Padre,
I can not disclose too much on the details. But here are some details:
* With the help of lot of repacks, testing and "fixing" (I would call it better - messing) the database, we managed to fix a lot of issues.
One of the most important I remember - it was not possible to give the "heartstone" (or whatever it was) to the inn-keeper and save the location. And the mail box was not working on some places.
* We managed to go up to 1.9.2 with the help of all those repacks, fixes and etc. I still keep a track of my changes and when I look back at them I am really afraid to run such a server in production :)
* What stopped us to go further is that we tried to implement a client-loader that would prevent the client from using cheats and hacks (a very known and popular problem to nearly all non-original WoW servers).
* But to be honest, the most stable version it should work with is 1.8.0 , 1.8.3 , 1.8.4
* As for the merchants - it is pretty OK to place them. I was very keen to place a gold-mining trainer in the start-up location of every race ;)
It will work. The original WoW servers of Blizzard are paid (and boy, they are expensive) and have high latency. So, what is the outcome?
Only rich guys, who can afford to pay for the "online cards" of Blizzard and for high-speed connection over terrestrial lines (I would not call it "fiber", because low-latency leased lines are not always fiber. I see how a lot of lebanese ISP play with that word, though noone of them has ever installed a patch of 5m fiber-cable or knows how to splice a fiber cable or knows the difference between 50nm and 62.5nm).
Can all of the Lebanese gamers afford that? $200 per month for good hyper-low-latency connection + paying to Blizzard for every hour spent on their servers? Half of them?
Khalas, even if WoW is not gonna bring a lot of gamers, we are ready to release also Line Age 2. Or maybe Guild Wars. And btw, Line Age 2 is better than WoW. Try it.
When we started I got a lot of negative complains that it is "causa perdutta", but look now - there is a lot of interest. Especially the CS servers are full to their top (22 people). Call of Duty gains speed also. Why should WoW fail?
Check this out -->
http://games.visp.net.lb/ranks/cs-stats/ :)
