A Wow Private Server, Why Do People Play on Them?

A World of Warcraft private server allows you to connect to privately run servers with your game client that have nothing to do with the servers run by Blizzard. The have been around for years, the first ones launched soon after the release of the official game. So what is it that gets people away from the official servers and into playing on the private servers which, in many cases, have less functionality, balance issues, poor support and often experience crashes. Although pservers are often riddled with various playability issues that are not present at the official wow servers, many of of them are very well run and do not suffer from the earlier mentioned issues, which is part of the reason why they have gained thousands of players over the years.

Having completed several rounds of interviews of the actual players on pservers an interesting observation was made. Many of the players there were in fact also playing World of Warcraft on the official servers with active accounts. We also found out that almost all of the players on private servers had at some point had been active players on retail, the authentic World of Warcraft servers. That was to be expected of course.

So what are the most common reasons for playing wow on a private World of Warcraft server.

- Financial issues

This is, of course, the obvious reason. Private servers allow you to play wow without the monthly payment. Many of the players on pservers have had active accounts on retail wow for several years and were not able to keep up with the payments. Its a monthly cost regardless of the actual time you get to spend in the game. The other option would be to not play at all or move onto other games.

- Boredom

This is also a very common reason for moving to private servers and we found two player types in this category. The hard-core and the occasional players. The hard-core players in strong guilds got to the stage where they had done a majority of the end-game content on their official wow account and had just wanted a change from hanging around. Usually these players tend to disappear for a while from private servers with each new patch on the retail servers as they go to explore the new content and features.

The occasional player, on the other hand, is one that does not have a strong guild to back them up in the more demanding retail wow and opt for a private server where, in many cases, the amount of actual grinding is far less, or in some extremes, non-existent.

In addition, many wow players have never got to experience much of the end-game content due to lack of functional groups or raids or just not having enough friends online. In any case, on private servers and especially on funservers all players have the possibility to experience all the content designed for wow and to get the full experience, and even more on custom realms. This is especially true for some funserver realms where players can get overpowered custom items, levelling beyond 80, and other benefits that allow them to complete all of the raid content designed for wow.

- Character testing

Another popular reason for playing on private servers. To level up a new character on regular wow is a very time consuming task and can be extremely frustrating to do if you end up noticing that the race/class is actually not something you enjoy playing at the highest level. So they come to a private server where they can either level up any character class to the maximum in a very short time or on some private servers you become level 80 instantly. This way the players get to test classes at high levels to see how it feels before taking on the massive task of levelling and equipping a similar character on their retail account. Sure, some argue that if you get to level 80 instantly you will not know how to play the class effectively, which is probably true.

The point is that if you get to play the class, test different talents specs, etc. without putting in the long hours. Even if they do not intend on building a new character on retail wow, on a private server you can quickly have a completely different gaming experience with a class change. Without the grind.

- Custom content and new experiences.

Some gamers just want a change and go for custom private servers with a high amount of custom content, custom areas, custom bosses, custom items, etc. Some servers even allow you to bring in items you have designed yourself on the ever increasingly popular wow-v website, where you can create your own custom wow items.

Further information: By researching and testing different custom servers, you can find the best private server for your play style and maximise your enjoyment.