In 2019, Blizzard Entertainment launched World of Warcraft Classic. Despite Classic, and subsequently, Season of Discovery, bolstering the player base for World of Warcraft, not all players were satisfied with what these experiences offered. And while some private servers for the MMORPG have come and gone, either through the server running its course or Blizzard taking legal action, one server set up in 2018 has endured. Dubbed Turtle WoW (or Turtle World of Warcraft), this server has managed to retain popularity among its users, so much so that original content has begun to roll out with a roadmap for 2024-2025 planned.
I began to play World of Warcraft in 2023 after attending my first BlizzCon. I was enamored with the various decorations and displays in the hall dedicated to the groundbreaking MMORPG, and paired with the cinematic featuring Anduin Wrynn and Thrall (and my Final Fantasy XIV malaise), I picked up the game. I dabbled in retail for a good few months before making the transition to World of Warcraft Classic’s Hardcore mode after it took off Twitch streamers. See, I love a challenge, and when Diablo IV came out I streamed my first story playthrough with a Hardcore character. So naturally, I ended up dedicating hours of trying to get my Human Paladin out of Northshire and eventually into Redridge where my journey ended.
I then gravitated to Season of Discovery, which seemed more in line with what a “classic” World of Warcraft experience would be — despite the addition of the new runes. As I felt it was a little too late to hop into Wrath of the Lich King, having missed the short-lived plague event leading up to it. I am still currently playing Season of Discovery, but as I edged closer and closer to level 40 (which is the current level cap as of writing this piece), I was looking for something else to hold my attention.
Something still World of Warcraft flavored.
And then I remembered Turtle WoW. I had seen a former Blizzard Entertainment developer stream it on YouTube by chance after screwing with my algorithm after watching dozens of World of Warcraft lore videos that I was inundated with World of Warcraft content only. Back then I had done a little bit of research into the server. It seemed sizable enough and had a decent population, and with Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase parting ways in terms of distribution for the MMORPG in China, an entirely new swath of players had flocked to these servers. This was before some of their major content updates, which included the developers for Turtle WoW choosing to roll out some *new” races.
Now Turtle WoW hasn’t gone past World of Warcraft, as in the base game itself. There is no Burning Crusade, there is no Wrath of the Lich King. There is only World of Warcraft. Instead of taking players into expansions, the developers have rolled out entirely original content, such as the aforementioned races which includes the High Elves (instead of the hotly controversial Blood Elves from whom a close friend told me some server populations never recovered from their introduction) and the Goblins. Granted, the Goblins were added into World of Warcraft as a playable race later on, but this is the first time High Elves have been made truly playable — not as Blood Elves, or as the later introduced Void Elves. And with it, unique starting areas.
I loved the High Elves in Warcraft III, so I thought it would be remiss not to make a High Elf in Turtle WoW. I play a Void Elf and Blood Elf on retail, and a Night Elf in Classic, so it’s all very predictably me that I would play a High Elf anyhow. But what I didn’t expect was an entire storyline that delved into the fate of this once prestigious group of mages and rangers after the events of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. I was impressed that not only had an entirely new storyline been written to immerse players deeper into the world of Azeroth, but that a starting area had been created as well, with uniquely designed models and characters. There were High Elves, half-transformed into the Scourge, lingering with the remaining High Elven refugees that were desperate to rebuild their society and hold back the swaths of mindless undead constantly at their heels. New music has been composed for the game, along with new quests for players to participate in, and new factions to gain reputation with. There’s a lot to do
But more than this, Turtle WoW continues to encapsulate the “classic” experience more than Classic ever could. While some elements of the user interface in Classic are very much as it was when the game launched, even basic features like auto-looting are not included in the experience Turtle WoW has provided its players.
Loading up the Systems menu in Turtle WoW was enough to tell me that this would be the closest I would ever get to experiencing World of Warcraft as it was. And I get the appeal. There are some changes being made to the user interface, and things like a “Looking for Turtles (aka Looking for Group)” add-on has been implemented, but the experience is the same. The game is clunky — clunkier than I experienced through Blizzard’s own official experience — and encounters are grueling. I died, a lot, in that starting area for the High Elves, and will probably continue to die even more.
However, the servers are packed. There were more than a dozen new characters running around with me in the High Elven starting zone, and even more when I logged in during peak hours. The World Chat was always bustling, and reading the forums it’s clear that players who want World of Warcraft as it was, without any modern conveniences, want what Turtle WoW has provided.
Additionally, adding new things to discover, far beyond the Rune system in Season of Discovery, makes it exhilarating for players who are more or less experiencing the same-old-same-old because there are things being added to the game that they’ve never seen before. Raids, dungeons, pets, unique Seasonal Events — Turtle WoW has it. And there’s even more on the way.
It’s amazing to see this community thrive, even when Blizzard has created its own Classic Era servers. It just goes to show that players are looking for what World of Warcraft was, and to some degree what it could be. While Season of Discovery is a hit, it may not be enough of or too close to what players remember. Regardless, it’s amazing to see what the developers have created, and it’ll be interesting to see what the developers continue to cook up. Either way, it’ll be a deviation from the World of Warcraft many players know, and that’s probably a good thing as variety is the spice of life after all.
