I really do enjoy these types off videos as from time to time just a fresh leveling experience on a new server is just what the doctor orders :D

Why thank you for the mention Hamsterwheel! Great to see you covering the scene again and we all appreciate everything you do for it all. Hope everyone here is enjoying the festive season, wishing you all a very happy New Year and all the best for 2023!

Black Whisper is the best! Great community, great modes, no bugs and downtime and most important - no pay to win sh*t. 👍

Yooooo new upload hype :D Happy to see turtle be recommended so much. It’s SUCH a great server and deserves the attention 100%. Chromie sounds like a really cool server and i wanna try it out but I’m already leveling like two characters on two different servers so i might have to put it in the backlog for now haha

I'm an old enthusiast of private servers , i'm playing on europe/french servers since 2008-2009 , and I have to say you pretty resumed well all the possibilites out there for players and made me discover at least 3 or 4 servers , even though i'm pretty active on blizzlike and fun/content changed realms. Just a little addition to the video , there somes private servers like warmane who got realms where you spawn at max level , and you can do endgame content for both PvE and PvP, for potential players who want to see test their class/spe at high level, who for those who don't really like leveling and are more driven for endgame content. Again nice work , your video is really well made and pretty good to let players know what private servers can offer :D

For more in depth explanation of what exactly Project Ascension is : Basically you can create any race and have the class "hero" when you level up you get talent points and ability points and get to choose between ANY TALENT AND ABILITY in the game. There is also a draft mode where you basically can't pick your abilities but instead have to choose between 3 abilities each time you can learn one. You have of course some ways to pick the good ones you absolutely need. They have 2 servers, one is TBC content (WOTLK core) and the other is Vanilla progressive and draft mode (xp rate is x3 or 4 in both but you can do a "challenge" that makes it x1, they also have other challenges to spice up your run with rewards when you reach last level) Adding to that there is a whole new enchant system that create builds, example : one enchant makes your cat form actually a serpent form with new abilities etc. So a lot of build variety and "classes" that don't exist in the base game. Of course you can actually just play a "normal" shadow priest if you want to build that. It takes a bit to get used to the system but the community is very nice and always explains everything and the game itself has its own guide quests to help you understand.

I highly recommend Turtle WoW, great experience, you can feel the original vanilla feeling, and they concentrate to keep that ! Always adding new stuffs and new music to the custom zones . If you want play vanilla go and play Turtle WoW !

I clicked on this video on a whim. I have no words to express how happy I am to hear that there are functional MoP servers out there. It's my favorite expansion so I'll probably check them.

So glad turtle was mentioned. It’s such a good server.

save your time and dont join everlook! english community is dying 3/4 of the server is chinese and full of bots

I might have to give Turtle Wow another chance, I remember rolling a character there but never got past level 10 since I was just too busy with other things. Great video btw :)

Turtle wow is definitely my favorite private server ever. Classic is fun but has a lot of flaws and they’ve done a lot to try and fix them. It’s not perfect but it’s a work in progress.

I'm surprised there was no mention of Felsong. A new Legion server opening in January.

Sooo happy to see Warmane on this list. I've played on this server for ~6 years! Anyone who wants to play a new Alliance character on the Lordaeron (blizzlike) server that Warmane hosts, please hmu ingame! I'll give you gold and bags to help start you off. My main is a paladin named Bubbli :) I'm also happy to give gold and bags to new Horde players, but I don't play my hordies as much so just make an ally and again, whisper Bubbli (I think you have to reach level 5 or 10 to whisper?) and let me know you're wanting to roll horde -- I'll log my Horde char and do the exact same things for you. Lordaeron desperately needs more horde pvpers, especially healers of any kind. Both factions need more disc priests for either pvp OR pve! Hit me up ingame if you join!!

Felsong is the current Legion server with the most hype around it. It's a 7.3.5 core progressive server. It's being developed by Freakz guys, and they seem to be taking it seriously so far.

Been playing on Warmane for the last 3 months, and although its not easy at the beginning, it gets nicer as you progress with gear. No gdkps like on retail, bots and ninja looters are banned frequently, and, next month their seasonal server will be reset so people will be able to experience Wrath with proper progression feeling.

Thanks for the video! One important bit of info I would've liked to know about each server was if it was pve or pvp focused. I took a look at each but some I couldn't determine. Turtle WoW: RP-PvE default but can enable perma-pvp mode Everlook: can't tell from their website Moonwell: PvP Atlantiss: can't tell Chromiecraft: RP-PvE Warmane: one is listed PvE, so I'm guessing the others are PvP Way of Elendil: can't tell Apollo: can't tell Stormforge Mistblade: PvP (only found out after making an account and connecting) Tauri WoW Evermoon: PvE Project Ascension: Selectable

Merry Christmas dude! Thanks for releasing a vid to watch in the downtime between presents and food. Cheers to your and family 🌲🌲🌲

Felsong(Firestorm+Freakz) Legion private server comes out early 2023, I'm excited for this , their most recent discord announcement got 2k reacts, lots of people waiting for this project.

