I have been wanting to make a private Guild Wars server for a long time now, and it does seem like that'll never happen. The concept of intellectual property rights already bugs me, but NCSoft or ArenaNet or whatever name they want to use… is dipshitted if they never release the code (or at least the ability to run private servers).
First off, one myth I would like to put to rest, is the statement that there is no point in running a private server because the game is free. If you search for "guild wars private server" or mild variations of it, you'll find a few people asking how to make a private GW server. You'll also typically find multiple responses to the question stating that it is pointless to make one. These responses sometimes go on to say that the game is really cheap (followed by quoting 20 or 30 Euros to buy it). The responders are quick to point out that there is no monthly fee for Guild Wars and as such you wouldn't be saving any money by using a private server. What they fail to mention is that Guild Wars is very much divided into PvP (player versus player) and PvE (player versus environment). The people who play PvE are playing through a storyline and are following quests that lead them towards the end of the story which each campaign has. The PvP people are playing against other humans (almost exclusively) and battle to control faction in the second game.
In the case of PvP it would only make sense that the more people you have playing, the better. A private server with only a few hundred people playing would not make sense because large Alliance Battles take 24 players and the ladder of the top ten teams (or guilds) would ultimately involve hundreds of people on it's own. However, the people who play PvE don't need a lot of other people to play with. Obviously if there are other people to interact with it can be more fun but it is not necessary most of the time.
NOTE: there are some folks who claim that it is not possible to complete the PvE storyline with heroes and henchmen. There are a few missions or areas that are tough with H/H but if you couldn't finish the storyline then you are seriously a PvP pussy who got PWNED by the environment. Go back to PvP and trash talk all the other little 15 year olds chump.
Now, the mere fact that PvE does not require the help of others does not mean that a private server makes sense. The real reason I would like to have a private server is because I don't want to hear the bullshit trash talk of the 15 year old goofs who think they are tough. Honestly, it's a fuckin' video game and there are kids running around flapping their gums about how bad they can beat everyone else. Those are the fucks I don't want to play with. While it might be possible to turn off the All and Trade chat channels that isn't very effective if you are trying to buy or sell something. And ArenaNet has done a mostly half assed job of limiting Trade and All channel spamming.
Finally, why would the makers of Guild Wars want to allow people to create private servers? Well possibly a few reasons, how about these?
1. They make money from the sales of account codes. The game software is free to download, the only thing you pay for is the key code to make a new account (or add to an existing one). If they were to allow private servers, people could simply download the game for free and play on the private server for free. No more money for them.
2. Security flaws could unbalance their economy. They spend a fair bit of time and effort trying to keep the economy of the game balanced. It's funny because they add rare (valuable) content to the game and then have to police the potential duplication of the items. Minipets and rare weapons are extremely expensive and throw the economy off balance. Anyways, I have no trouble imagining that ArenaNet would be worried about players being able to quickly advance on a private server and then finding a way to migrate their character or inventory to the live GW servers.
3. Intellectual property rights hoarding. People who support IP concepts basically believe that as long as they have the ability to claim ownership of anything, they should. They believe that everything has the possibility of becoming very valuable (even if that possibility is very low). So they claim complete ownership of anything and everything they can, so that on the off chance that a dollar can be made form it, they want to be the ones to capitalize on it. The bottom line is that this kind of attitude keeps "property" in the hands of people who typically have no fucking clue what to do with it.
OK, I am tired of pointing out the greedy shortcomings of corporate Korea. Why should ArenaNet realease the ability to make a GW server? Well, they have already released Aion (it's crappy by the way) and claim to be getting ready to release Guild Wars 2. Once GW2 is out it would appear that a lot of players will be buying it and moving on. And if it is as good as they claim, then nobody is going to want to go back to GW. The population of GW will dwindle and the game will become a ghost town. PvP will eventually hit a threshold at which it will no longer be fun because there isn't enough competition (imagine an NHL with 4 teams). PvE will eventually die as well because of people who can't finish with H/H in addition to the fact that games with better graphics will continue to be released. When that starts to happen, ArenaNet should allow the creation of private servers… but I bet they won't.
