thistle tea

wip vanilla private server written in elixir

contributing

i've had a lot of fun hacking on this and it would be neat if you did too

hop in the discord if you're interested in helping out

running

# the devenv shell provides elixir, a C++ toolchain, and namigator (NAMIGATOR_SRC);
# outside devenv, point NAMIGATOR_SRC at a pikdum/namigator checkout (rev in flake.lock)
git clone https://github.com/pikdum/thistle_tea.git
cd thistle_tea
mix deps.get
mix deps.compile

# need npm or bun or similar
cd assets && npm install && cd ../

# generate db/vmangos.sqlite (mobs, items, etc.)
cachix use thistle-tea
nix run .#vmangos-db -- ./db

# path to vanilla client, the directory with WoW.exe
# you'll want version 1.12.1 build 5875
# this is only for generating dbc.sqlite + maps
export WOW_DIR="/path/to/vanilla/client"

# generate db/dbc.sqlite (spell info, etc.) from the client
nix run .#dbc-db -- "$WOW_DIR" ./db

# generate navigation meshes from the client (takes a while)
nix run .#maps -- "$WOW_DIR"

# if not localhost, set GAME_SERVER:
# GAME_SERVER=192.168.1.110 iex -S mix
iex -S mix
# change server to localhost in realmlist.wtf
# default logins are in application.ex (test:test)
# also, there's a test server at 150.230.28.221

More documentation, like platform-specific setup guides, can be found in the Wiki.

Existing navigation bakes need WMO metadata for indoor and outdoor queries, WMO lava, and spell-bearing liquids. New bakes include it automatically.

Naxxramas uses the client map name Stratholme Raid. It is included in new .#maps bakes; existing installations need to generate that map before testing liquid spells.

Ocean fatigue and outdoor lava also need terrain liquid data. New map bakes include it; existing bakes can add it without rebuilding navigation:

nix run .#terrain-data -- "$WOW_DIR" ./maps/terrain

Restart the server after generating terrain data.

databases

• vmangos.sqlite nix run .#vmangos-db -- ./db
  • generated from the pinned VMangos SQLite snapshot in flake.nix
  • this has mobs, items, etc.
• dbc.sqlite nix run .#dbc-db -- "$WOW_DIR" ./db
  • generated from your local wow 1.12 client, since it can't be distributed
  • this has spell info and similar

upstreams (VMangos/core, mangoszero/server, gtker/wow_dbc, vdechef/mysql2sqlite, pikdum/namigator) are pinned in flake.lock; bump them with nix flake update.

individual targets if you just want the tools on PATH:

nix build .#mangos-map-extractor   # map-extractor, vmap-extractor, mmap-extractor
nix build .#wow-dbc-converter      # wow_dbc_converter
nix build .#namigator-mapbuilder   # MapBuilder (navmesh generation)
nix develop .#wow-tools            # shell with all of the above + sqlite + mariadb