Vanillaplus is also fun. The pop is low and it needs a couple more max lvled players for steady bgs, which is a possibility to happen rather soon, but the talent reworks really shake things up. They put in some extra's like new items and itemsets, but also new zeppelin and boat paths (looking at you Kargath, for never being able to be reached without going through full on alliance areas). I hope to see some people on there. I really recommend it.

People play private servers because they are free. Not because they are different from Blizzard servers, or because they are fresh. Everyone should chose a private server that will be around for decades, not a fresh one that will shut down in a few months.

On Ascension, there is a free build mode where you can make a custom character, then there are season realms where you basically on level up open a pack of abilities and can choose one from among them basically rogue like experience. Lastly still in close beta I believe but you can buy access with real or ingame money is a mmorpg with like 15 completely different classes, necromancers, witchhunters, blood knights, gladiators etc. all new custom made classes with unqiue effects for the abilities too if im not mistaken.

Absolutely love ChromieCraft, best server I played on. Level Cap is 70, Rating x2 (basically double xp weekend all year long), cross-faction everything, Kara raid coming on september 21 (or somewhere therabouts) They have hardcore, ironman, and bloodthirsty challenges and a decent cosmetic cash shop. Tauri is also pretty cool. There's a countdown on their website now, which I believe is for their Legion server.

Nice Vid! Idk if you've heard of 5 man servers, but they're tuned for groups of 5 people. So... 5 man raids etc. This can offer a new kind of challenge with less logistics etc, and they can be pretty fun. I'd recommend TBC5Man personally. There Is a vanilla and wotlk version from other people as well.

Thanks for the awesome content hope you have a kick ass 2023!

After watching Everlook fail so hard.. I just don't have any confidence in us ever having a proper Vanilla server again like Light's Hope or Nostalrius.

It's worth noting that evermoon shares ah with mistblade AND warmaine, so the population doesn't cause as many problems as it traditionally would. Avg pop around 4-500 players you can generally still pug people for most things unless your trying to do mop MOG runs with no real rewards (HC toes can be hard to pug for example)

Warmane

Chromiecraft is awesome... slow progression from vanilla to wrath with a smalllll but very active community. tauri mop server is also awesome if you need a change

controversies are the most fun part of wow servers brings the community together like nothing else

Freakz is launching a legion server with firestorm, I pray for those glory days from legion wow freakz. It had some bugs but was a solid experience overall. It will be a 1x XP rate that you start at 98

Thanks for the review Hamsterwheel :) Merry Christmas :)

You should make a video about Anarchy WoW. Entirely custom races, map, classes, even lore. Really underrated server.

So... Here we have - with some population - 2 Vanila servers, 1 new BC, 1 Wotlk Warmane which exists for 10 years, 1 populate MOP server... That's all... So sadly(

I would recommend ChromieCraft the community and server is overall great.

I personally can't wait for the Atlantis TBC server, chilling on turtle in the meantime.

Something of note....If you are not fond of PVP ( like myself, terrible at it) then Evermoon for MOP would be a choice over Mistblade which is PVP only. Have been watching short videos of the Tauri team working on Scripts for Legion, and as you say, it really is time consuming and complex. Like their Mop server they will not releaser it till its working nicely. Happy new year...

Warmane Icecrown can be super challenging for a new players, especially pug raids. People got very spoiled, so they will make like way more higher gear demand to join raid, than it should be. If anyone tries to make HC Icc25 or RS25, unless u are full BiS or close to Bis u probabably wont get invite, normal mode can be easily played with 5.2k gs, but unless u are 6k min u wont get inv as well, and so on for every raid... And i most find it funny when for naxx25 immortal run which is 3.5k gs raid, they make like 6,2k gs or more min demand... I mean its not like gear gonna help u if u sucks and dont know boss mechanic..

Just want to inform everyone here that they should be very careful playing on turtlewow. They banned a bunch of people for very minor chat rule violation on the 31st, permanently banned them! I got hit by a 3 hour chat ban and when I tried to appeal the decision, I was permanently banned, kicked out and banned from the discord and the forums and my emails have been entirely ignored. Proceed with caution! Keep out of world chat except for finding dungeons, group quests and trade maybe, as well as help with bugs and such, because if you get on a GM's bad side... you might end up like me and my roommate, permanently banned including IP ban, so my innocent roommate has to suffer the same fate simply for living in the same house! He was at work and never even used world chat except to find groups.

