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Something to consider about SWGEMU
kaibigan34
Member Posts: 1,508
I know everyone excited about the new video from SWGEMU. I am as well but a few things to consider here.
1. We dont know how long this is going to take. Yes they have managed to emulate a server but still this is a small step. It may take months and even years to finish it.
2. It could be fake. I am not saying it is so please dont start flaming me. I think its genuine too. But dont forget there were once videos and screenies taken by people who figured out how to load into SWG without going to a server.
3. If it does succeed there is still going to be the issue of who will be allowed to play and who wont. Again not saying these guys arent stand up people but I have seen people take something and turn it into an elitest situation completely by accident. This causes alot more problems then you think.
4. SOE is in fact scared. There is no way to deny it. What do people do when they are scared? They are unpredictable. Corporations are the same. Eventhough they dont have a leg to stand on in court, since they pretty much gave the EMU team permission, they can still hold it up in courts for years before ever even speaking to a judge. Getting a cease and desist order until the outcome of the case isnt that hard to do.
What I am trying to say here gang is lets not get our hopes up too high. It is great news but always remember "There is many a slip between a cup and a lip.".
Kai
1. We dont know how long this is going to take. Yes they have managed to emulate a server but still this is a small step. It may take months and even years to finish it.
2. It could be fake. I am not saying it is so please dont start flaming me. I think its genuine too. But dont forget there were once videos and screenies taken by people who figured out how to load into SWG without going to a server.
3. If it does succeed there is still going to be the issue of who will be allowed to play and who wont. Again not saying these guys arent stand up people but I have seen people take something and turn it into an elitest situation completely by accident. This causes alot more problems then you think.
4. SOE is in fact scared. There is no way to deny it. What do people do when they are scared? They are unpredictable. Corporations are the same. Eventhough they dont have a leg to stand on in court, since they pretty much gave the EMU team permission, they can still hold it up in courts for years before ever even speaking to a judge. Getting a cease and desist order until the outcome of the case isnt that hard to do.
What I am trying to say here gang is lets not get our hopes up too high. It is great news but always remember "There is many a slip between a cup and a lip.".
Kai
Comments
I'd estimate we will have something playable by fall/winter.
SOE can't stop it. Once the code is out there, it's out there.
What they need to do is set up classic servers and they need to do it NOW.
The logical thing for SOE to do is to create classic servers now. It would gain a community and help to stem the flow of blood. But you have to ask yourself, when has SOE ever done anything that was logical?
Kai
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
I've said this before and I'll say it again. This isn't a typical "it's just an MMORPG" it's tied to an internationallyl recognized IP and License. If they stand this up it isn't going to be SOE who gets them shut down. It'll be LEC. And if you honestly think any country in the world is going to fail to recognize a MOVIE lP License from a name as big as LucasArts you need to seek help, fast.
They may get it working. But IF they do... and IF they can find someone with enough money to host an SWG cluster (remember 1 cluster handles about oh... 5k users... max) they will still have to deal with the IP rights they're infringing on. Unless they take EVERY reference to Star Wars or any of the main characters out of the game. LEC has shut down tons of non-profit fan sites for posting images or any other kind of content that violates their IP.... this won't be any different.
There's a reason why there are no EQ EMU servers out there even though there's a fully functional EMU for it: they get shut down almost as fast as they come online (well ok there's 1 right now but it's gonna get shut down soon too). They can't do anything about the development of SWGEMU because, right now, it's not violating their IP. The second they start up a server and attempt to host players on it LEC will come down on them like the hammers of hell.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
The arguement against this is easy: You already bought the game, so there is NO theft. And it will win.
ALL of the Art is on your machine, not on the Server, and the names & referances are not protected if they are not sold, or used to generate profit, that's established precident.
LEC/SOE have no case, quite literally, unless someone related to the EMU starts giving away SWG for people to play the EMU, and that would be just stupid.
EDIT: Oh, and I agree, they will sue. That's their REAL power... to finacially punish anyone who starts a server...
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
Theres a part of me that hates to say this but
What was posted above may arguably be true, for me what I really hope/think will happen is the EMU forced LEC/SOE to put up a pre-NGE server due to the fact that there is more interest in the EMU than the real version!
As much as I find the prospect of playing non-NGE SWG appealing (and I dont mind running my own server) half of what was great about SWG was the community - thats just something you dont get on a private server and I think that once people get over the 'OMG! WE'RE PLAYING PRE-CU SWG AGAIN!' factor interest in the EMU will wane because while it may be non-NGE it will lack the community.
This is before you consider increased xp rates and GM powers that remove all of the achievment from the game (although as a former DE achievment is an understatement!)
Remember the MPAA and DeCSS (the reversing of the DVD digitial restrictions management)? Despite the fact the MPAA got it stopped in court, it's still out there and easy to obtain.
