Sorta what they sound like. They’re privately owned and hosted by third party people. You have to download their own launcher to play but most are pretty much free.
Check out ascension. It’s wow but classless, you have a couple servers, one where you choose from 3 random abilities when you level up and another where you get more leeway in the abilities you chose. It’s a really interesting way to play wow.
You’re not kidding. I stumbled upon one on roku and they were the lamest let’s players. Totally aiming for that 10 year old audience with the way they talked and how child friendly it was. Mind you, I’m not going at them for being child friendly, I’m going at them for not knowing basic mechanics that anyone whose played 5 minutes figures out.
Sounds like their tricks work.