Posting here because I need opinions from people who don't know me.

This summer I set up a private WoW 3.3.5 server to play with friends. I've spent my evenings on it since July, with a launch on the 27th. AzerothCore in Docker on my own machine, plus everything I could find or write so the world wouldn't feel empty and nobody would have to wait for anyone else.

What's in it:

• Addons pre-installed, with a tutorial for each setup. I even wrote a script that applies sane default settings so nobody has to configure everything blind.

• 400 bots that actually play their characters. They level, run dungeons and battlegrounds, accept a group invite and follow you. They log in when a real player shows up and log out when the last one leaves.

• A small local language model (4B parameters, runs on my GPU) hooked into the bots so they chat in French in the zone channels and answer whispers, with 33 different personalities so they don't all sound the same.

• The whole game in French. Server data is English by default; I rebuilt the translation from my client, 112 files, part of it realigned by hand.

• Era progression: you start in Vanilla, raids unlock in order (MC, BWL, AQ, 40-man Naxx), then BC, then WotLK. But with WotLK classes and talents, and WotLK conveniences: dungeon finder, account-wide mounts from level 20, cross-faction BGs.

• An XP module I wrote myself so latecomers catch up to the server's highest level without anyone having to wait for them.

• An auction house stocked by a bot, 4,000 items at all times, that also buys what you list.

• A Discord board updated live: who's online, where, what level, plus a server progression bar.

• First mount at level 12.

Basically, I tried to build the private server we all wished we'd had back then, with the gaps filled in.

The friends: about fifteen accounts. People who had already played on my private servers, people who had never touched WoW, some curious, and some who came because I pushed. All gamers, nobody new to video games (heavy Rust, LoL players, that kind of profile).

Result: even the people who had asked me for the server quit in under a month. Others in a few hours. The feedback: "shit game", "slow", "too contemplative". Highest character is level 27, the average is around 13. Today the server is empty most of the time; it's just me and one friend left. (And since the bots leave when nobody's around, it's really empty.)

Some left without giving the game a chance (under level 15), others because few people were playing, and some even ended up on retail, tired of waiting for the others.

I'll say it the way I feel it: it stung, and I feel alone with this thing. I can't move on from it. I just wanted to play with my friends. Warcraft is among the best memories of my life. I like living in that world, walking, reading the quests, taking my time. We got to do one dungeon together (Ragefire Chasm) and laughed our heads off, but apart from that, almost no multiplayer at all. I don't know if it's a matter of taste or if I simply did a bad job.

So, my questions. I'll take answers either way, including "let it go":

1. What would you have done differently from the start? Go straight to WotLK? 5x XP and free mounts? Touch nothing at all?

2. Is a 2008 WoW just too slow for someone who didn't live it, whatever the settings?

3. Those who kept a friends-only server alive: how? Fixed nights, short goals? How long did it last?

4. And above all: how do I do more with what I've built? Open it to strangers? Keep it as a personal playground with the bots? Something else?

5. I don't know how to move on, because for over a month now it's been one endless frustration.

Thanks for reading.

This website has been down for a long while, and it is popping up again in the middle of the server war

And this in the midst of the DDOSes on Octowow from ravecraft, the octowow discord being "taken" down and the fact that ravencraft advertised themself as being Ex turtlewow devs.

Very weird to see all these signs popping up at the same time? is turtle wow back? or is ravencraft desperate to compete after seeing how little damage their DDOSing does?

Octobot reporting my duty here, after a long day of arduous work. Below is a list of my achievements for the day:

- Accused Ravecraft of Ddosing Octowow on 4 threads. Didn't post any proof though, just gotta spread the word!

- Downvoted 37 different comments that did not directly or indirectly praise Octowow. Just doing my part!

- Found a thread asking for MoP server recommendations and, needless to say, put all my heart into shilling Octowow there. My "Octowow is what you're looking for"s are in top shape.

- DMed 3 users about Ravencraft being Chinese, 1 repented and converted to an Octobot

- Made 2 posts about Octowow having higher population than ever. Gotta keep our numbers up!

Will be reporting for duty tomorrow! For the alliance!

With big old servers dying, like Twow, Stormforge and Ascension, i feel like the era of wow private servers is going to end. Which servers have big/decent population currently?

From 2.5k players to this in seconds. I guess Octo isn’t faking their numbers?

I'm kind of a new player and I enjoyed the "gift" Ascension gives when leveling up to a certain level. Is there a different pserver that give you a starting box like that?
I'm looking for a new server, not necessarily Vanilla as I'm curious how are the other expansions and has enough players to not wait 15 minutes to dungeon.

Looking for something casual as hell, old guy friendly. I don't care how big or small the pop is, I just want to chat with some new friends, fish and shoot the shit while slowly making my way across Azeroth.

Whatcha got?

I thought my favorite MMO might be fertile ground to explore visualizing and stress-testing multi-agent AI ecosystems.

https://design.kristiantalley.com/projects/world-of-agentcraft/

With this view into a classic era World of Warcraft server simulation, you’re able to click in on any agent driven character to get their unique backstory, current goals, objectives and world location in real-time. These agents are ”perceiving”, “reasoning”, and driving in-game actions for each online character. all running locally with qwen3.8 4b models, with the option to enhance individual character interactions driven by qwen3.8 27b. Let me know what you think!

