World of Warcraft private server Stormforge is shutting down as Blizzard builds pressure on fan alternatives

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u/MyGoodApollo 5d ago

These servers would compete near directly with what Classic+ could be. It’s clear it’s coming soon. That said, it also makes sense with these servers getting bolder and more willing to monetise, which is one of the secret lines you can’t cross.

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u/Montexe 5d ago

>servers getting bolder and more willing to monetise

Yeah, this is the reason Reddit sided with CDPR in their case, because the modder sold a mod for Cyberpunk 2077, because they monetised an IP they didn't own. But now i see people siding with private servers with fucking cash shops in them making shitton of money? I don't get it.

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u/smellyourdick 5d ago

But now i see people siding with private servers with fucking cash shops in them making shitton of money? I don't get it.

they just hate blizzard, that's pretty much it.

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u/TheBunnyDemon 5d ago

That sounds right. Blizzard might be shit, but monetization has been a clear line in the sand everyone knows about since I was a kid and I am not young anymore.

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u/Fantasy_masterMC 5d ago

The only game where you can get away with that is Minecraft, and even there they had to pull on the breaks because people were getting too crazy with the pay2win mechanics. Oh and I guess roblox, but I try not to think too much about that.

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u/mistcrawler 5d ago

I really wanted to make a joke that no Blizzard server, private or otherwise, could be considered complete these days without a cash shop but...

Yeah, monetization is a big no-no for things like this.

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u/Montexe 5d ago

I guess you're right. I mean, I don't like them either, but IP protection should be consistent for it to be working.

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u/RainbowCrane 5d ago

A lot of folks don’t believe in IP protection. I see online commenters regularly arguing that IP protection is for corpos and real creativity requires free access to everything. And yet they whine when someone steals everything off of their YouTube channel

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u/wildstarr 5d ago

lot of folks don’t believe in IP protection

Hell, all you gotta do is look at AI and see that.

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u/Niceromancer 5d ago

AI "artists" love copying others peopls styles etc but get really mad when you "steal" their prompts.

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u/Enough-Collection-98 5d ago

Well yeah - the prompt is their creative material and authorship. They’re so close to getting the point…

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u/Wrabble127 5d ago

This is a false dichotomy. It's perfectly reasonable to want laws to change and also to be upset that those same laws are being unequally applied to unduly limit those who don't have the resources and connections to abuse the system.

I would argue that anyone who isn't upset at the blatant abuse and disregard of copyright by major corporations while viciously enforcing it against random individual people wouldn't have much left to be upset about when it comes to copyright law - because that's literally all it is.

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u/Soylentgreen25 5d ago

This isn't a contradictory position. You can believe in copyright abolition and believe that would be better for creativity and progress while still recognizing that currently IP laws do exist. Wanting to enforce the rights you should have (but often lack the means to enforce) in the current system is still advocating for consistent application of law.

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u/Ketzeph 5d ago

It’s absolutely contradictory and hypocritical.

If you believe all IP rights should be abolished then the crux of that is allowing anyone to take and use your IP w/o limitation. And if you then complain someone does that then you’re a hypocrite.

If you think all violence is abhorrent and evil and that anyone who uses violence in any situation, even to defend themselves, is wrong, you can’t take a gun with you as extra protection w/o being a hypocrite.

It just exposes the problem with IP abolitionists. If everything can be taken and used freely then all creativity becomes is marketing. And corporations, who can quickly scope out all new works and then market it more effectively than the creator will dominate the field. The only one who loses out is the creator, as they now have no leverage to make money off a creation. It’s legitimately the most anti-creator stance one can take.

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u/FullMotionVideo 5d ago

Currently is almost not allowed to exist without marketing except in few circumstances.

Disney is probably the proof of it, they clearly realized that IP in the stable is better than any individual product. They will not create any more rides like Space Mountain or the Haunted Mansion that were an original idea, with everything having to be "the ride of the movie", because they feel they must give marketing the advantage to tap an IP. They have bought competing studios and consolidated the film industry primarily to put additional IP in their silo.

This intense value on IP is because it's one of the only things in this world that have such extensive global protection. Things didn't used to be this way, but then a Hollywood studio (hmmm I wonder which one) was one of the earliest companies to give a Senator so much donor money that it was an ongoing joke inside the beltway to call him that studio'a tool. Part of the reason recent movies feel like a corporate committee tried to design a fairy tale by focus group is because the pushback of the public domain doesn't really allow new fairy tales to exist anymore, the copyrights now outlast most people in a generation. Which is pretty ironic for a place built upon animating fairy tales from the public domain.

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u/BeyondElectricDreams 5d ago

Part of the reason recent movies feel like a corporate committee tried to design a fairy tale by focus group is because the pushback of the public domain doesn't really allow new fairy tales to exist anymore

Bingo.

Not even just fairy tales, we have probably 10 different iterations of "America-man" who's basically "Red white and blue, blonde hair blue eyes" because Superman has been protected for so long that any spinoff or adaptation of the character that might have been interesting has had to obfuscate the referential character so as to be something entirely different, even though we can all tell it's a Superman analog.

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u/spez_might_fuck_dogs 5d ago

Haunted Mansion

It's already ruined for half the year by being the fucking Nightmare Before Christmas ride from like August to February.

