SamandClaude Fable 5.1
8f0bece3be
- a loot refusal is a message id, not a sentence: `loot_error_text` composed eight sentences for `SMSG_LOOT_RESPONSE`'s refusals and six of them said something 1.12 never says — "too far away to loot that." for a string that ends "that corpse.", "You can't loot that from there." for "You must be facing the corpse to loot it.", and an invented "Those pockets are already empty." for a code the client has no string for; it and the `LootErrors` queue are deleted, and the refusal is raised by GlobalStrings key into `UiErrorKeys` at the net bridge, the way `fish_verdict` two functions above already did, off the reference's own eleven-entry jump table at `0x5ebc64`; a composed string had no record to read a surface or a voice off, so all eleven — `MsgKind::Error`, the red `UIErrorsFrame` line — had been going into the chat window as yellow SYSTEM lines, and the four spoken in the player's own race and gender (`DIDNT_KILL`, `BAD_FACING`, `LOCKED`, `TOO_FAR`) were silent; a second bug fell out of reading the leg: codes 4–9, 11 and the default fall through a release tail at `0x5ebac2` that zeroes `[player+0x1d28]` — our `LootLatch` — while 10, 12, 13 and 14 jump past it, so a master looter refused a hand-off no longer stands up out of the kneel at a still-open corpse; the default arm's `ja 0x5ebabd` lands on code 7's arm, so every unnamed code prints `ERR_LOOT_DIDNT_KILL` and releases (2035); and the pet has its own two message tables, not the player's with a flag: `SMSG_PET_ACTION_FEEDBACK`'s handler `0x4bdb70` decrements the byte, bounds it at 3 and jump-tables it through `0x4bdbe8` to `ERR_PET_SPELL_DEAD`, `ERR_NO_ATTACK_TARGET`, `ERR_INVALID_ATTACK_TARGET`, `ERR_PET_SPELL_NOPATH` — one per vmangos `PetFeedback` value, where our two-entry map had printed "No path available for your pet" for a dead pet, "Out of range" for no target and nothing for 3 and 4; `SMSG_PET_CAST_FAILED` is `0x6e8eb0`, a separate 142-byte index table that overrides ten reasons, six of them to `ERR_PET_SPELL_*` rows with no other raise site in the client, so `CastFail` grows a `Caster` and picks its table from it while layers 1 and 3 stay shared, as the binary shares them; `0x6e8eb0` calls neither the combat-log formatter `0x62c360` nor the error sound `0x458a50`, so a pet's refused Growl no longer prints "You fail to cast Growl: …" as the player's own failure; and the source walk that exists to catch a non-catalog key was blind to both wrong keys because all 465 catalog keys begin `ERR_`, so the tripwire moves to the funnel — `Shown::keyed` warns on a key `by_key` cannot resolve (2033)
- the hunter-pet feedback cluster, five opcodes carved off the binary where four had sat name-table-only: `SMSG_PET_TAME_FAILURE` (`0x173`) is two GlobalStrings lookups in order — `0x6e6a20` maps `reason − 1` through the eleven-arm jump table at `0x6e6ac0` to a `PETTAME_*` key and hands the resolved string to `DisplayError(ERR_TAME_FAILED)`, anything outside `1..=11` taking `PETTAME_UNKNOWNERROR`, and Call Pet and Revive Pet raise it too; `SMSG_PET_NAME_INVALID` (`0x178`) raises `ERR_INVALID_PETNAME` from the shared dispatcher `0x5e38c0`'s arm `0x5e3e33` — 1066 had called a refused rename silent on a carve that gave `0x178` the handler `0x4bdc00`, which is `0x2AF SMSG_PET_BROKEN`'s and raises `ERR_PET_BROKEN`, body unread; `SMSG_PET_ACTION_SOUND` (`0x324`) is a bark, not a sound id — its two talk values reach the bark dispatcher `0x623a40` at states 1 and 2, i.e. `CreatureSoundData` columns 28 and 27, and the shipped DBC names them from the other side: exactly four of its 406 rows carry them, the Imp, Succubus, Doomguard and Voidwalker voices, as `A_<demon>_ORDER`/`A_<demon>_KILL`; `Latch::Voice` now carries the bark state as a number and every one-shot creature vocal goes through one `play_bark` that is `0x623a40` — aggro at 0, the pet barks at 1 and 2, the death cry at 4, which had been on a bare `play_kit` off the slot so a pet bark could talk over it — with the reference's `jle` priority rule, because under the old boolean slot a demon's voice would have lost every race against its own aggro flares and been inaudible; it is a warlock-demon surface end to end — vmangos only sends it for a summoned pet, at a 10% roll per order, and a hunter's wolf has neither the columns nor the packet; and the fifth opcode surfaced because the cross-check went looking for column 29's consumer: `SMSG_PET_DISMISS_SOUND` (`0x325`), handler `0x604140`, reads column 29 twice (`0x6041c4`/`0x6041dc`) off a row resolved fresh by `CreatureModelData` id rather than the cached `[unit+0xb40]` — which is why a census over the cache had called the column dead — and plays `A_<demon>_DISMISS` at the packet's point with `z + 1.0`, no unit and no latch; column 29 is loaded, the column nothing reads is 22 (zero on all 406 rows), and the dismiss handler is built although vmangos never sends the packet (2039)