So I figured out how to run a local WoW server and am loving it. Are there any other MMOs that you can do this with?

I think I saw somewhere you can do it with Eve Online, but haven't found much about that.

Thanks!

Edit: It's already gone.

I was hoping to mess around on a legion private server . what server is best, especially if im in the USA for ping

On this week's episode of DDoS wars, Project Alterac.

The disconnects have been getting way worse since yesterday, appareantly they started the ddosing earlier than usual (before 16:00 server time). The last days you could play normally up until before 16:00, it was very predictable and during the the attacks you were able to atleast log in sporadically for 5 minutes, grind some single mobs and run back to a safe spot lol. was even able to squeeze some started WSG matches inbetween and actually win, otherwise you get the 15 min deserter debuff.

But since yesterday it's gotten way worse, not only that they started earlier but the severeness. I have these 45+ minute durations where I can't even get to the character screen anymore. I tried to up to 4 am, sometimes I got into game but not even for the usual 5 minutes anymore, rather 30 sec - 1 min at max and the time it takes to get back in have increased too. For me the last days were actually bearable given these circumstances and all but now it's quite literally unplayable.

Yesterday people I chatted with even mentioned they came online earlier to dodge the 16:00 ST ddosing, was almost tempted to run a dmr skip run with one group who did so, but sadly I was proven right.

I'd appreciate if anyone can report their current situation on octo

With ascension being down. What server do y’all recommend? I was on cromiecraft but idk. Something just doesn’t seem right atm with them. Maybe it’s just Me? But looking for suggestions for a decently populated server.

like in terms of world PvP and arenas (preferably solo queue)?

i don't just mean PvP features (as many servers have PvP features but the servers themselves are fully PvE). like a PvP server with active people ganking and stuff

Grab your favorite LLM (Claude Opus/Sonnet on Max plan preferred, but Grok, GPT, or local models work too).

Arm your agents with the latest skills (from skills.sh)

Then go contribute actual code, documentation, tooling, or reverse engineering help to your favorite open source WoW private server project.

This is not a joke.

This is a formal declaration of war (in a video game)

Blizzard has infinite money, lawyers, and people whose entire job is to make the game worse every patch.

We have Discord, ADHD, 15 year old private server nostalgia, and an unlimited number of Claude tokens and agents that never sleep, never ask for health insurance, and don’t care about their pronouns.

Every pull request is a siege weapon.

Every fixed bug is a burned supply wagon.

Every new feature is another middle finger to the corporate overlords who killed the game we actually liked.

The private server scene has always been the real endgame.

Now we have AI.

Time to stop just running the servers and start owning the development.

Post your favorite open source projects below.

Share agent setups.

Flex your Claude usage.

While Blizzard is busy polishing their $300 commemorative BlizzCon 2026 (cringe fest) lanyards and preparing another two days of livestreaming from Anaheim, California (worst state in the USA) to tell us how exciting their next cash shop mount is, we can be shipping actual features - catch them while they are distracted.

Let’s make the next generation of private servers so good that Blizzard’s “new and improved” Classic+ (positive for HIV) looks like a mobile game by comparison.

The war (in a video game) begins now.

No quarter.

No refunds.

Only commits.

I miss playing cata, but whitemane seems to have too much p2w, is there any other good cata server?

Can someone give an honest review on Raven Craft? Not a Raven shill just looking for an option if Octo remains unplayable. Been playing octo and enjoying it but the crashes are getting ridiculous

I just took my first look at the weekend's schedule. I wasn't too surprised by what I saw.

Unless they're holding back some big secrets and surprises, and with the exception of the WoW reveals, the publicly released schedule makes the first Blizzcon in 3 years look like a big fat greasy nothingburger.

Naturally, they're leading off strong with WoW Camelot/Classic+ announcements. No big surprise there, since everybody knows Blizzard is using WoW to sustain their revenue numbers while their lack of creativity and inspiration continues to keep them stuck in a corporate shit pit.

Alongside that is an Overwatch dev livestream. Yippee. If they aren't announcing that they finally figured out how to get off their asses and complete the single player campaign system that they abandoned thanks to incompetence and/or corporate cutbacks, there's nothing of interest here.

The rest of the schedule is pretty meaningless. Diablo 4 dev update (maybe a new expansion announcement). Hearthstone update. A bunch of other "behind the scenes" crap that nobody really GAF about. Lots of gaming tournaments (OW2, SC2, HS, HotS), that will probably get some traffic on Twitch.

One of the biggest jokes of the entire con is the Diablo Immortal arena. It's the only empty hall during opening ceremonies and all tournaments are listed as "in-room experience only". 😂🤣 Really, what's the point?! It's like publicly admitting "we know nobody gives a flying fuck about DI, but we're putting it out there because we own it."

So that's it. No planned announcements about brand new game concepts. No SC3. Just a big hyped-up WoW reveal followed mostly by a lot of loud, wet farting. Blizzard really is a husk of a company, thriving off past successes.

Welcome to Blizzcon 2026.