rathena VS azerothcore-wotlk

It doesn't need a VM, but needs an OS, its an old game server that has docker as an option to run it, I can run it off an OS, but I've used it as docker and prefer that better, if you're curious why, it's called rAthena on github(not sure if this is allowed, but heres a link to the project and docker instructions https://github.com/rathena/rathena/tree/master/tools/docker )

If on the other hand you just want to learn and maybe contribute, you can start here or here.

Anyways, today I decided to do some serious googling to see if that moment was even real or find any idea of what it was that happened to me back then... and I actually DID! Google led me to some private server text files (here) that shows the code of Mr. Smith's insane dialogue.

Azerothcore - World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King server emulation. C++

Cool, I didn't realize Runescape private servers were a thing still.

I contribute to AzerothCore[0] pretty regularly. There's a lot of improvements that could be made, but it's overall fun and the majority of people who frequent their Discord are friendly enough.

[0] https://github.com/azerothcore/azerothcore-wotlk

Since Blizzard closed WoW in China, I found https://www.azerothcore.org/. They have a simple docker setup tutorial. I’ve been playing for a month and it’s been very interesting because they only support the English client. I’ve also learned a lot of English and currently feel great exploring the whole world alone.

Azerothcore is what Chromiecraft runs on. I recommend joining AC discord, lots of nice people there, great place if you want to learn/improve coding.

I don't have any experience with running a server, but maybe AzerothCore could be an option? From what I can tell it is actively being worked on with the help of ChromieCraft.