After being shut down by Blizzard, one of WoW's biggest private servers is saying screw it, we'll make our own MMO

The saga of TurtleWoW was perhaps inevitable—operating pretty brazenly under the nose of Blizzard, the World of Warcraft private server featured bespoke content for its own vision of the game, and advertised itself as an actual game might.

It also featured in-game microtransactions, and while some private servers for other MMOs (like City of Heroes) have received official permission from the developers to keep operating, they've usually done so via years of muddling by on strictly-documented donations that only cover server costs.

In other words—regardless how neat the work of TurtleWoW's developers was? Legally-speaking, that's cruisin' for a bruisin'. In October of 2025, Blizzard Read Entire Article