Activision blizzard has issued cease and desist against Nostalrius.  Private server was running WoW before any expansions.  Called Nostalrius aimed to recreate the original game state from 2004. Team behind the server just 30 volunteers with 800,000 players with 150,000 active.  Server provided legacy support for content unable to be accessed or elements removed.  Gamers have long been asking for legacy servers so don’t have to create private servers.

Blizzard reply has been straight to the point Nostalrius broke the terms.

Hello there Polix,

As a number of our helpful forum regulars have already answered for you, playing on (or hosting) ‘private’ WoW servers is always against the Terms of Use, regardless of whether you’ve been a legitimate paid subscriber since the game launch or, conversely, never played the game before.

Ultimately, this isn’t an issue because of ‘lost’ subscription fees from players choosing these illegitimate servers over the real WoW servers – it simply boils down to the fact that private servers are illegal, and that’s that

Team behind the server has called for dialog behind the company and fans.  Helping to come up with solution that both sides can agree on.  Server has been taken offline due to the group being unable to fight the legal action taken against them.

Legacy software brings up various issues about copyright if support is removed. Often old hardware is required to run certain bits of software.  Lines of code disappear if not saved and restored. Legacy software creates many problems NASA used systems from the 1970s until 2010.

Should fans be allowed to run matchmaking servers or servers for old video games no longer supported?

Case to be made for fan supported non profit old video game servers.