I Play at a small private server called AlphaWoW (Previously wow.vtwout.net)

We are a small community and have all grown to know each other withing the game and on the forums!

www.alphawow.net

i also used to play at AniWoW

anyone have any suggestions on other good servers

Have you heard of Wowscape, Toxic WOW, WoWgasm they are all really good and fun servers with quite a number of people in the community.
here are the links
WoWgasm.org
Toxic WoW
WoWScape

You know, I have been playing WoW for over 2 years, and have never even tried a private server. Aside from the cost factors, what reasons are there for using one? I admit I am nervous about it. Do they keep their servers up to date? Does it affect an account? I know why Blizzard upkeeps servers, (they make money), what motives do these private servers have for what they do? Which ones would you recomend, and why?

Oh come on! Private Servers are nothing more that a piece of sh***... I played on WowScape and BurningWow and must admit that the latter was much better, although both are completely waste of your time...
1. Quests are bugged
2. Your talents are bugged
3. Noone goes to battlegrounds
4. Leveling and drop rate is enhanced, so you can be 70lvl in 8hrs if well powerleveled by a 70lvl friend...
5. Epic shops on BurningWow - you can buy your Tier 6 armour for 100g per item... Hence - everyone is exactly the same geared and you meet completely noobs in t6 gear - ABSURD!
6. Donators! Everyone hates them - people that give money for the server maintainance and get back some nice gear. There are lots of them in WowScape. Such a guy can get to an opposite faction city and kill everyone without any big problems. You cant get any tier6 gear at WowScape - its only for donators...
6. Bugged bosses at the instances... My girlfriend soloed Illidan Stormrage at BurningWow playing a Balance Druid with full t6 - seriously! She kited him and moonfired all the time. Took her a bit of time, but managed. ROFL. He doesnt even hit with spells - only melee...
7. Bugged instances. Some ppl that entered Gruul's Lair got their characters bugged and could not play anymore with them... critical errors every time when they try to log in again... SSC - no lift at all, cant get to any other levels that basic.
8. Silly Game Masters - running around Stormwind/Orgrimar and showing off with their gear... pathetic.
9. Stupid ppl harassing each other and very rude community in general...

dont play there... its more that crap

I finally moved to a normal retail World of Warcraft and can enjoy all the quests, all my talents and all the instances working properly with a buch of nice ppl
Cheers!

Whant to know what server is the best?..

http://www.gamesites200.com/wowprivate/

simple xD

Good server: http://beyond-wow.com

Ok First off I run a private server so I can answer this EASILY. Personally I upkeep my server and run it because I love to program and I just love the challenge of doing it. Also I love to be able to play on it without greedy companies making loads more money then they honestly should. (Blizzard could make crap loads of money if they had the monthly price at even just 5 bux with over 9million ppl playing)
Also reisons for using private server include:

1. Smaller nicer and close knit comunity.
2. The ability to actually have a say in what happens. (I know I personally am open to any suggestion by the people who play on my server and have implemented many things because of them)
3. Custom stuff like events, games, areas, items, mobs, whole cities even.
4. You might actually get to know the GMs and other staff. (personally I play when I am not improving the server)
5. Less people playing means more help on an individual basis.
6. If something gets messed up it can be fixed usually within minutes to a couple days. (no need for a new client patch to fix a messed up spell or something)



You chose probably the biggest and most idiotic of servers to play on.

Not every server has stuff like overpowered items and donors, insane exp, bugs in everything, Idiotic GMs, stupid people, the ability to buy tier items.

That kind of server is referred to as a "funserver" but honestly its not fun at all. It gets boring after a couple of days and there is no replay value. My server is Blizz-like and has the same exp and drops and everything as Blizzard's. And also I am a GM there and can get the best stuff and I have tried to do that solo the BT thing, it doesn't work because I actually have the scripts correct. Ilidan actually uses spells too.

Oh and one thing that I agree with you on, GMs on some servers are total idiots but if the owner of the server had half a brain and controlled their GMs then it would be better. I have personally banned some GMs because they had a god complex. GMs are there to serve the players, they are there to be helpful when someone needs help and not act like they are something special or insanely great.

And as far as quest bugs, Yes they exist but realize that bugs exist on the offical servers too. And each and every quest has to be hand programmed from pretty much scratch so there will be issues BUT if your server admin is worth anything he will get them ironed out ASAP. (I don't know how many times I have been up till 3am working on some annoying bugged quest.)

This post has been edited by KainRacure: Jan 30 2008, 01:19 AM

Here are alot of different private servers listed:
http://www.xtremetop100.com/world-of-warcraft

I played retail for 2 years of which 1.5 yrs i have raided hardcore. And yes that means you will hardly have a life besides WoW, since you are raiding 6 days a week 4+ hours a night
so...I quitted for my own sake. I enjoyed the free time i had, but WoW is like poison and I had the urge to play it again. Because i was the guildleader of the top 2 raidingguild in the realm, I can't go back and be a casual player, but i also didnt want to lvl some unknown character with crappy gear, so i tried out private servers. This is what i ve learned:

There are 3 kinds of private servers:
Blizzlike/ Funserver/ High Rate
Blizzlike: like normal Blizzard server, with quests and scripts working (bosses and instances are like what blizzard intended they to be like)
Funserver: Instant or 1-kill lvl 70, you can buy epics, reagents (custom items) and tiers from vendors
High Rate: fast lvl-ing till beyond lvl 70 till around lvl 255, custom instances/ items to fit the higher lvl (bosses and instances are most likely not scripted)

Playing a private server wont make you lose you retailaccount, the only thing you have to do is to alter the realmlist. And most private servers update their servers within a week or 2 to the latest Blizpatch

There are alot of weird private servers around, from where gm's .kill players for fun to servers where every horde/ally kill other faction on sight.

How to find a good private server? Just try out different servers till one is at your liking. But watch out for servers where people can donate for gmpower, since alot of people like to abuse that power. And look how people behave in the general channel, that will most likely show what kind of people to expect.

I have chosen for a highrate server myself, just to try out some things and solo some bosses for fun, it was fun for 1-2 weeks
I think I ll play WoW again after an expansion, retail is still the best in my opinion, the difference is in the people playing (although the gm's on private servers can be better then in retail XD )