The Easiest Guide To Play World of Warcraft Offline

If you have read some of my other articles, you may have come across my open hostility for online videogames. Maybe it’s a direct cause of playing too many MMORPGs when I was a teenager, but hey, here we are. 

About that, I still really like World of Warcraft, and I really missed the world of Azeroth. Still, there is no way I am going to share it with other people… not anymore. 
Turns out, there is a really easy way to relive the World of Warcraft experience completely offline, and with bots to do PVP, dungeons and Raids. 

About This Guide to Play World of Warcraft Offline Server 

Disclaimer: This guide involves using third-party tools that may violate Blizzard Entertainment’s Terms of Service. Proceed at your own discretion. 

In this article I am going to explain to you the easiest way to play World of Warcraft Offline, through the use of Repacks.  

A World of Warcraft Repack is, putting it in a very simple way, an emulated version of the game made by somebody. This is a version that will run the backend of the game (including the Databases, etc.) directly on your computer, locally.  
Using a Repack is not always recommended, because it may be tampered with by whoever created it, so you must be sure that the repack can be trusted. It’s your choice to trust me with the Repack that I will be using for this guide or not. What I can tell you is that I’ve been using said Repack for 2 years now and never had a single problem with it! 

If you are tech-savvy and have a good amount of time on your hands, then you can create your own Build using the open-source project Azerothcore. Here’s a guide for that. 
If you can’t be bothered doing all of that work, and I can definitely understand, let’s get started! 

Step 1: Download The World of Warcraft Repack 

For the sake of the guide, and honestly personal favorite, we are going to download and use the Zaicopx Wrath of The Lich King (3.3.5) Repack. It is a World of Warcraft Repack based on Azerothcore with already some modules installed, including nifty things like the Auction bot and Playerbots.  

1. Go to this Mediafire Page and download the Repack. 

2. Once it is downloaded, extract it. 

3. Go to the Repack folder and delete the “Source” folder. 

Step 2: Update The Repack 

Zaicopx has uploaded some Updates for this repack that we want to install first. Let’s go! 

4. Go to this other Mediafire Page and download the Update. 

5. Extract the update and copy the files into the Repack folder. 

6. Replace all the files asked to be replaced. 

7. Go to this third Mediafire Page and download the Hotfix. 

8. Extract the files to the Repack folder. 

Now the Repack is updated and ready! We are almost there to play! 

Step 3: Download a World of Warcraft 3.3.5 Client 

Now we need a client for the game based on the 3.3.5 version of Wrath of the Lich King. I use the Warmane one that you can find HERE, or you can use this Direct Download version HERE. 

1. Download the Client and extract it. 

2. From the main folder go to “Data” —> “enUS” 

3. In this folder find and open the file “realmlist.wtf” using notebook or a similar program. 

4. Replace the text in it with “set realmlist 127.0.0.1” 

5. Save and close the file. 

Step 4: Fire up the World of Warcraft Offline Server 

This is the final step to having everything ready to play WoW Offline. Hang in there! 

1. Go back to the Zaicopx folder. 

2. Locate “MySQL.bat” and double click it 

3. Once it’s done, leave that window open. 

4. Locate “authserver.exe” and double click it. 

5. Once it’s done, leave that window open as well. 

6. Locate “worldserver.exe” and double click it. 

7. This will take a bit more time to finish, then leave this window open as well. 

If the three Command windows are still open, it means the server is working. 

Step 5: Open The World of Warcraft client 

Once the server is open, we just need to open the client and play the game. 

1. Go to the World of Warcraft 3.3.5. client folder and click on “WoW.exe” 

2. Use the Username “Admin” 

3. Use the Password “Admin” 

4. Log into the game. 

5. Enjoy! 

You will find an already made character that you can delete, but that’s it! 

Step 6: How to Safely Close the Server Once You’re Done Playing 

Once you have finished your WoW session, there are some things to know to correctly close the database without corrupting it. 

1. On the worldserver.exe Command window write “Server shutdown 3” and press ENTER. 

2. It will take 3 seconds to close. 

3. On the authserver.exe Command window, Press CTRL+C. 

4. On the mysql.bat Command window, Press CTRL+C. 

5. You will be prompted with a “Y/N” question. 

6. Type “Y” and press Enter. 

Everything should close correctly! 

Troubleshooting: Close the MySQL instance already active 

If either “authserver” or “worldserver” immediately closed after clicking on them, it means that there is a problem with MySQL. Usually this is caused by another instance of MySQL already active on Windows. 

Probably you have downloaded a version of MySQL community server in the past for whatever reason, and that is causing a conflict with the repack server. 

1. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL on your keyboard to open the Task Manager. 

2. In the Processes, locate the “MySQL” process and End the Task. 

3. Start again from Step 4 of this guide. 

Conclusion 

That’s really it! You can now experience the world of Azeroth for your own pleasure. There are additional commands to get the best of this repack, like how to use Playerbots. Here’s a very handy guide with all the commands for it. 

And don’t forget that you can tweak the EXP rates and much much more in the configs files inside the repack. 

One last thing: your account is a GM account. That gives you the right to use GM commands, which you can find HERE. 

I really hope this guide helped you play World of Warcraft Offline! You can reach me in the comments below for any questions!