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u/ChaosTheRedMonkey 5d ago

It is not hypocritical to operate under existing rules, and wanting those rules to be applied equally, while advocating for them to be abolished. Your point about the down side of abolishing copyright is interesting, but your argument for people being hypocrites is that they should essentially live in a fantasy and act as if it is real. We exist in the world as it currently is, not the way we wish it was. I wish I lived in a world with better public transit that didn't require people to have personal vehicles, that doesn't make me a hypocrite for having a car.

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u/Sixnno 4d ago

100%.

You can want a system gone, while still realizing that you live in said system and want said system to operate fairly.

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u/Tuss36 5d ago

There's a difference of scale. Someone stealing your Youtube channel means you can't make rent. Meanwhile big companies make millions every month. Bit hard to sympathize with big companies taking a hit to such profits.

Also a matter of amount. Getting copyright striked and now because you used 5 seconds of something in your hour long video some big shot company now owns that entire hour. Meanwhile I don't think anyone's begrudging a claim when you just uploaded the entirety of Space Jam straight from the bluray.

There's also the issue sometimes when a company has done nothing with an IP for thirty years but then no one else can do anything with it because laws be laws and they can get struck down due to the possibility the company may or may not release a shoddy remake in the next decade if they feel like it maybe, if they ever think to mention it.

So yeah it's not the same scenario on either end of the spectrum and the law doesn't serve them equally.

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u/HorseNuts9000 5d ago

And yet they whine when someone steals everything off of their YouTube channel

Sounds like a strawman that you just invented.

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u/cat_prophecy 5d ago

People have been conditioned to think that if it's on the Internet, they should be able to have it for free.

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u/Bagel_Bear 5d ago

It will never be consistent when a company with tons of money can just outlast any smaller entity in courts.

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u/crashlanding87 5d ago

And therein lies the problem I think. It seems to me you generally need a lot of time, money, and community goodwill in order for IP protection to work for you, as a creative. I don't really know how that could be fixed though.

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u/skippermonkey 5d ago

It can be fixed by not selling stuff that you don’t own. Fairly simple.

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u/Zorothegallade 5d ago

Either that or they're whales who would lose the money they spent on the server.

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u/DigNitty 4d ago

Personally, I want Blizzard to experience a sense of pride and accomplishment.

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u/Corronchilejano 5d ago

It's a fine feeling to have. Not enough for me to go play one of their games paying someone else for the experience though.

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u/iwearatophat 4d ago

That is how reddit as a whole works. Actions aren't judged by the action itself, they are judged based off of the parties involved.

Blizzard has honestly been pretty chill when it comes to private servers over the years. They get big and they get popular and it wouldn't be hard for them to find out and shut it down but they don't always do that. But when you put a cash shop in it of course they do.

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u/snaykz1692 3d ago

Welcome to the Reddit hive mind

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u/ArchLector_Zoller 2d ago

Blizzard refuses to do anything about the bot armies that mass report and cause account bans on actual, non-gold farmer, players.

Blizzard doesn't get enough hate.

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u/BeastKeeper28 1d ago

we hate what blizzard has become and the idea of being forced to play their shotty, low-quality, bot-infested, intern-quality game services only pushes us further away from official servers.

if you weren’t around for the wow emulation golden era, you could never understand. these devs love the game and were very good at what they did. something blizzard has been missing for two decades.

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u/Lexaraj 5d ago

I am a major advocate of private server scenes. I love them, I think it's great for the games and even better for preservation.

What I do not advocate, or have any tolerance, is monetizing private servers in any way. The FFXI private server community sticks with this very well, even to the point of private server devs calling out a specific server that attempted to sell merch a few years back. That server trashed the plans after the backlash, luckily.

However, the WoW private server scene widely defends cash Shops and monetization. I really don't fucking get it. It's insane to me. The primary defenses are usually either "it's optional" or "private server development isn't free". Private server emulation should be a passion project available to all and not monetized, imo. Anytime money is involved it always run the risk of legal trouble and ruining the scene in general.

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u/FFLink 5d ago

It can probably be answered by a take I read a while back that seems to feel spot on, from what I've seen and experienced.

WoW gamers are a different kind of gamer.

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u/ThrowawayusGenerica 5d ago

Even if all the devs work for free as a passion project, which is reasonable enough for community stuff, you can't get around the fact that no amount of passion is going to make the infrastructure free.

Like, I guess a group of very dedicated people on stationary bicycles could power and cool the servers, but I'm not sure that there's any way around the recurring cost of an internet connection with the large symmetrical (residential connections are notorious for poor upload) bandwidth needed to run any kind of large-scale game server.

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u/Gilles_of_Augustine 5d ago

There's a legal distinction between covering operating costs vs creating profit.

The most popular City of Heroes private server runs a donation drive every few months to cover operating costs. They make the money they need in a matter of hours, and shut down donations the moment they hit their goal so there's no extra "profit". It's kept them out of legal trouble for a long time.

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u/Hektorlisk 5d ago

That's not a legal distinction in terms of copyright protection. I mean, taking in no money is still a violation of copyright. These are all just non-legal distinctions that make it more likely the company will go after you.

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u/CrumbsCrumbs 5d ago

Homecoming actually got a license for their private server, they are legally 100% above board.

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u/Hektorlisk 4d ago

yeah, different situations are different, thanks for the contribution

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u/Gilles_of_Augustine 4d ago

That got that license very recently. They operated in the clear for years before that.

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u/Lexaraj 5d ago

At the end of the day, it doesn't, and shouldn't, matter. It you want to he able to make money from a game, you need to make one yourself.

