September 15, 2026 — Project Alterac is shutting down. The operator announced the closure on the server's farewell page, thanking staff and players, and pointed at two reasons: the WoW: Forever beta starting Thursday (September 17) changed how the project's operator could spend time, and costs have been running out of pocket since "the CDN bill incident last month."
Alterac was a progressive WotLK 3.3.5a project we've tracked since late August, running a phased progression model — Phase 3 launched August 8 with the level 40 cap. Its pop tier was tiny, and the phased WotLK model it shared with bigger names (Warmane Onyxia, Whitemane) lives on there regardless.
The farewell post credits staff (Jethro, Noodle, Nia, Lotur, Claws, Serine, Mekyu, Dali, Frankz, Myliu) and players, and calls out the pattern loud: "running the server just isn't something I can keep doing" — limited free time plus a server running out of pocket. No legal action, no Blizzard dispute mentioned; the note is operational and financial.
We've marked Alterac dead in the tracker. The CDN-cost angle is the part worth watching: a month after the same cost pressure hit other scenes, a small WotLK community is the latest to fold under hosting economics plus the Forever pull on volunteer time.