Private Servers
Private servers come in many shapes and sizes, they are all unsupported by Blizzard, and offer game content with some limited functionality. Private servers can also have unreliable up-time, and tend to be a bit glitchy. Despite these short-comings, many people are turning to private servers lately.
There are 2 main reasons people play on private servers. The first is free play. No $15/month subscription to play. The other reason is altered rates, a lot of private servers offer greatly accelerated rates for xp as well as drops. So instead of spending 10+ days to level from 1-70, you could do it in a matter of hours. While leveling that first toon to 60 was a magical experience, leveling subsequent characters is a chore. For experienced players, leveling a new character is a monotonous task that is only endured to reach the higher levels. For players that find their time running short, a private server with high rates allows them to experience the game's content without the hours upon hours of playtime.
If you just have to see it all and you're playing too much in an effort to do so, a private server might be right up your alley. There are plenty to choose from, and there are plenty of websites that offer ratings and reviews of various private servers.
How To Switch to a Private Server
All you need to do to get started on a private server is find one that sounds appealing and register an account name on their website. You'll want to find one that matches your game version, there are usually plenty running the latest patch but double-check to avoid having to roll-back your version. Use a different login and password than your retail account, just to be safe.
Then, open up the C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft directory, or wherever your WoW is installed and open up the file 'realmlist.wtf' which by default will have 2 lines like this:
set realmlist us.logon.worldofwarcraft.com
set patchlist us.version.worldofwarcraft.com
You'll change the realmlist location to the address of your private server of choice and then save the file. If you don't think you can remember the default WoW realmlist address then you should make a copy of it somewhere.
Delete the 'Cache' folder in your 'World of Warcraft' directory. It will be automatically re-created after logging in, so there's no need to back it up.
After that just start up WoW via the WoW.exe file, not the standard launcher. It's surprisingly easy to get set up.