what (somewhat) works

• logging in + creating characters
• entering world + seeing other players
• chatting, channels, and parties
• Meeting Stones, with class-based matchmaking, partial-party refills, innkeeper queues, native status messages, and retained solo queues across reconnect
• Spoken languages, with learned comprehension, racial languages, Curse of Tongues, readable whispers, and immediate skill updates
• Friends and ignore lists, with offline contacts, live presence, reconnect retention, chat filtering, and invitation restrictions
• Raid groups, with 40-member rosters, assistants, subgroups, target markers, ready checks, raid chat, subgroup buffs, and quest eligibility
• AFK and DND status, with public tags, whisper echoes and automatic replies, reconnect cleanup, and AFK battleground departure
• Emotes and posture, with DBC animations, persistent poses, movement and channel interruption, and Feign Death and pet-control cleanup
• mob spawns, combat, navigation, and respawns
• auto-attacks + class abilities
• Chained spells, with per-jump attenuation, spell modifiers, line of sight, injured-friendly selection, and caster bounces
• Spell radius modifiers, with area targeting, persistent ground effects, totem inheritance, talent reset, and reconnect acceptance
• Spell range modifiers, with unit casts, channel grace, Auto Shot, pet inheritance, and live bonus removal
• Database-selected creature targets, with living and corpse selectors, per-effect delivery, and native quest-item acceptance
• Scripted spell areas and configured cones, with source and destination areas, per-effect selectors, narrow and rear arcs, and native Steam Tonk acceptance
• Scripted spell destinations, with nearby creature, corpse, and object locations, triggered delivery, and native summon placement and expiry
• Database spell destinations, with fixed summon and ground-effect locations, world-copy isolation, and configured teleport arrival facing
• Game-object spell targeting, with per-effect trap and quest-object recipients, owner attribution, and native linked-trap and combat lifecycle acceptance
• Combo point builders, with Premeditation expiry, talent-generated points, finisher consumption, and single melee proc delivery
• Avoided ability power refunds, using paid energy and rage costs across charged discounts, immunity, and queued melee attacks
• Ownerless summoned objects, with shared loot, caster-independent lifetimes, linked objects, and environmental trap activation
• Owned summoned objects, with independent spell slots, Hunter trap replacement, death retention, and cleanup on expiry, logout, and world departure
• creature-specific melee and ranged attack power from slaying gear and consumables, with weapon-speed scaling and live target debuffs
• Armor and spell penetration, with school masks, stacking, equipment bonuses, and periodic damage
• Armor and resistance modifiers, with agility armor, base and total modifier layers, multiplicative percentages, and form and talent lifecycles
• school-based spell cost reductions, with stacking, client cost displays, and free casts
• percentage base-stat bonuses and penalties, including world buffs and Resurrection Sickness, with layered stacking and death-persistent aura expiry
• independent mana and energy regeneration across Druid forms, with the five-second rule, Reflection, and Innervate
• Shapeshift cleansing, with root and snare removal, daze exceptions, buff interruption, target restrictions, and movement acknowledgements
• Transformation appearance, with disguise priority, model geometry, form scales, creature weapons, reconnect restoration, and Polymorph regeneration
• ground mounts, mounted speed bonuses, and dismounting on cancellation or swimming
• Indoor and outdoor spell rules, with WMO interiors, cast-completion checks, automatic dismounting, and terrain-sensitive form and equipment passives
• parry haste for player and mob melee swings, including dual-wield timing
• shield block value from equipment, enchants, and percentage talents, shared by defensive blocks and Shield Slam
• learned parry and block capabilities, weapon and shield requirements, sheath restrictions, and defense-skill avoidance on the character sheet
• Combat skill progression, with shared weapon bonuses, off-hand and ranged training, resolved outcome checks, and launch-time weapon attribution
• Weapon attack accuracy, with dual-wield miss penalties, queued-attack suppression, hit scaling, PvP defense, and capped glancing adjustments
• Weapon-dependent offensive bonuses, with per-hand hit, weapon talents and enchants, skill-derived crit displays, and filtered white-attack damage
• Extra attacks, with pending melee batches, proc recursion guards, swing timing, combat-log feedback, and lifecycle cleanup
• Melee readiness, with shared facing and control checks, per-hand retries, dual-wield swing separation, and native error feedback
