Is It Illegal To Play World Of Warcraft On A Private Server

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World of Warcraft may not be experiencing the titanic growth of its early days, but over the last 5 years, on average the number of players has continued to grow. Despite this growth, many players have flocked to private servers as a way of changing the fundamental World of Warcraft experience.



If you’ve considered using a private server, you might be curious about the legality and longevity of such servers. What are the chances that Blizzard will seek out your favorite server and shut it down? If they do, will you be liable?



Disclaimer: None of the information in this article is legal advice. Join private WoW servers at your own risk. MUO accepts no responsibility for your actions.



What Are Private Servers?



Technically, the term private server describes any server that is privately owned. That's it. However, in World of Warcraft, private servers are those that emulate the gameplay experience of online games. Server emulator is another term that's often used interchangeably to describe the same thing.



Why would anyone play on a private server? After all, wouldn't official servers offer the most enjoyable and worthwhile experience, especially because professionals run them and they have the largest populations? Theoretically, yes, but it isn't always that simple.



Private servers are free. Well, they are most of the time. Down below we'll see an example of a private server that employed a microtransaction model that backfired on the owners. But if we ignore those exceptions, the most appealing aspect of private servers is the ability to play subscription games for free and we all know how popular free-to-play MMORPGs are.



Private servers are different. Most private servers implement unique gameplay rules that deviate from official servers. For example, experience rates might be 100x faster OR new characters might start at maximum level. Other differences can include custom items, special mobs, or unique in-game events.



Private servers are convenient. They let you play games you might not normally be able to play. For example, if a developer does not offer a particular game in your region, private servers could fill that void. Similarly, if a game dev discontinues a game and takes all official versions down, private servers allow fans to keep playing.



We're not saying that these reasons are appropriate and we're not saying that these reasons justify the act of playing on a private server. These are simply explanations for why private servers are so popular.



Private Servers Are Incredibly Popular



The history of private servers is almost as old as the history of World of Warcraft itself. Back in the early days, someone going by the name Skull got their hands on an alpha version of the WOW client before Blizzard debuted the game officially. Thanks to their sharing-is-caring attitude, the game ended up in the hands of pretty much anyone who wanted it.



With some reverse engineering by an MMO bot programmer called Lax, they cracked the game wide open. At that point, many people started working on different emulated versions of the game. Once they produced cracked server software, the private server scene took off.



There’s a lot more detail to the history of World of Warcraft private servers, but this brief snippet should give you an idea of how they came to be. Suffice to say, these private servers enjoyed an incredible amount of success. To this day, there are 100s of different private servers available online, each with its own special rules and changes to alter the base version of the game.



We have listed some of the more popular servers and their modifications below to give you an idea of the breadth and variety of these servers:



- Project Ascension: Project Ascension is an illegal World of Warcraft private server that removes classes from the game, allowing players to choose any spells and abilities that they want. The USP of this server is the ability to create any character you wish, rather than relying on archetypes.- WoW Circle: Claiming to be the biggest World of Warcraft private server host with over 45,000 players logged in at once on average, WoW Circle is an enormous group of different servers. These servers feature various options of different expansion pack compatibility, as well as 1x, 5x, and 100x, experience point boosts.- VanillaGaming: One of the oldest vanilla servers, VanillaGaming offers players the chance to experience World of Warcraft on a private server with no additional content or gameplay changes from newer updates. While World of Warcraft Classic has superseded this service in some ways, this server is still immensely popular with an incredibly active Discord community.



These are just a handful of the hundreds of World of Warcraft private servers currently available online.



Threats of Lawsuit: The Bottom Line



Which brings us back to the original question: are these private servers legal? It's a valid question that strikes reluctance into many players' hearts, particularly since there have been a few emulator-related lawsuits over the past decade.



One of the biggest examples of legal action against a server was the case against Scapegaming in 2010, which saw the company sued for $85 million in damages. Part of the reason for the colossal figure was the $1.5 million in “donations” that the company received from players of their private server.



It’s not just limited to lawsuits. GRN ONLINE Even if your chosen private server doesn’t make money, Blizzard has targeted servers with a cease and desist purely for existing. Nostalrius was one of the biggest vanilla WoW servers, and Blizzard took it down in April 2016, resulting in much fan outcry.



Whether it’s a for-profit private server or not, if a server becomes big enough, Blizzard will take notice and have it shut down. Most private servers rely on cracked or patched versions of the base game, and so are susceptible to copyright infringement suits.



So, are private servers illegal? Well, there's no easy answer.



- If the server is profiting, it is certainly illegal.- If the server is running stolen or leaked software, it is certainly illegal.- If the server is distributing client files, it is certainly illegal.



Even if you can find a server that doesn’t break any of these rules, which is tricky already, you’re still not in the clear. Large companies have powerful legal teams, and chances are that if they want a server taken down, they can have it done.



Are Private Servers Illegal for Players?



The big question is how liable are players who use private servers? This is a troublesome question to answer. If you acquire your server software legitimately from Blizzard, you have to agree to their EULA conditions, which include that you won’t modify the software at all.



While breaking the EULA is unlikely to result in legal action being taken against you, due in part to the difficulty of enforcing it, there are other ramifications. If you currently play World of Warcraft, Blizzard may permanently ban your account, losing any of your progress in the game, though as far as we know they’ve sued no one for playing with a private server.



All-in-all, private servers occupy a legal and moral gray area. If you use a private server you risk losing all of your progress if Blizzard targets the server, or could even have your account on legitimate World of Warcraft completely banned. We at MakeUseOf cannot condone the use of private servers.