The Void Speaks
6 July 2025
As you will have seen from my World of Warcraft Shrine I'm a fan of WoW. Specifically Wrath of the Lich King. After making the shrine I had the itch to play again, but I don't enjoy modern WoW and all the biggest private WotLK servers are... questionable. Often overrun with bots, or poorly managed. Seemingly stuck between a rock and a hard place, I opted to run my own private server on my computer. Running only locally, I would basically turn an MMO into a single player game.
The setup was pretty straight-forward. Being a technically minded person I was already familiar with git and docker which made it a breeze. Within half an hour I had my own server where I was GM (Game Master). I was a little worried that it would spoil the magic, being able to enable god mode, give myself any item, fly, teleport, basically become a god, but it's enjoyable in its own way actually.
I created a paladin, and immediately what I wanted to do was fly up behind the human starter zone Northshire, because there's an inaccessible pond with a tent here. Ordinarily you'd only see this when using WoW's taxi service, flight paths. You could see it, but not actually reach it. Unless you were a god.
It was peaceful, being by the pond hearing the crackle of flame from the campfire. After a while I decided to return to the intended game area and actually play like a normal player would. I wish I didn't, I wish I logged out. I wish being a god did spoil the magic so I didn't try to make it work. There is something unsettling, being the only person in an empty world. It doesn't feel right. Like a liminal space, it is, but shouldn't be. A vacuum doesn't like being a vacuum, it wants to be filled.
Every now and again while I was questing, I felt like I could see something in my peripheral vision. Like a player running past, minding their own business, but when I turned around no one was there. Of course no one was there, I was the only player. I would be killing monsters and when I paused, I swore I could hear combat noises coming from behind me but yet again, no one was there. It was impossible.
I'm a rational person, and clearly there is a rational explanation. The player I saw running past must have been an NPC and I just wasn't paying enough attention to notice. The combat I heard was probably just my own head replaying sounds it heard moments ago, sort of like when you feel your phone vibrating in your pocket despite it being in your hand. Obviously, I was alone.
I've played WoW so much I don't think there's a single sound in that game I couldn't recognise immediately. One such noise is the noise you hear when another player whispers you, it's a light 'ping' noise, unmistakable and absolutely no way I could hear it on this server. I thought I heard it, couldn't have heard it, couldn't have. There is no message anyway, if another player whispered me there would be a purple message and there wasn't. Okay I did see a flash of purple, or thought I did, but that's just my mind again - I heard the noise and expected purple so I saw purple.
This is the first time I've ever run my own server and expecting it to be perfect right away was too high a bar, so I logged out and restarted everything. It's an old game, totally normal for there to be the odd issue. Once the server was back up I logged back in and continued questing. Got through Goldshire and moved on to Westfall. Got through Westfall and moved on to Redridge. Not having to compete for quest mobs had its upsides! As I was about to head into Duskwood, I heard the ping again. Heard it twice, then heard it a third time.
No messages came through, obviously, because it's just a silly bug. I did have the inescapable feeling that, if this was a real player on a real server, that the frequency of whispers would suggest I'd just pissed someone off. This had the vibe of a player who was annoyed at something I had done. It was a little funny, really, how the human mind can attribute emotions to a simple little ping. I ignored it and continued questing and eventually at around 10pm I decided to get ready for bed, logged out, and switched off my PC.
I shouldn't have done that. I know that now and I'm sorry. Since the server runs on my PC, when my PC is off, so is the server. It doesn't start back up until I switch my computer on. I'm sorry. When I logged back in, the empty whispers started again. One. Two. Three. Four. Pause... Five. It was angry, not just frustrated but angry. From now on, my computer stays on. The server stays up. I kept questing through Duskwood, a little in the Wetlands, eventually reaching Stranglethorn Vale. I liked this zone, it had a bright warm atmosphere. I leveled all the way through it, all day, and by bed time I was around level 40.
I knew not to turn the PC off. I didn't want to log out either, so I parked my character in a quiet corner out of sight, and went to bed. It was about three o'clock in the morning when the sound woke me up. Rapid whispering, ping ping ping ping ping ping ping! I'm so sorry. I thought it was okay. I had enough sleep, I can play for a while now.
I haven't got the time to update you anymore, I need to play World of Warcraft.