Just curious how the coding works

[RNGIdentity 0]

Hey, so  i don't know much about coding and curious how this works. Do they somehow retain anything from the blizzard client and use that? Or do they have to literary duplicate it from scratch and just go based off memory and information that is out there? 

[behemothdog 4]

Look at the client, it still has Blizzard's TOS and when you get banned it tells you to go to the Blizzard site, the reporting function mentions them too. 

As for the server portion...Likely a case of both options. 

[Revo 34]

the client is pretty much the original one blizzard offered, but the servers code is like 90% selfmade afaik. either by programmers from the mangos project, or the servers project itself. quests, NPCs behaviour, everything that moves or interacts has to be re-scripted manually. therefor the devs search for (half-way) reliable sources, such as old wikis, old videos, etc and try to recreate that

[Stylophone 1]

[khalismur 6]

You can run the client provided by blizzard in an environment where you can monitor it's outputs and inputs. Good thread monitoring tells you how the client works. Then it is possible to write a software that handles those inputs and outputs.

[Rezlind 1]

Most of the code for emulation is generated via packet capturing and listening to see what data gets sent/received to/from the server. This means that the private servers essentially emulate what the client (The .exe you run to play WoW) is suppose to receive. The client sends off a request "Pick up item" and the server gets that request and sends off the appropriate response. That response was obtained by listening on the official servers (plus probably looking at the code for the client) and figuring out what the client is expecting to receive as a response for any given action.

 

It's a lot more complicated than I am making it sound - that is the gist of it.

[Chef 7]

More information for people who are interested.

[Pottu 290]

Code goes in, code goes out, you can't explain that.

[Rezlind 1]

[Stylophone 1]

Coding works in many ways but basically it's totally depends on how do you want it works. Sounds attractive isn't it eh?