There are only a handful of reasons to consider playing on a private server of an already free online game like Talisman Online. Naturally, this would lead one to conclude that the problems observed on the original game would be rectified on the private version. Unfortunately, this is not the case with Talisman of War.
The reasons for playing on a private TO (AKA, the original version's problems)
1. Extroardinarily Poor Customer Service
a. GMs and Moderators do not speak English well if at all
b. GMs and Moderators are rarely available
c. GMs and Moderators do not know what is going on
d. GMs and Moderators rarely listen to suggestions
e. Moderators are chosen based on the personal preference of Admins rather than on qualifications and inherent capability
2. Updates are not fully tested before release
Important game altering bugs take 8 months or more to be addressed and resolved
3. Content is limited even when updated (only new items to purchase, or small level upgrades)
Those are the largest problems concerning the original TO, and in order of severity.
How does Talisman of War attempt to bridge the gap? It doesn't. In fact, it has only increased the issues particularly where customer service is concerned. At the original version, at least the GMs and Moderators had the common sense not to publicly chastise and insult their player base. The moderator of Talisman of War speaks limited English, and frequently calls players names and bans forum accounts of anyone who expresses an unflattering opinion of the issues that the server has.
It is understandable that there will be problems during an Open Beta. Everyone expects this. Missing NPCs, quests that don't work right, issues with spawn timing, etc. An Open Beta, however, generally is at least stable enough to permit the players to play in order to find the bugs. TOW has invasive system crashes, roll backs, and deletions on a daily basis (practically an hourly basis).
Every few hours the server either crashes or is "reset", you will find messages of "aquiring server ip address", "login server is busy", or you will get through to the login to find that the server list is empty.
As the original version is clearly capable of hosting well over 1000 individuals per server, so it isn't an issue of game functionality, so much as the server host's ability to allow over 500 individuals. This means that the host that TOW is using to run the server is not able to handle the load. Instead of taking the suggestions of the players, who admit to being willing to donate money so that they can find a dedicated server. The moderator and admin ban the forum accounts and delete the posts. They declare that they are going to create an ADDITIONAL server, and host it on the same host...
If you can't do the math on what this would mean, then I'm not sure what to tell you. Perhaps you'd fit in well with the crew there. Hosting 2 servers on a host that can't even handle 1 server, is defying logic.
Forget about new content, or being able to spend all the lovely tpoints that they offer, when your character is just going to get wiped in a crash, and they will refuse to reinstate it, and call you names if you ask.
If you decide to brave this, despite all of which has just been expressed (you can see the proof of all I say on their forums at bbs.talismanofwar.com), enjoy the 2-4 hour wait to log in as they have created a log in queue which at any point in time has around 400 people waiting (and often disconnects before you ever see a single digit wait). Since there is a limit to the number of people allowed on the server, be aware that the wait will only lessen via someone else disconnecting from the game or the queue.
A private server of TO is a wonderful idea, but it needs proper execution:
A stable server host
An intelligent, capable, patient, and kind staff
Everything else- normal bugs, limited content updates, a little lag .... those are all things that players would be more than happy to deal with for even long periods of time. You can't sacrifice the first two, however, and expect that people are going to stick around for long. The game needs to work for the players to play it.