And it is needed to watch DvD's on my Linux box.
Because they are going to lose 50k subs to emu? Let's get serious for a bit. Most of discussions on IRC yesterday revolved about how people got Jedi in CU, how they played in CU or how they started with NGE, and want to know what buff is.
Wow has emu servers. They host perhaps 10k population total, if that. Most of them are hacked 10x xp, no-grind or other modified servers.
Security. With SOE you know that server will tommorow still be there. Look at how the loudest foulmouths got upset when servers went down for maintainance. Emus usually have 2-12 hours daily downtime on average (there are emu stat sites).
How many people will be willing to "grind" Jedi again (6 months minimum, 2+ hours daily playtime), on a server that can go poof at any moment.
Will the server really provide ALL of the content, or will they say (like in recent statement: pre-cu is about pvp) that combat is all there is, and crafting takes secondary role? How long did it take for economy to bootstrap on live servers, with planned resource management. On just about any server you'll see 1000 stats resources poping up really soon, if they'll be used at all, and won't just resort to considerably simpler system of loot drops.
Scalability. It's easy to laugh at SOE, and their "incompetence" at performance. After all, they only have dozens of pieces of dedicated high-performance hardware for each planet in each galaxy, but they also have unlimited bandwidth. Average bandwidth you need to ensure per user is around 2k (mind you, average reserved). That's a lot, and even with 100 concurrent way beyond what cable and usual home connections can provide. Not to mention that end-user connections are much too flaky for any semi-consistent traffic.
Reliability. It takes standard UDP spoofing techniques to take down a server, simply by performing a very basic DoS attack, that will exhaust servers resources in a matter of minutes. SOE has administrative teams and backup lines to prevent that. What is to prevent someone from spamming packets at emu?
Server allows by definition violation of copyright. Precedent was set by Vivendi in case of Diablo 2 emulator. That alone is enough to use the wonders of DMCA to win in court.
SOE cannot be held accountable for the changes made, hence it's not even close to an argument in court. Various questionable tactics, such as TooW release are unrelated here, since they don't negate the government imposed copyrights.
LEC. Enough said. More legal firepower than most countries have military firepower.
The only reason nothing is done about certain emus, is because they aren't causing any harm. There is simply no other reason of any kind, but going against 500 user server is not worth the costs of filing the case in court. And those that bring up the 500 x $15 math are severly deluded about what really matters (sorry).
If SOE loses 10k subs over an emulator (loses, not just has people playing both, including owning a station pass account) they won't cry. A bit. For a second. It will hardly if at all show up in monthly turnaround.
Once the server launches, people will realize what it means to actually code and run a server, rather than just make a movie in it. What it means to provide 23/6 (not 24/7) service for a period of one year.
Servers will be populated up to 50% with freebies, who never played SWG in any kind, nor do they care. It's a free MMO.
Power corrupts. Oh, how power corrupts. Wait till you see the GMs of emus.
Number of exploits in public servers will be laughable, with no administrative means to detect most of them. All associated forums will be flooded with screams about who's exploiting what. If you think SWG boards are bad, wait till you meet the emulator community.
Emulators are a hobby. Or at least they should be, those seeking fame in them will be sorely disapointed. I've looked at some popular emulator sources. I wasn't impressed. They are hackjobs, and nothing more. Providing the least possible to make things run, but completely failing to address any kind of serious issues.
SOE has nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. Just like other companies have nothing to worry about regarding emulators. Why? It's not the server that makes an MMO.
SWG will be here for as long as necessary. Most likely for about over a year. In that time, a successor for online SW license will be made. Then a 5 year old game simply won't matter anymore.
Next generation of operating systems will provide support for hardware enforced DRM. Linux will be a target for that as well, and on many ocasions Linus himself aknowledged the need for such mechanisms.
A dvd costs less than $0.5 per unit to produce and distribute. How much do you pay for it?
Because they are going to lose 50k subs to emu? Let's get serious for a bit. Most of discussions on IRC yesterday revolved about how people got Jedi in CU, how they played in CU or how they started with NGE, and want to know what buff is.
Wow has emu servers. They host perhaps 10k population total, if that. Most of them are hacked 10x xp, no-grind or other modified servers.
Security. With SOE you know that server will tommorow still be there. Look at how the loudest foulmouths got upset when servers went down for maintainance. Emus usually have 2-12 hours daily downtime on average (there are emu stat sites).
How many people will be willing to "grind" Jedi again (6 months minimum, 2+ hours daily playtime), on a server that can go poof at any moment.
Will the server really provide ALL of the content, or will they say (like in recent statement: pre-cu is about pvp) that combat is all there is, and crafting takes secondary role? How long did it take for economy to bootstrap on live servers, with planned resource management. On just about any server you'll see 1000 stats resources poping up really soon, if they'll be used at all, and won't just resort to considerably simpler system of loot drops.
