Can this server be shut down?

What? Twinstar was always czech server hosted somewhere in Prague. It is possible that they move to Sweden when I was not playing WoW (Its been 5 years) But its highly unlikely.

Twinstar has they own servers and if they would like to move to Sweden they must go to datacenter in Prague disconnect everything it, pack it up, and slowly transport it to Sweden. According to Google maps its 17h50m ride, with server aboard it would take even more. Then connect everything, config everything and go home.

Ther is another problem. What if something breaks? They need dispatch team member to Sweden (another 17h50min ride) and meanwhile servers are offline. And no, they probably don't have reliable team member in Sweden. (Twinstar servers costed around 8500USD)

Even if it was in Sweden. It don't matter. A company Twinstar gaming is based in Czech Republic and must obey its law.

......So, Conclusion to the original question: "can this server be shut down?". its apparent nobody knows the bloody answer.

faking said:

Err
Sweden got lowest numbers of corruption in the world.
America told Swedish government to arrest founders of The Pirate Bay, and if Swed refused, then US would sent FBI to Sweden and arrest these founders. Thats why Swe gov. Arrested them.

Now u all know
Lets hope this scenario dont happen in kronos

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we have among the highest if not the highest amount of government employees to citizen ratio aka unskilled workers who create their own jobs by beaurocracy aka corruption. feel free to open your eyes at any point in your life

Gerret said:

Twinstar has they own servers and if they would like to move to Sweden they must go to datacenter in Prague disconnect everything it, pack it up, and slowly transport it to Sweden.

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no, twinstar or atleast kronos is hosted in sweden.

Even if it was in Sweden. It don't matter. A company Twinstar gaming is based in Czech Republic and must obey its law.

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i tried to explain few days ago to some player that usa law has no meaning here and nobody is going to get into trouble for not obeying their shit laws the burger got triggered heavily by someone telling them that somewhere on the world are countrys that dont give a flying fuck about usa laws.

Gerret said:

What? Twinstar was always czech server hosted somewhere in Prague. It is possible that they move to Sweden when I was not playing WoW (Its been 5 years) But its highly unlikely.

Twinstar has they own servers and if they would like to move to Sweden they must go to datacenter in Prague disconnect everything it, pack it up, and slowly transport it to Sweden. According to Google maps its 17h50m ride, with server aboard it would take even more. Then connect everything, config everything and go home.

Ther is another problem. What if something breaks? They need dispatch team member to Sweden (another 17h50min ride) and meanwhile servers are offline. And no, they probably don't have reliable team member in Sweden. (Twinstar servers costed around 8500USD)

Even if it was in Sweden. It don't matter. A company Twinstar gaming is based in Czech Republic and must obey its law.

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thats literally what they did fyi.

FACTS:

Twinstar (the registered business and it's developers) is based in the Czech Republic.

Kronos is hosted in Sweden.


What we we are trying to figure out is how secure this situation is.

Surely, if Blizzard really wanted to shut the server down, they would go after Twinstar itself, not the server host. That way, Twinstar would have legal action hanging over them, no matter where they decided to host - be it Russia or Tazbekistan.
Unlike other private servers, Twinstar seems to be a real business. And it's this that really raises a bit a red flag for me.

It really seems to come down to how immune the Czech Republic is from Blizzards wrath. And I think the mistake that some people have here is that the Czech Republic is some completely immune Eastern European country.

So with Twinstar being a "company" are they making any profit from this? Cause if so that would be a very big stick for Blizzard to hit them with. Commercial use is frowned upon.

Quote I took from these forums the other day (thread was deleted)

*Answering a question regarding where the donation money goes*

"1) Server maintance
2) Server hardware and software upgrades
3) Payment for devlopers - If server generates enough money to cover 2 previous points"

As I said, unfortunately it was deleted. So I'm not sure who posted that reply.

lazybeats said:

Quote I took from these forums the other day (thread was deleted)

*Answering a question regarding where the donation money goes*

"1) ***
2) ***
3) ***
As I said, unfortunately it was deleted. So I'm not sure who posted that reply.

