p2pnet.net News:- FBI agents have raided L2Extreme which was running an unauthorised server for NCsoft’s Lineage II massively multiplayer game.

“Working with NCsoft, the FBI carried out raids in multiple cities across the United States - presumably after a few false starts when their main tank had bad lag or their healers had a strop over loot allocation,” says EuroGamer.

NCsoft is obviously, “glad to see the back of the rogue operation, which it reckons was defrauding the company’s paying customers by ’stealing’ from the firm, a wanton misuse of the English language which makes us wonder if IP lawyers actually understand why nobody talks to them at parties (which they’d probably describe as “stealing” from their social lives),” says the story, adding:

“This isn’t the first time that there’s been a legal wrangle over the provision of a ‘rogue’ multiplayer service, of course. Blizzard fans may recall the protracted case of BNETD, a piece of software designed to clone the operations of Blizzard’s Battle.net multiplayer service. However, the L2Extreme case seems to be altogether more clear cut, since unlike BNETD (which was a project to develop a compatible server that could run Battle.net games, which is a tough one to call on a legal basis), these guys were actually just running ripped off server code for Lineage II - which certainly falls under the naughty heading.”

The real kick in the teeth was that L2Extreme had garnered so many users, says Ars Technica, pointing out that according to MMORPG Charts, “Lineage II reached a maximum of 2 million subscribers in early 2005, but has since slipped to about 1.3 million. Most of that decline has been due to the continued growth of World of Warcraft internationally, but 50,000 subscribers running on a pirated server was a nontrivial impact as well.”

NCSoft won’t take legal action against L2Extreme players and is instead, “concentrating its legal wrath against the operators of L2Extreme, saying that the FBI investigation is ‘ongoing’ and that suing for compensation has not been ruled out at this point,” says the story.

Meanwhile, ” Federal search warrants were served on owners of L2Extreme who were also questioned during the raid. L2Extreme was providing its users with unauthorized service and code for NCsoft’s online computer game, Lineage II,” says a statement.

“The warrants enabled officials to halt L2Extreme’s operations while collecting further evidence in the course of the investigation.

“The FBI estimates L2Extreme has up to 50,000 active users on its service. NCsoft estimates that monetary losses and damages from the operation are costing NCsoft millions of dollars per year.”

Also See:
EuroGamer - FBI raids Lineage II rogue op, November 21, 2006
Ars Technica - FBI, NCSoft drop hammer on MMORPG pirates, November 20, 2006
statement - FBI, NCsoft Close Down Computer Game Operation, November 20, 2006

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