• Blocked-hit procs, with combined block and absorb outcomes, Retaliation, damage-shield contact rules, and incoming proc cooldowns
• Cast-completion procs, with Elemental Focus, separate cast and hit phases, spell/ability classification, and caster-proc suppression
• Stacking spell trinkets, with temporary spell-power snapshots, Unstable Power's diminishing bonus, Ascendance's increasing bonus, and linked aura cleanup
• Direct damage aura procs, with Flameblade, Holy Shield, carrier attribution, inherited rank rules, and charge exhaustion
• main-hand disarm: unarmed player combat, armed-creature damage reduction, weapon ability checks, and off-hand preservation
• rear-hit daze from uncontrolled creatures, with level and defense-skill scaling
• mechanic resistance for spells and melee abilities, including Orc Hardiness
• aura-state and spell-effect immunities, with partial spell blocking, control purges, and expiry cleanup
• school-specific damage immunity, with melee and periodic immune feedback and spell bypass attributes
• Binary spell resistance, with all-or-nothing control spells, school penetration, full-hit damage, triggered casts, and resistance lifecycle updates
• Triggered spell hits, with per-target hit rolls, original-caster modifiers, saved impact outcomes, channel target retention, and cancellation
• Wounded creature movement, with low-health running penalties, pet and boss exemptions, active path retiming, snare composition, and recovery
• periodic mana drains and life leech, with transfers limited by available mana and actual health lost
• healing suppression and amplification across direct heals and HoTs, with strongest-effect stacking and live expiry updates
• Absorb shield scaling, with caster healing and school power, low-rank penalties, talent ordering, depletion, and retained capacity across reconnect
• stack-aware dispels, with partial cures, Dispel All categories, and client combat-log feedback
• talent-based dispel resistance, including Vile Poisons, per-stack attempts, and failed-dispel feedback
• general and school-specific spell reflection, including Sheen of Zanza's guaranteed first reflection and charge consumption
• Grounding Totem and spell magnets, with shared interception charges, periodic protection, and totem immunity and destruction cleanup
• spell modifiers use VMangos family masks, including all 64 bits, to affect only the intended abilities
• stacked damage-over-time effects scale with remaining stacks after partial cures
• exclusive resistance buffs use the strongest effect per school, with weaker protection resuming on removal
• crowd-control diminishing returns, shared across casters with recovery after control ends
• Slow exclusivity, with strength and duration replacement, preserved direct damage, daze coexistence, and expiry and death cleanup
• Pacification and silence, including combined controls, attack suppression, channel interruption, and overlapping-source cleanup
• creature and pet fear movement, with bounded panic runs, control cleanup, and Curse of Recklessness suppression
• Critter escape behavior, with damage and debuff reactions, timed panic movement, combat recovery, and death cleanup
• Creature combat defaults, with template immunity, invincibility, defense rules, stationary behavior, and script overrides
• Creature-group combat, with shared aggro, evade, respawn, death notifications, scripted membership, and group conditions
• Creature formations, with coordinated patrol movement, temporary leaders, inherited waypoint routes, and return-to-formation behavior
• Shared creature leashes, with combat origins, assistance clocks, hostile-contact extensions, and return-home cleanup
• Creature-owned summon clocks, with owner inheritance, idle-owner links, lethal-hit extensions, and independent lifecycle cleanup
• Creature-owned combat pets, with a single monitored pet slot, aggressive combat, dead-pet replacement, and cleanup alongside independent guardians
• Player fear and confusion, with forced movement, client control restoration, bounded wandering, teleport recovery, and death cleanup
• Spell knockback, with acknowledged launches, observer movement, cast interruption, possession routing, and landing cleanup
• Spell-driven player pulls, with ballistic trajectories, height compensation, cast interruption, acknowledged movement, and observer playback
• Spell-driven taxi flights, with validated routes, form cleanup, accurate landing points, protected passengers, and native flight and relog acceptance
• Taxi flight resumption, with stationary offline checkpoints, reconnect continuation, stale callback rejection, and pet restoration on landing
• Priest Fade: temporary threat reduction with target switching and restoration on expiry
• Rogue Distract: ground-targeted facing and timed patrol pauses, preserving stealth
• Hunter Beast Lore: caster-specific beast damage, armor, and resistance information, with expiry and death cleanup
