Burning WoW

JDMurray

What is the story behind the site Burning-WoW.com? It is a free World of Warcraft server that is running the Burning Crusade expansion (v2.4.0 and up). You make a user account, download their massive WoW client, and play WoW for free in the realms on their servers--completely independent of Blizzard.

I've read their The Burning WoW Story page, but there is no hint as to their relationship with Blizzard, or why Blizzard hasn't shut them down. Blizzard successfully sued BNETD out of existence for reverse engineering Battle.net and creating public Diablo 2 servers. How is it that Burning WoW has managed to survive Blizzard's lawyers and remain in operation since 2006?


As an aside, I created Burning Wow account, installed the client, and tried playing WoW for the first time. I created a Blood Elf Rogue and a Taurian Druid. I really, really hate the game-play. You run forever, do mindless quests, and when you die you are placed in a graveyard halfway across the map, and you have to mindlessly run for 15 minutes to get back to your body--only to be slain again by the same mob that killed you the first time. Your only other option is to accept a death penalty that degrades your inventory. It's no better than all those free, Korean MMORPGs that are designed the same way (except you resurrect in town and the death penalty is in lost experience).

I have not the time nor the patience for WoW.

GT-Rob

I'm not sure how they stay in business, or how they make money to run the servers (maybe ads on the site?), but there are lots out there.

Even before the game was released, and was in Beta, you could download the client and play on independent servers. I think Blizz is making so much money they just don't care, or there is a loop hole that they can't shut them down (off shore maybe).


WoW is for people who have way to much time on their hands. I played for about a month but I felt the same as you. You spend 90% of the game just getting places, I really don't see the appeal of the game.

Some guys at my work have logged well over 1000hrs on it. Such a waste of time.

tiersten

JDMurray wrote:

I've read their The Burning WoW Story page, but there is no hint as to their relationship with Blizzard, or why Blizzard hasn't shut them down. Blizzard successfully sued BNETD out of existence for reverse engineering Battle.net and creating public Diablo 2 servers. How is it that Burning WoW has managed to survive Blizzard's lawyers and remain in operation since 2006?

They're nothing to do with Blizzard. Small enough to escape in the vast crowds of other private WoW servers out there. There are a handful of server clone projects out there which all the private servers use and so far, none have been smacked with the lawyers yet.

jbaello

GT-Rob wrote:

I'm not sure how they stay in business, or how they make money to run the servers (maybe ads on the site?), but there are lots out there.

Even before the game was released, and was in Beta, you could download the client and play on independent servers. I think Blizz is making so much money they just don't care, or there is a loop hole that they can't shut them down (off shore maybe).


WoW is for people who have way to much time on their hands. I played for about a month but I felt the same as you. You spend 90% of the game just getting places, I really don't see the appeal of the game.

Some guys at my work have logged well over 1000hrs on it. Such a waste of time.

This game has eaten away 6 months of my time... I am glad I was able to quit before it was too late... I deleted everything, I will play D3 but that's about it... want a lvl 70 paladin/mage :P you can buy it...

sprkymrk

JDMurray wrote:

It's no better than all those free, Korean MMORPGs that are designed the same way (except you resurrect in town and the death penalty is in lost experience).

Are you referring to Last Chaos?

I dunno though, it seems that games like this are not much different than Diablo or Dungeon Siege. Lots of running around, advancing levels, getting magic equipment, completing quests and grinding endless mobs of baddies. Kind of fun in my book. :P

Mishra

WoW is pretty fun when you are playing with gaming friends. You can try and out equipment your buddies or pick up a great item that your friends don't have and brag about it then give it to them. Becuase you definitely are not going to be able to out do anyone else that are on those servers.

I've never paid for it and haven't played it in 2 years.

The running part seemed to be okay to me because I liked the real aspect of it... But it was when it takes literally 15 whole minutes to fly on those stupid travel points and you have to sit through it that it was seriously ridiculous.

tiersten

Mishra wrote:

WoW is pretty fun when you are playing with gaming friends. You can try and out equipment your buddies or pick up a great item that your friends don't have and brag about it then give it to them. Becuase you definitely are not going to be able to out do anyone else that are on those servers.

Been there, done that, was within the top handful of people in my class. This was preexpansion so had to organise 39 other people to continually do the same content over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...

Got the expansion, played for a bit, got bored and have mostly stopped playing. Occasionally pop on for a couple of hours to help some RL friends or talk to others.

Mishra wrote:

The running part seemed to be okay to me because I liked the real aspect of it... But it was when it takes literally 15 whole minutes to fly on those stupid travel points and you have to sit through it that it was seriously ridiculous.

They justified this as making the world seem "bigger" which to a certain extent it does. I think the most fun I had was exploring when I had no idea what was out there. Once you've gotten to the end then it starts to lose its appeal.

sprkymrk wrote:

I dunno though, it seems that games like this are not much different than Diablo or Dungeon Siege. Lots of running around, advancing levels, getting magic equipment, completing quests and grinding endless mobs of baddies. Kind of fun in my book

Those games are different. They're not designed to extract a monthly sum of money from you. You can have a quick 5 minute blast on it and put it away. When you come back, everything is how you left it.

Very fun though and I'll probably be getting Diablo 3 when it comes out. No more MMOs though!

JDMurray

sprkymrk wrote:

Are you referring to Last Chaos?

Last Chaos, Silkroad Online, Shaiya Light and Darkness, Risk Your Life, etc. They are all Korean-developed MMORPGs all based somewhat on the look-and-feel of WoW. And most of the time they are free to play. They make money via advertising or their store that sells in-game items for real money.


I'm really perplexed. Blizzard's decision to take down an unlicensed server must be based on the revenue that the server generates. Burning Wow is hosted in the USA, so it's not like Blizzard would need to have to sue in Russia or China to shut their site down. It would seem that Blizzard would need to remain diligent in protecting its licensing and trademarks, but in some cases has decided not to do so. This is gonna be my first question for the folks at Blizzcon 2008.