from either the project or the holder of the IP. So when it comes to the longevity of this server, I would place the agreement being made and its ability to hold up against the test of time to be dead last against the other factors that could eventually draw P1999 to a close.

Can I get a TL;DR please?

[NegaStoat]

Originally Posted by Deathrydar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Can I get a TL;DR please?

Not really. There's far too many people who think every private server for every game in existence are 'illegal' when it's simply not the case. The text I wrote came from personal experience and research from what I was a part of at the time.

[Videri]

Originally Posted by Deathrydar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Can I get a TL;DR please?

The TL;DR is the last paragraph.

[Indicas]

Originally Posted by pheerie [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Good point. I think I will skip Green. Best of luck to you all, and I hope Epstein doesn't shut you down.

thanks for leaving

[Indicas]

Originally Posted by Indicas [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

thanks for leaving

thanks for leaving, now he's going to go write a rant to Epstein to show all of us what a winner he is.

[Madbad]

just ducking my head in with a:

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Veeshan31]

Originally Posted by zaneosak [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I found this post way funnier than I should have. Like spit out my coffee at my desk funny.

Same here! I thought it was just me.