• Detect Magic, with enemy buff revelation, live buff updates, and dispel, expiry, and death cleanup
• pets
• Hunter trap procs, with Entrapment, Frost Trap's periodic root checks, diminishing returns, talent reset, and trap activation restrictions
• Trap detection and disarming, with hostile trap visibility, Detect Traps, safe Disarm Trap completion, and static trap respawn
• Noncombat critter companions, with separate ownership, following, item toggles, replacement, creation passives, and lifecycle cleanup alongside combat pets
• Autonomous guardians, with multiple summons, Engineering scaling, combat and following, creature stat buffs, and monitored lifetime cleanup alongside combat pets
• Wild creature summons, with independent lifetimes, Target Dummy taunts and salvage, timed death and corpse cleanup, and usable Field Repair Bots
• Hunter pet happiness: feeding, timed decay, damage tiers, death penalties, and retained state across dismissal and reconnect
• Hunter pet experience: kill rewards, level growth, owner-level caps, and retained progress, learned abilities, and reaction stance
• Hunter pet loyalty: happiness-based bonding, training-point earnings, rank loss, and runaway cleanup, retained through dismissal and reconnect
• Hunter pet training: ability purchases, rank-upgrade credits, passive stat bonuses, family and level checks, and retained learned spells
• Hunter pet stables: two purchased slots, storage and swaps, persistent pet identity, and retained health and progression
• Hunter pet naming: one-time names, observer updates, retained identity across pet lifecycles, and abandonment cleanup
• typed invisibility and detection, with observer visibility, creature aggro, and action interruption
• observer-specific stealth detection, with Perception, Paranoia, Track Hidden, facing, line of sight, and caster-specific Hunter's Mark
• items, bags, equipment, and vendors
• Spell item transformation, with atomic same-slot replacement, retained enchants and wear, shared cooldowns, and full-inventory support
• Vendor buyback, with 12 session slots, partial-stack sales, preserved item state, charge and durability pricing, paused timers, and logout cleanup
• Limited vendor stock, shared between buyers at each merchant, with timed restocking, template inventories, sold-out feedback, and recoverable purchases
• Ammunition, with client selection, compatible projectile costs, Auto Shot depletion, and thrown-stack or durability consumption
• Wand attacks, with weapon-school damage, Wand Specialization, and shared auto-repeat timing and cancellation
• Creature and pet attack power, with damage scaling, buff and debuff cleanup, percentage modifiers, and ranged equipment bonuses
• Passive on-equip item spells, with crit, hit, dodge, mana regeneration, item procs, durability and reconnect lifecycles, and form restrictions
• Learned defensive capabilities, with Shaman Parry talent learning and reset, defense skill projection, weapon requirements, sheath restrictions, and reconnect validation
• equipment durability, combat and death wear, broken-gear penalties, and vendor repairs with reputation discounts
• Spell-driven durability, with exact-slot and carried-gear wear, percentage damage, negative-point repairs, execution logs, and restored equipment effects
• alcohol intoxication, client drunkenness effects, gradual sobering, and death cleanup
• looting + group loot
• Rogue Pick Pocket, with private loot, quest drops, and failed-attempt retaliation
• Skinning, with corpse loot prerequisites, profession skill checks and gains, and private leather loot
• Gathering and object locks, with Mining, Herbalism, shared key and skill requirements, repeated vein harvests, and per-spawn skill gains
• Spell focus requirements, with forges, anvils, cooking fires, alchemy labs, native errors, and revalidation before casting costs
• Spell-granted skill ranks, with profession starter recipes, preserved progress on rank upgrades, riding values, and abandonment cleanup
• Teaching spells and recipe books, with recipe learning, Expert profession books, atomic consumption, cancellation, and specialization requirements
• First Aid, with healing channels, recipient lockouts, interruption, rejected-use item preservation, and reconnect retention
• Consumable stacking, with separate food and drink recovery, combined meals, Well Fed replacement, and exclusive vanilla flasks
• Explicit spell stacking groups, with ordered scroll and elixir upgrades, preserved costs on rejection, named food exclusivity, and synchronized spell-damage fields
• Inventory containers and lockboxes, with retained private loot, Pick Lock, consumable keys, atomic claims, and full-bag recovery
• Trade-slot unlocking, with paid lockpicking, consumable keys, final requirement checks, and retry without closing the trade
• Wrapped gifts, with atomic paper consumption, creator labels, and retained item identity, charges, and enchants through trade and opening
