Your comment made no sense in the least. You go to a url and make a account. Within 5 minutes it's ready to go. You obviously don't use your legit Blizzard login. They don't alter your WOW Client at all, how again do they get your info?

Also, how exactly does Blizzard ban a person for using a private server? The client never connects to Blizzard, instead it uses the new realmlist.wtf file path. That's like saying MSN will ban me if I use AOL.

Please actually know what your speaking of before you start typing.

"Please actually know what your speaking of before you start typing."

Because the game keeps a record of the last login location you used. If you connect to the official servers using your account after using a private server, they can tell where you connected, and can ban you if they want, lol.

Sorry, Drakkenfyre, I'm pretty sure that's not how it works.

The servers keep a record of the IP you log in from, yes, but that provides no evidence whatsoever of having connected to a private server. I've never heard anything that would indicate a record of the last server connection you made using a World of Warcraft client.

The only real danger with private servers is that you dont know what exacly is in the software you download from these sites untill you install it, and it could have anything. Still, this is just paranoia that i've had since people started getting identities stolen and whatnot, and its true about anything you download off the internet.

Look in your game folder. There is a file that lists the last location logged into.

And I don't mean the last location you logged in from, lol.

A friend of mine tried out a private server for a couple days during transitioning from a free trial to actually buying WoW. It wasn't very good, but that friend never suffered any consequences for his or her dalliance.

Drakkenfyre

That file can be cleaned out upon connecting to official Blizzard servers. I have played on private servers for a while mainly because I do not have the necessary monthly fees to keep a legit account going. You pretty much change one file, and login to the private server. Nothing is changed as everything from that point on is server side.

you use a different wow install for private servers. One install is set to connect to those servers and you have a separate install to connect to the official servers.
You don't connect to private and official servers with the same client. That would be stupid.

It's fine and you can't get caught that way.

How do you think most machinama gets made? On private servers.

@Jason:
"How do you think most machinama gets made? On private servers. "

I believe that there is a huge differance between a private serveur on a home computer to make a machinama and a server set up to host WoW free for hundreds of people.

Don't you?

you guys are retarded!
there are people who are not rich as you who must play private servers because they cant afford playing retail!
dumbasses "if you want to get your account hacked go to a private server"
if you want to learn more about a private server go play on one dumbass! your accounts rarely gets hacked, but it also happens on retail!!!

Are you that thick? The points is playing for free! Of course, it will never be like retail, but I'm not paying 13€ a month for a game!!!

> Sorry, Drakkenfyre, I'm pretty sure that's not how it works.

This seems precisely be the way this works. It's not the client-IP that is stored and sent to Blizzard by Warden, it's the _server_ IP. So if you, say, connect to 192.168.0.70 or whatever your home private server is, Blizzard might take notice.

Now, in the case of private IP space, there's more than one reason (you could connect to a tunnel to the outside), but in the case of public, non-RFC-1918-space, all Blizzard needs to do is check the IP and then, automagically, ban anyone whose outgoing IP record contains that IP. Simple and fast.

Blizzard shut them down because most, if not all, of them were profiting from their players and deserved to be shut down.

I know Toxic and WoWScape sure as hell took "donations" in exchange for GM and pvp gear. Those sites made thousands of dollars.

All the sites that I know of that got shut down didn't even run encounter scripts so no big loss there. The admins were simply running a full scale profit setup with no care about actually providing a true to live server.

Dude - You don't have to give your original WoW account information to the private server that you deside to play on.
You just have to make an new account, like.. wowinsider332.. And then some password that you would like!
Blizzard can't hunt you down because you played private servers!
It sucks to be honest! I enjoyed some private servers. They shouldn't have done it!

arras your an idiot, its a private server meaning you dont have to pay and you can get hacked just as easily as a real one, blizzard had almost no controle over private servers untill the January 3.0.8 patch came out, so they cant bann you from a private server, and now that the new patch is out, i think that has like err umm blocked out all the private ones,