Virtual Worlds #19: A New Hope?

Bashing Star Wars Galaxies has been a bit of a tradition round these parts, I'm afraid. Showing tremendous promise all through its development cycle, Galaxies released in a disappointing state, and although improvements came gradually, Sony's mismanagement of the game and its player base meant it never came close to being the game we'd all wanted. But recent developments show a little light at the end of the tunnel for the Galaxies faithful, and it's a light that has nothing whatsoever to do with Sony.

How's that? It's thanks to the efforts of a team of remarkably talented amateur programmers, who are well on the way to creating their own version of the Star Wars Galaxies server. Anyone with server space and an enterprising nature will -- hopefully, one day -- be able to run their own version of the Galaxies world, and tweak it to suit their preferences.

Galaxies certainly isn't the first MMO to spawn these unofficial offshoots. Ultima Online and Everquest both have successful player-run server communities, as do a handful of other, smaller MMOs. Owners of the game client -- the CDs you can buy in any game store -- can log into these servers and play their favorite MMOs for free, eschewing the monthly fees that characterize the genre.

Star Wars Galaxies: Rage of the Wookies Star Wars Galaxies: Rage of the Wookies

Most people's reaction to this is along the lines of, "Surely this can't be legal, can it?" -- and the answer to that question, somewhat surprisingly, is that it looks like it is -- mostly. The key to understanding the reason why comes when you look at the development process for these emulated servers. Rather than obtaining code or content from the real, live, production servers at Sony or EA, enterprising amateurs have disassembled their own installs of the games and the traffic they send to and receive from the game's servers, analyzing and studying their inner workings in a process known as "reverse-engineering".

Which isn't illegal. Or, at least, it wasn't until the DMCA came along. Its current status in the U.S. is anyone's guess, but you'll probably get slapped on the wrist if you try it these days. Of course, reverse engineering is most likely legal when done in countries with fewer silly laws.

Sounds like hard work? Undoubtedly. While swiping a copy of the real server code sounds much easier, it's a good way to get yourself some quality time with the finest legal experts money can buy -- and quite possibly some friendly chaps from the police force, too. Such a theft actually happened to Norse MMO Ragnarok Online, when hackers broke into the game's Chinese server, causing all kinds of mayhem and swiping a copy of the server program along the way.

Leaving the real criminals aside, most reverse engineers are indeed violating their license agreements with the game publisher -- that's the huge disclaimer on the front of any MMO that everyone just clicks through without reading. But those agreements don't hold tremendous legal force, and sanctions the publishers are able to take against reverse engineers are pretty much the same as those they take against cheaters: banning their accounts, nothing more.