[BLOG] Nostalrius Asks Elysium To Stop Using Their Source Code

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PredictedCyborg
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[BLOG] Nostalrius Asks Elysium To Stop Using Their Source Code

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Nostalrius have been in the news quite a bit in the last few months, if you follow what goes on in the World of Warcraft and its gaming community. Unfortunately while the story has taken another turn, it's not one that makes Nostalrius look that good in the eyes of the community. They have just asked a server hosting their source code, Elysium, to shut down - effectively handing them a cease-and-desist.



First of all, a little history so you can put that into context. World of Warcraft has been around for a very long time, and in that time an awful lot has changed as expansions brought new story and updates patched in and out certain things. Like anything else, nostalgia grew and Nostalrius was one result of that. The server launched on a private French server back in 2015, running a version of the MMO that was just like it used to be, back in the 'good old days'. This was of course before Legion launched and players were feeling Blizzard had lost their way a little bit with WoW, so it got very popular. The only issue with this is that such projects? Technically illegal in the Blizzard's Terms of Use for the game. However, because the Nostalrius team ran it so professionally, no one was really against them doing it. The team's aim wasn't to make money or steal the IP, they said their aim was purely to make Blizzard realise how big of a demand there could be for 'legacy' servers - servers that ran an older version of the game for those who missed it.



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Fast forward to April of last year though, and Blizzard finally sat up and took notice of Nostalrius' numbers. They handed down orders to the Nostalrius team to shut up shop as they were running an illegal server. The news was announced and in the days leading to Nostalrius' closure; people paid tributes to the team, held vigils in server for the game and generally just poured out a huge amount of support and love for Nostalrius and its team. The team then managed to gain around 278,000 signatures onto a Change.org petition asking CEO Mike Morhaime to consider official legacy servers, and after all the support and outcry Blizzard then sat up and took notice in an entirely different way. Before Blizzcon they invited down members of the French team behind Nostalrius to talk about what they had been doing and about legacy servers, and people through they'd hear more about Blizzard's official plans at Blizzcon or at least it would get a passing mention.



However, Blizzcon came and went with no mentions of legacy servers and the Nostalrius team seeing it as a sign that Blizzard were going to either drag their heels on the idea, or possible weren't ever going to consider it announced they would be releasing their source code to allow other servers to take up their banner and continue to prove to Blizzard that legacy servers would be a good idea. They eventually ended up handing it over along with access to their character database to a Ukrainian team, which led to the creation of Elysium - which in many respects is Nostalrius respawned although Nostalrius characters had to be manually requested to be carry over to the new server.



So yes, one team behind an illegal server is asking another illegal server to stop using their source code - source code they handed to them in the first place. This hasn't gone over well with the community, mainly because it's just as ridiculous as it sounds.



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Their excuse is that Elysium has missed the point of their mission, saying "we have the feeling that the main objective was missed". They feel like Elysium has now built up a reputation as a 'pirate' server instead of a 'fan' one, and thus promoting people ripping off the game and setting up their own servers instead of trying to encourage Blizzard to eventually implement official legacy servers. "Until this stigma is removed, it's unlikely any true progress towards official legacy content can be achieved."



Elysium on their part have come back with a reply that said they're going to maintain "All characters that have existed in the game world since Elysium’s launch" and that "all Nostalrius specific data will be wiped." They believe that the process will take several weeks and will involve a transfer of the game's files to their own core which they believe is now "equal to or superior to" the one they inherited from Nostalrius.



"Nostalrius handed us the torch, we have no intention of putting it out," the statement says. "The environment within the game is wonderful, and is one of the key points to why we are so passionate about it. Fun, polite, social, and yet we find a completely different environment on social media."



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Everyone had a feeling the Elysium wasn't going to be allowed to run without any problems, but I doubt anyone saw where the problem would come from. I don't think this is over by a long shot.
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