You really think Kronos is bot free and nobody has clever macros?
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And Kronos represents all servers? It was nowhere near the biggest. Anyway doesn’t Kronos have an in game shop?
I believe they’re referring to Elysium with the corrupt owners thing. iirc, the admins of Elysium it turned out were secretly running gold selling scheme on their server.
That being said, I enjoyed Elysium greatly, as I did Nostalrius, even if the population of Nost was stupidly high. 15000 people online in one “layer” was not good. Although the world certainly felt full!
Classic is vastly superior in almost every way.
Private servers are all guesswork based and this has skewed perceptions of what actual vanilla was like.
The only thing pservers do is script the endgame and the rest of the world is ignored.
Populations are far healthier than any pserver could ever dream of and to add to that it’s not entirely made up of tryhards rushing to endgame - there’s a good spread of different types of players.
The only bad thing is the strange lag when looting and outdoor/indoor transitions for cat/travel form.
Imho it’s not even close how much better classic is.
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Well they didn’t manage to. They had the correct data in the first place. 
I wonder if saying you were is enough to get banned? lol.
I would say it’s half of one, and half of the other. Here’s why.
WoW classic will have everything gameplay wise right in theory. They have all the original data, including the background stuff that couldn’t be attained from the client data mining, or even tracking data across the network during game play. This stuff always has to be guessed at when reverse engineering. Some will be close, some might even be correct. But, Blizzard have the final say on what’s right. Classic will always win in this regard.
But, they have made a some QoL changes, they’ve changed the graphics options, the client is much more “slick” LUA API is changed. So, in that regard, private servers using the original 1.12 client are closer to the original vanilla experience.
I think it’s moot though. You can set the classic client to be pretty close to the original client and frankly in my opinion, gameplay trumps client authenticity.
How you know that ? Even on official servers we have some very sophisticated scripts used. Only way things are pure and dandy are in MDI or Arena events with 0 addons, all rest is more than just “pure” UI.
It represents pve world records. And yes, it had no ingame shop even for vanity items, let alone raid loot. It was never near the biggest of course, it was where all the elitists were, the main bunch was on the sh…tty nost derivatives like elysium and lh.
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Private servers currently hold the “No Layering” trump card in their hands.
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That too, but it does serve a decent role in a launch that was far bigger than are private server launch. IF they got it right, we won’t have ghost town realms in a few months. If it works, it will have been worthwhile. In my opinion at least.
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I haven’t played on any private servers but my understanding is that many don’t work in the same way Vanilla did. For example things like increased levelling speeds, more money etc.
I like classic, but honestly the dungeons are way to easy compared to private servers. Another con is the spellcleave groups a pro is there are no chinese.
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I checked K3 after Classic got announced, got two shamans to 60, one up to some Naxx bosses. My thoughts are:
- On pserver some mobs were elites or hit harder (those imps in Durotar starting zone could crit for over 3/4 of your HP and there was a pile of bones around that cave)
- On Classic mobs more often have abilities and they use them
- On pserver due to lack of batching or implementation effects were more instant - like Blizzard in front of pack of mobs would slow them as soon as they enter it, while on Classic it’s harder as it takes ~2 ticks of Blizzard to apply the effect. Some servers had problems with correct proc implementation causing procs to be calculated per every blizzard hit not per cast (OP as hell)
- K3 had BGs at launch and queue from anywhere (one BG on launch) which was really popular among PvP oriented players. Similarly respec cost was capped at 5g not 50g to also incentivize swapping talents and participating in PvP as well as PvE. It’s an explicit deviation from original made for the good of gameplay of this custom version (and there are even larger custom servers like MoP + Allied Races + lots of custom made graphics and content. Not every server is set to recreate original).
- Various pservers changed DM farming to make it harder but not impossible - add extra patrol, make patrol move really fast etc.
- Server usually did have some nerfs to most lucrative gold farming spots (fun detected nerfs)
- Content progression was more rigid. With DM release Grog was best stamina beverage until pre-AQ when Rumsey Black Label shows up. Classic has many late vanilla features from launch including Rumsey, Greater Sagefish and some quests.
- Pservers usually have a MC/Ony release date while Classic launched with raids open which may take some life from end game dungeons.
