SamandClaude Fable 5.1
e7ac8b94f3
- the minimap cluster and the battleground list are the reference's own `Minimap.xml` and `BattlefieldFrame.xml`, ours deleted, and the sixteen engine names the static probe found unbound are built, not stubbed: the battleground list and queue family (the as-group join refused client-side with no packet when the map's `MaxPlayers` is below the group), the bodyless `CMSG_BATTLEFIELD_STATUS` on world enter — benilla never sent it, so a queue joined before a reconnect was invisible — the 5.5556 yd `BATTLEFIELDS_CLOSED` leash, and the meeting-stone pair over the `0x295` five-way table with both asymmetries; the ping's lifetime is the stock Lua's now (held 5 s, faded 0.5 s), `GetPingPosition` answers two numbers always — our nil was a Lua error on every frame of the stock `Minimap_OnUpdate` — and the map-change drop the reference never had is gone (1974)
- the world map is the reference's own `WorldMapFrame.xml`, our transcription deleted; built for it: the arrow-frame family (an anonymous `Model` child at its 33.6 px footprint, drawn app-side as the minimap's own arrow sprite through one shared constant), the battleground position family over `MSG_BATTLEGROUND_PLAYER_POSITIONS` both ways (the reference's 5000 ms request throttle), and `GetPlayerMapPosition` resolving `raid1..raid40` where it knew only the party (B320); `SetupFullscreenScale` — the engine binding `0x48c270` the map's and the cinematic frame's OnShow call, which our map had stood in for with Lua — is bound to the carved law `min(0.75 · aspect, 1)` off the configured aspect, written through the frame's own `SetScale` (1.0 at 4:3 and wider, 0.9375 at 5:4); a hovered POI writes the map's own area label, not the tooltip; named gap: `WorldMapPing` draws nothing yet (1980, 1981)
- the tutorial frame is the reference's own `TutorialFrame.xml`, over a tutorial system benilla never had: two bit banks filled from `SMSG_TUTORIAL_FLAGS` — the fire-once bank `TriggerTutorial` reads and sets (never a send) and the acknowledged bank `FlagTutorial` writes and sends; there is no tutorial CVar in the binary (210 `CVar::Register` sites censused), so "disable tutorials" is every bit acknowledged; the sites this app can produce are wired (the world-enter Welcome cascade, the level-up arm, item pushes, the loot sparkle, the meeting-stone and battleground arms), the rest named; the loader learned `<TitleRegion>` — the stock frame's drag handle, a region that emits no quad; and the `TabardModel` widget kind arrives ahead of its window, five ints bounded by the `.rdata` table `{170, 17, 6, 17, 51}` and the constant 100 000 tabard cost (1976, 1977)
- the chat window drew as an opaque white plate: the chat-cache loader, gated on `InWorld` alone, restored into the boot VM 130 ms before the deferred entry load filled it, and its per-VM memo then blocked the restore that would have reached the real frames — the plate the stock Lua tints black stayed the XML's white; between the entry edge and the load there is now no VM in the world (the edge parks the boot VM, the load takes it back), so no in-world feed pushes into a VM with no interface; the perf pill reads `59 fps 7.0 ms 17.3 cpu` — the MAIN thread's milliseconds in full text and the process-wide sum dim, because the sum of every thread's CPU time had been read as a frame time (a raid read 17 on it at a solid 60 with the main thread at 7); and `WOW_PROBE_UI_ONE_TEX=1` is a pricing lever, never a look, for the draw-count ceiling a UI atlas would reach before one is built (1978, 1954)
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.