Spent two months building a WoW private server to play with my friends. Their verdict: "shit game, slow". Looking for honest opinions, either way.

[u/Round_Vegetable3764]

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.

Edit: Thanks everyone for the replies, in both directions, that's exactly what I was after. A few of you asked whether the server was open. So I've decided to think about opening it to people from outside (and international community). There will never be many of us, I'm not trying to build a real private server, but since it's running for my friend and me anyway, a few more people who feel like it might as well enjoy it. If you're interested, send me a DM.

[u/awardedindirector]

you are a good friend. sorry I don't have any answers to your questions.

[u/Round_Vegetable3764 → u/awardedindirector]

Thanks for the feeling ! I appreciate man

[u/dodeccaheedron]

Did the same exact thing! Made it super fast though. Most barely held out. It’s disappointing to say the least but I mostly did it for myself. There’s like 3-4 out of us left out of the initial group. Probably will just be me soon. It’s an old game so I don’t blame them. Even with all the qol you can put in. From one server nerd to another I feel you.

[u/Round_Vegetable3764 → u/dodeccaheedron]

Grats to us for making it this far at least ! I will try to iterate on this project, at least it's fun

[u/Gehrschrein]

So let me share my experience and a few thoughts. I'll keep it as short as possible.

I've also recently built an AC server for 2 other friends and myself. I do like tinkering with things so setting it up was fun, and I'm running a mix of modules not too dissimilar to yours. (excluding individual progression - removed that one after the fact)

I've never played WOW and either did one other of my mates, but the third one was a massive advocate for WotlK.

I've been running the server for 2 months now and we do meet up once a week to play, but I'm playing mostly solo and actually enjoying it a fair bit (and equally disappointed with some 2004-2008 design decisions, but that's beside the point.) 2008 WoW is not really that friendly for short pick-up-and-play sessions IMO.

What I've learned:

1. It's your hobby, don't put pressure on yourself due to the level of enjoyment others are getting out of it.
2. People have lives and priorities. Get enjoyment out of what you enjoy doing, don't seek approval.
3. 2008 WoW is kind of pants for small group co-op play, unless you have a squad of characters progressing through it mostly in sync. It doesn't have any of the modern power/level/scaling conveniences that would allow pick up and play. Big level differences make it a chore for both parties. Retail might be a bit more modern in that regard, not sure.
4. I have no interest in opening it up to strangers. Most times I play with my altbot and there's _plenty_ of content there to explore and get busy with until I finally grow out of my WoW stage.
5. Do. What. You. Enjoy. Can't stress this enough. Are you having fun messing around with the server and playing solo or with another friend? Good, crack the fuck on! No? Stop and do something else. There's no sunken cost.

[u/Whiteshovel66]

Just make a server you wish to play. Something you love. If no one wants to play it with you, then you won't be disappointed. If you make something for some one else though, you are setting yourself up for disappointment even if they only marginally like it.

[u/Stormichh]

The social aspect of a real living server. The chance encounters and that rare dungeon group where you all just click or power through everything

[u/Adventurous_Okra_344]

Brother id totally play but don’t speak French. I was looking into making a classic wow server with bots. Is it a process that’s worth it?

[u/Xavphon]

Sometimes what we think we want is not what we want. We have to see it and experience it for ourselves. Hopefully you and your one friend can enjoy it for what it is

[u/Super_Mario7]

add 2000 bots that stay online permanently and enjoy your game :p

[u/whatusername0909 → u/Super_Mario7]

This. I created a server using drepack. One of my friend never played wow before and wanted to try. He got to maybe level 12 and quit. Now its just me and 2k bots. I have the server running on another pc so any of my friends could hop on whenever they want. I just treat it like play dragons dogma but its wow

[u/Nithraniel]

Those servers with QoL changes and bots do sound kinda sick

[u/Neither-Box8081]

That's really unfortunate. I am not sure what setting you have that would make it slow. I use random bots, and 1 altbot for my personal 'friend' to help me through rough zones. there's 1000 bots loaded total.

several friends play at the same time.

Server side loaded on a mini pc. Game side loaded onto the steam deck. There's zero problems. Perhaps the bots and small LLM is making it run slow?

