I discovered WoW emulators very recently and it is shockingly easy to set up a server. You can go from nil to working in 30 minutes of reading docs, with minima

I discovered WoW emulators very recently and it is shockingly easy to set up a server. You can go from nil to working in 30 minutes of reading docs, with minimal Linux/MySQL knowledge. AzerothCore seems to be the standout project in this space, though I understand the full lineage is quite long.