Scalability. It's easy to laugh at SOE, and their "incompetence" at performance. After all, they only have dozens of pieces of dedicated high-performance hardware for each planet in each galaxy, but they also have unlimited bandwidth. Average bandwidth you need to ensure per user is around 2k (mind you, average reserved). That's a lot, and even with 100 concurrent way beyond what cable and usual home connections can provide. Not to mention that end-user connections are much too flaky for any semi-consistent traffic.
Reliability. It takes standard UDP spoofing techniques to take down a server, simply by performing a very basic DoS attack, that will exhaust servers resources in a matter of minutes. SOE has administrative teams and backup lines to prevent that. What is to prevent someone from spamming packets at emu?
Server allows by definition violation of copyright. Precedent was set by Vivendi in case of Diablo 2 emulator. That alone is enough to use the wonders of DMCA to win in court.
SOE cannot be held accountable for the changes made, hence it's not even close to an argument in court. Various questionable tactics, such as TooW release are unrelated here, since they don't negate the government imposed copyrights.
LEC. Enough said. More legal firepower than most countries have military firepower.
The only reason nothing is done about certain emus, is because they aren't causing any harm. There is simply no other reason of any kind, but going against 500 user server is not worth the costs of filing the case in court. And those that bring up the 500 x $15 math are severly deluded about what really matters (sorry).
If SOE loses 10k subs over an emulator (loses, not just has people playing both, including owning a station pass account) they won't cry. A bit. For a second. It will hardly if at all show up in monthly turnaround.
Once the server launches, people will realize what it means to actually code and run a server, rather than just make a movie in it. What it means to provide 23/6 (not 24/7) service for a period of one year.
Servers will be populated up to 50% with freebies, who never played SWG in any kind, nor do they care. It's a free MMO.
Power corrupts. Oh, how power corrupts. Wait till you see the GMs of emus.
Number of exploits in public servers will be laughable, with no administrative means to detect most of them. All associated forums will be flooded with screams about who's exploiting what. If you think SWG boards are bad, wait till you meet the emulator community.
Emulators are a hobby. Or at least they should be, those seeking fame in them will be sorely disapointed. I've looked at some popular emulator sources. I wasn't impressed. They are hackjobs, and nothing more. Providing the least possible to make things run, but completely failing to address any kind of serious issues.
SOE has nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. Just like other companies have nothing to worry about regarding emulators. Why? It's not the server that makes an MMO.
SWG will be here for as long as necessary. Most likely for about over a year. In that time, a successor for online SW license will be made. Then a 5 year old game simply won't matter anymore.
Kinda like SOE, huh?
Open source is software that was written specifically to be shared with the world for free. I do not think SOE or LA ever made that software as OS.
Honestly I do not think I would trust an EMU server. Who ever runs it will have all the power to do what ever they want. Imagine playing on that server for a year and pissing off a friend of the server OP. The next time you log in everything you own is gone and your character is back to noob status.
Not to mention I doubt who ever is gonna run one of these will have the means to be able to defend themselves in a very prolonged court battle. Lawyers are very expensive. Even if they are right LA and SOE will make it very difficult and extremly expensive to do this, just watch.
Besides what else do you think they do with all their money? Improve their games? LOL
btw here is a link to the official OS website: http://www.opensource.org You will notice it doesn't mention SWG at all in there lol. Yea SWG server and client code is NOT open source.
Kinda like SOE, huh?
Also, kinda like what SOE did when they released the NGE - LOL
Kinda like SOE, huh?
Also, kinda like what SOE did when they released the NGE - LOL
LOL, you are 100% right
/salute
SWG is running for 3 years now, providing consistent gameplay to 100k+ players.
If there's an emu provider that can match their level of competence, they will have achieved something. But looking at big picture: Just because you made a homepage about ninjas, doesn't mean yahoo is trembling. It's not about knowing HTML. As a matter of fact, providing a service has absolutely nothing to do with code.
Ask yourself this. With all the in-game bugs, which are numerous, how come their servers hardly ever crash. After all, you can encounter a bug in a matter of seconds in game. How come their servers don't crash that frequently?
SWG is running for 3 years now, providing consistent gameplay to 100k+ players.
If there's an emu provider that can match their level of competence, they will have achieved something. But looking at big picture: Just because you made a homepage about ninjas, doesn't mean yahoo is trembling. It's not about knowing HTML. As a matter of fact, providing a service has absolutely nothing to do with code.
Ask yourself this. With all the in-game bugs, which are numerous, how come their servers hardly ever crash. After all, you can encounter a bug in a matter of seconds in game. How come their servers don't crash that frequently?
Providing consistent gameplay? The NGE is a completely different game from pre cu, even cu
Level of competence? SOE? lol do I need to say more?
