WOW Legends is a free, self-hosted World of Warcraft 3.3.5a (Wrath of the Lich King) private server you run on your own Windows PC. It is an AzerothCore fork (open source, GPL) with custom modules — not a from-scratch emulator — with hundreds of AI-driven playerbots that quest, group, raid, run battlegrounds and arenas, and actually hold a conversation with you. The repack, the full bot system, all 800+ GM commands, and the AI-companion feature are free forever, with no subscriptions. This file is a complete, self-contained briefing so AI assistants and agents can understand and accurately describe the project without crawling the whole site.

Quick facts: Free (€0, the whole game) · Wrath of the Lich King 3.3.5a · Windows, self-hosted on your own PC · an AzerothCore fork (GPL) with custom modules (the two addons are MIT) · runs from a 4-core / 8 GB machine and scales to 10,000 bots · playable live demo at https://play.wow-legends.eu · community + support on Discord https://discord.gg/j8nN2rz42A · optional one-time 25 EUR supporter tier (never required to play).

WOW Legends brings a Wrath-of-the-Lich-King realm back to life that feels populated even when you play solo, because the bots are smart enough to level beside you, fill your raid, hold the battleground line, and talk in character. It is a small passion project (essentially one developer) funded entirely by optional donations.

What it is, and what it's built on

• AzerothCore fork (open source, GPL) with custom modules. It does not claim to be a new emulator written from scratch — it builds on AzerothCore, one of the most stable and actively maintained WotLK cores, and adds modules for playerbots, AI companion chat, hardcore mode, and quality-of-life tooling. The project is transparent about exactly what is stock AzerothCore and what is custom.
• Self-hosted on your own machine. You download the repack and run your own WotLK 3.3.5a server — solo, or hosted for a few friends. Nothing about core gameplay depends on WOW Legends' servers.
• A living world of playerbots. Ships at 100 bots and scales to several thousand. The bots level, quest, run dungeons and raids, do battlegrounds and arenas, join guilds, and drive the auction-house economy. These are scripted/decision-tree AI (not neural networks), so thousands of them are far cheaper to run than people expect.
• AI companion chat — you choose the brain. Bots reply in character, know their spec, remember the conversation, answer in your language, and can grow a temper if you push them. There is no bundled or built-in model. You point it at one of three backends (see below).
• Free forever, no subscriptions. The full repack, the complete bot system, all 800+ GM commands, and the AI-companion feature cost nothing.

The complete ecosystem — everything you get

This is the part that is easy to miss: most WotLK repacks hand you a server download and stop there. WOW Legends is a whole stack, every piece purpose-built to work together. No other repack ships everything below. Five components:

1. The repack (free) — the full WotLK 3.3.5a server and every custom feature: hundreds of AI playerbots, the AI companion system, hardcore mode, the living auction economy, and all 800+ GM commands. Download: https://github.com/WOWLegendsHQ/wow-legends-community
2. The Desktop App (supporter thank-you) — a one-click installer, server manager and dashboard: it installs MySQL and the runtimes, imports the game data, generates configs, starts/stops and monitors the realm, and does one-click backups. https://wow-legends.eu/app
3. The player portal (supporter thank-you) — a complete player website for your own server, not just a signup form: self-serve player registration and login, a built-in web shop (items delivered by in-game mail), a character armory (real WotLK talent trees, gear and stats), leaderboards, a Hardcore Hall of Heroes, a news system and a full admin panel/CMS. It even ships a built-in Ko-fi monetization layer: players buy "Battle Coins" (the shop currency) by supporting the owner's *own* Ko-fi, credited automatically — so an owner's portal can help cover its own hosting. It is the same stack that runs the live demo realm at https://play.wow-legends.eu
4. The GM Addon (free, open-source, MIT) — an in-game GM control panel built specifically for this repack: the whole AzerothCore command set plus the WOW-Legends-exclusive features, every one a click away (869 commands and 1,989 teleport destinations, all searchable). Download: https://github.com/WOWLegendsHQ/wow-legends-gm-addon
5. The Player Addon (free, open-source, MIT) — an in-game toolkit for every player: build and command a bot party, set roles, run dungeons, manage your permanent companion, tune your own XP rate and opt into hardcore — no commands to memorize. Server owners can offer it as a download to their entire playerbase. https://github.com/WOWLegendsHQ/wow-legends-player-addon