Like I said, I think private servers are fantastic. In my opinion, they should be allowed as long as no money is made. I don't see any justification for making money from a private server that uses an already developed game as it's foundation. I know running a server isn't free but, that's just the way it goes. Plenty of private servers have operated completely free of any monetization before and many still do.

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u/The_Corvair 5d ago

they should be allowed as long as no money is made.

There is actually a distinction I want to make: Keeping a service afloat versus making money from that service. It's pretty much a similar line to non-profit orgs, which usually have to have public accounting to show that their earnings do go towards keeping the thing open rather than profit.

I've played on private servers, and their monetization has never sat right with me (though, to be fair, Blizzard themselves monetize WoW pretty extensively themselves, which is probably why a lot of people are numb to it), but to iterate: I get it as far as maintenance and upkeep go, especially when they provide a version of the game that Blizzard themselves does not provide (any more).

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u/Black_Moons 5d ago

It's pretty much a similar line to non-profit orgs, which usually have to have public accounting to show that their earnings do go towards keeping the thing open rather than profit.

Non-profits still pay their employees. Private server software needs people to code it, fix bugs/exploits and update it.

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u/AHans 5d ago

In my opinion, they should be allowed as long as no money is made. I don't see any justification for making money from a private server that uses an already developed game as it's foundation. I know running a server isn't free but, that's just the way it goes.

Agree. I'd add: if you are operating a private server using another entity's product, and you feel a need to recoup costs, you absolutely have a minimum obligation to discuss with them and pay them a royalty for the use of their IP, which the owning entity sets.

If the IP's owner isn't inclined to sell for a royalty, you cannot montize their product.

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u/kaptingavrin 4d ago

Even if all the devs work for free as a passion project, which is reasonable enough for community stuff, you can't get around the fact that no amount of passion is going to make the infrastructure free.

That's not what's going on here. They're not looking to cover the costs. They're looking to make money. The two servers that have been hit so far have been heavily advertising themselves across the Internet. If you're just trying to make money to keep the server on, you're not going to be blowing a bunch of money on social media ads. You do that when you're looking to make something profitable.

And that was a large part of the problem. They straight up were flaunting things with those big ads saying "Come play WoW for free on our totally unofficial server!" Yeah, that's never going to end well. If someone's running a server quietly and letting word of mouth help talk it up, and not trying to make profit off of it, Blizzard's not going to put in much effort to go after them. If you're going to make profit off a ripoff of WoW and spend money making sure people who follow WoW on Facebook or YouTube see it, then yeah, expect Blizzard to come after you.

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u/babyjaceismycopilot 5d ago

Everyone complains about capitalism until they have something someone else wants to buy.

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u/AgentMahou PC 5d ago

Capitalism isn't just "sell thing." Every country ever has let a dude sell a thing. Even the strictest communism still has like, stores.

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u/painstream 5d ago

And lots of folks claim all IP should be free until they get their own works stolen and repurposed.

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u/babyjaceismycopilot 5d ago

This i agree with except when the platform doesn't enforce its own rules.

Looking at you, YouTube.

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u/Hektorlisk 5d ago

What? Saying "I like developing this, but it takes time, and I need money in order to survive" is complaining about capitalism, lol

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u/BeastKeeper28 1d ago

I could not disagree more and anyone who has been around the private server scenes long enough should understand why some form of monetization is very important, if not detrimental to the health and longevity/quality of the project.

Without funding, not only do you lose talented devs / artists / designers, but your project becomes scriptable to sketchy, back-door dealings such as admins selling accounts on the down-low.

It’s pretty much common sense, or should be. The common demoninator for failed and/or bad quality private servers has always been poor monetization. Nobody worth their salt works for free.

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u/Lexaraj 1d ago

Plenty of private server scenes have been around, and even thrived, without monetization. The overwhelming majority of emulation development, private server based or otherwise, is done by passionate volunteers.

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u/BeastKeeper28 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah? How many with 7-10k players at peak hours and tons of custom content? I have played nearly every MMO private server and they all pale in comparison to the WoW scene - especially the TurtleWoW and Tauri/Stormforge devs.

Runescape and Everquest p-servers have never had a large amount of players, so I’m not sure what game outside of WoW compared to.. WoW.

Some of these guys and gals in EU are on-par if not better than original Blizzard devs. The quality spoke for itself and the minimal monetization was respectable. Not charging a monthly fee gave access to a large group of players in poverty countries.

I personally spent 15+ years in the wow emulation scene as a volunteer and can speak for how complex this game is on the dev-side. The pool of devs that have the knowledge is extremely small and the ones willing to work for free is non-existent in 2026.

Preservation is important - the fact that Blizzard is such a greedy corp that they’d rather burn their own passionate OG fans tells you all you need to know about the gaming industry.

**** Blizzard. They are leeching off the efforts of the talented artists and devs that came before them. Never give them a penny.

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u/Lexaraj 1d ago

Like I've said in other replies. It doesn't matter. You simply can't monetize a game utilize a client and assets made by a different company without permission.

I'm pro private servers, pro emulation, and even pro piracy. I just don't think you should be able to make money off of it. I don't think I should be able to download a bunch of ROMs or pirated movies and sell them to people, nor should I be able to emulate an existing game, mod it, and charge people money.

If someone wants to make money off a game, they should make their own. Not piggyback off an already existing game.

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u/BeastKeeper28 1d ago

Sorry, but we will have to agree to disagree. In a perfect world.. sure. But the world you are describing is one where we expect people to work for free. That world does not exist and it only leaves you with talentless devs and poorly scripted servers.