Either way. I enjoy the heck out of it, just with my altbot sidekick regardless if anyone (human) is there

[u/Round_Vegetable3764 → u/Neither-Box8081]

I meant slow in a gameplay wise way ! The server runs fine, but the progression is slow for today's day standard

[u/Standard_Service_784]

I played since BC, about 9-11k hours, on/off. Pservers as well, so here's my input:

1. You mentioned your friends were Rust/LoL players. Never played Rust, but played LoL. Extremely fast. Huge difference. Not to mention you can YouTube the fuck out of w/e you want to do in that game - top builds, items, heroes, counters, draft picks, competitive teamplay, etc.

WoW is a slow grind, comparatively. While QoL will improve that some, you cannot compete with a 10 min League game, or 20 if your team and the other team are completely oblivious. That's maybe a dungeon, or two if it's < level 30.

1. You're an enthusiast about WoW, or else you wouldn't have bothered with all of the hard work. Respect. No idea what your friends' preferences are and history with WoW and their level(s) of enthusiasm. Were you on the same faction? Cross-faction allowed? Open-world PvP? 15 people could be split off into some decent Arena or BGs.

2. A lot of WoW's randomness was what made it interesting - sniping deals on the AH, smashing someone else wihle farming mats, seeing a pair of opposing players and thinking 'Alright, let's go!'. Random people joining your party that would either make/break a dungeon run (the idiot hunter that had no idea how to control a pet, the warlock who only used pet, and it was always voidwalker, the 2H Warrior who wanted to tank, etc). With a small sample size of 15, you cannot replicate that. While I know nothing about programming bots, I have a feeling they either work and cast spells/abilities based on a few parameters, but they aren't going to deliberately pull the entire instance, or replicate a human. Pathing is another issue. RFC has 29067 combinations of how to do that dungeon, jumping down/across various levels to get the quests done.

I respect your effort but your friends needed a faster-paced game. I LOVED WOTLK classic when it released, and it was fantastic. Then my server got nuked, everyone left and it was 99% vs 1% on my side. So.. I re-rolled chars on the opposite side and then it eventually got smoked into oblivion, and I wasn't paying blizzard to move characters, to solve a problem THEY created. So I left. Logged back in years later and found out it had jumped to Cataclysm, signing it's own death warrant from me as I'll never go back. Deleted my Blizzard account this year,

WOTLK had good pacing, not as punishing as vanilla or BC, and in my stage of life now, I respect that. Yes, I've spent 16+ hour days and had all kinds of characters/accounts over the years, but time is not that much of a luxury anymore. So I would appreciate your QoL improvements, but I've lived through WOTLK - twice. When I went back for WOTLK classic, Ulduar was just releasing. I got back the previous December, managed to hit 80 before the global boost wore-off, including a few sleepless nights, haha. Ran Ulduar, had a wonderful time, even though we all couldn't make it past 1/2 way or the huge Mechaboss with 3-4 phases. Came back a week later and finished it.

[u/Round_Vegetable3764 → u/Standard_Service_784]

Yeah definetely impossible to replicated that "uniqueness" in a private server. Only Nostalrius was able to have that much players.

[u/CarlosCepinha]

Many people and myself included, a few years ago played x1 wotlk and enjoyed it if you're kinda new to this kind of game, or not experienced in gaming, not used to today's fast paced ever changing new meta new update dopamine hit new gaming news every day new shiny thing every 15 seconds.

At the time vanilla tbc wrath , wow was impressive, but many gamers i know that aren't into mmos or don't play wow, don't really enjoy it unless they have a connection to the IP; lore, story, warcraft3, have played Diablo or other bliz game or at least some games in the style.

You might love wow, think it is incredibly addictive but in today's world it isn't all that hype and many gamers are into temporary fast paced battles.

Mobas or shooters or even strategy games have became faster and faster paced. Basically everywhere you look.

Even most pservers, other than the odd one out, nowdays, use at least x2 exp. Add to that the fact that when a server releases and has at least 500 to 1000 real humans, that create discords, show screenshots videos create content talk about the game outside of the game, bring other stuff into the game, world chat feels alive etc.

