How to play WOW on Private Servers

This guide is very helpful if you have ever wondered how people get to play World of Warcraft on a private server. Doing this will can also let you play as a GM if you know the person hosting the private server. I just found this on the internet and I have not tried it. Also, I am not responsible for the information contained in this guide and use at your own risk. With that said...here is the guide!

Have you ever wondered how you could solo MC or BWL? How about have a godly character that nothing can defeat? So... Now that I've caught your attention, I will explain how to connect to one of many WoW private servers!

1. Rename your World of Warcraft folder to anything else, for example wowow, something you won't forget is your World of Warcraft folder. For Windows users you'll find the folder "World of Warcraft" in C:\Program Files.

2. Install the World of Warcraft (again). The installer will ask you where you want to place World of Warcraft. The default is installed into C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft, but instead rename it to C:\Program Files\PrivateServerWoW (or anything else). Also, don't have it send an icon to the desktop.

3. Once you've installed World of Warcraft, DO NOT connect to the server!!! If you do this, WoW will update your game version to 1.9.0, and we don't want this! Instead, download the 1.8.0 full patch. you can download it here: FileFront

4. Run the 1.8.0 installation files and have it be installed to the Wow Private Server folder. (If it doesn't let you choose where to install it, it will automatically install in your private server folder).

5. This part is semi-optional. Just depends on if you want to have the Ahn-Qiraj stuff available in the Private Server. If you want to connect to a 1.9.0 hack server, you can download the 1.9.0 EMU patch (this is NOT the same as Blizzard's and using Blizzard's 1.9.0 will result in not being able to connect to the private server.) You can download the 1.9.0 emu patch HERE. Install the patch into your Private WoW server folder.

6. If you installed the 1.9.0 emu hack, go to your WoW private server folder and then inside the folder go to DATA, then to DBFilesClient. in the DBFilesClient folder DELETE the item "Spell.dbc." If you don't delete this, WoW will NOT work. However if you didn't install the 1.9.0 emu hack, you won't have to delete anything.

7. Now on to finding a private server to connect to. I find most of my servers at http://wowstatus.net/serverlist.php but you can find them elsewhere by doing a search. There, you'll find a list of private servers. If you want to play on a server with high XP rates and gold/item rates, choose a funserver (under the XP rate column). Click on the server's name to go to the info page. You can only play on servers that have 1.8.0, 1.8.1, 1.8.2, or 1.9.0 hack (which is really almost all servers).

8. To play on the server, you must make an account. Now click on the Account Signup page to register for that particular server. Most register sites will look like a login screen. Just type your desired username and password to sign up!

9. Once you're signed up for that particular server, you'll need to find the server's address. Go back to the server's info page, and you'll find the server's address In the row labeled "Server Address" (duh ).

10. Once you've found the server address, go back to your WoW Private Server Folder, and find a file called "Realmlist.wtf" It's in the regular WoW private server folder, NOT in the WTF folder. Click on the Realmlist.wtf to open it. For most, it will ask you what program you want to open it with. For window's users, choose notepad. Once opened you'll see, [ set realmlist us.logon.worldofwarcraft.com ] or [ set realmlist eu.logon.worldofwarcraft.com ] depending on which version you play. Now change the address to the private server you chose. (for example [ set realmlist xxx.xxx.xxx ]) Once you've done that, SAVE the file!


11. Now in the private server folder, click on the WoW icon (or WoW190 if you installed the 1.9.0 hack) and you're on! Login as usual! (you can play on 1.9.0 hack servers with just 1.8.0... but you wont be able to access the new stuff).

Things you should know before playing...

1. You CAN'T connect to any private servers by simply just altering your usual WoW realmlist.wtf file.

2. A lot of servers will have high latency! Heck, they're just FREE servers set up by regular people.

3. When you login to the server and you get connected...or even to the select character page, and you then you automatically get disconnected...it means the SERVER IS FULL. Just keep trying to reconnect until you get through.

4. Every 10-60 min, the server will do a "World Save." When that happens, you will lag for about 10 sec. Nothing to worry about, though!

Cool Stuff

1. A lot of good servers will have a level cap of 255! Yes...lvl 255!

2. Most servers have high MP and HP regen!

3. Some servers, any class/race can wield any weapon/armor!

4. If you're nice to a GM, they may transport you to the famous, GM Island .

5. Some servers have custom mounts! For example you can ride a hyppogrif, gryphon, wyvern, or even a dragon! (Normally requires being nice to GMs to get the dragon ).

6. Some servers have custom armors/weapons. On one server I play, I duel wield 2 swords that do 9,999 dps....EACH. (major MC pwnage).

7. Most servers have NPC venders for epic quality items for less than 10g each.

8. For those who aren't interested in pwning high lvl mobs that'd take an entire raid in normal WoW, try out classes you've always wanted to mess around with. On high xp servers, you can get to 60 within 30 min - an hour.

9. Most of the time, gold is plentiful! Or if gold isn't... mobs will always drop SEVERAL uncommon/common/epic depending on mob level.

10. If you notice you're not getting a TON of xp from killing mobs... do quests... some servers have uber high quest reward xp.

Taken from www.freewarcraftguides.com