You have entered Arcane Remove, an Arcane Unlimited Private server. If you have not already read the full list of server rules please logout and access the list from our Google Drive. If you have already read the rules then I would like to remind you to mind your manners and report any and all bugs to me by sending an email to the arcane remove G-mail. Bear in mind that Remove is a vanilla server and therefore, does not include any content from the Wars of the Elder-kin expansion. Do not report any missing expansion content as a bug. Arcane Remove is run independently by the player Drexis Maw. For a current List of Staff members and moderators please refer to the server Google Drive. Players Online: {get: plrct}

William Renshaw pushed away his keyboard and began proofreading the system message he wrote. All that William was waiting on now was the supreme court decision. Everyone in the young VR community knew what the ruling would be, even though the precedents were decades old they all spelled out the same answer, a company that couldn’t provide service to its player base had to allow private servers.

In the past the legal defense for private servers had been limited to MMOs that had gone out of service but there was one case where a smaller company was sued for failing to provide enough servers. The publisher won the case at first but the case was appealed, eventually ending up in the supreme court. The judges sided with the publisher but noted that failure to provide sufficient servers for an active game was grounds for players to be given the means to create private servers. In this case the lack of servers was objectively caused by the players, not the developers.

Arcane Interactive, the developer and publisher for Arcane Unlimited, had a legal monopoly on the current generation of VR tech. The hardware was licensed to manufacturers who managed to keep the cost down and the companies were able to pull a profit, something unusual for gaming hardware.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

In exchange however, all of the hardware was required to contain a black box chip which prevented the systems from being used with any software not licensed by Arcane Interactive. While there were ports of last gen games and small budget titles Arcane used its stranglehold on the newgen tech to maintain its position as the leading VR game developer. Arcane Unlimited was sold freely in stores but server access was prioritised for VIP players.

William turned to the C-span stream of the supreme court on the small TV by his bed. Outside of the world of gaming it was a regular day and there wasn’t any special fanfare or coverage of the case. William let out a sigh and walked down to his kitchen to make himself some lunch. He had just made it back to his room when the Justices were beginning to announce their ruling. The moment they had finished making the ruling his phone went off.

“Hey Jay.”

“Dude, Will. you know what this means right, full access. They lost all rights, it's all public domain now from headset to software man.”

“Jay, calm down I know I watched the damn ruling too. I’m booting the server right now.”

“Those Arcane fascists can’t keep me from playing a game I own any more, and you want me to calm down… dude, live some. Get a life -shut up- I know you are booting the server, that is getting a life so don’t even say it.”

“Yeah, well world generation looks good. We decided on a coastal city right?”

“Yup. See anything good?”

“There is a pair of islands sized like the UK and Ireland, good distance from any otherland, the game won’t populate the rest of the world if we set the first city there, weather… looks like Japan more or less. Sound good?”

“Good to me, your server though your choice. Less you wanna call Megan to see what she thinks.”

“Well… we already came to a compromise there.”

“Okay, start populating the damn place then. You said you’re doing all human right?”

“Yeah.”

“‘Kay. Same IP right?”

“Same IP, I've got your bot running to tell us when the server goes green. See you on the inside.”

“On the inside dude.”