Whats the difference between playing WoW in a private server and paying?

[Anuj Dhawan]

Hello,

I, along with one of my friend, bought WoW, but we didn't know that we had to pay to play. I am playing in a private server and I want to know if its different to play in one. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Zenc]

The difference is you pay for retail and some prefer retail over private servers, some prefer private servers over retail simply because they are free. Not only free but you can experience unbelievable things on private servers and there are so many different ones, all the way from when wow first came out, which was vanilla wow, up to the newest one.

 

[Zafire]

I myself can afford to play retail, but I choose private servers because of the reason that it stays on one patch.
Meaning you get time to fully explore one patch/expansion. If you want to try another expansion, try another server, or even another realm.

 

[Rezolve]

For me its playing the previous expansions, I myself is not a fan of MOP I don't mind it but I prefer the other expansions,
So I like playing on the expansions that entertain me.

 

[Peowdie]

Retail: Always "up to date", almost bug-free, very stable and probably decent economy. Huge playerbase, cross-realm pvp and pve. Costs money.

Private server: Never "up to date", but you can play the expansion you want - almost. Not necessarily very stable, some servers crash very often. Often low playerbase, super bad economy - as in overpriced crap, basically. Nothing cross-realm, so if no one queues for BG, too bad! It is however, free.

There are other differences too, but these are what I think really makes them stand out. You can find stable private servers with a good playerbase, but you are always in the risk of rollbacks, constant crashes and even longer downtime. Progress are more often than not faster than retail, making it a good option for the lazy and impatient player.

 

[Etox]

Well I prefer retail, just because it's always up to date, but somehow I also like private servers, as Zafire said, you get the opportunity to explore the patch/expansion.

Anyways.. I wont start with retail until WoD comes out, tired of MoP being patched all the time!

 

[HellHammer]

I prefer private servers because often the private server communities are more friendly and the staff/owner have a little more control over how people act on their servers, with retail it just seems each expansion brings more jerks and ninjas to Retail.

 

[Etox]

I prefer private servers because often the private server communities are more friendly and the staff/owner have a little more control over how people act on their servers, with retail it just seems each expansion brings more jerks and ninjas to Retail.

It's hard to ninja in retail now though, also you should get a raiding guild (if you do pve).

But yeah, I see your point!

 

[cbunting99]

I think it more-less depends on the people behind the server.. 90% of the servers being launched, are all 90% the same, using the same code snippets, scripts etc.. There are some really big private servers with tons of players, but again, the main difference is always Blizzlike, 15x, Instant 80 etc.. The highly modified private servers, that went to the extreme to be different, just didn't seem to last..

It all depends on what you like I guess.
Chris

 

[Adriel]

Retail server will more than likely have very little buggy issues and once those arise and get noted they are promptly fixed. Blizzard pays their devs well to make their systems near perfect thus your gaming experience is desirable and yes you pay for the quality of service.

private server usually are comprised of teams of volunteers ranging from gamers to IT professionals ages ranging from 12 yrs old and up. Usually these people receive no monetary payment for working on a server but rather they receive privileges in the game hosted. The priority of bug patching is not that high either and a dev will usually fix it when the get around to it. This is mainly due to lack of the motivation money has on each of us. For example:
If I pay you $100 USD to fix a quest chances are you will bust ass to fix it ASAP
Now say I give you mod privs. in game to fix a quest? How motivated are you now? Probably not as motivated as you would be if I was waving a $100 bill at you.
Fact is money motivates, thus money gets things done in the real world, thus is why Blizzards systems are near flawless and private systems have their own unique per core issues.

This whole basis can be assumed for just about any experience out there in the world.

 

[D3ATHKeeper]

With private servers some of the stuff can be glitchy and with the paying server they usually fix those problems.

 

[alinmagefire]

Paying provides much more stability and content.

 

[maxfun03]

It depends I played Retail and Private.
Retail has the advantage to be up-to-date and everything works MOSTLY but it'l cost ya.
And Private most of the time some quest isn't working or an entire dungeon etc but its free and constantly worked on and it stays on the expansion it is most of the time.
In short both have it Pro's and Con's

 

[CaptainCrutch]

The difference I find tends to be that most private servers have more glitches and/or instability, due to rough coding and attempts to fix issues sometimes breaking other things. But it's a trade-off considering the fact it's entirely free. I just play alone on my PC (though I might get friends in on occasion) just to experience all the questing and exploration, which is in itself worth playing private due to offline availability.