- Competition for resources on pservers is usually high (no layers, game rolling against players with spawns etc.) while on Nethergarde Keep things like Devilsaurs are just walking by like if they are decoration.
- Old 1.12 client is really old and shows artifacts/stability problems
- Feel of the game is same on both - if you are for the feel and not just rushing and cheesing
- K3 started with like 6K peak players and that dwindled with time (partially due to Classic and their announcement that there won’t be anything fresh launching due to Classic) which resulted with many guilds not having roster for Naxx or even AQ40. Some went to level new toons instead, finding raiding to “boring”. (so your Naxx clear on Classic may also face similar problems)
- Recipes on Classic seems to drop way less frequently, even things like the scorpid LW recipes from Tanaris.
Even though feel of the game may be similar or equal on both, while numbers, quality of implementation etc. different and population way smaller on pservers right now most people if they can chooses Classic. Even K and LB/LH/ND moved aside of Classic way and only expansion pservers hold their ground (TBC and WoTLK). It’s hard to say that pservers or Classic are “authentic” as time passes by. Even if every number and database entry is exactly as it was back then we experience and play it differently yet still enjoyably. People that played pservers for past 10 000 years or Classic now don’t really play it for the numbers, they play it for the fun not because of patch number, itemization, nerfs, buffs etc.
Also few notes about content, sites and content creators:
- Pserver era content creators made mostly organic content - “I was alchemist for 3 years here is my overview of alchemy…”
- For classic many generic sites went for lots of data generated content and tutorials from third party creators (I’m looking at you Wowhead and your alchemy “guide” )
- Based on that data generated content mini sites and other content is spawned, often being an exact copy paste. Lots of it is of questionable quality, bis lists sometimes tend to be annoying. Milking traffic for ads revenue, milking Classic popularity for subs.
- Good organic content not getting as much spotlight as I would wish it got (but still they did get some of it)
- Classic being allowed to stream and showcase on sites like YT put large streamers and content creators into spotlight which then put rush-rush gameplay into spotlight (dungeon AoE, layers)
- Quick leveling due to AoE, layers, streamers popularity leads to quick content burn to then start going through retail patch to then go through next classic phase content. People bought into dungeons/layers and may now feel like they have to burn through Classic as fast as the “popular people meta” or feel left behind even when they actually want to play only Classic and not jump between games or jump between what’s popular to stream about (celebrities turning Classic Adventure into cheap short lived content… you get the picture).
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Layering ruins the economy, leveling and world pvp.
it feels more like a retail hybrid at this point. I can’t wait to see what phase 2 looks like.
Also classic is way easier than vanilla was due to what patch we have.
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I played a bit on a private server, but then there was some or other drama, some other server went down or merged or whatever, all my chars were forced to rename and the whole thing seemed more like a drama pit than a game.
Then Classic was announced, and I decided I’d wait for that rather than risk my time and energy on characters that I may or may not get to keep.
After that experience, I say WoW Classic wins BIG in one very important respect: I can be absolutely 100% sure that the game and my characters stay where they are. All the rest is minor inconveniences compared to the risk of losing my chars, imho.
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Big fan of the Wowhead guide suggesting druids to go Moonkin for PvP.
In general low level npc vs player spell damage was wrong on many, that’s what causes the problem. Probably because there’s so many “fireball” or “shadow bolt” spells, and they picked the wrong one 
If you have a lot of spell crit on that chicken then it’s quite fun/meme, but at the expense of general druid utility in BGs. It’s like shaman windfurry cherry picked videos Still shouldn’t be something recommended as the goto or “one of default” PvP builds.
Which is more authentic, £10 pair of Ray-bans or a £200 pair?
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Enough to know that …
And as for “making sense”…
Wut? 
Neither is truly authentic. Both are estimations of what vanilla was. Classic has the advantage of being made with access to the source files, however only 1.12 and there are obvious differences from using the modern client. PServers use the actual client, but the server side is guess work. I feel like actual vanilla is somewhere in the middle.
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Are we excluding bugs yes?
Because then its obviously WoW Classic.
Layering is the biggest difference in authenticity, then the itemisation(though private servers have practiced alot with different method of item progression, this is Blizz first time recreating vanilla)
Bug wise, it’s hard to say but again by the time I was on private servers there was years of practice(recreating servers)
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