SamandClaude Fable 5
c4f432d0c3
- the world map speaks the reference's names: WorldMapTooltip is declared (six corpus addons index it; pfUI dies on it at file scope), the blackout frame takes the reference's spelling BlackoutWorld, and the four hand-written party blips become the reference's own unit-blip templates — all 44 blips as instances, each with its published $parentIcon, the name pfUI recolours group blips by class through; the 40 raid ones are declared but not positioned yet, named in the OUT list rather than faked
- the templates addons build their own buttons from are published: ItemButtonTemplate, ContainerFrameItemButtonTemplate and the bag-slot chain — most of the handler scripts were live the whole time (this client executes the reference's own container and paper-doll code off the player's patch chain), so what was missing was mostly declarations, not behaviour — the bank arm stays out and is named as the omission it is; OptionsFrameSliders becomes real, with the three Graphics rows reading it and re-reading on show, so an addon's write to a slider's bounds actually moves the slider; and the template census that had ranked these at "zero demand" learns to see a local bound to a literal — its table went from 3 rows to 7
- the bindings answer in 1.12's own shapes: Button:IsEnabled() answers the NUMBER 1 or 0 (0 is truthy in Lua, so the reference's own == 0 tests got false forever, and three of our files had hand-worked around the divergence rather than fixed it); the constructors' string arguments are four shapes, not one rule — pfUI passes a Button where a template name goes and the reference constructs the FontString and ignores it; SetInventoryItem returns THREE values, the reference's own paper doll destructuring repairCost; UnitIsVisible is object presence and nothing else (57 bytes, one branch, no distance — an out-of-range party member is exists-yes, visible-nil); the tapped pair reads the two dynamic-flags bits, and its repaint wire fires UNIT_FACTION on the tap bit — the half a passing predicate test never sees; UnitIsPartyLeader is two ORed legs covering disjoint failures (a held stranger leading their own party, and an out-of-range member with no object to read a flag from); and the four nameplate verbs take no argument and return zero values
- the ghost's wisps compose onto its body instead of over it — the four emitters drew at full strength over a body at alpha 0.5, and now inherit the instance alpha down the attachment chain the way the reference recomposes it per frame; the residual we had parked ("the wisps should inherit the tint too") is REFUTED at the bytes: a particle batch commits hardcoded white RGB, and even that never reaches the fragment — particles are never tinted, only the alpha crosses, applied to the alpha byte alone — so the shipped shader split was already right and no code changes
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <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.
- The rest of the basics: battlegrounds, guild charters, the stable master, meeting stones, GM tickets, master loot, cinematics and whatever else turns up.
- 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.