What is a World of Warcraft Private Server?

Question

I've heard my friends talk about these, and I play WoW myself. But, I still don't know what it is, or if its legal.

Answer 1

Private servers are against the Blizzard TOS. You agree to this everytime you signon after a patch.

Having said that, here is something to consider since you apparently have an active WoW account. If you have any level 70 characters (or other high-level characters) is it worth your account possibly being banned to try a private server?

Answer 2

It is illegal for the hosts because they're using Blizzards (Vivendi Universal) proprietary software. However it's probably very hard to shut them down because there are several of them out there who have been there for a while. I know for a fact Vivendi can sue for damages because these places don't charge users but it probably would cost more to sue than to let them exist due to the small user population. Google/Yahoo will probably pick one up fairly quickly with a search or two.

As for what they are: they're a server someone runs off of their own private machines and internet connections to allow people to play world of warcraft without paying for it. Generally speaking they're very buggy and "customer service" is very slow because they're not getting paid to help you out, thus no incentive. The GMs can be any shade of mean or nice because they can get away with it and they're less stable and more laggy than Vivendi's real servers. The only draw I've found is that some servers can increase experience gain per monster killed allowing you to level up exponentially as fast.

PS: If you donate they sometimes give you custom weapons they created which are generally speaking VERY overpowered. So PvP'ing without having 'donated' is generally impossible to do on a fair basis.

Answer 3

It's not legal.

Basically, it's a server not open to the public but completely customizable. There are no other players unless you invite them. You can add whatever item you want to the inventory (20 slot bags, tier 6 raiding gear, you name it). You can solo pretty much every dungeon if you change the settings on how much damage you do, how much you take, and how much the mobs do and take. You can change the amount of money and number of drops you get from kills. Sounds like fun, but it gets old really quick - there's no challenge.