How to connect

1. You need a 3.3.5a client

Wrath of the Lich King, patch 3.3.5a, build 12340. Nothing else can connect — not a modern retail install, not Classic, not a 3.3.5 client that is not the a revision. There is no compatibility mode and no patcher; the client either speaks this version's protocol or it does not.

Checking the version you have

Right-click Wow.exe → Properties → Details. The file version should read 3.3.5.12340. The login screen prints the same thing in its bottom-left corner once the client starts.

What the folder should look like

A correct install has Wow.exe sitting in the main folder — roughly 7.5 MB — beside a handful of small DLLs, with the game data in Data:

World of Warcraft\
├─ Cache\
├─ Data\
│  ├─ enUS\           ← your locale. Could be enGB, deDE, ruRU…
│  │  ├─ locale-enUS.MPQ
│  │  └─ realmlist.wtf   ← the file you edit, in step 2
│  ├─ common.MPQ
│  └─ …more .MPQ files
├─ Interface\
├─ Logs\
├─ WTF\
├─ Wow.exe            ← run this one
├─ Battle.net.dll
├─ Repair.exe
├─ Scan.dll
└─ …a few more DLLs

The names that matter are Wow.exe in the main folder and a Data folder full of .MPQ files with a locale sub-folder inside it. If instead you see _retail_, _classic_, .build.info or a World of Warcraft Launcher.exe, that is a modern install and it cannot be pointed here.

2. Point the client at this realm

Open Data\enUS\realmlist.wtf in Notepad — swapping enUS for whichever locale folder you actually have — and replace everything in it with this one line:

Save, and that is the whole change. Any set patchlist or second set realmlist line the file came with should go — leftovers from another server are the most common reason a client keeps connecting somewhere else.

Two ways Windows gets in the way

• Notepad saves it as realmlist.wtf.txt. In the save dialog set Save as type to All Files, or the file you edited is not the file the game reads. Afterwards the folder should still show exactly one realmlist.wtf.
• Windows refuses to save it. That means the game is installed under C:\Program Files, which is write-protected. Move the whole folder somewhere like C:\Games\ — the client does not care where it lives, and everything else gets easier too.

Some copies of the client also keep a realmlist.wtf in the main folder next to Wow.exe. If yours does, give it the same one line.

3. Log in

Use the account name and password from this site. Request an account if you have not yet — they are approved by hand, so there is a wait, and the account does not exist on the realm until that happens.

• Passwords are not case-sensitive, and the login screen stops at 16 characters. Both come from the 3.3.5a client itself.
• Create your character in the game. It appears on your account page after the realm's next save, which can take up to fifteen minutes — a character missing from the list has not been lost.

If it does not work

“Unable to connect” before any login attempt

The client is not reading your edit. Check the file is realmlist.wtf and not realmlist.wtf.txt, that it is in the locale folder inside Data, and that the game was started with Wow.exe.

It connects, but to a different server

The client writes its last realm into WTF\Config.wtf and that copy can win. Open it, delete any line starting SET realmList, and delete the Cache folder while you are there — it rebuilds itself.

Wrong version, or the client offers to update

You are on a client that is not 3.3.5a, or you launched Blizzard Updater.exe. Go back to step 1.

Login works, then it hangs at the character screen

That one is ours, not yours — the realm is up but not answering on the world port. Nothing you can change in the client fixes it; try again shortly.