[quadral]

You missed the opportunity to talk about WoW private servers like Trinitycore.

Trinitycore emulator can handle 10k+ players on a single server.

[Thaxll]

I 've seen those so called 10k players per server and in reallity it just does not work and it's pretty much a lag fest. You should see how those servers run in China ( where private wow server are very popular ).

[Aerroon]

Is it the server that's laggy or the client?

[lordnacho]

I don't understand how they are able to replicate all the interaction rules. There's a bunch of things going on in WoW, and unless you did a heck of a lot of experiments how would you uncover the rules governing all the interactions between different things? For instance you can bubble hearth on classic but not in hardcore. How is an external server developer going to know that?

Also how do they place all the NPCs and hook up the quests and lot tables? Do they scrape wowhead?

[TheHappyOddish]

(Trial + error) * hardcore players.

Yes they scrape as much as they can, but the originals of these (almost as old as WoW itself) were absolutely not 1:1 behaviour. By hardcore players noticing the minute differences, taking the time to detailed bug report, then the admins/devs looking with care, they've come pretty close.

Never underestimate a group of nerds with a passion.

[itsthecourier]

use to play ragnarok in private servers, the explanation is simple, they know, because you know, they are super fans

[sambazi]

Eve Online does this for 20years now.

the size of 'big engagements' that are still playable has gone from a few hundred to a few thousand in this timeframe. thou players tend to hit the ceilings and "playable" is a matter of opinion.

[buba]

to be honest, i know nothing about private WoW servers but i promise i'll check it out!

Thanks!

[sshagent]

azerothcore is probably the best and most polished, if you don't mind wotlk