If you want to play shadowlands, Firestorm Oribos is quite good. Phase 3 just went live 2 weeks ago, it is worldwide server, there is always at least 1000 players online, during weekends it can even raise to 3k. A lot of old content is bugged there, but bfa and shadowlands content work quite good. You will find som bugs from time to time, it is only third week of phase 3, they do what they can to script and repair everything.

I am just waiting for freakz and firestorm Legion server . I've been waiting since they announced that

As much as I would love to play on the servers, I’m worried that my ISPs gonna send me some BS cease-and-desist like they did when I tried to turtle wow and warmane not sure if it’s not correctly

Oh man i need to hop back on turtle

Nowadays, after playing in a few servers I'd recommend Everlook for a nice and smooth Vanilla experience, Ascension for a classless TBC experience with a lot of people and a good economy, and Warmane (being a player since it's Molten WoW days) for a nice blizzlike experience, for some of the best people I've met online I did during warmane days. One definitely should try AT LEAST these three. Nice content, as always HW. I hope everything goes well with you new endeavor. Stay safe, my dude!

Turtle WoW is the place to be. Vanilla+ done right.

I would love an update of this. Ive played on Whitemane, Warmane, and Circle WoW now. Whitemane was fun but the community is just not there, stacks of lichbloom sell for 200ish gold, just to much of a grind for that 4500 gold artisan flying. Warmane just wasnt there, as many people have complained that they think they POP is faked and i believe it to be true. As for Circle, well its a bunch of russian speaking folk. Nothing wrong with it just no communication what so ever unfortunately, which ultimately got me here in just 2 weeks time. Any good private servers out there that are english dominant? (EDIT)= LOOKING FOR A WRATH OF THE LICH KING SERVER.

Hey i found out Felsong would be a great legion server open beta on january 2023

I kinda want to go back to wow, but I don't want to get too hooked like I know I will like usual. There are so many problems, the biggest one is the amount of alts I make and my indeciciveness of what I want to do.

Nice one! Merry Christmas man!

I would be very interested in what WoD servers you know besides Firestorm. I will gladly check them out since I liked the expac...

I’m kinda sad that Duskhaven’s Vanilla+ server doesn’t have that many players, it’s actually pretty good from what I’ve played.

Project ascension is incredible

Vouch for turtle, also ascension seems cool as hell too

for shadowlands- oribos by firestorm, pretty nice so far (they merged with freakz)

I would have to agree on Ascension, the quality is top notch, high population on the seasonal server but sadly the main server is meh mostly due to the extremely slow progression. Overall I would say a very good experience, good community, good fast acting devs, cash shop is vanity and qol, no gear.

Hi friend, great video. I'm looking for a WoW Private server to play with my friends, they haven't played the original wow and I want to introduce them to this wonderful MMO. I dont want them to play Ascension now because i want them first to know the basic gameplay of the original game. Which one is the best in our case?

With the Wrath Classic WoW token added and the classic promise officially dead and broken, private servers could not be more relevant

Too bad Revelation WoW failed. It seemed to be the most custom Wrath client ever made with completely redesigned zones and cities. I tried the server once and tried to explore that version of Stormwind, but it was running at 15 fps no matter what I did. Too bad because the redesigned city is was awesome

thanks! Plan on trying out turtlewow and mistblade!

I play on turtle wow, and i can highly recommend the sever!

most pservers are still better than the classic stuff

if your a pvp person dont play ascension its just perma slows because cros talents and ablilites, worst server ever nothing will ever get fixed

I have no new news about ReforgedCraft(Wrath, but there is only TBC quest content.) It's dev'd by one dude in Serbia, but it is in English. The idea of it is "Class+", you make a base class and can add spells and abilities from all other classes, except that overlapping spells and abilities cancel out. See my previous post, oddly I don't remember what the rates are except that profs are like 4X, which caused First Aid to glitch out(do not level FA). pop numbers are too low for raids. You're supposed to be able to solo the dungeon, maybe YOU can, I couldn't. Also RfC is custom. There's quest progression thing, but you don't have to follow it if you like a long game. Rfc - WARNING!!!! #1 the dev went political, #2 there's a custom boss past the room with the lava, that's shaped like a cross/X. That boss is a robot with a level 40 level boost book. Do not cast at all, especially heals. The mobs in the area will one-hit kill you, or just knock you through the wall into limbo. Sadly, the dev level-locked that dungeon. You can go in there any time before level 40. At least that's what the dev said. The kill reward will end up being mostly diablo-ized. or maybe not, as he keep changing what aint broken. Mounts are actually unnecessary as you can use the GM command "t" sans quotes to teleport, just about anywhere.

There is a legion server called felsong. It will be released maybe next may or something. Also there is a new mop server from apollo maybe next Feb will be released

Its actually hard to believe that even with wotlk classic up Warmane is still super active. I logged in a few days ago and Dalaran is still packed with activity and people making raids.

