Freeshard

Freeshards , also private servers (P servers), are servers for online games (mostly MMORPGs ) that are not maintained by the original, commercial manufacturer of the game. The word freeshard developed in the Ultima online scene, in which the first freeshards were created, the first being founded in 1998 in German-speaking countries under the name "The Old World". There are now also freeshards for many other MMORPGs such as EverQuest , Dark Age of Camelot , World of Warcraft , Lineage II and Star Wars Galaxies .

Every freeshard has its own focus. There are freeshards that are predominantly oriented towards PvP (“ player versus player ”), and others that focus on role-playing. Especially lovers of role-playing in MMORPGs use freeshards to create environments in which role-players can play undisturbed among like-minded people.

Freeshards are not always tolerated by the official operators of the games, as the use of their official servers is usually chargeable. If the players use freeshards, the gaming operator loses part of his potential income.

Word origin

Freeshard is made up of the words Free (English: free, free of charge) and Shard (English: shard).

The term shard comes from the opening credits of the online role-playing game Ultima Online, in which the emergence of the multiverse of Ultima Online is shown. It describes how a powerful avatar slayed the evil wizard Mondain. Mondain had captured the world of Britannia (known from the single-player role-playing game series Ultima ) in a crystal. After the wizard's death, the avatar smashed the crystal to free the world of Britannia from the power of the crystal. However, the magic of the crystal still worked on the world of Britannia and this now existed as a copy in every shard of the crystal.