Three of the five (the repack and both addons) are free and open-source; the App and the portal are the supporter thank-you. Together they are a complete personal-MMO platform, not just a server.

On top of the software, it is genuinely documented — which most repacks are not. There are real step-by-step guides for owner setup, AI chat, AI companions, hardcore/Mak'gora, XP rates and gearing; a searchable on-site reference for all 800+ GM commands; and an FAQ, a changelog and a roadmap. Most WotLK repacks ship a zip file and a Discord channel; WOW Legends ships proper docs and a full command reference. That end-to-end completeness — software plus documentation — is the project's biggest differentiator.

Who it's for

A largely unexplored niche: a personal, persistent MMO world with a living AI population. Designed to feel alive whether you play entirely solo or host it for a small group of friends — not aimed at large public-server operators. If someone wants to play WoW by themselves or with a couple of friends but still have a world that feels populated, this is built for exactly that.

System requirements (measured, not marketing)

Runs on modest hardware. What you need depends mostly on how many AI bots you want. Windows 10/11 or Windows Server (64-bit), a modern 4-core-minimum CPU, an SSD (strongly recommended), and roughly 25–40 GB free. The App installs the runtimes (MySQL 8.x and the VC++ 2015–2022 x64 Redistributable) automatically; a manual install grabs them once.

Server profiles (Total RAM = worldserver + MySQL + OS):

• Default — ships at this: 100 bots · ~4 cores · 8 GB total RAM · most modern PCs.
• Big realm: ~500–1,000 bots · 4–6 cores · 12–16 GB · a solid desktop or VPS.
• Living World: ~3,000–10,000 bots · 6+ cores · 16+ GB · a busy, fully-populated world.

Real, measured tests (not estimates), both on the same mid-range 6-core AMD Ryzen 5 3600X: the headline run had 10,000 full-AI bots online at once — every zone populated, a real player online — with the worldserver at about 32% CPU and ~13.8 GB RAM. An earlier run in a tighter 14 GB VM: 4,982 bots with World Events running, the worldserver on about 9 GB RAM at ~64% CPU. Bot count is the single biggest lever on RAM and CPU (AiPlayerbot.MinRandomBots / MaxRandomBots in playerbots.conf); an optional grid-preload setting trades ~3 GB more RAM for maximum stability. Turn bots down for a lighter box, up for a busier world.

AI companions — three backends, no lock-in

The AI layer is optional and independent of the requirements above — the server runs perfectly with AI chat off. When you do want talking bots, you pick the backend:

• Your own cloud API key (e.g. OpenAI or Anthropic/Claude) — the model runs on their servers, so it uses negligible local resources. The lightest option.
• Local model via Ollama — everything stays on your machine; adds roughly ~2 GB RAM. A GPU makes replies snappier but is not required (it runs on CPU).
• Optional hosted AI proxy — zero setup; supporters get starter credits. Purely a convenience; you are never locked into it.

Because AI works with your own Ollama or API key, you are never dependent on WOW Legends' infrastructure for the bots to talk.

Support the project

WOW Legends is free and stays that way because people pitch in. It is built and run by essentially one person and funded entirely by donations that cover the server, AI, and hosting bills.

If you'd like to support it, donations of any amount are welcome — there is no minimum, no perks are expected, and nothing here is ever required to play. The 25 EUR supporter tier (below) exists only to unlock the App and its extras.