This is really useful, thank you.

what do you mean by one time raid? what does that even mean?

Ever since classic servers came out, I have a personal problem with blizz-like private servers. Though I think modified servers are perfectly fine and the more interesting they are (like Ascension) the better.

Ascension was fun as someone who only played classic it was an odd but fun time I'd call it classic retail

Personally I play on Circle WoW (Wrath server) it's a Russian server but has a huge English community and I have been enjoying it on their 1x server. Population is around 3500-4500 on most days so it's quite active. The language barrier is the only problem sometimes but I managed to find a few Russian speaking friends who have been helping me out and I can even get into raids with a bit of translation in our English guild's Discord. I tried Warmane and didn't enjoy it

Warmane lorderon ❤

Everlook #1 WoW Vanilla server 7k population no bugs 1.14 client turtle wow sucks Vanilla + is way better if u want modified vanilla server.

I have been playing on Project Ascension for about 2 years now. I CANNOT get enough of it. It's WoW if the original devs hadn't sold their souls to Activision I can't comment on the others as I haven't tried them, but I know PA is fantastic!

Good video. Regarding Wall, I have known Wall since Darrowshire & have friends who have known him since Hyjal. From the very beginning it was a bad idea for WhiteKidney to have allowed Wall any role in the project. Wall is a script-kiddy programmer and has a history of pathological lying tagged on his back. He was dying from cancer? He was kidnapped by the government and forced to be a slave? The list goes on and on. Anyone telling you that Everlook is corrupt and that Wall is their hero has been swept up into the web of lies by the deceitful spider himself.

I think im going to wait for Atlantiss tbc, i cut my time short on Blizzard tbc since the lawsuits and levelboosts and botting were just way too demoralizing to play the game

As a sidenote, it would be nice if you could add a commernt to live gameplay section from a server that just reads something like "actual gameplay from server x"

You could hop on Kronos IV. AQ40 patch coming in fedruary

A S C E N S I O N

Tauri died cuz they said Legion is gonna be in December out. 2021 dec or 22 idk, ppl left cuz 5yrs+ mop isnt that fun.

Everlook only has a high pop because it's the newest "fresh" experience. Almost all vanilla private servers hit a population crash after either a new vanilla server opens or AQ40 opens. I would say the best overall experience and true long lasting vanilla feel is Turtle WoW. There are always people leveling. The community is nice and open. There is tons of custom content with a new custom raid coming soon.

Awesome audio quality

Hamsterwheel did you mention in another reviews a server like RetroWoW?

I would mention the team behind wowfreakz (at its time the best BFA private server) is now working on a legion server using their own mldified core, its still on a closed alpha but it may be worth cheking it in the future when it comes out cause theor sercer was the best scripted modern era sercer i've ever seen

best vanilla server is your own

Are you going to try out the Whitemane Cataclysm server that comes out early 2023 Hamsterwheel?

Wallcraft is best server

For anyone thinking about warmane, don’t. It’s a horrible experience, they have zero support, no discord, horrible forums, and the addons are freakin awful. There is zero decent quest helpers, and the ones that kinda work don’t even show correctly on the world map. No one is helpful, and the pop is not what it seems.

Great video. Sadly the Moodwell Project sounds like Sunwell (TBC Server 1 year ago) because of the fast XP rate and most likely a big cash shop.

I've been enjoying Dragonflight a lot but this Turtle WoW looks very interesting!

If you are looking for the most populated and newest expansion try stormforge mistblade i am loving it!

Ascension wow the KING

i just want to play blizzlike pve tbc with x1 rates and actually works the thing i didnt like about bitch king back in the day is how it ruined tbc. like the xp rates were higher for the tbc stuff and they give u flying early so u can just skip most of it. i remember i really wanted to play through tbc again as a death knight only to find that i could skip it after completing like 2 zones with a flying mount

Merry Christmas everyone

I am a chicken nugget

I still stick to Warmane, the population is just so huge and you always find people to play with .. Other servers I tried are not nearly as populated and it feels too empty and lonely, so Warmane it is for me

The only version of TBC I’d ever play again is the original version where Hyjal/BT are in the game from the beginning. Phase one with just Mag/Gruul/Kara was incredibly boring and the idea of it being a race to Illidan from the start sounds way more fun.

7:19 More than "refusing to speak English" I bet it's a matter of them not knowing English. This may come up as a surprise, but several Spanish speaking people genuinely don't know English, even today.

Whitemane inc letsfkingo! Love Cata PVP (possibly Nelth if it ever relases lol)

What about uwow for legion & mop? Isn't that server good enough?about 4k in peak for legion & 3.5k pop for mop

Turtle. WoW.