Are Private Servers a Threat to WoW Classic Servers?

Let’s face it, private servers have always been a part of World of Warcraft, one way or another. Ever since Blizzard’s most successful game to date saw the day of light back in late 2004, these servers have been lurking in the shadows. But now that we’re all waiting in anticipation for the brand new and official WoW Classic Servers.

It seems logical that more light will be shed on Blizzard’s very own 1.12 servers after Blizzcon 2018, including more intriguing info regarding the graphics, game mechanics and progression. Still, private servers have been delivering authentic (for the most part) vanilla experience, which raises the question…

Can private Vanilla Servers somehow interfere with Blizzard’s WoW Classic Servers?

Personally, I don’t think so. It seems like Blizzard doesn’t view private servers as such as threat, especially when you take into account just how many of these supposedly illegal servers there are. If they did view them as viable competition to their product, I’m sure that they’d probably use their lawyers to get rid of such servers.

The only exception to that rule was probably the largest vanilla private server ever -Nostalrius. Its popularity exploded back in late 2015 and that caught the attention of Blizzard. Eventually, the team behind Nostalrius received a copyright infringement notification and they decided to shut down the entire project as to avoid any legal implications.

But Nostalrius isn’t the first, nor will it be the last private vanilla server out there. From the legendary Feenix private server that was huge few years ago to newer ones, there are plenty of options to choose from if you want to dive into nostalgia right away.

For more WoW, check this out: WoW Classic News for Drums of War: What You Need to Know

Which are the best private servers at the moment?

While there might be plenty of vanilla private servers out there currently, here are the top 3 ones that are worth giving a try in my opinion:

1. Light’s Hope
2. Kronos
3. Vanilla Gaming

1. Light’s Hope

Light’s Hope is a relatively new vanilla server as it was created in October 2017. Its creators are former Elysium devs that separated from the Elysium project due to some internal issues there and they came up with their very own servers.

Basically, this is your typical 1.12, x1 progression vanilla place that tries to capture the essence of the original game. That means no play to win scenarios or dodgy practices and I believe that this is the most Blizz-like server at the moment. They’ve recently celebrated their first birthday and as a result, the guys at Light’s Hope released some interesting stats – essentially, they have:

• 1,446,194 accounts registered
• 279,792 active accounts
• Over 15,000 bots banned (since June 2018)

This stats speaks for itself and I have to admit that I’ve tried Light’s Hope myself and loved it. Without revealing any spoilers, I’m just going to mention that I was able to relive the good old vanilla days on this server – that’s why It’s the best one in my book.

2. Kronos

This is one of the oldest vanilla servers right now and has been around since 2011 or so. The server aims to deliver an authentic classic WoW experience and it does since it relies on 1x progression, 1x reputation and 1x honor system.

Recently, the devs behind this project have released the Kronos 3 servers, which essentially offer a fresh start to all players. Kronos 3 provides the typical vanilla progression as the server progresses slowly, patch by patch until it reaches a particular milestone – patch 1.12.1.

This will happen sometime in August 2019 and players will even have the option to continue their journey to Outland if they’d like to level past lvl. 60. And with decently scripted servers and no real evidence of any corruption among the devs or something, Kronos is a sound choice for any vanilla fan.

3. Vanilla Gaming

Yet another veteran in the vanilla private server community, Vanilla Gaming is a stable and popular option. In fact, Vanilla Gaming has been around since 2009 and while many servers came and went, Vanilla Gaming has remained just as active and solid as it was during its early days.

They offer x1-x15 leveling rates that can be changed via an in-game command (e.g. “.setxprate 1”). Now, even though their servers are mostly Blizz-like, there are still certain issues that you might encounter as you level up.

Regardless, raid scrips work, pathfinding works and above all, their servers are stable and there’s basically no lagging, which is exactly what you want for your authentic vanilla adventures.

When is Blizzard going to release WoW Classic?

Unfortunately, there isn’t an official release date for World of Warcraft Classic at the moment. Apart from a few cryptic mentions that point out to the fact that the development process for this game is rather time-consuming, Blizzard hasn’t officially announced anything as of yet.

However, since classic WoW is getting its own panel at this year’s Blizzcon event, we might be getting some new fascinating information regarding when we can get our hands on the new legacy servers. It’s obvious that the upcoming vanilla servers are becoming more important for Blizzard and the authentic Restoring History: Creating WoW Classic panel that will be present at Blizzcon 2018 is a proof of that.

Besides, in one of the recent pre-Blizzcon interviews, the game director of World of Warcraft, Mr. Ion Hazzikostas did talk about classic WoW. He even mentioned that more will be revealed concerning classic servers and that will happen at Blizzcon 2018. I’d even go as far as to speculate that we might be getting a release date pretty soon!

Conclusion

It’s very unlikely that private servers will pose a real threat to the official WoW Classic Servers. However, if they do and if Blizzard realizes that this is hurting their subscription numbers, you can bet that they’ll take action.

What are your thoughts on this btw – do you think that private vanilla servers can hurt the success of classic WoW? Let us know in the comments below!

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