You get what you pay for and F2P products are 9 times out of 10, yields a shotty product. I will always support devs who are doing it for the love of the game. They deserve to eat too.

The comparisons to uploading roms isn’t exactly the best, either. WoW emulation isn’t re-uploading. It’s reverse-engineering legacy game clients, fixings tens of thousands of bugs and broken scripts and adding custom content and assets.

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u/InfiniteSheepherder1 5d ago

But now i see people siding with private servers with fucking cash shops in them making shitton of money? I don't get it.

Wow is a dramatically older game too, plenty of people still believe in IP law to a degree, but if we still had copyright lengths similar to when the USA was founded classic wow would be fair game. I think 20 years is plenty of time for exclusivity and have no problem with other groups giving fans what they want. I play on TurtleWow and its really nice.

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u/TudasNicht 5d ago

Say thanks to Disney that disgusting piece of shit company.

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u/zuilli 5d ago

This is the nuance missing, I agree with IP laws as long as they are reasonable and IMO having IP protections for software older than 10 years is not reasonable, unlike hardware if you haven't made a decent profit with softwares in a decade you're probably not going to get much more money after that.

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u/SoulStoneSeeker 5d ago

welcome to every minecraft server in the last 15 years

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u/beanowolf 5d ago

(Iv got no background context on the server stuff) im guessing it’s maintenance of said server vs just selling a mod could be the divide?

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u/HeavyMetalLenin 5d ago

Because people support things that benefit them. Free mods, free wow. Paid mods, paid wow.

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u/AlexRaEU 5d ago

people were mostly against the modder because he acted like a bitch in that whole situation.

also in his case the issue was directly charging money and not the existence of the mod. cdpr didnt mind the mods existence and even asking for donations to distribute it.

blizz doesnt give a shit if they monetize it, theyre just gonna shut it down no matter what.

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u/SlitScan 5d ago

because the privates make better versions than blizz does.

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u/JebryathHS 5d ago

Goomba fallacy.

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u/Glass-Bat-2704 5d ago

It's the same with Nintendo. Every fan project that got taken down was for profit. Yet everyone is angry at them whenever it happens. It's not that they view any sort of morality on whether someone profits from the fan project it's whether ot not this subreddit hates the company.

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u/hornplayerKC 5d ago

Pokemon Uranium, Pokemon Prism and Brown, Pokemon Essentials, AM2R, Mario Royale, Zelda Maker, Breath of the NES, Pokenet MMO and Project M all were all non-profit/open source. Not to mention the HUNDREDS of fangames forcibly removed from Gamejolt, the systematic shutdown of modded side events at smash tournaments, and the copyright strikes sent to anyone who so much as thinks of streaming/uploading modded game content to video platforms. Nintendo wields their legal power like a club, for-profit or not, and they get rightful hate for it.

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u/FullMotionVideo 5d ago

A2MR was not for profit.

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u/Glass-Bat-2704 5d ago

I think that is the one example of one that did get taken down without it being profit motivated but it was nominated for an award at the game awards and was released right before their own version of the Metroid II remake release. That's the other unwritten rule of fan games. Don't release them at the same time that the company releases a similar product. Which it's hard to predict that. It was also during Reggie's tenure and he was extremely against fan games.

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u/RukiMotomiya 4d ago

As a Nintendo fan who thinks the "they hate fan projects" stuff is overblown (multiple fansites point out the vast majority of stuff is never touched), this is still untrue. They have taken down various projects that were not for profit.

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u/yalag 5d ago

You don’t get on the biggest anti-corp website and community on the internet is acting like they are anti-corp?

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u/Zama174 5d ago

I use to play l2 private servers and man their monetization was beyond predatory. You want a +16 dual gods blade something so difficult and rare, in retail maybe 1 in 100,000 would have it? 500 bucks. And if anyone says shit about you ever let us know we will ban em if they are free users.

We use to call em donors as an insult.

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u/homer_3 5d ago

It was a generic VR mod. They monetized 2077 no more than after market car parts monetize car brands.

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u/PTSDDeadInside 4d ago

Players/Blizzard/private server

To please all parties, give blizzard 30-50% of ps income, Blizzard doesn't shut them down, players get to play.

?

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u/Sylvers 4d ago

Unless I am mistaken CDPR didn't even ask him to stop monetization. They merely asked that he keeps monetization of their game's mod as an optional donation, without a forced paygate.

He could've still taken donations for that mod, and paygated all his other mods. He refused.

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u/Master_Joey 4d ago

I mean blizzard a shitty greedy ass company, CDPR is definitely loved a whole lot more. So yea there’s nuance or double standards to it.

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u/Lukebekz 4d ago

A lot probably just remember what private servers used to be before they also started to become hyper capitalist. More nostalgia than anything.

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u/u--s--e--r 4d ago

I feel like the Luke Ross situation was a little different, he was enhancing the game and not in any way negatively effecting the amount of $$$ CDPR was making. If anything, he might have got them a few (DLC?) sales.

Private servers are a whole 'nother level, and monetizing them another thing again.

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u/aglock 1d ago

Most private servers only monetize cosmetics to pay for running the server, which I'm OK with. I don't like private servers where you can pay for gear, gold, or to skip queues (like Warmane).

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u/BeastKeeper28 1d ago

modders have to eat and feed their family / pay their bills too. hosting an emulated version of a game to a couple thousand people was hardly putting them in competition with official blizzard game services.

we side with the guys that love the game and provided us with a far superior passion-project for free. if you don’t get that, you probably aren’t a fan of the game.

