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| '''Server emulator''' is a term used to describe reimplementations of ] game servers. While the term is not technically accurate because no ] is actually taking place, it is colloquially accepted among the gaming community and has become the ] term to describe ] reimplementations of MMOG game servers. | |||
| == History == | |||
| With the rising popularity of commercial ] internet games, came the desire from ardent players of this games to run their own servers beside the ones runned by the game creator. Since the original server software is usually not available the behavior of the servers has to be reeingeneered by analyzing the data stream with the orinal server, or by disambeling and analyzing the client which is available. | |||
| '']'' was one of the first large MMPORGs. Due to its openess in implementation server emulators arose very quickly even already in Beta stage of ''Ultima Online'' development. The destination to which the client connects was e.g. changeable by simply editing a ]. In Beta stage the client-server data stream was not encyrpted yet. The term server emulator became known along with the ''Ultima Online'' server reimplementation like '']'' which was the pioneer. A lot of forks and reimplementations followed ''UOX'', because it released its source code under the ] relativly early. '']'' is today the most widely used ''UO''-server emulator. | |||
| Game companies usually tend to try to hinder emulator development by encrypting the data stream. However since the client needs to understand the data, in encrypten terms the "attacker" is always equipped with a decyphering machine. Therefore the original game designer can only add layers of strenuousness to decypher and understand the data stream, he cannot hinder it with cryptographic tools. | |||
| == Legality == | |||
| The legality or illegality of server emulators is a recurrent argument. Server emulators are presumably legal if done properly. The first issue is a possible ] of the game creators ]. As the case of '']'' demonstrates recreating "methods of operation" is not a copyright infingement. Thus emulating copyrighted material is not a breach. However this demands that the complete emulator is a work of it's own. Sometimes the original server software leaks out of the company that created the game, for example ]. Use or distribution of this is definitly a copyright infringement. Modified version of such original server software are not considered to be a ''server emulator''. | |||
| Another legal issue is the ]. Today most commercial MMORPG require the user to sign a clause not to create or use server emulators when installing the client he bought. This issue has not yet been test infront of any court. | |||
| There are cases where a game creator effectifly shut down popular private game servers by law suit threat. But the reseans were always based on obvious copyright violations like for example offering the client for download, or also offering downloads of modified files from the original game package. | |||
| == Criticism of the term == | |||
| There is an argument if the term "server emulator" is actually technically correct. In a narrow sense some computer scientists think of an emulator only to be a ] or ], for example ]. Not of applications that mimic in behavior of other systems. One main argument is that ] which is a free software implementation of Microsoft's networking system generally is not refered to be an emulator. | |||
| Refutation base oneself at first on the fact that language is changing and evolving. Especially computer science language has been very vivid in analogies and word creations (e.g., to ] a computer, to ] as a verb for certain linux kernel behavior and many more). Computer technical language would possibly be overcomplicated and boring if language purists had enforced similar claims in the past. Another argument is that a ] were already long being refered as such in the broader sense of emulator before "server emulators" existed. | |||
| A possible explanation why the term emulator was so proximate in the creation of the first third-party ''Ultima Online'' server reimplementations is that the original game servers were known to be ] Servers. As the original server software at some later point leaked out of the company many the association became obvious since many technically unexperienced gamers that could lay their hands upon this pirated piece of software had to realize they could never run this on their home computers. They needed a server emulator to run an ''Ulimta Online'' server. To refer to legality of server emulators, most emulator developers even insisted on not receiving or taking a look at the then circulating original server code. Nevertheless its creation history, today the term is widely used and recognized. | |||
| == List of popular server emulators == | |||
| <!--- READ THIS: We are aware that new emu's and forks spread out everyday, and die almost as fast. Please do NOT add your own emu here. Please add only popular games with more than avg. >3000 players online on the original servers, please add only 2 maximum 3 very, very popular emulator implementations per game. We don't want to have a list at wikipedia that needs to be changed almost every day! Order is alphabetically, so do not anger about that also ;)---> | |||
| * '']'': ] | |||
| * '']'': '']'', '']'' | |||
| * '']'': ] | |||
| == See also == | |||
| * - Server Side Emulation Community News and Resources | |||
| * - Announcement of a '']'' server emulator on slashdot | |||
| * - google group of Ultima Online server emulators | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
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