User:Zite/Sandbox

History

WoW Emulation began in the alpha stage. A shady hacker known as Skull had been trying to get his hands on the alpha client for some time. He tried to form a team to hack into blizzard's servers and grab the client that way. There are multiple problems with this however as he soon discovered. It is rumored that eventually he made a contact inside of Blizzard and got the client from them. From there the client spread at an amazing rate on bittorrent and warez sites all over the world. A message was passed along between fans of blizzard games, mmorpgs, and warez.

Open-source proponents, crackers, and anarchists alike rejoice as an alpha version of World of Warcraft has allegedly been secured and is now supposedly making its way around warez circles. This news comes from Skull's Hack Site who says WarForge (infamous for their work in battle.net emulation for the War3 and TFT betas) is already working on server software for the WoW leak. Availability for those outside of cracking groups is limited at best and the situation has just now grown past rumor, but details and screenshots can be found here and here if you wish to judge for yourself.

Blizzard responded to the illegal distribution of their alpha client.

"As many of you know, we are currently conducting an internal Alpha test for World of Warcraft. Our goal for this Alpha test is to provide the best possible experience for players when the Beta launches in early 2004. In order to accelerate the testing process, we recently allowed a small group of external testers to play the game. During this process, a collection of files was leaked to the Internet. While these files contain alpha content from the game, they are not fully playable and therefore do not convey the experience that World of Warcraft will provide when it is released. We are currently investigating this matter and will take serious action against those involved. As always, we appreciate the interest and enthusiasm that players around the world have for World of Warcraft, and we look forward to delivering a massively multiplayer game unlike any you have ever experienced. Until then, we ask that you refrain from sharing any content that doesn't come directly from Blizzard Entertainment."

While the client was being widely distributed the problem was that you needed an account to play on Blizzard's servers. And if you have an account then you could have gotten the client legally anyways. There was this overwhelming number of people with a World of Warcraft client and no server to play on. Being that it originated on cracker and hacker networks these groups quickly set to work to remedy the issue.

Likely many hackers began reverse engineering the client attempting to uncover it's networking protocol but there was only one who made his efforts public and succeeded. Known to some as the father of wow emulation Lax had no idea about what the server looked like. He had no idea about the packets. Lax created a server by the name of Abyss, opened it to the public, and distributed his source (C++) to dedicated developers to continue emulation. These developers coming from all around the globe, went by the names of Generin, _Psycho, TheUndying, TheDamned, Alita, and Cain. These developers banded together to great the most popular emulator to date - Stormcraft. It was expanded and eventually rewritten, but it was Lax that started it.
(Note: Generin actually created GEX [which was named for it's 3 developer's - Generin being one of them] and then when Munky did a press release against the GEX team's wishes, GEX development ceased, and Abyss was created solely by Generin. It was the first publicly available WoW server. Anyone who played on Abyss will remember Vicky (Generin's alter ego for that server). During the Abyss development, Generin contacted Lax and began working with Stormcraft, and eventually joined their team. Sorry for the edit, I just wanted to set the record straight.) As the real beginning of StormCraft, ColdIce recruited TheDamned, a futur computer engineer, on a IRC server and a few other coders and created a small team. After a few days, ColdIce and TheDamned made contact with Undying,Alita,Cain, Psycho and Undying and created officially Team StormCraft (who had previous names). Generin & Lax joined StormCraft right after and that's when all the magic started to happen.

Once upon a time there was Lax - The father of WoW emulation
he said let there be code
and then it was created
the World of Warcraft emulation scene
2 years have passed since the mortal races banded together to emulate World of Warcraft
But the alliances have been broken and the drums of flaming thunders sounded once again

sticker: "Welcome to GotWoW.Net everyone, the new home of Skull's Hack Site and Team Stormcraft. Forums will be getting a new template within the next few days, and with the new template for the forums, the frontpage will be also."

This is thought of by many to be the golden days of wow emulation. Hackers, network engineers, software designers, database creators and even newbies banded together to help each other create a server to play the game they had been waiting for. To play the new Blizzard game set in the warcraft universe and to some to get experience creating such a large project. The spell database was extracted from the alpha client by a member of the stormcraft team known as Wolk. This was distributed to all interested developers. Two weeks later however it was taken down due to legal letters sent to the owner of the gotwow? website. Stormcraft also opened a public server about the same time. At this point however authentication had not been completely reverse engineered so a login program was distributed with it. Basically the login program would connect to the stormcraft server designated by the user and send a user/pass. Then you would launch the real WoW client and it would connect to the server and the credentials sent by the client would be ignored (since they were encrypted with an unknown algorythm).