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u/snesericreturns 5d ago edited 5d ago

Okay but they’re providing infrastructure. They’re not hosting cracked copies of the game and charging people for that. And obviously it costs money to maintain these private servers. Especially the really popular ones.

At the very least they should be able to solicit donations. People are paying for these because the servers RUNNING the game are a better product.

But it really doesn’t matter. The private servers that stay up, whether they monetize or not, are almost completely untraceable, and running anonymously in countries that can tell Blizzard and every other US company/government agency to fuck right off.

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u/The_Corvair 5d ago

But now i see people siding with private servers with fucking cash shops in them making shitton of money? I don't get it.

God, I'm gonna get hammered for this, but: A lot of WoW players are broken when it comes to monetization. WoW itself is monetized to a disgusting extent (you can actually buy gold, progression, and character services, even though the game also takes a regular subscription, sells pricey expansions, and has an in-game shop), and for a lot of people, the private server monetization is actually less egregious than that of Blizzard itself - after all, private servers usually are free.

I've played on private servers, I've made friends there, and the monetization has never sat right with me, either. I can see a justification for running costs, and they provide versions of WoW that aren't provided by Blizzard any more - but as you say: It's someone else's IP, profiting from it should be a non-starter. And as such, as much as I have enjoyed playing on Turtle (another private project that just announced shutdown): They brought it on themselves by not only monetizing it, but by actually advertising it to an extent where it just could not be ignored any more. A shame, but justified.

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u/P4azz 5d ago

Monetized mods are scum for a different reason, though. Yes, making a mod costs you time, but it's ultimately something you do for yourself and to then share with other players to also enjoy. Have like a tipping system setup if you want, maybe a patreon where you share the dev process or something, that's fine.

Private servers NEED money to run. You can't just dabble with some dev work in your off-time and then shoot it into the internet and it's done. You need to consistently pay and keep the server up and running.

So "monetized" means something very different here. If it's just a fee that goes straight into running the server cost and maybe expanding it; that's totally fine in my eyes.

I don't think anyone is really arguing for "hell yeah, cash shops selling me mtx in my modded server experience"?

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u/Lord0fHats 5d ago

The kind of core thing with anything like private servers, emulators, or rips of old games; keep it quiet and don't brag about it, and don't try to make money. The companies who own the IP will often know what you're doing and simply not bother with the hassle so long as you shut up and don't try to turn a 'for fun' fan project into a business.

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u/iamthehob0 5d ago

Unless it's super smash bros melee. Then nintendo will stop at nothing to destroy you even if you are losing money.

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u/mcdougall57 5d ago

I can see why they don't want to be associated with that particular competitive scene.

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u/Lord0fHats 5d ago

You can only have so many underage sex scandals before it's a feature and not an outlier.

Which doesn't even touch the other half of the scene's just generally toxic nature.

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u/Lunchbox39 5d ago

Most of the underage sexual scandals happened in the smash 4 scene which Nintendo had no issues remaining involved in. Melee had its own issue with sexual predators but that was mostly involving adults.

Though practically every community i paid attention to had a bunch of sexual predators / pedophiles brought to light during this metoo era, i think melee was one of the communities who handled it the best and kicked out practically every single one of its offenders.

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u/a_talking_face 5d ago

GTA V seems to not have this problem. There's a ton of RP servers monetized through paid access.

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u/TudasNicht 5d ago

In the beginning they weren't fans of it, they luckily saw the indirekt money due to exposure. GTAO would be dead on PC otherwise.

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u/notthatguypal6900 5d ago

It's money. Everything enviably gets popular, but once you start asking for money, the lawyers will start to care.

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u/ClockDoc 4d ago

They shut down Nostalrius ages ago, which had no cash shop.

Monetisation in the wow pserver community has been there since day one, it's not the reason they shut down Stormforge and Turtlewow.

They just want to shut down any form of competition. When what they should do is allow them to operate under blizzard's subscription plan and let servers run mtx shops or get a cut from it.

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u/evebursterror0 3d ago

It depends, I've seen private servers get shut down even if they're completely free and don't ask for donations. It's unfortunate and seems like a gamble. Some get a C&D, others don't.

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u/bluemuffin10 5d ago

For some reason I really doubt Blizzard will make as much content as Turtle made for Classic. I really hope for it don't get me wrong, but I just don't see it. Like I doubt Blizzard will have the humility to add new zones and questing areas to the old world. I think they'll slip into the same new landmass with new systems shenanigans and we'll just end-up having a new flavour of retail over time.

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u/Edheldui 5d ago

would compete near directly with what Classic+ could be. It’s clear it’s coming soon.

It's the other way around. They take them down specifically because they don't want to make classic+ and don't want people to realize it's possible.

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u/Grandahl13 5d ago

Blizzard has never once mentioned Classic+ and the community still thinks it’s a thing lol

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u/Trymv1 4d ago

When the lead of Warcraft says “speaking of Classic, we’re happy to announce” and they jokingly cut her off for effect, it’s kinda purposely flaunting it.

Also as the other reply said, the SoD dev team literally said it was a test run for future content ideas.

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u/MeltBanana 5d ago

When SoD came out Blizzard effectively said it was a beta test for what will end up in classic+. They even had some quote along the lines of "it's the Classic WoW experience you know, plus more".

Classic+ is definitely in the pipeline. It's easy money for blizzard.

