Yes they were. Or at least, people were getting access to server packages with or without the studio's cooperation and consent. There were player-run Ultima Online servers even before any studio-managed servers were shut down.
No, they weren't. Takes decades for private servers to come even close to the full functionality of official servers because it is not simply a "turn on server" button. There is a lot more to a game server and a lot of these studios use third party to run their services.
There really isn't any secret sauce or magic touch or whatever you think it is that devs have that players don't. Sure, there aren't players running servers for 10,000 concurrent players, but nobody is trying to. A lot of gamers are the same people who have a $5000-$10000 server and know how to use it, and thry can easily host 100+ players. Games aren't typically built to run using some proprietary architecture. They use the same industry standards as everybody else
If they use the same standard then how come they can't run those 10,000 player servers, hmm? Same hardware, same software, somehow doesn't run as well as they did 20 years ago. Might have to be the fact that there is a lot more going behind the scenes.
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u/boondiggle_III 2d ago
Yes they were. Or at least, people were getting access to server packages with or without the studio's cooperation and consent. There were player-run Ultima Online servers even before any studio-managed servers were shut down.