• Timed items, with client countdowns, offline lifetime rules, conjured-item cleanup, and expiration across equipment, bags, and bank storage
• Disenchanting, with exact-item consumption, private material loot, Enchanting skill gains, and recovery when bags are full
• Permanent equipment enchants, with atomic material costs, profession skill gains, independent equipment bonuses, and weapon procs
• Charged weapon coatings, with finite poison charges, proc chance talents, atomic application, and depletion cleanup
• Creature-specific flat damage, including Beastslayer and Elemental Slayer enchants across weapon attacks, spells, and periodic damage
• quests
• Quest dependencies, with signed and alternative prerequisites, exclusive groups, chains, breadcrumbs, profession requirements, and live NPC marker refreshes
• Seasonal quests, with world-event eligibility, live questgiver markers, stale-dialog rejection, and retained progress across event changes
• Quest reward spells, with caster selection, hidden automatic quest rewards, and native Naxxramas attunement
• Quest sharing, with party confirmations, eligibility feedback, inherited timers, source-item lifecycle, and stale-offer cleanup
• Item-started quests, with owned starter validation, atomic item exchanges, retained objectives, full-bag rejection, and party confirmation
• Quest tool targets, with creature entry and life-state restrictions, rejected-use recovery, corpse capture, and separate caster rewards
• Game-object questgivers, with per-player activation, native quest chains, conditioned gossip, and scripted player casts
• xp, leveling, and exploration
• Rested experience and logout, with offline inn and wilderness gains, idle rest updates, native logout countdowns, and cancellation cleanup
• Dungeon and raid admission, with isolated copies, raid-group requirements, map player caps, account-wide hourly entry limits, and safe login recovery
• Instance group membership, with group copy adoption, removal countdowns, reinvite cancellation, home transfers, and safe regrouping
• Deadmines boss doors and gunpowder cannon breach, with Smite's alarms and pirate response
• dying + resurrecting
• Corpse recovery, with escalating repeat-death delays, reconnect countdowns, server-enforced reclaim checks, and battleground recovery rules
• Dungeon corpse return, with outdoor entrance markers, ghost portal restrictions, recovery into the original copy, and faction-aware graveyard selection
• Spell resurrection, with owned-corpse targeting, cross-map offers, instance admission, recovery after travel acknowledgement, and Rebirth countdown bypass
• Soulstones and Reincarnation, with reagent consumption, cooldowns, and talent modifiers
• Deferred spell cooldowns, with aura and owned-object events, retained item overrides, ritual cancellation, and reconnect restoration
• Cannibalize, with nearby corpse eligibility, triggered healing channels, damage interruption, and animation cleanup
• Spell interrupts, with channel cleanup, school lockouts, native cooldowns and combat logs, reconnect restoration, and creature mechanic immunity
• Creature elemental combat, with template school immunity, elemental melee, resistance and wards, Dampen Magic, and native damage-school feedback
• Buff and debuff capacity, with priority-based replacement, separate 32-buff and 16-debuff limits, hidden aura exemptions, and shared lifecycle cleanup
• fall damage, Safe Fall, and Slow Fall protection
• Environmental fire damage, with world campfires, resistance, shield depletion, combat-log feedback, and death durability loss
• underwater breath timers, drowning, water-breathing effects, and extended breath reserves
• ocean fatigue, coastal recovery, exhaustion damage, transport protection, and graveyard rescue for ghosts
• Lava exposure, with outdoor and WMO liquids, contact grace, fire resistance, shield depletion, and death cleanup
• Liquid spells, with Naxxramas slime, periodic nature damage, stat penalties, exit recovery, and reconnect restoration
• swimming speed bonuses and snare updates, synchronized with the player and nearby observers
• gossip + trainers
• Innkeeper home binding, with confirmation, retained home locations, Hearthstones, Astral Recall, and replacement Hearthstones
• chests, fishing, and chairs
• resource tracking for herbs, minerals, and treasure, with exclusive tracking modes
• mail
• Auction houses, with linked faction markets, neutral auctions, bids, buyout, cancellation, expiry, exact-item escrow, and recoverable mail settlement

helpful resources

• idewave - reference implementation
• mangos - reference implementation
• VMangos - world database
• mysql2sqlite - convert world database to sqlite
• shadowburn - auth crypto + reference implementation
• wow_dbc_converter - convert dbc to sqlite
• wow_messages - packet structure
• wowdev - documentation