SOE has not provided consistent gameplay and their level of competence is in serious doubt by many many ppl. Not just Online Gamers but as far as Stock Holders as well.
And just to touch up on this. If they would of provided consistent gameplay and showed a high level of competence.........none of us would be on this topic at all.
SWG is running for 3 years now, providing consistent gameplay to 100k+ players.
If there's an emu provider that can match their level of competence, they will have achieved something. But looking at big picture: Just because you made a homepage about ninjas, doesn't mean yahoo is trembling. It's not about knowing HTML. As a matter of fact, providing a service has absolutely nothing to do with code.
Ask yourself this. With all the in-game bugs, which are numerous, how come their servers hardly ever crash. After all, you can encounter a bug in a matter of seconds in game. How come their servers don't crash that frequently?
This is one of the funniest things I have read in a while
SOE's effort to increase numbers since pre-cu has been one of the most god-awful clusterf***s in the history of customer service.
SOE need to do the following.
1.Apologise
2.Release pre-cu with a statement guaranteeing no major changes for a minimum of 2 years
Providing consistent gameplay? The NGE is a completely different game from pre cu, even cu
Level of competence? SOE? lol do I need to say more?
SOE has not provided consistent gameplay and their level of competence is in serious doubt by many many ppl. Not just Online Gamers but as far as Stock Holders as well.
No? You can login and play all game aspects. You could for past 3 years. Whether you like the game or not is your own personal bias.
What do you consider consistent then?
What do you consider competent?
How will emu project be better than SOE?
Providing consistent gameplay? The NGE is a completely different game from pre cu, even cu
Level of competence? SOE? lol do I need to say more?
SOE has not provided consistent gameplay and their level of competence is in serious doubt by many many ppl. Not just Online Gamers but as far as Stock Holders as well.
No? You can login and play all game aspects. You could for past 3 years. Whether you like the game or not is your own personal bias.
What do you consider consistent then?
What do you consider competent?
How will emu project be better than SOE?
Seriously, you must be smokn crack.
Play all game aspects? You mean like the 32 different proffesions?
It is NOT personal bias. IT IS FACT. Everyone knows it wether you are pro or anti NGE.
The only thing I'd say about any potential IP violation (and IANAL) is that the IP is in the client, not the server. I would assume as long as the EMU project does not make a client available for download (nor should they need to because we already have it) no IP violation is in effect.
SWG is running for 3 years now, providing consistent gameplay to 100k+ players.
If there's an emu provider that can match their level of competence, they will have achieved something. But looking at big picture: Just because you made a homepage about ninjas, doesn't mean yahoo is trembling. It's not about knowing HTML. As a matter of fact, providing a service has absolutely nothing to do with code.
Ask yourself this. With all the in-game bugs, which are numerous, how come their servers hardly ever crash. After all, you can encounter a bug in a matter of seconds in game. How come their servers don't crash that frequently?
You lost the argument when you said 100K plus players. Nowhere near that now... They might be able to claim that with the station pass and free trials, but they are nowhere near 100K active paying subs. More like 60-70K at most.
Wrong. All coding is IP. Client and server. You are not talking basic common (and common use) mathe principles like making a solitaire game here, rather you are talking about making coding that is bypassing security confirmations and such for a copyrighted client. IE the EMU server is fraudulently telling the client it is an official server. The legal violations go much further, but as soon as the client is able to log in the EMU server is violating copyright while comitting fraud.
It is the same as any other number that has been thrown out, there is no proof. It is the same as most other information that is thrown out, it is all biased based on lies, gossip aimed at SWG and or SOE. How many subscriptions there are? There could easily be well over 100,000 subscriptions but there is no proof to back that up, just like there is no proof to prove that there is less then 100,000.
Damn byotch dat aint no friggn moon fool, dat be a friggn space station byotch.
I agree, I dont think SOE is scared. An emu wont sink the NGE simply because most of the anti-NGE crowd are already gone.
However I find it rather embarassing for SOE. Basically a whole bunch of their customers said, 'Your product sucks so much, we're just gonna go do it ourselves.' What other MMO company can lay claim to this infamy? Even if the emu exploded tomorrow I find it incredible its actually come to this, haha. And with such widespread support too (for an emu). And if the emu actually makes it, I cant wait to see the PA cartoons on it.
As a side note, I think the SWG emu will attract a different sort of emu crowd. I agree with you, most emu community suck hard. But thats cause they're usually kids who want to play for free, or want 10X exp rates to get all the phat lewt etc. SWG emu players, will play this game becaus they want their beloved pre-CU Star Wars back. So I'm pretty sure the SWG emu won't see exactly the same crowd you get playing say Ragnarok free servers.
I don''t really know when Humankind will die out but i''m guessing about 6 years before WOW.
-BarCrow