- a disarmed fighter swings bare-fisted: `UNIT_FLAG_DISARMED` was read nowhere but a dev banner, and the reference applies it inside `GetWeapon` on the `visFlag == 0` path, so the swing lands on AttackUnarmed; the RE cross-check (nine workers converging byte-for-byte) corrected the first reading twice — disarm hides exactly ONE weapon, main hand first (`5ec28d je 0x5ec2aa`), so a disarmed dual-wielder keeps swinging its dagger; and the weapon comes OFF the hand: the field-change reflex `0x5ff580` detaches a drawn main-hand weapon when the bit goes up, while a stowed one stays frozen on the back; one pure ladder feeds every unarmed-view site of the 82-site `visFlag` census — parry, the sheath machine, the melee sounds (a disarmed punch does not clang like a sword), Heroic Strike greying out, and the Attack button showing `Spell-Reset` with the weapon still equipped (1863) - a quest-log row reads `(Elite)`, `(Dungeon)`, `(Raid)` or `(PvP)`: `QuestInfo.dbc` was never parsed and `GetQuestLogTitle`'s third return was a literal nil; the table is seven rows read out of `patch-2.MPQ`, SPARSE (1 Elite · 21 Life · 41 PvP · 62 Raid · 81 Dungeon · 82 World Event · 83 Legendary — vanilla's 1 is "Elite", not TBC's "Group"), and the base `dbc.MPQ` copy has only four, so a chain stopping short would lose Dungeon, World Event and Legendary; the row gains the reference's own right-flush tag string and its precedence — a finished quest's FAILED/COMPLETE word OVERWRITES the tag — replacing the " (Complete)" we appended to the title; the RE round confirmed the tag path and found the arity bug: six values ALWAYS (`mov eax,6`), the level a NUMBER 0 even on a header, where we gave one nil; the reference's title shrink stays out: an explicit width is a WRAP width here (1873) - the death thud is silent indoors, and that is the content: BOTH the footstep and the thud lookups key on `TerrainType.SoundID`, and TerrainType 10 "None" has SoundID 0 — the footstep table has a row there for 17 classes and `DeathThudLookups` has none, so the floor that creaks underfoot swallows the body that lands on it; 10 075 of 10 299 WMO materials (97.8%) are TerrainType 10 and 694 of 815 WMO roots have no surface that can thud, every inn and tavern among them, the Kharanos inn included — the code was always right and the prose was not; the RE round also confirmed the strict `depth > 2.0` sense and the size-class column, pinned a sound id of 0 as silence, and placed `0x6005d0` as the loot sparkle, not a second sound; `thudcensus` prints all 121 buildings that do thud rather than a head, because a truncated list cannot answer "does THIS one" (1870) - a questgiver's overhead marker follows its rider on and off the mount: the reference re-runs the attach from the `UNIT_FIELD_MOUNTDISPLAYID` watch handler, and benilla picked the slot once at build, relying on a teardown the reseat rework no longer does (B199), so the seat rode at the WRONG slot; `overhead_slot` is now the one definition of the pick (`0x6074c0`) and the marker rebuilds when it moves (1871); and the chat menu's kit was ours overwriting the reference's — `UIMenu.xml` loads earlier on the chain and our `ChatFrame.xml` carried the same kit under the SAME ten names, faithful enough that deleting it changes nothing; nothing ever opened the chat menu, and now a test does; an event census holds the gap between registered and fired events at exactly eighteen, failing on a surprise AND on a quietly gained producer — features not yet built, none a split pair (1869) Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Important
Issues and pull requests are closed here. benilla is a solo project developed in a private tree; this repo is its export, published as squashed snapshots, so a PR here has nothing to land on. The best way to contribute is to join the Discord and report the bugs you find. Questions and ideas are welcome in the same place.
benilla speaks the original 1.12.1 protocol, so it connects to any server the real client could, and reads its game data at runtime from your own 1.12.1 install. Every file format and the network protocol are implemented from scratch, with no original client code, no third-party WoW crates, and no bundled game assets.
What works
- Formats: readers for the full asset stack (MPQ patch chain, BLP, DBC, ADT/WDT/WDL, M2, WMO), wired into Bevy as an asset source.
- World: streamed terrain out to the horizon, portal-culled WMOs with interior lighting, doodads and ground clutter, swimmable liquids, sky and weather, and the client's own day/night lighting, fog and gamma passes.
- Models: GPU-skinned M2s with the full animation controller, a near feature-complete particle system, ribbons, and animated gameobjects from doors to lifts.
- Characters: customization end to end, the armor texture composite, weapons with sheathing and enchant glows, shapeshift forms, stealth and mounts.
- Movement: a WoW-feel controller, networked movement in both directions, the server-granted modes from slow fall to roots, a follow camera with collision, boats, zeppelins and taxi flights.
- Networking: SRP6 auth through world-session crypto, the object mirror into the ECS, and live wire coverage from movement and chat through spells, party, quests, mail, trade, vendors, bank, loot, the auction house and PvP honor.
- UI: a from-scratch FrameXML + Lua engine driving the built-in interface, from the login and
character screens through the full HUD, the classic windows (guild, macros and key bindings
included), chat, nameplates, floating combat text and tooltips; third-party addons load from
a
benilla-config/AddOns/folder beside the executable (partial: AtlasLoot and Bagnon run, see below). - Combat: melee on the faithful swing law, ranged and Auto Shot, casting with GCD and cooldowns, combo points, crowd control that really holds you, and the spell visual pipeline.
- Audio: music, ambience and SFX under the client's own selection and crossfade rules, with interior and underwater transitions and zone reverb.
Where it's going
benilla is done when a 1.12.1 player can do everything here that they could in the original client, it looks and feels the same, and it runs from a download on Windows, Linux and macOS. No dates; the order is what is likely, not a promise.
- Battlegrounds and meeting stones, then the long tail of small features that separates a working client from a finished one.
- Addons, options and performance, ongoing.
- The no-brainer fixes from VanillaFixes, SuperWoW and the like.
- Playable downloads for Windows, Linux and macOS. Linux first.
Not planned: other expansions or client versions, Warden (anticheat).
Running it
You need a 1.12.1 (build 5875) client install for game data, a vanilla server to connect to, and stable Rust. Any 1.12.1 core works; vmangos is what development runs against, and cMaNGOS and the rest speak the same protocol.
WOW_DATA=/path/to/WoW/Data cargo run --release -p benilla
The server defaults to localhost:3724, the stock realmd auth port. Point WOW_HOST
at any IP or hostname, appending the auth port if yours is remapped
(WOW_HOST=play.example.com:5000). Credentials go in at the login screen, or set WOW_USER /
WOW_PASS to skip it.
Early inspiration and file format guidance came from the wowemulation-dev community, and warcraft-rs in particular.
benilla is an independent fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Blizzard Entertainment.
It ships no Blizzard content — no art, models, sounds, maps, MPQ contents or FrameXML; you
provide your own legally obtained 1.12.1 client. The interface code under
crates/benilla-app/assets/ui/ is ours, written to the client's own layout and API names so that
the windows look right and 1.12.1 addons find the names they expect.
World of Warcraft is a trademark of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. Our own code is licensed under MIT or Apache 2.0, at your option.