World of Warcraft has served the Project Epoch and Everlook private servers with cease and desist notices, following a lawsuit against the creators of the Turtle WoW project. The legal notices are part of Blizzard's ongoing campaign against World of Warcraft private servers, as the company cited copyright and trademark infringement in its legal notices.
In late August, Blizzard filed a lawsuit against the creators of the Turtle WoW private servers, which had seen a population spike. This stated that Turtle WoW was being sued for copyright and trademark infringement due to the use of World of Warcraft's own code and artwork in promoting its private servers. Blizzard stated that the lawsuit against Turtle WoW was filed to protect its intellectual property from being misused. As a result of the pending lawsuit against Turtle WoW's creators, several projects like Mysteries of Azeroth and an Unreal Engine 5 rebuild called Turtle WoW 2.0 are currently in limbo.
World of Warcraft Reveals Tentative Legion Remix Schedule
With Legion Remix on its way in The War Within Patch 11.2.5, World of Warcraft reveals a tentative release schedule for each of its major phases.
Blizzard Targets Project Epoch and Everlook Private Servers
Days after Blizzard filed its lawsuit against Turtle WoW, the company turned its attention to two more private World of Warcraft server projects. As reported by Gamepressure, Blizzard has served cease-and-desist notices to the Everlook and Project Epoch private servers, with the former announcing it will shut down on Monday, September 22. On September 8, Everlook's server creators stated in a Discord message that it had been requested by Blizzard to close the servers as soon as possible. In short, Blizzard stated Everlook had violated World of Warcraft's copyrights by hosting the server. In response to Blizzard's legal notice, Project Epoch stated that it would cease any activity related to private server usage and shut down any services it could over the coming days.
Rather than shut down completely, two of Project Epoch's private servers would transfer management to Ascension, another private World of Warcraft server project. Servers like Project Epoch, Everlook, and Turtle WoW were popular due to each offering a "Classic+" game experience free of Blizzard's influence. Since launching its own official servers in 2019, Blizzard has taken steps to improve World of Warcraft Classic by making user interface upgrades and offering multiple game modes, such as Season of Discovery and Classic Hardcore.
As of this writing, Ascension has not been contacted by Blizzard over its World of Warcraft private servers. Though Blizzard has plenty of World of Warcraft Classic server experiences to pick from, it remains to be seen what the company's next moves will be.
World of Warcraft
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- MMORPG