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dont tell me you dont understand why it was removed if something states that they are making profit off of blizzards copyrighted work?

just in case you dont get it its not beneficial to spread such information because then investigation might start.

/edit

ok wasnt deleted but meh i feared it was something someone from staff blabbed, as long as its just some random person on the forum saying this then its no harm i guess.

lazybeats said:

Quote I took from these forums the other day (thread was deleted)

*Answering a question regarding where the donation money goes*

"1) Server maintance
2) Server hardware and software upgrades
3) Payment for devlopers - If server generates enough money to cover 2 previous points"

As I said, unfortunately it was deleted. So I'm not sure who posted that reply.

Click to expand...

It wasn't deleted, just merged with the general Q&A thread: http://forum.twinstar.cz/showthread.php/91092-AMA-Kronos-Staff/page17 There's the question even with the answer.

- - - Updated - - -


Yep, my shift starts soon again.

I think the whole outrage against people streaming is silly nonsense and fail to see how a stream with less than 100 viewers can lead to anything other than the streamers account being locked.

Don't underestimate Blizzard's megabucks $$$$.

In many, many years I'm only aware of one single case where Blizzard would bother itself with private servers, and it was for one which resided in the USA and made loads of money out of it (2010). News about this was cast by official online magazines and confirmed by Blizzard own sources.

Nostalrius' page features all kinda sites where their shutdown is discussed, even the most noiseless fart from the most anonymous streamer, yet not a single screenshot nor proof of any kind about Blizzard actually sueing them. I find that interesting at best. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that I'm lined with the skeptical ones unless I'm submitted some picture of a letter from a law firm, stamped with actual attorney signatures, verifiable phone numbers and all. Make no mistake, rest assured that if such a document truly existed they would have had every interest to showcase it on their homepage and have their players' outcry directed properly for good measure. They shut their servers altogether instead, wrote a few lines and created an online petition to Mike Morhaime which reads at some point:

[...] the french provider hosting our server recently received a formal letter written by french and US lawyers asking to shutdown our services because of Copyright Infringement prior to a lawsuit

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Notice how vague and uncircumstantial it sounds: they're not claiming they were about to be sued by his company.

So I'm not sure as to why Nost ceased so suddenly, but something tells me Blizzard might have little to do with it... if anything at all.

Aurigon said:

In many, many years I'm only aware of one single case where Blizzard would bother itself with private servers, and it was for one which resided in the USA and made loads of money out of it (2010). News about this was cast by official online magazines and confirmed by Blizzard own sources.

Nostalrius' page features all kinda sites where their shutdown is discussed, even the most noiseless fart from the most anonymous streamer, yet not a single screenshot nor proof of any kind about Blizzard actually sueing them. I find that interesting at best. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that I'm lined with the skeptical ones unless I'm submitted some picture of a letter from a law firm, stamped with actual attorney signatures, verifiable phone numbers and all. Make no mistake, rest assured that if such a document truly existed they would have had every interest to showcase it on their homepage and have their players' outcry directed properly for good measure. They shut their servers altogether instead, wrote a few lines and created an online petition to Mike Morhaime which reads at some point:



Notice how vague and uncircumstantial it sounds: they're not claiming they were about to be sued by his company.

So I'm not sure as to why Nost ceased so suddenly, but something tells me Blizzard might have little to do with it... if anything at all.

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Hi Aurigon,

What you are stating is far from impossible indeed. We have actually no solid proof that Blizzard really sent that letter to them. But after a week, if that statement would be false, I would expect Blizzard to confirm or not that said letter, don't you think?

But to go along your statement, they annonced a troublesome text yesterday or two days ago saying that they will not re-open in a foreign country out of reach from USA attorneys (such as Russia) nor they will officially support another private server by giving them the code. Which imo means they do not have the will to work again on their own project.

I personnally, if I would had still the will and desire to keep working on my project, would had moved my database to a Russia hoster and would move my ''official address to ''Xbekiztan'' to be out of reach.

OR, I would had joined another project team in the shadow that would had been willing to take the risk of lawsuit instead of me.

