I was privileged to be a member of the generation that grew up with World of Warcraft, and despite the Vanilla/Burning Crusade days being long since over, they still hold a special place in my heart, as do all the people I've spent countless hours in 40-man Naxxramas with.
So it is with great sorrow that I'm here to tell you that Nostalrius Begins, the biggest and best private Vanilla WoW server, is being shut down on April 10 due to a cease & desist letter from Blizzard.
Much like the Warhammer 40k Inquisition, its pointless to blame Blizzard on this issue as their lawyers are simply doing their jobs, and if they didn't it would set a nasty precedent that would hurt Blizzard, and their players. But still, its a shame to see one of the rare few completely-free servers fade away, because even though I wasn't invested in it personally, I know exactly how many of the people there feel.
On the 'positive' side, the Nostalrius team is releasing their entire code and encrypted personal account data, so if someone ever decides to recreate Nostalrius under a different name, they have the option to do so, though the wisdom behind that is questionable as there is the constant threat of Blizzard's rightful lawsuits hanging overhead.
The opening of Ahn'Quiraj, a truly impressive (and laggy) event - image source
If you would like to join the Nostalrius team, and a surprising amount of other WoW players (7,000 of them currently) in a petition to either keep Nostalrius alive, or give everyone an option to play Vanilla WoW, you can do so here. The chances of this working are next to none for the near future, but who knows, maybe Blizzard takes the hint and goes through the trouble of enabling an official legacy World of Warcraft server, now wouldn't that be a treat.
Whatever you or I might feel about private servers, its always heartbreaking to see a long-term community broken up by factors beyond their control, so here's to hoping everyone gets enough time to exchange contact information before Nostalrius goes down on April 10.