This was entirely their fault, if it's still crogge and shenna running things behind the scenes then they got what was coming to them they've been running servers for a long time, but saying you're going to port WoW itself to a different engine and expected no legal repercussions when using IP that you don't legally own is stupidity on itself.
It sucks to see a server die and people forced to move and kinda lose that community aspect, but painting such a huge target on your back and not caring about it is another level
If they've made enough money from donations and in-game purchases, they'll probably just fight it indefinitely and use this as free publicity.
There may be some obscure precedent, but as far as I know they're 100% within their right to host the server as long as it's not a paid service.
Might be a legal grey area since they're offering someone else's game for free, but in general you can copy any IP and distribute it as long as you're not *technically* profiting from it. Copyrights, for example, wouldn't prevent you from making 1000s of Pokemon or Batman posters and giving them away and receiving donations. The second you charge even $1 though, they can sue you for all revenue plus damages.
This will be interesting. Blizzard is a greedy, filthy shell of what it once was, so I would find it so poetic if this ends up boosting Turtle's player count
Quote from: Z C on September 07, 2025, 08:09:39Blizzard is a greedy, filthy shell of what it once was, so I would find it so poetic if this ends up boosting Turtle's player count
Why is Blizzard obligated to allow people to make money by IP theft and by using their game? I mean, Turtle is having a fully operational in-game cash-shop, lol.
I'm sorry, but this article is wso wrong, it's almost AI-written? No, Blizzard have not been litigous... Blizzard have not shut down a single WoW private server since WoW Scape in 2008! In fact, there have been half a dozen servers running for 10-15 years, each with hundreds of thousands of players (monthly, not concurrent), and there hasn't been a peep from Blizzard.
And no, Nostalrius was shut down by its own devs as a publicity stunt, it was never the largest or richest server in the first place.
So if history is any indicator, Turtle is gonna shrug this assault as every other server has, with zero repercussions. Also, Torta (their dev) returned me 10 EUR when I forgot to cancel their Patreon subscription once, true story, that's a swole dude.