P-servers

Hello everyone, have you ever thought that a game was too hard, or just too slow, or just too expensive for a casual gamer that plays something once or twice a week? I think we all have thought about it in our “gaming” lives. Anyway, that is one of the reasons why people make private servers. A private server is a game server that is not hosted by the company that has the rights to publish it. In other words someone other then the publisher hosts a game and lets people play it.
These servers are usually emulations of the real game, now I’m not completely sure, as I have never even thought about making a “p-server”. But I have read that only emulations are legal, sometimes game server software gets leaked, and edited that is illegal in most cases. Sometimes game developers don’t really “care” about these type of things and don’t do anything even if it’s illegal and/or is against the copyright rules. If you are going to host a server of your own that is going to have data (content, a game or anything like that) make sure that you are not breaking any rules, read around, and collect as much info about the subject as you can.
A while back, a little “company” called ”Scapegaming” hosted a WoW (World of Warcraft, if you don’t already know) private server. The server was managed by someone named Alyson Reeves. The server has attracted well over 400,000 people. Then the “owners” of the server made a huge mistake, they started asking for donations in exchange for in-game items, levels, and other advantages. This business has made Reeves over 3 million US dollars. Now I don’t think that Reeves knew that earning money with something that has copyrights was illegal… “Blizzard” the official game publisher did not like the fact that someone made a large sum of money and sued “Scapegaming” (I’m sorry, but it is unclear to me if it was Reeves, or Scapegaming that was sued).
Blizzard won the lawsuit against Reeves, claiming their 3 million dollars, but it does not end here, they also claimed 85,4 million dollars in damage (there were 427,000 members, 40,000 of them were online at any time, the number of members was multiplied by 200 dollars, ((427,000x200=85.400.000)) and 64,000 in attorney's fees to Blizzard. So Reeves ended up having to pay Blizzard 88 million US dollars.
Now it is still unclear if Reeves paid Blizzard, because she did not respond to the suit, and how would she pay them 88mil dollars?

So, take that as an example, the real thing is always better then a copy. But then, why do people play on private servers? I myself don’t have a lot of time that I can spend on playing video games, so pay-to-play games are out of my lists, and I like playing games that are more casual - easy to get in, easy to get out. That’s not the only problem with casual gameplay, it takes too long to level up any character to the point where you can really enjoy a game. For others it may be game modifications, texture packs, and some other stuff that they can’t see in the official version of the game. Others like super-high exp rates, they experiment with character builds, skills, or strategies.
As the game market expands and offers us more and more great games, people think they can make things better by hosting their own version with so-called upgrades and by doing so they ruin the game. Private servers are usually fun, but there is a “dark” side to it, people overdo it with “upgrades” and “modifications” making the game they wanted to upgrade, worse. Upgrades and modifications are not the worst things that could be done, people can be an annoying part of anything that’s great, and otherwise fantastic. If you are going to host your own server, you will need people that help you keep things in order, in other words, game staff. Now you need to be were careful when choosing people that are going to watch over your game, don’t pick someone just because they are a friend, pick people by their level of skill and competence. Don’t just hire people, monitor their work quality, efficiency, and the way they act near other members. A rogue moderator can cause some havoc, lowering the overall quality of your server.
So, if you are going to host, or play on a private server, you should take a look at some things first. Like staff, game modifications, and if it is worth it.

Conclusion: private servers are great imitations , but if you are going to host one, make sure that that won’t cause any problems, do some research before you do anything, and remember, no one can beat the real thing.

Thanks for reading,
TheConArtist

Unrelated: I don’t know when I’ll be updating my blog, I’m getting glasses tomorrow, and I’ll be posting something new as soon as my eyes adjust to them. (Honestly I don’t think I can afford to lose any more eyesight.)