wataridori.... the lighter side of megami studios

Roundtable: A Discussion on Private Servers

Details: Written by Rob; Published: 17 November 2014

The original Ragnarok Online, much troubled by private servers.

Server emulators (better known as private servers): it’s an issue that often plagues various games, and for various reasons. The original Ragnarok Online, for example, had PSes abound by the dozens because of both the server software leak and a belief that Gravity wasn’t running their local versions (especially the US servers) very well. Others, such as the recent Blade & Soul, have had PSes pop up after disgruntled gamers waited for years without a response for an English version before enterprising Russian hackers decided to come up with one. In even more cases, some, such as the now-defunct Phantasy Star Online and Phantasy Star Universe, are being resurrected by hackers long after Sega shut the servers down.

I’m not going to personally qualify the value of PSes, though I do believe in the value of keeping history alive, and PSes help to do that. I was more interested about what others think. So I asked a group of gamers on Steam, and this is what we came up with. Some answers were edited for clarity and nothing further.

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Pour One Out

Details: Written by Rob; Published: 15 November 2014

And another site heads into history.

"There's no chance for us
It's all decided for us
This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us"
- Queen

It’s said that nothing lasts forever, and Freddie Mercury once sang, “Who wants to live forever?” Well, despite the fact that few things are destined to be eternal, there are some things that we wish were. One of those things just left us, and even though its usefulness to the larger world of otaku culture, it still stings to see it go.

The Anime Nostalgia Podcast reports that after nearly twenty years, the famed Anime Web Turnpike has finally and sadly closed its doors.

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