Turtle WoW—a fanmade, souped-up take on World of Warcraft Classic with new character customization options and zones—is like a lot of MMO private servers in that it took years of work across a dozen modding disciplines to make it a reality. Unfortunately, it became so successful that it caught the attention of the original game's developer, as evidenced by the copyright infringement lawsuit Blizzard filed last month.
When that suit was filed, the team behind the private server issued a statement: "Turtle WoW is here to stay." Yesterday, October 17, [[link]] they issued another: An open letter to Blizzard itself, requesting a licensing framework for fan mods [[link]] and private servers.
"Many successful games have a modding community. It is a part of gaming culture and a testament to the game's quality, and the community's passion," The Turtle WoW team argues. "The World of Warcraft modding community is flourishing, and as more tools become available, it will only continue to grow. Your storytelling has inspired this creativity, and we hope that Blizzard embraces fan‑driven content as its own legacy, rather than alienate this passionate community."
As Blizzard's interest is concerned, the letter argues officially recognized fan servers would "[bring] back players who have drifted away from the official game in search of niche experiences that mainstream releases can't accommodate … This not only keeps the overall player base larger and more diverse, but also gives Blizzard a source of successful concepts that can be identified and integrated into future [[link]] official content."
That might seem presumptuous, but the WoW team has recently been phasing out a number of community addons in favor of official systems that replicate some of their functionality—and attempts to circumvent that sea change haven't been tolerated. It's worth noting that addons were always officially allowed until the recent clampdown, while these servers have always been against ToS. Regardless, it's another signal that Blizzard is moving to let players tinker less rather than more.