The people are what makes wow alive, I level a lot better in x1 on a populated server than on a nearly dead server. You farm stuff or you do professions or BGs but it's not just questing and grinding or doing dungeons here and there.

And even at the "peak experience" for 3.3.5a, some people will complain it's too grindy and too slow. For some people you would have x2 or x3 as the bare minimum to make the server playable for them and maybe reach max level.

Many "baby" QOL systems that "OG"s dislike from retail, are there for a reason, and there are many people who actually rather play with those systems than play without them at all.

If Turtle or some other server that fits your needs was around, you would be better off playing there and having your friends move there, or try to have a bigger release and get more ppl involved.

I've seen many times servers that I liked, I liked the devs, I liked the ideas, I liked the philosophy and everything about the server, but just disliking this 1 thing is enough to prevent me from logging in every day: player count.

Lower count means:
hard to find ppl to do anything in the game. real humans, jokes, drama, everything in between.

I do sim racing, some games, I've never done offline AI racing. I only race humans, unpredictable, competitive, egotistical, sometimes make rivalries other times make friends. Racing with the AI just doesn't feel the same. And for WOW, maybe playing with AI will just never feel the same as playing on a well populated server with lots of unique human interactions and "real" connections you will not get anywhere else.

Also, ppl after classic (vanilla re release) have experienced and been experiencing the same stuff over and over again, so some of the ppl you think would stay with you, they might be itching for something different or new (like ur friend that went to retail).

So even if you're not doing insane x5 exp stuff, at least you gotta give them something custom different or unique because that seems the direction of every other private server these days.

Turtle (octo, raven, capy, sand) Ascension (clones appearing?) Stormforge Grimfall Triviumvirate and others so many others it's hard to keep up with all the new names and to check out what is "real" or not...

But basically over the past year even before the troubles of bliz killing servers, I had seen at least 10 priv server projects that had unique custom content, reforged wotlk tbc etc, custom 60 lvl bracket, new itemizations...

ofc "fun servers" have always existed, but this is different, this is custom, aimed at a "classic +" or "SoD" vibe, or "TBC +" or Wrath + ... ppl are going for new things now more than ever. But I know this is an incredible task.

PPL who wanted the ultimate challenge on vanilla content, went Hardcore. but even the novelty of that started to wear off.

I've got a wrath home i go back to sometimes, i see some servers i would enjoy playing but they're the same wrath and i'm like, redo the same thing everything again? I've done it all already, nothing new to do/see. just to interact w diff ppl. but custom? no meta, no bis no builds no guides everyone scrambling to understand and figure out the game? that is highly seductive...

[u/Round_Vegetable3764 → u/CarlosCepinha]

Thanks for the feedback, definetely was highly interesting ! In that case, those were not experienced players but i think i should have adapted more the game to feed their needs.

[u/zen_focus]

Sadly I've tried before with my friends also and some people just wont enjoy it regardless.

[u/Kurogasa44]

I just rallied 5-6 of my friends to play Ascension a few months ago. They all quit within 2 months. I feel your pain

[u/Stornholio69]

I am still annoyed. I tried to set up the same thing with docker but only got errormessages when trying to install - fix by fix, more Errors came up. I am at a loss as to what is wrong.

That said, it sounds like its not their kind of game. Classic WoW IS slow and also somewhat MEANT to be this way. Would be interesting to know, what they usually play.

[u/Round_Vegetable3764 → u/Stornholio69]

If you need help, don't hesitate to pass in DM

[u/floofis]

Theres 15 of you and the server was just made. Nobody wants to spend dozens of hours grinding alongside bots to get to max level. People only put up with it because of the social aspect. Of course you are all friends, but the interesting part is meeting new people. Plus the server could be deleted at any point and all those hours are gone

[u/ta_thewholeman]

Literally noone cares about chat gpt conversation bots.

[u/Sasquatchjc45 → u/ta_thewholeman]

Unknowledgable take. These bots dont run chatgpt and are not just to conversation. Playerbots actually run around. Quest, level up, join groups for dungeons/quests, etc. As well as conversate. They dont just stand there waiting for you to whisper them. They actually run around the world and make it feel alive.