Ascension CoA after shutdown: lawsuit closed, copies online

On 6 October 2026, Judge John W. Holcomb signed a two-page judgment that ends Blizzard’s action against the operators of Ascension, the private server behind Ascension CoA (Conquest of Azeroth). The public docket of the case on CourtListener, a site that republishes filings from US federal courts, shows it. The realms had already been switched off on 5 September. Two things survived: the accounts and the code.

A lawsuit closed with no ruling on the merits for Ascension CoA

Blizzard filed its complaint on 12 June 2026 in the federal court of the Central District of California, under case number 8:26-cv-01506. It named Derek S. Powell, whom the file also identifies by the handle « Dutch », and several co-defendants. According to MMOHuts, Blizzard relied on copyright law and the DMCA (the US digital copyright law), and claimed the project had earned millions through its donation points. Those allegations were never tested before a judge. We went through the complaint in our file on the lawsuit.

The rest comes down to three dates. On 29 August, Ascension announced it would shut down on 4 September at 7 p.m. on the US West Coast, which is early morning on the 5th in France, after an agreement presented as mutual (our announcement article). On 1 September, the two sides filed a joint notice of settlement. They wrote that « the terms of the parties’ settlement are confidential » and asked the court to stay the case until 1 October, to give time to carry out the commitments in the deal.

On 6 October, the judgment orders that the action, « including all claims », is dismissed, and denies any other request from either side. The text cites rules 41(b) and 58 of the federal rules of civil procedure, which govern closing a case and entering a judgment. It says nothing about money paid, any handover of code, or a future ban. MMOHuts had already noted that there was no public confirmation about the fate of Ascension’s source code.

One account mentions a cease-and-desist letter (an official letter demanding that an activity stop) sent about twelve days before the shutdown. None of the filings or sources we read gives the date of such a letter: the public docket starts with the 12 June complaint. We therefore do not repeat that timing.

The in-house MMO: accounts kept, name missing

For what comes next, the fullest source is Andy’s article on JeuxOnLine, published on 26 September 2026. It reports that Dutch, who leads the project, wrote on the community Discord « Ascension is becoming its own original MMO ».

Ascension accounts are meant to keep existing and the launcher (the program that starts the game) will distribute future versions. Donation points spent on the old project will be converted into a currency that unlocks cosmetics reserved for founders. The game’s name is not known, nor is its release date, and nothing indicates that the Ascension CoA classes will return in it. JeuxOnLine only mentions a playable alpha through the launcher, with no deadline. Our article on Ascension becoming an original MMO details what this changes for an existing account.

Ascension CoA’s code rebuilt as open source on GitHub

While the original team changes projects, volunteers are rebuilding Ascension CoA elsewhere. The most visible effort is the Conquest of AzerothCore repository on GitHub, a variant of AzerothCore, a free emulator (software that imitates how a game server works) of World of Warcraft at version 3.3.5a. The repository was created on 7 September 2026, two days after the shutdown. On 26 October it showed 286 stars, 200 forks (copies made by other developers), 51 contributors and more than 20,800 recorded changes, some of them only minutes old.

The project is released under the GPL-2.0 license (a free license that allows copying and modifying the code, provided the changes are shared). That license covers the code written by the contributors. It gives no rights over what belongs to Blizzard, such as the game client and its data. The README also states that AzerothCore is not affiliated with Blizzard and does not support illegal public servers. An active repository proves a project is alive among developers, not that a server open to players exists.

What a person hosting a copy risks

The June lawsuit targeted operators, not players: the complaint accused a team of running a server with a donation system. That case ended with a confidential agreement. It therefore sets no precedent, and nobody can read a permission or a ban into the 6 October judgment.

What does not change, however, is ownership. For a copy of Ascension CoA as for any other private server, the game client, its maps and its texts remain Blizzard’s, whether or not the server code is free. Anyone who sets up a public server from a copy uses those elements, and is exposed to the same kind of complaint as the one filed in June. That holds even more if the server accepts donations. This is not legal advice, only a reminder of what the public docket shows.

The court case is closed. What comes next will play out around the announced alpha of Ascension’s MMO, for which no date has been given.