Hero Online - Private Server ?

1 = (Server files) the movie itself
2 = (Client files) the ticket you buy that tells you where the movie is being shown and lets you in.

From now on I will say "server files" or "client files" try and imagine it in terms of the movie and the ticket above.

When you buy an online game, you are just buying the Client files (the "ticket") that shows your computer where to go and lets you in. You don't actually have the full game itself on your computer. The server files (like the movie) is stored somewhere else and never given to the public.

Just the same as how when you go to the cinema they don't give you a DVD with the movie on it, they just give you a ticket so you can go watch the movie.

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How do private gaming servers work?

How a private server works is that someone gets their hands on a copy of the server files, the part that is usually hidden away and not given to people. It's a bit like downloading a movie then inviting people to come to your house instead of going to the cinema.

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-- How do they connect everyone together?

What they do is they tell people to adjust their Client files so that it redirects them. Basically you edit something on your game so that you can change where the game sends you to connect. So when you run the game, your computer redirects you to their server files instead of the official ones.

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-- Why can they be used to play alone lag free?

Like I said before there are two parts, the actual game (server files), and the part you use to connect to the actual game (client files).

If you are running both of those on your own computer, then your computer is just talking to itself and not connecting over the internet (like a single player game). Which means no lag.

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-- and What are some example private servers?

There are private servers for lots of games, Ultima Online, wow, Everquest, Lineage etc etc.

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How are private gaming servers made?

Someone steals the files that are supposed to be kept hidden away, then they give them out over the internet.

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-- How do people get the origin game's source code?

They don't need the games source code, they just need the server files. I don't know how they get them.. sometimes a guy who works for the company copies them and puts them on the internet. Sometimes people hack into the game servers and steal the server files.

(You don't need a copy of a movie script in order to watch it, you just need the movie itself)

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-- What tools do they use?

This depends on the game but you don't need much, You don't have to edit the server files so you just install them and run them. The only thing you really need to do is open up the client files so that you can edit it and tell it to redirect you somewhere else to connect.

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-- Are there private gaming servers for most games, or just popular ones?

Hard to say, more people try and steal the server files of popular games, so they are more common but private servers have nothing to do with how popular a game is. It just depends on if people have gotten a copy of the server files.