Very interesting indeed that we never could see that letter... I'm surprised that there isnt more Nost players making such statement on their forum or on reddit.

@Methos
Nice pic, you need to add Blizzard business

..

And Kronos Business

@Moradin With all the respect : Nostalrius was an ethical things, they build something strong (some kind of good french mentality but they are naive as fuck)

Noxm said:

@Moradin With all the respect : Nostalrius was an ethical things, they build something strong (some kind of good french mentality but they are naive as fuck)

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Excuse me?

All private projects could in theory be taken down, but just remember. Twinstar has been around for about 10 years, that's 9 years longer than Nos. While this is not a guarantee on the future for any project, we do have longevity.

Davros said:

All private projects could in theory be taken down, but just remember. Twinstar has been around for about 10 years, that's 9 years longer than Nos. While this is not a guarantee on the future for any project, we do have longevity.

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I browsed through the Nostalrius's general forum tonight and some people are actually starting to think that Nost team really gave up too fast on this without even giving a little fight.

Their server provider received a kind of letter of formal notice. Not an official letter of prosecution in front of a judge! Blizzard could had not go further than that if Nost would had ignored the letter of formal notice.

And why is it still silence radio from Blizzard's side ? this is all very strange now that we all think about it.

I think Nost team just decided to abandon their fans and community. /shrug

hakoon said:

I browsed through the Nostalrius's general forum tonight and some people are actually starting to think that Nost team really gave up too fast on this without even giving a little fight.

Their server provider received a kind of letter of formal notice. Not an official letter of prosecution in front of a judge! Blizzard could had not go further than that if Nost would had ignored the letter of formal notice.

And why is it still silence radio from Blizzard's side ? this is all very strange now that we all think about it.

I think Nost team just decided to abandon their fans and community. /shrug

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More speculation or is there proof of exactly what the server provider received?

Most of these posts are all speculation. Even if Nost wasn't profiting from their private server, WOW is the property of Blizzard, and legally they can shut it down if they wanted to. The fact that this server is in Sweden does not protect it. Blizzard probably doesn't care enough to chase down all the private servers.

Just some legal info for you speculators:

Sweden is an extradition country with the USA, so Blizzard can prosecute in Sweden no problem. In fact some smart poster mentioned thepiratebay as an example. Another good example is Julian Assange who ran his website in Sweden for wiki leaks. That got shutdown and last I heard Assange was living in Equador to avoid extradition. Sweden is well known for cooperating with the USA.

As for Nost getting a cease and desist letter from Blizzards lawyers, that is the first step before legal prosecution, court and possibly extradition. So if Nost did get that letter then it's either ignore or risk some rather serious charges like using Blizzards intellectual property, breaking more than a few copyright laws.

Those of you asking why Blizzard hasn't said anything publicly about this is because why the heck would they. If it went public they would then HAVE to make an example out of Nost by showing what happens when you steal property. So ya, don't ever expect Bliz to comment and make this more public than it already is.

As wow players on Twinstar servers our best bet is to hope that Blizzard doesn't really know much about these private servers, or our other best bet is that they think no one is making money off their property on these servers to the extent that they don't care about them, making prosecuting them more trouble than it's worth.

Scapegaming is the only confirmed and verified case of Blizzard dealing with a private server, and it was a server which was making some serious bucks off it. A single case in more than a decade, when there's older/larger/more profitable private servers out there (than Nost) pretty much makes the whole scenario clear. None has seen any evidence, not even from the injured party, so everything other than bringing forth concrete proofs is adding speculations.

Rest easy.

You "truthers" need to get real.

Legal C&D letters are scary. Nostalrius developers were a bunch of hobbyists at best.
You don't receive a legal warning from Blizzard and immediately think "gee, I wonder how we can get away with this". I can't stress this enough... You don't potentially ruin your own life just so people can continue to play a videogame.

Blizzard has taken an awful lot of flak over Nostalrius going down. If their legal division didn't send the letter, they would have denied it.

Simple answer to the OP's question:

Yes, this server can be shut down. Easily.

No speculation required.