While it's probably true that he just wants a local server for his own to mess with, I'll recommend him to set up a server the proper way over taking a repack with unknown executables (you get no source to modify from using a repack, normally). Repacks are easy and for most part safe to setup and it's much trying to automate installation and just dl and go, but if you at some point want to evolve past that you've gained little to no experience from merely relying on repacks.
Everyone has their flavor!
Personally, when it comes to WoW servers, I'd rather just have a repack and use that. I don't know enough about sources or doing anything extra with it, other than changing things in the database. For me, I'd rather just leave the server development to the people who know what they're doing. Once I eventually learn a bit more about it through college, I'll probably help with the server development, but that's about it.
I think that's the way most people are with WoW servers. They'd rather play one, maybe changing some names in the DB here and there, but a lot of people are cool with just download and play.
For someone who's not tech savvy at all, I'd recommend just getting a really good repack, and leaving it at that. But for someone who actually knows quite a bit, then I'd definitely recommend getting their own source.
So for mikehollandnc: I'd strongly recommend just finding a really good repack, and change whatever in the database to suit your needs (which I'll be glad to help with), and play that way. If you do plan on going further and having a lot of people play on your server, then I'd recommend hiring a developer for bug fixes, custom scripts, etc, unless you want to learn to do it yourself, which of course is where tchniq's suggestions come in.
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