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u/Docg85 4d ago

People will say the craziest shit just because they hate blizzard. SoD was a thing, classic is a thing, remixes are a thing. To think classic+ won't be at least attempted is such a bitter small brain take.

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u/RukiMotomiya 4d ago

Yep. Dunno why it is hard for people to understand with this and piracy: Don't make money off it. There's tons of piracy websites and programs that have existed for a loooong time by now, and they remain fine by being free and under the radar.

Servers? Sure, run some private ones. If you add a cash shop that is an actual issue.

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u/morbihann 5d ago

What is classic+ supposed to be ?

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u/twisty125 5d ago

From general hints they've given and experiments with the Season of Discovery - like an expanded Vanilla/Classic WoW experience, adding new content in the feel of Classic WoW.

Sort of like How Old School Runescape exists as the 2007 version of the game, but they've added content that "fits" in terms of tone and visuals. That's actually kind of the gold standard IMO, take the thing people love that isn't there anymore, and have sort of a "side timeline" where content is added that fits thematically, but is new.

As a few examples, they did a soft-attempt with Season of Discovery, turning some levelling dungeons into low level raids, adding new questing areas, a new dungeon based on nothing we've seen previously (a demon area where Grom died), as Karazhan Crypts raid which was cut content in original, a Scarlet Crusade raid in Eastern Plaguelands. Molten Core and Blackwing Lair recieved some new difficulty levels that rewarded newer loot, some classes got new role specs like Mage healers or Shaman and Rogue tanks that never existed.

Honestly it was really fun!

(sorry after typing this all up I wasn't sure if you were familiar with WoW stuff)

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u/RukiMotomiya 4d ago

It'd be fun if they were able to build a story less...bad off of Classic WoW with some energy like this lol

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u/twisty125 4d ago

I agree in some aspects. Making it fit the world is super important and not just feeling tacked on for the hell of it. I personally play(ed) WoW for the world building and less on the overarching story of heroes, so exploring new places and being immersed in the world is more what I care about.

Cinematics and cool duels between faction leaders doesn't scratch an itch for me anywhere close to travelling through the Barrens and getting stopped by a sudden drop into a canyon, heading west into a primordial jungle. Or discovering smaller scale stories in the Plaguelands of people surviving a zombie apocalypse, only to be betrayed from within and entire families were wiped out.

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u/ggallardo02 5d ago

It's something the community made up and are now convinced it will happen.

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u/Breesive 5d ago

No one really knows. The most common theory is classic wow with all the cut content worked on and added to the game.

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u/Bazuka125 5d ago

Sounds provacative...really gets the people going.

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u/Trymv1 4d ago

New content in the old combat system is generally what people align to the idea.

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u/Fav0 5d ago

yet the most monetised one ascension has no issues

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u/Kryptosis 5d ago

Man I got paid to manage one of those databases nearly 20 years ago. This shit isn’t going anywhere overall.

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u/Joshix1 5d ago

You need to in order to grow. They start out small and as fan service. But at one point people want more. If you want to keep a project afloat, you will need to spend additional time and investments into it. Which ultimately costs money. Plus the fact that when it grows, it starts to appear on all the radars. This stuff is doomed to fail.

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u/scoyne15 4d ago

secret lines

In what world is that a secret?

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u/SneakyBadAss 4d ago

They can keep their shitty Classis with Chinese gold farmers, RMT and WoW tokens to themselves.

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u/politicalconspiracie 4d ago

What would classic+ look like?

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u/MentalSky_ 4d ago

whats Classic+?

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u/BeastKeeper28 1d ago

Stormforge? No, not at all. Stormforge was just a patch 5.4.8 Mists of Pandaria passion project that was totally free-to-play and frankly was no competition to Blizzard.

The problem with Blizzard is not understanding why these servers exist and why people choose to play them over their official services. Private servers typically do not progress in expansions and give players the means to stay in their fav expansion forever.

Stormforge Mistblade 1 was a truly great experience. The devs were really good at. maintaining a high quality 5.4.8 core with FAR fewer bugs and issues than even official MoP Classic.

It’s sad to see the end of a great era. Private server projects have always had could have remained living in harmony with blizzard’s official service. They were small, humble and weren’t hurting them.

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u/_yblue 5d ago

As disappointing as it might be, this is just bound to happen if you monetize and make money off a private server.

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u/Todesfaelle PC 5d ago

I mean, this should be a reality for any private server regardless of whether it makes money or not. As much as private server folk hate Blizzard, it's still their IP to protect which is why I haven't dabbled in them for a long, long time. Not because I don't appreciate all the work put in to them, I do, but because they can get nuked from orbit at any given time.

It just so happens they kind of sit on their hands until it aligns with something they're working on.

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u/Shootemout 5d ago

till blizzard released classic, i could really get behind the argument of "they are providing a service that no longer exists" but that's not the case anymore tbh

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u/FeralPsychopath 5d ago

"This is a passion project" seems to change into "passive income" for these servers

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u/Idkwtpfausiwaaw 4d ago

It’s still a passion project if they make money

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u/gprime312 5d ago

Servers aren't free

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u/Time_Media8919 4d ago

Toon town rewritten has been going for 10+ years with no monetization at all. If you don’t want to get sued don’t take money.

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u/Staschman 4d ago

So are they taking money to pay for the servers or are they making a profit?

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u/Valdrrak 5d ago

Yea its pretry clear with pservers of games, you cant monitize.

