SamandClaude Fable 5.1
7a03f5d211
- a reference string is a key, never a Rust literal: display text is a key into `GlobalStrings.lua` in-game or `GlueStrings.lua` on the glue screens, resolved at runtime from the player's own install, and a literal is legitimate only as a fallback beside a lookup — the reference's own `UNKNOWNOBJECT` shape — because a re-typed sentence costs the wording nobody diffed, the surface and the voice a composed string has no catalog record to read off (1770, 1815), and localization; the tripwire in `reference_strings.rs` is the check a comment could never be: it walks the workspace, normalises both sides and fails on any literal matching a shipped value — 273 re-typed literals over 34 files, after calibration threw out three false-positive classes (a path-mangling bug, the 85 fallbacks beside a real lookup, and `#[cfg(test)]` modules whose fake tables match by construction — the first run's 378 would have enshrined ~50 phantom sites); `ALLOWED` is a per-file ratchet whose counts may only go down and whose stale rows fail too, regenerated from a clean tree at 253 over 33 files — the first baseline was captured mid-edit and the land gates failed on a row claiming drift in a file that had none — then 252 over 32 as `ui_trade`'s row retired behind a neighbouring conversion to `ERR_TRADE_BLOCKED_S` (2042); stated in its own doc: it cannot find an INVENTED sentence, which matches nothing; and `benilla_ui::strings::fill` is the one template filler — ordered `%s`/`%d`, positional `%N$s`, `%%` collapsing, a starved specifier copied through visibly so a mis-modelled template looks wrong rather than plausible — replacing eight hand-rolled copies that disagreed, one of them `str::replace` filling every `%s` with the same argument, latent only because no message on that queue carried two yet (2045)
- two families convert, and both assert the identifier, not the sentence: the character-create result line resolves its key off the player's chain with the literal as fallback, and three bugs the 23-arm literal table had hidden come out — `0x36` re-typed without its second sentence ("Please try again during off peak hours."), `0x50` invented (there is no `CHAR_NAME_CONSECUTIVE_SPACES` in 1.12, so it takes the default arm), and `0x4B` naming `CHAR_CREATE_NAME_IN_USE` where the code means `CHAR_NAME_RESERVED` — both read "That name is unavailable" in enUS, so no assertion on displayed text could ever have caught it, and a sentinel test that rewrites `CHAR_NAME_RESERVED` in a copy of the real table proves `0x4B` moves while `0x31` does not; the ratchet's first row retires, 21 → 0; and `SMSG_PARTY_COMMAND_RESULT` returns the catalog message the reference's own jump table names — handler `0x5e68b0`, `dec eax; cmp eax,7; ja <silent>; jmp [4*eax+0x5e6a14]`, results 1–8 onto `ERR_BAD_PLAYER_NAME_S` … `ERR_IGNORING_YOU_S` plus `ERR_INVITE_PLAYER_S` (`0x3a`) and `ERR_LEFT_GROUP_YOU` (`0x42`) on result 0 — so text, surface and sound come off one row: `ERR_PLAYER_WRONG_FACTION` (`0xff`) is the red line where the other nine are chat, and three inputs the reference is DELIBERATELY silent on (result ≥ 9, result 0 outside op {0, 2}, an invite with an empty name) stop printing an invented "Party command failed (N)."; tests assert the message id, since no English distinguishes a right key from a wrong one here, and `ui_party` goes 22 → 12 (2045)
