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I’m going to download the game before Blizzard bullies them through the courts to shut them down.
Not familiar with it, and not in a position to watch the video right now. Can you elaborate?
I hadn’t heard of it either but looked it up: https://turtle-wow.org/
It’s a community expansion/private server for world of Warcraft. Sounds like the video might be about the open letter on their homepage?
This is definitely awakening a nostalgic urge to try it out. Nowhere has done druids as well as WoW. I wonder how well this runs on proton…
Dear Blizzard Entertainment, We’re Turtle WoW, a group of fans who love World of Warcraft and share a lifelong dream of contributing to its development. Mysteries of Azeroth, our content expansion, is a collective effort of our community members: writers, developers, 3D-modellers, composers, voice actors, game designers, artists, and radio DJs, each pouring their soul and skills into creating an environment where others can experience the vision we all share through expanding and adding onto the universe you have created.
During the seven years we’ve been online, we have worked towards finding the right recipe to add an element of replayability to the natural progression of an MMO world. Every update brings fresh areas to explore, new ways to engage with the game, and levelling challenges that require players to approach the experience with creativity and strategy, while the hard‑earned progress they’ve fought for remains valuable as the game continues to evolve. The response from our community has been nothing short of positive and heart‑warming. Our players have consistently expressed that Mysteries of Azeroth “feels like a home that always welcomes players back”.
Many successful games have a modding community. It is a part of gaming culture and a testament to the game’s quality, and the community’s passion. The World of Warcraft modding community is flourishing, and as more tools become available, it will only continue to grow. Everything your devoted fans create enriches the game universe with diverse perspectives and innovative ideas. Your storytelling has inspired this creativity, and we hope that Blizzard embraces fan‑driven content as its own legacy, rather than alienate this passionate community.
Unfortunately, unlike other studios, Blizzard does not yet have a framework that allows projects like ours to operate without risking legal conflict. With that in mind, we respectfully ask that Blizzard consider establishing a formal ecosystem for licensing fan‑run community servers.
On behalf of our community, we can say that all players would be deeply grateful if you would consider working with fan communities like ours to create a clear, lawful pathway for building upon the legacy of the World of Warcraft universe, with your blessing. By fostering an ecosystem for modders to run their own community servers, Blizzard can continue to oversee and control its progress while encouraging fan-driven innovation. This approach would not only enhance the gameplay experience, but also strengthen the bonds between developers and players, ensuring that World of Warcraft remains a true home for everyone who loves it.
Other successful studios have shown how rewarding a well‑structured community‑server ecosystem can be:
Daybreak Game Company provides legal permission for Project 1999, a private server that faithfully recreates the classic EverQuest experience. The partnership is confirmed by an official statement and discussed openly on the project’s forums. Rockstar Games / GTA V partnered with the FiveM platform that enables community‑run multiplayer servers that use Rockstar’s GTA V engine while adhering to a licensing agreement that permits custom game modes, role‑playing worlds, and user‑generated content. Over 1 million concurrent players have been reported on FiveM servers, illustrating how a major publisher can safely coexist with a fan‑driven ecosystem while maintaining control over the core IP. NCSoft granted a license to the Homecoming private‑server project for City of Heroes, allowing the community to continue operating the MMO under a clear legal agreement that protects the IP and player accounts. Bethesda has long supported Skyrim mods, providing official tools that have kept the game vibrant for years. Valve opened the Source engine to the public, a decision that birthed enduring titles such as Counter‑Strike and Team Fortress 2. Epic Games introduced Creative Mode in Fortnite, turning players into co‑creators and dramatically boosting engagement. Epic also released the source code for Unreal Tournament 99 to the community, allowing fans to continue development, produce new mods, and distribute classic builds through sites like oldunreal.com, thereby demonstrating that a major publisher can safely coexist with a fan‑run ecosystem. Microsoft / Mojang allows third‑party servers such as Hypixel, Mineplex, and many others to host multiplayer experiences built on the Minecraft engine. These servers operate under a clear licensing regime, generate massive player engagement, and extend the life of the core product while remaining fully compliant with Microsoft’s IP policies. EA / Star Wars Battlefront II cooperated with the community project Kyber to fix server‑side exploits, and its lead engineer later joined EA itself. Although no formal licensing announcement exists, this cooperation illustrates how a publisher and a fan‑run server can work together on security and stability. These examples illustrate that, when a clear licensing framework and technical safeguards are in place, fan‑run servers can extend a franchise’s lifespan, fuel low‑cost innovation, and strengthen the brand, all while respecting the publisher’s intellectual‑property and security requirements.
Why It Matters To Blizzard? A licensed framework for fan-run servers would extend World of Warcraft’s active audience by bringing back players who have drifted away from the official game in search of niche experiences that mainstream releases can’t accommodate. Community‑crafted mods fill those gaps, offering gameplay that appeals to smaller, passionate audiences. This not only keeps the overall player base larger and more diverse, but also gives Blizzard a source of successful concepts that can be identified and integrated into future official content.
We are open to any licensing structure that fits Blizzard’s risk‑management and financial guidelines. Should Blizzard wish to move forward, we stand ready to adapt and meet whatever technical, security and data‑privacy standards you require.
Turtle WoW Community For the past seven years our players have poured countless hours into building characters and stories that make Turtle WoW feel like a living, ever‑changing world. Those memories and progress are priceless to us and to the people who call our servers home. A licensing framework would give them a permanent, protected home, so every character and memory can continue to live on without the fear of being lost.
We look forward to the day you embrace this opportunity and would welcome the chance to begin a dialogue, offering any support needed to bring this program to life.
Thank you for considering our ideas. We hope to find a resolution that will be best for the game and its gamers.
[email protected] Turtle WoW Team
