Blizzard's Primary Concern = Money
One of Blizzard's biggest legal sabre-rattling exercises has been against the writers of server software. There are quite a few projects that are working to write up-to-date WoW server packages that you can run and play the game for free. Not only that, but it also means you can change the world to suit yourself, maybe adjust the rate you gain experience to speed up leveling, or make your own items or whatever other bit of content you want to invent, as long as you don't want to change the world map layout at all.
Blizzard sees these servers as any corporation would - as threats to it's income. Having been a WoW player for quite some time, since the open beta in fact, I wholeheartedly support the idea of not paying Blizzard to play the game. Why? Because the end-game content is utter crap. And they've already taken enough of my money, thanks very much. Somewhere between £200 and £250.
Before the upgrade pack came out, I had got as far as Molten Core, a dungeon designed for a 40-person raid. I couldn't be bothered to get any further though, MC was the most boring thing I'd ever done. Kill something. Move to a new position. Kill something else. Move again. Kill again. Move. Kill. Etc. Not exactly a cutting edge example of game play. Even when the Burning Crusade was released, I had far more fun getting to the new maximum level than doing the raids when I got there. Karazhan, the first raid on the new list, is a beautiful place and the quest series to gain access to it is great fun. But then the game falls on it's arse again and uses the same kill-move-kill-move-kill-move game play dynamics. A massive disappointment.
And just how bad is it? Well, you can stand on one side of a room, engage a group of bad guys there, and the other bad guys on the other side of the room will stand around and talk and laugh and totally ignore the slaughter of their comrades not 50 yards away. Pathetic. Utterly pathetic. Certainly not worth continuing to hawk over cash on a monthly basis for the privilege of playing. If someone wants to rewrite those dungeons so they'ew more sophisticated, I say good luck to them. Hell, I'll help them write and test the improvements out. I'd love to see what someone could come up with.
Of course, by doing so, I'll be breaking the EULA. The one that prohibits developing and connecting to unofficial non-Blizzard servers. That not only protects their bottom line, but also stops people demonstrating just how bad the game really is by writing their own better versions. Blizzard have already directly lifted a whole bunch of interface improvements from scripted third-party plug-ins, I guess admitting that someone can write your game better than you can is a bitter pill to swallow. And that's also what I call *real* WoW hacking ;)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
