Complete guide to finding a good WoW private server

After years in this community here's my personal checklist for evaluating a server before committing: 1. Uptime history — Has the server been running for at least 1 year? Servers that survive year one are much more likely to be stable long term. 2. Population — Peak concurrent players matter far more than total registered accounts. A server with 50k accounts but 200 online is basically dead. 3. Scripting quality — Ask in their Discord whether ICC / endgame raids are fully cleared by guilds. If they are, scripting is solid. 4. Donation shop — Pay to win destroys the experience. Cosmetics only is perfectly fine. 5. GM responsiveness — Submit a test ticket before investing serious time. See how fast and helpfully they respond. Hope this saves some people from the mistakes I made early on.