Where should I begin?

[DragonKyn]

Greetings everyone,

Let me start off by saying I am new to the WoW EMU scene and I am very interested in starting my own server. I have been extremely successful in the past at creating large scale gaming communities that revolved around other games but now that those projects are basically self sufficient I wanted to branch out of my comfort zone and try something new. I have played on blizzard's servers for several years and have a pretty good working knowledge of both PvE and PvP aspects of the game. That being said I've been doing some research and I found that EMU COACH has been the most helpful website so far.. I'm hoping that will remain true in the feedback I get from this post.

A little about me...
Well, there is not much to tell. I am a hobbyist programmer and web developer I enjoy creating web based applications and working with php. Most of my programming experience comes from C# tinkering and even a little C++ now and then. I've always been pretty good at community management and helping to create fun and exciting foundations for gaming communities to thrive upon. I'm hoping that this experience will serve me well when creating my own server. In terms of resources, I'm also the part owner of a hosting company that as of late has been doing really well. This means if needed I'd have a couple of pretty powerful servers at my disposal and a very good amount of bandwidth.

My Questions... (Please be gentle! haha!)

1) What is the best emulator to use?

I've been doing a ton of research and it seems that every emulator has its pro's and cons. I know that using a repack would be a terrible idea when starting a server because it would restrict me from being able to compile its core and make needed bug fixes/updates for the most part. Basically I'm just wondering if anyone knows what some of the most successful servers to date are using?

2) What is the WoW Emu community like?

I hail from a community of programmers who were always working towards a common goal, thus working in harmony with others and mutual respect were not in short supply. Is the community pretty open and helpful for the most part? I mean, from what I've seen Emu Coach is a really cool site and its been nothing but helpful thus far...

3) What is the most popular WoW Patch/Era?

I see servers of all shapes and sizes right now, Vanilla, BC, WOTLK, Cata, MOP and as of more recently WOD. Is there any particular one that seems to be more popular than the rest?

4) How many realms should I start off with?

I've stumbled upon quite a few extremely large servers with thousands of players and multiple realms. I assume they didn't start off that way? Is it best to start off with single realm to build in population before over saturating the project with different realms and expansions?

I know that my questions are somewhat vague and don't really have any one single answer, I guess they are more matters of opinion.. But being new to the world of WoW Emu's I thought this would be a good place to start as I think there are quite a few people here who really know what they are doing. Anyways, thanks in advance for any help you guys can provide.

 

[Lingx]

Once again, welcome to the community.

Hmm, I am nothing close to being an experienced emulator, but I thought I'd share my opion with you anyways, since you asked for that.

So, from a casual/fairly unexperienced users perspective:

1) You should look up TrinityCore.

2) EmuCoach is an awesome community, because we have people like ExO with a lot of experience and these guys actually take time to help people. Doesn't matter how if you're brand new to the forums, these guys always get back to everyone, even though somebody made an account to ask a single question.

3) The most popular is by far 3.3.5, since it's really stable. Ofcourse there's a few private servers for each of the expasions that is doing well. But in general, 3.3.5 is the most stable, making it the most popular.

4) Well, I don't really see how you can be working on more than one server at a time. So start off with one, see where it takes you?

I hope this was somewhat useful to you

 

[DragonKyn]

Lingx,

I really appreciate you taking the time to give me your opinion. I'll definitely check out TrinityCore right now.

 

[Cillez]

1. Trinitycore is best as Lingx said

2. Emucoach seems like a great community to start off at, and i will without a doubt help you (and everyone) whenever i can. I mostly do sql, so if you have any problems with sql, feel free to add my Skype or create a post in the support forum and i will resolve it for you

3. The most active patch is probably 3.3.5 as of now, because it's way more stable than other patches. However i find it really hard to get a playerbase with a wotlk private server, and that is mainly because all the wotlk players are already great geared on other servers cause they have been out for years.

4. Start of with 1 realm, you don't want your population to spread out between 3 realms, it will look like you have a smaller playerbase than you actually have.

--------------------------
To succeed with the patch 3.3.5 at this point, i think you have to make something really unique, progressive blizzlike servers seems to be doing really well.


Hope it helped, and i hope i can help you with any problems you have! Take care

skype is: ole.magnas

 

[DragonKyn]

Cillez,

You've successfully confirmed my assumptions that Emu Coach is a fantastic place for me to start my WoW Emu Journey.. (I guess thats why I donated?) Thanks a lot for your offer to help. I'll definitely add you on skype!

 

[ExO]

Greetings.
Welcome to the WoW Emulation scene btw, even though Lingx and cillez gave you great advices I'd go ahead and come with my input as well.

1. Well, it does highly depend on the patch you will use, if 3.3.5 you should defineatly stick with TrinityCore as Lingx and cillez mentioned as well, it's the most up to date one etc.
4.3.4, Well the main option you have is really TrinityCore. I am not really a huge fan of the TC core for 4.3.4 due to their implementions and considering it has a LOT of work left as well, but it's probably the best PUBLIC free emulator to stick with anyways.
But if you want 5.4.8, you should for example go with SkyFire and then it required heavilly developement to work properly since it has a lot of work left.
(You get the point)

2. Well emulation in general (not talking about emucoach but just in general) is well.. most of the good developers work on private repos due to the amount of leechers and what not, they work on private servers that obviously doesn't share their source code to the wow emulation community, so it depends.
However there's also a lot of helpful users on wow emulation forums, and I'm trying to answer most of the people that needs help here so that they can get further with their developement and hopefully increase their knowledge while doing it.

3. Hm. It can be tough to start another 3.3.5 server because there's simply so many out there and the people that are searching for a new private server to play on usually wants to try something more up to date, which is why I would say 4.3.4 or 5.4.8 mop.

4. The best advice I can give you is that you should ONLY start with one realm, and then build up a community and get a somewhat population, and when you feel like there's enough population and a big enough community, you can consider a second realm. Creating a second realm fast in without a proper population will obviously split the population and make it worse.

I hope it helped somehow, otherwise just ask!

 

[DragonKyn]

Thank you ExO, very helpful information. I like to do as much research as possible before diving into a project. I have a bit of a process I like to follow with development as well. That being said Emu Coach has been literally the PERFECT place for me to start off so I'll definitely be hanging around here. Hopefully I can be of service to someone else in the community here and perhaps even build a team from here

Appreciate the input!

 

[obz]

3) What is the most popular WoW Patch/Era?

Most people will say 3.3.5 because it's the most stable patch as of right now. But it is incredibly difficult to do something unique on that patch, and getting a good player base.
I suggest you to go with 4.3.4, there you will have more opportunities to do something unique.

4) How many realms should I start off with?

This is where most new people make their first mistake. They open multiple realms simultaneously instead of putting all focus and energy into one.

 

[DragonKyn]

Most people will say 3.3.5 because it's the most stable patch as of right now. But it is incredibly difficult to do something unique on that patch, and getting a good player base.
I suggest you to go with 4.3.4, there you will have more opportunities to do something unique.


This is where most new people make their first mistake. They open multiple realms simultaneously instead of putting all focus and energy into one.

One (1) realm to start with seems to be the way to go. Thanks for affirming that!