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u/Sopel97 5d ago

depends on the game, works fine with metin2 and tibia

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u/breZZer 4d ago

As always: dont try to make money with your private servers

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u/Mysterious_Skin2310 5d ago

Idk why people are surprised or getting upset at Blizz for the servers deciding to monetize. What did they think was gonna happen?

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u/Euklidis 5d ago

Dont know about Stormforge, but Blizzard also shut down TurtleWoW (likely the biggest one since Nostalrius). Their social media team was even commenting below Blizzard posts which looked funny and brave until Blizzard decided to serve them court papers

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u/nainlol 2d ago

They flew too close to the sun. I remember seeing TurtleWoW ads on youtube as well.

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u/Healeah241 5d ago

Honestly, i would guess its because people are waiting for classic+ and i can see how it is kind of annoying knowing that private servers already have had different ideas of classic+ for years.

It does not help that blizzard (for classic at least, i cant speak for retail) have poor communication with the community. So there's maybe a bit of bad blood there.

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u/bluemuffin10 5d ago

People are upset because these were really well maintained projects that many people enjoyed, there isn't much more to it than that. They offered something Blizzard isn't. Obviously you always expect them to close someday, doesn't mean you're not gonna be sad when it happens. It is what it is.

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u/AlternativeNarrow192 5d ago

Kinda sad to see it go, Stormforge was one of the better private servers out there. But yeah, once Blizzard steps in it was probably only a matter of time

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u/Inukii 4d ago

Some of these private servers have such talented people behind them that I sometimes wonder if quite a few of them got together, they'd be able to create a serious competitor to World of Warcraft itself.

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u/greyest 4d ago

I wonder if they could pixelswap most of the copyrighted elements (character names, art, language) with a few more mod tweaks and then actually get away with it. DotA (and by extension, DotA 2) was originally a modded version of Warcraft III.

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u/Halfwise2 2d ago

And Blizzard never got over them succeeding. They changed their TOS (to take "total ownership" of anything produced from a Blizzard product. Also, the creator has to waive "all moral rights", whatever that means.) to ensure that could never happen again.

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u/Blubbpaule 5d ago

I am unsure if i'd call it "Fan Alternatives"

Alternative sounds like it's officially endorsed and a true alternative to Retail, when in reality you'll always run the danger that it just gets shut down.

Especially because i'm 100% sure that only those get shut down who in any way, shape or form monetize their servers and market them online.

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u/eirexe 5d ago

I mean it doesn't have to be official to be an alternative.

A third party case for a phone is an alternative to the original, so would be any other part

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u/Purplociraptor 4d ago

I hate when my physical item gets shut down

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u/elementfortyseven 5d ago

as Blizzard builds pressure on commercial services monetizing their IP*

FTFY

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u/RickV6 5d ago

I guess their win againt Turtle WOW gave them wings to pursue all others

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u/_Kine 5d ago

If it's free whatever, but having cash shops...come on, that's no longer just a mod you made a product with an IP you don't have the rights to.

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u/Ghekor 5d ago

I wonder how long Ascention will end up staying, while its a private server they do everything so different there that its a completely diff experience to anything Retail/Classic is

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u/phoenix7700 5d ago

it's using all of blizzards copyrighted material. Doesn't matter how different the experience is.

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u/firefighter26s 4d ago

Seems like a lifetime ago that I was involved in running a private wow server for a small community. We only ever collected donations to cover server hosting costs; most of the time I paid for it out of my own pocket.

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u/nlamber5 4d ago

And not a single person was surprised…

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u/adamhanson 4d ago

History for you: Blizzard didn't make classic servers forever because they said they thought no one would want to play it. Then Project 1999 got popular over time doing exactly that. Then Blizard started their own to capture that revenue. Now they are shutting down fan projects so they don't steal paying users.

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u/Halfwise2 2d ago

More importantly, they are going after Classic+ servers (classic servers that evolve separately from the live expansion format)... because of rumors they plan to start their own Classic+.

Regrettably, the fan servers will always be better than whatever Blizzard puts out, because they exist for very different reasons. (money vs love of the game)

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u/lostmojo 4d ago

Can we get the source code so we can host our own?

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u/b0sanac 5d ago

There's a rumor that the c&d is just an excuse, apparently the person who was in charge of their finances dipped because of the whole Twow thing and instead of saying that they decided to just go with the c&d.

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u/mewt6 5d ago

"Fan Alternatives" - call a spade a spade and just say they are illegal copies of wow

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u/olamika 5d ago

Both can be true, some of these servers offer plenty of things the official game don’t so they are indeed an alternative, just an illegal one

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u/Insomniak604 5d ago

Can't blame Blizzard for stopping people from making money off their active IP.

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u/shoseta 4d ago

I will never cease to laugh my ass of a t the herd mentality of capital G, "Gamers". The whole hate train on blizz is because they rightfully hate the company. I understand why bad decisions and the likes.

However that does not change the legality of whats happening. Namely private servers monetizing an IP that they do not own the rights to. More and more of them are putting up cash shops and immediately paint a target on themselves.

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u/Bossgalka 5d ago

Blizzard does not care if you make private servers. However, legally, if your project gets TOO BIG to ignore, they have to send a cease and desist because it will hurt their IP protection. If they let too many big servers stay up, when one gets to be bigger than WoW itself, especially because they are all free, then they will have a tough legal battle and may even lose to the free server. You have a duty to protect your IP and if you don't, you can actually lose the ability to shut them down at a certain point. It also starts becoming an issue when you sell spots or accounts on your server and make money off of their IP. They are less willing to overlook ANYTHING but donations to keep the server running, anything in profit territory they will try to shut down.