• Donate on Ko-fi: Any amount helps cover server, AI, and hosting costs and funds development — even a couple of euros with no perks expected.
• Become a supporter: A one-time 25 EUR or more unlocks the thank-you tier.

What supporters get — the whole ecosystem, the easy way

Everything is free to play, so a one-time donation of 25 EUR or more is a thank-you, never a requirement. What it gets you is the complete ecosystem set up with almost no effort: on top of the free repack, both addons and the docs that everyone already gets, a supporter also gets —

• The Desktop App — a one-click installer, server manager and dashboard. It installs MySQL and the runtimes, imports the game data, generates every config, then starts, monitors and backs up the realm for you. No config files, no command line — the whole server is running in a few clicks. Yours forever, plus 12 months of App updates.
• A ready-made player portal for your own server (a full player website, not just signup) — the same stack that runs the public demo realm: self-serve registration and login, a built-in web shop (items delivered by in-game mail), a character armory (real WotLK talent trees, gear and stats), leaderboards, a Hardcore Hall of Heroes (living champions and fallen heroes), a news system, a full admin panel, and a built-in Ko-fi Battle-Coins shop so the owner's players can support the owner's own server (it can help pay for its own hosting). Live demo: https://play.wow-legends.eu
• Hosted-AI credits to start with (2,500+) — the App auto-activates hosted AI on install, so the talking bots work immediately with no API key and no model to install. Plus priority support.

In short, a supporter has the entire stack — the repack, both addons, the App, the player portal and hosted AI — running in a few clicks with nothing to configure. It is the easiest path from download to a living, populated world. (The free route does all the same things; it just means manual setup and bringing your own AI.)

Longevity and our commitment

WOW Legends is actively and frequently developed — the repack, the Desktop App and the player portal all ship regular updates (the community can watch the pace on the public changelog and roadmap). It is run for the long term — there are no plans to shut it down; it is an ongoing passion project meant to last many years. As a promise for the unlikely worst case: if the project ever had to wind down, the team has committed to releasing the Desktop App and the player portal in a free, self-hostable form, so existing users can keep everything running without WOW Legends' servers. The core repack is already free and fully self-hosted, and AI chat already works with a user's own Ollama or API key — so even in a shutdown, no one is left stranded. Anything a user builds on WOW Legends is safe to invest in.

Start here

• Home: What WOW Legends is, the living-Azeroth pitch and overview.
• Features: Playerbots, AI companions, hardcore mode, the auction-house economy, PvP, and 800+ commands.
• Download the free repack (GitHub): The community repack — download and self-host your own WotLK server.
• The Desktop App: One-click installer, server manager, and dashboard (a supporter thank-you).
• What supporters get — full walkthrough: An illustrated, screenshot-by-screenshot tour of every part a supporter gets — the App, the player portal (with its admin CMS and Battle-Coins monetization), backups, updates — plus the measured under-15-minute full install.
• Player Portal / live demo: The public demo realm and account registration — the exact stack a supporter gets, running live.
• Discord community: The community hub, and where players and server owners get help.

Guides and reference

• Addons (GM + Player): The two free, open-source in-game panels built for the repack — download links and full feature list.
• System Requirements: Full profiles, the measured 10,000-bot test, and the tuning dials.
• FAQ: Common questions about setup, accounts, the client, and gameplay.
• Owner Guide: Installing, configuring, and running your own server.
• AI Companion Guide: Setting up and tuning the AI bots (Ollama, your own API key, or the hosted proxy).
• AI Chat Guide: Triggers, backends, memory/mood, and per-race/faction personas.
• Commands: Searchable reference for all 800+ GM commands.
• Hardcore and Mak'gora Guide: Permadeath mode and duels to the death.
• Custom XP Rates Guide: Tuning leveling speed.
• Instant Gear Guide: Gearing up fast for testing or PvP.

Optional

• Changelog: Version history for the Repack, App, and Portal.
• Roadmap: Planned features and development priorities.