Comment by nebezb
15 hours ago
> I've long been irritated by the use of the term "server emulator" in gaming contexts. Technically these projects are just reimplementations of a proprietary networking protocol. Nobody calls Samba a "server emulator" because it reimplements the Windows file sharing protocol, because Samba isn't "emulating" anything from the perspective of the traditional definition of "emulator" in computer science.
I think the distinction is a lot greyer than the black/white you propose.
The very first popular online games used servers mostly to redistribute (and maybe time sync) packets from clients. There is no standard way to to do that. Player-created servers did their best to emulate the official servers logic but it was indeed impossible to replicate it perfectly.
e.g. when breaking up large maps into sectors, the official server might broadcast your location and projectiles X units away and emulators would broadcast it X + 500 units away, which could have an impact on gameplay.
Emulator feels fitting when there is no official server spec to reimplement.
edit: emulator also feels appropriate where servers are responsible for NPC activity or quest-like mechanics. This goes beyond implementing a network protocol. The gameplay is massively impacted.
Your reply did exactly what I complained about: expanding the definition of emulator to cover reimplementing a network protocol.
You're not wrong that "server emulator" is a generically correct use of the term emulation, in the same sense that it is a correct use of the word for someone to say they emulate a fashion sense of a celebrity they like in their own wardrobe.
But in computer science, strictly speaking, the original definition of emulator was more strict. It was about things like emulating processor architecture A so as to execute programs written for it on processor architecture B.
And part of why expanding the definition to include "server emulators" annoys me is why has this definition expansion occurred only in gaming contexts? If a free UO server is a "server emulator" then why is Samba not also a server emulator? The lack of consistency is irritating to me, and it only happened because gamers like the term emulator, not due to any kind of rigorous computer sciencey reason.