- every UV scroll and animated tint in the world had been frozen for three days: 1940's deferred realization parks a freshly built `WowModelMaterial` behind a reserved handle until something view-visible binds it, and `doodad_anim::register_uv`/`register_tint` still reached for the store alone — `Assets::get_mut` answered `None` for every registration, the slot was freed, the registry stayed empty and the shader read the pinned-zero identity row for every batch, silently, because the `else` branch was a bare `return`; the fix is the address, not the timing: `Parked::value_mut`/`value`/`holds` reach a value wherever it currently lives and `lazy::with_material_mut`/`with_material`/`holds` publish that, so the one-shot build stamp lands in the parked value and rides realization in — realizing it to stamp it would have thrown away exactly what deferral buys; the tick's eviction on `Assets::contains` read a parked material as dead and asks `lazy::holds` now, the empty-registry early-out says so out loud when marked parts exist, and two instruments ship — `WOW_MATANIM_PROBE=<secs>` prints per animated part whether it is registered, whether its loop moves, what its table row holds and whether it is drawn, and `WOW_WORLDVIEW_AT=x,y[,z]` opens the server-less viewer anywhere; measured at the reported waterfall: 0 uv / 0 tint entries before, 87 uv / 6 tint around the Elwynn valley after, its two sheets on slots 1 and 2 with live rows −0.2122 and −0.4246 — the authored 1:2 ratio (2038); and the paper doll and the inspect pane are lit from the model's right: `CGLight+0x24` is the direction the light PROPAGATES — the `CharacterModelBase` ctor `0x505680` writes `(0, 1, 0)` and `0x71bce0` negates all three components before building the SH basis — so `model_pane_light()` hands the packer the ctor's vector as written where 0638 had negated it on the way in and lit both panes from the left; the ambient `(0.7, 0.7, 0.7)`, the diffuse `(0.8, 0.8, 0.64)` and the side-light analysis all hold, which is why the A/B that approved 0638 could not tell the two readings apart (2034)
- a unit tooltip whose name query has not answered titles `UNKNOWNOBJECT`, not a blank gold row: the reference's builder `0x529fe0` reads its NAME line through `CGUnit_C::GetUnitName 0x609210` — the same function `UnitName 0x517020` delegates to — and every miss on its three legs, the null creature record included, ends at the one `FrameScript_GetText("UNKNOWNOBJECT")` tail at `0x609324`, so `unknownobject` moves into `unit` proper and the plate and the verb share it, read out of the VM's `_G` with the binary's "Unknown Being" behind a missing global; the faction line stops waiting for the creature record — its entry gate `0x612610` returns 1 when there is none, so it resolves off `UNIT_FIELD_FACTIONTEMPLATE` and keeps only `HIDE_FACTION_TOOLTIP` for when the record lands; the reference's placeholder sticks for the whole hover (stock `GameTooltip.xml` registers `UPDATE_MOUSEOVER_UNIT` alone) and our line-change repaint, which replaces it when the answer lands, is kept (2040); a unit predicate answers the NUMBER 1 or nil, never a Lua boolean: `UnitExists`, `UnitIsDead`, `UnitIsGhost`, `UnitIsDeadOrGhost` and `UnitOnTaxi` pushed a boolean and twenty-three more open-coded the right shape in eighteen places, where the reference pushes through `lua_pushnumber 0x6f3810` or `lua_pushnil 0x6f37f0`; all twenty-eight now reach 1830's one push site `binding_abi::predicate` — via `unit::unit_predicate` for a `UnitState` field, directly otherwise — `UnitIsCharmed`'s `Number(1.0)` and `ClearTarget`'s hand-branched nil included, and `UnitOnTaxi` gains the reference's `Usage:` raise (gate `0x517a48`) where a nil token had raised mlua's type error; truthiness is why it survived (`if UnitIsDead(u)` reads the same either way, and `== nil` inverts), nine `eval::<bool>` tests were vacuous under mlua's coercion and `taxi.rs` had pinned `== false`/`== true` — the one shape the reference cannot emit — so a table-driven test covers all twenty-eight on both legs, and `UnitIsAFK`/`UnitIsDND` now say they are ours (zero occurrences image-wide) (2043); and the quest log's stock title width cap — `275 − 15 − tagWidth`, live off the chain since 1944 — ellipsizes on one line rather than wrapping into the 16-unit row: 1873 declined it reading an explicit width as a wrap width, but the title FontString declares `y="10"`, and a declared height arms both overflow regimes, so a 258 px title in a 206 px box paints as one line ending in three ASCII dots — the reference's own result, its ellipsis gate at `0x771ec0` being `boxW > 0 && (maxLines != 0 || boxH > 0)`, which only an auto-height FontString escapes; two tests pin the render law on the real FRIZQT face and the geometry the stock file hands it, including the cap's per-row-button stickiness, which is the reference's too (2036)
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.