Does anybody know the current state of Battle.net emulation for the older non-Remastered game? The bnetd drama was twenty years ago at this point and I would like to be able to play online without the Microsoft-Vivendi-Activision-Zenimax-Blizzard Borg having any say in it. RE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bnetd
I prefer to patch only up to 1.15.x to keep network compatibility with the Classic Mac OS version of the game :)
It's a project that few of us started almost a decade ago to ensure the longevity of this game. We don't try to emulate Battle.net at all, but instead we take only the gameplay itself and reimplement everything else ourselves.
It's a work in progress, so please let us know what you'd like to see in there that's currently missing if you do check it out.
There is PVPGN, which has recent activity: https://github.com/pvpgn
Microsoft owns both GitHub and all Blizzard IP, so it's only a matter of time before they send a DMCA takedown order to themselves to remove this copyright-infringing material :)
Near as I can tell, circumventing the access restrictions to enable netplay on a video game that is no longer distributed is not a DMCA exemption. (Circumventing DRM for a game whose DRM servers have been shut down is an exemption for local play only.)
You can't copyright a protocol.
So long as these systems aren't enabling pirating these classic games they are free and clear.
Iirc there was a games server that emulated a bunch of thing including starcraft. I'm drawing a blank here.