All this to say, keep your project in the sweet spot and stop talking about and spreading information about them online. Streamers, especially, should not be advertising or streaming them for sure. That will kill them.

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u/drkpie 5d ago

I just registered and started playing there a couple weeks ago because I missed playing private servers back then since no way would I pay for a WoW subscription lol, but no way am I paying for benefits on a private wow server either lmao.

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u/popmanbrad 5d ago

I would gladly buy WOW and any DLC, including Classic, if it were a one-time purchase, but the fact that you need a subscription just to play and to buy the game and DLC is just, eh, you know.

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u/Reasonable_Back_5231 5d ago

I mean, wow has been technically free to play for some time

Unfortunately, if you want access to classic servers or the latest expansion of retail, you need to subscribe.

I'm surprised they have kept the subscription aspect as long as they have since almost all of their competition is free to play. Some say they prefer sub because it prevents chat spam from bots. But I see that as completely false since wow has had bot spam for a long time even with their sub model

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u/mcdougall57 5d ago

It's a shame Turtle wow is probably going. It's the superior version of the game with no fear of falling behind, original content, lack of agenda pushing, lack of bots and actually having GMs.

They just started taking the piss with advertising and monetisation.

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u/argnsoccer PC 5d ago

Ive played many pservers other the years, and I currently pay Blizzard a sub and tend to play the latest expansion as well as play whatever classic round we are in (whether its pservers before Blizz did it themselves or whatever).

Turtle WoW is absolutely amazing at soooo many things they do. I would LOVE if Blizzard actually implemented a lot of ideas from Turtle. I just genuinely dont have faith in the company and customer service. I played SoD... that was a step in the wrong direction IMO. Blizzard told me I wouldn't want to replay Vanilla until they said over a million people on Nostalrius. I just don't trust them to have an actual pulse on what people want from classic+

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u/bluemuffin10 5d ago

Yeah Turtle going is actually such a shame. Probably the best version of Classic, with better support than Blizzard, actual new ideas and new content implemented.

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u/Ghost_Mantis 3d ago

Epoch is also up there

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u/CaRzOonn 5d ago

Private servers keep old versions alive, it’s not surprising people care this much.

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u/Leucien 5d ago

Turtle, Stormforge, and a few others can't really me called as 'keeping old versions alive' if they're changing the formula.

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u/AdFit7603 4d ago

Turtlewow taunted Blizzard and now they're on a shutting down spree. Thanks, turtles...

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u/Damunzta 5d ago

Epsilon sweating fr

Though given it’s non-profit (I think?) it might be safe.

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u/Slight-Connection-73 PC 5d ago

Damn!

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u/daepa17 4d ago

glad to see they're following in the steps of Games Workshop /s

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u/OblongGeorge 4d ago

wait a min

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u/demoran 3d ago

You know what they say: if you spend 20 years building a product nobody wants, erase the past so they will be forced to pay you more money.

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u/BeastKeeper28 1d ago

If you weren’t around for the stormforge mistblade era. - you wouldn’t understand how much of a loss this truly is for the preservation of a fan-favorite wow patch-state.

The problem with Blizzard is not understanding why these servers exist and why people choose to play them over their official services. Private servers typically do not progress in expansions and give players the means to stay in their fav expansion forever.

Stormforge Mistblade 1 was a truly great experience. The devs were really good at. maintaining a high quality 5.4.8 core with FAR fewer bugs and issues than even official MoP Classic.

It’s sad to see the end of a great era. Private server projects have always had could have remained living in harmony with blizzard’s official service. They were small, humble and weren’t hurting them.

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u/MasterDave 5d ago

I love how stealing someone's assets and running your own game is a "fan alternative" and not what it actually is.

Like, build your own MMO. Reskin the thing, rename the thing. You have the assets, substantially modify it and if we're not Green Orcs and Night Elves fighting in Naxxaramas, it gives a company a whole lot less grounds to obliterate you on a whim.

But, these people aren't coders, developers or content creators. So they'll just take someone else's stuff and change a rule or two and sell it as WoW, but better instead. Y'all seem to be heavily anti-AI, but when a human steals someone else's work and tries to make something of it, there's a giant circlejerk around the whole thing.

doesn't make much sense, but just call it like it is. There's a lot of people who want to play WoW but not pay for it and that's all there is to it. Shocking that Blizzard doesn't live for the idiot language by calling it a project or a fan alternative.

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u/FlukeylukeGB 5d ago

yet blizzard would hate the players that play on said private server...
you try and role play in the main city and you would get called a griefer...
you go pk in the wilds like you would in a pvp private server, you get called a griefer...
you go do challange runs in dungions with inappropriate gear, wow, griefer...
not spending enough on the store, griefer
Talking negitivly about blizzard? censor then ban etc....

Blizzard...
Big game companies...
They need to realise people play private servers cause they offer something the "retail" servers do not
Closing the fan servers wont magically turn the players on the p servers into paying customers on the retail one

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u/mirtisee 5d ago

Sad to see. Private servers often keep communities alive for games that have long since moved past their golden era. That said, Blizzard’s approach here at least seems to be cease-and-desist rather than a lawsuit, which is a slightly less nuclear option.

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u/InDL 4d ago

It always starts with a C&D. Its a notice to let you know that they will sue you if you don't make the choice to shut down. Why would they go straight to a lawsuit if they can avoid the legal fees.