Felmyst, a years-long fan project, was an unofficial World of Warcraft server designed to let players play the game as it existed during the Burning Crusade -era. It offered a form of World of Warcraft that arguably no longer exists. While World of Warcraft is still alive and well, it no longer resembles its earlier form mechanically or visually. Hours after the project finally launched, it was shut down by Blizzard’s legal team.
A slice of the World of Warcraft community is very much into the idea of a “legacy” server, something that in theory would allow nostalgic players to still have fun in the game the way it was when it was new. Other servers exist and are still running, but Felmyst was to a standard of quality and completion much higher than many of its peers.
Gummy52, the creator of Felmyst, wrote a response to the takedown and posted it on his website and Reddit. He speaks of the intended scale of the project, another, similar server he runs that was never taken down, whether or not he plans to try moving the server internationally, and more. He also mentions working on the project while unemployed and dealing with muscular dystrophy, and how the project gave him a renewed sense of fulfillment and purpose while struggling elsewhere.
Ars Technica notes that other projects have also been taken down by Blizzard. Efforts have been made to have talks between the company and developers interested in legacy content. Said efforts seem to have largely been one-sided however, despite Blizzard at one point agreeing to communicate.
Source: Ars Technica