- a hidden `<Model>` tile is parked: every orthographic pane shares the atlas's one camera, deliberately kept active whenever any cell is packed because it is the camera that clears the sheet, so `booth_frozen` — exact for every booth ever built, one camera one scene — answered "drawn" for every pane that had left the paint list, and a hidden autocast-shine pane's four spline emitters kept integrating and pushing quads for the whole 600-frame linger at a cell the packer had since given away; `sync_tiles` gains a sixth stage that parks any live tile with no cell this frame — `AnimParked` on the root, which holds the pose evaluator, the compose, the palette write and the global-sequence bone writes, and `ParticleEmitter::set_frozen` on every emitter — with `scene_frozen` stating the freeze law in one place and the park verdict pinned to the composite by a test, so a repack or a full atlas cannot freeze a visible pane's cloud; the bone global sequences move onto the pane's clock, where the material rows have been since 2019: the kernel's Phase B cursor is `(sceneClock − attachSnapshot) % duration` off the scene that owns the instance (`[model+0x2c]`, the snapshot at `CM2Model+0x68` stored at `0x70eae1`), and a `<Model>` widget owns a private `CM2Scene` at `CSimpleModel+0x314` that only its own advance at `0x76d863` moves — so the ping's spinner holds while hidden and resumes where it stopped, with no accumulator of ours; measured with a cooldown pane holding the atlas alive: twelve hidden shine panes cost 54 effect items / 63 transparent draws before, 34 / 43 after, the pool held rather than drained by design; and the particle census's `gated=` column, which printed `fade.is_some()` and read backwards as the gate verdict, is renamed `has_fade=` (2046)
- a doodad is not an entity: `[def+0xa4]` has exactly four writers image-wide — ctor `0x6a7d73` (0.0), WMO doodad-set commit `0x695bb3` (1.0), ADT MDDF commit `0x6b01bb` (1.0), MCSH refresh `0x698cb4` (0.5) — and the 2.5-producer `0x69e280` and the ramp `0x69e770` are reachable only through the entity-attached `[obj+0xe0]` path, which contradicted the §6 both lit-ground sites cited and a capture with gains up to 2.5, so the premise was marked contested at both sites first (the shader's own note told a future session to cut `min(I, 1)` and `LIT_T` together on its strength); wow-re then settled it — two C++ classes inline the same base and share the offset: `CMapDoodadDef` (vtable `0x810a74`, `"WDOODADDEF"`, size `0x198`, serving ADT MDDF and WMO MODD) and the WENTITY light node (vtable `0x810810`, size `0x108`, off `[obj+0xe0]`) that `0x69e770` ramps at 3.3333/s; on the doodad class `+0xf8`, the field the ramp reads its target from at `0x69e894`, is `m[2][3]` of the world matrix — it has no target field — and six trace frames put 111 MDDF placements over 356 draws at gains only in {0.5, 1.0}, none changing, against an entity walking out of shadow at 0.5 / 0.81 / 1.09 / 1.3367 and rising; so ADT map doodads join the fixed-1.0 family with the exterior WMO props, `ShadeSel::Lit` is entity-only, the retained lane's Matte arm drops its prop requirement, and no pixel changes — the cap was faithful for trees all along and lifting it is now an entity-only look change for the director to call; `WORD_SHADE_LIT` is left as a documented dead bit (2050); and the far water's 1.25 s breath is flattened: the director's recording autocorrelates at lag 75 @ 60 fps = 1.250 s (r = +0.60), the 30-frame ocean flipbook at 24 fps, whose frames do not share a mean — alpha 55.985..57.628, DXT3's 4-bit alpha swinging 1.64 at mip 0, 3.72 at mip 5, 6.38 at mip 6 — so at distance the mipped sheet moves together, 0.8..1.84/255 on screen, fogged out at `farclip` 300 and visible at 777; wow-re proved the reference breathes too (`0x68abab` creates the flipbook with `applyGlobal = 1`, the upload hands the driver `Levels = 9`, LOD bias 0, the loop period `[0x8102b8]` 1.25 s over 30 frames), so ours was faithful and it is flattened anyway by the director's eye: each frame's DC equalised per level and per channel at texture-build time as an exact integer redistribution in ±1 steps on a coprime stride (1.64 / 3.72 / 6.38 / 0.555 → 0.000), water and ocean only since magma and slime take the sheet as their body colour, `WOW_LIQUID_DC=raw` restoring the authored art for the A/B (2051)
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.