The gotwow? website quickly rose to fame and would be the gathering site of all people interested in emulation until it would eventually be shut down by Blizzard. Quite a few subdomains arose out of this Gathering of Developers and with it's growing size attracted the eyes of Blizzard.

Stormcraft went through some hard times throughout their development. Being announced as "Dead" multiple times people were usually a little uneasy about their stability as a team but they always had the most features and a public, stable server. It was known that only ColdIce and TheDamned (2 of the original members) were left in StormCraft for quite a while. The main coders eventually came back and Generin helped everyone to get back together. Among these were himself, Codemonkey, AlexM and Fr3DBr. This triggered what many regard as the peak of wow emulation with Stormcraft having three public servers open: Zite, Barbarr, and Plutonium. Each would hold between 200 and 600 players depending on the size of the pipe hooked up to the server. The limit of the code was never really tested as the bandwidth would start to cap at 600 or so players. Around this time the gotwow? website reached a point of 40k members.

Wolk got a chance to test one of the private team's emulation servers. The team was known for having quite a few features but not having any servers open to the public so they were accused of being vaporware on multiple occasions. They were known as Team Python. Being a member of Stormcraft he may have had some bias going in, after testing their server for a while he made a post about how TP was greatly exaggerating their features, and that many did not work how you would expect them to based on screenshots Team Python had provided. It is important to note that blame for TPs exaggerated features and quality are generally put on one of their programmers known as munky. He is attributed by many to causing much of the tension between Team Python and the other emulation teams.

One of the members of Team Python was negotiating a merge with the Stormcraft team which was eventually ended when Team Python stopped development and released their source to the community under the GPL.

It was around this time when the World of Warcraft emulation scene came to an abrupt halt. In late July 2004 Blizzard sent a private investigator to the house of Sticker (the owner of gotwow?) and later some lawyers. It turned out that sticker was well under the legal age to own a website at the time and quickly turned over the domain to Blizzard to avoid legal ramifications. This was followed by Blizzard visiting countless other devlopers inside and outside of the US convincing nearly all to turn over their source. To this day www.gotwow.net is defamed by this message from Blizzard.

Then the downfall suddenly came. Gotwow was closed down and box taken over by Blizzard. Stormcraft, WoWcraft, Vibe was closed down by Blizzard and all source was turned over.

Sometimes between 16 July 2004 and 26 October, the dream has ended. Blizzard’s lawyers went to sticker's (the owner of gotwow?) house and scared him to death and since he was 14, he turned over his box to Blizzard. Sad message remains posted till these days.

Statement from Blizzard Entertainment to the GotWoW? Community:
"As many of you already know, Blizzard has taken steps recently to stop the development of unauthorized emulator servers for the World of Warcraft™ beta.

While we appreciate the devotion and enthusiasm the GotWoW? community has shown for World of Warcraft, the development of emulator servers directly contributes to the illegal copying of the beta game client and creates the opportunity for people to continue to play on unauthorized servers after the completion of the World of Warcraft beta test.

Some individuals may have helped develop emulator servers under the belief that Blizzard was not opposed to the existence of illegal copies of the World of Warcraft beta game client. However, this belief was incorrect. Blizzard places a high value on its intellectual property and does not condone illegal copies of the beta game client or software that facilitates or encourages the use of illegal copies of the beta game client.

Leaders from various emulator-server development teams, including StormCraft, Vibe, and Khaos, have turned over their code and stopped development of emulator servers. We are asking that those of you who are continuing to operate unauthorized emulator servers for the World of Warcraft beta take this opportunity to voluntarily stop these efforts and turn over your code to Blizzard as well. For a short period of time, Blizzard will grant amnesty to those who comply with this request. Please contact us at wowsc@blizzard.com for more information.

Thank you for your understanding and for helping us to ensure the integrity of the betatesting process. We look forward to seeing you in game when World of Warcraft is released!"

After gotwow? things died for a while. All the developers were scared an disorganized. World of Warcraft was released. All the teams that were previously developing were disbanded and most had signed contracts saying they would never dev for wow again. The community chose blizzhackers as their new home. Blizzhackers was an established site that had been up for some time hacking all previous blizzard games.

Various groups had taken up the source that Team Python had released and started building off it, updating it to work with the latest betas. One of these groups went by the name of WSD. They built off TPs opensource code and to respect TP they put the same GPL license on their additions as well.

In the down time between gotwow? and blizzhackers there were still private teams going, but they were extremely private, not even releasing information about their existance to the community. It was then that authentication was cracked. By who is unknown. A programmer by the name of Kolie claims to have broken it but it is debated as to if he actually broke it or just got a dll from another team, decompiled it, and released that information. In any case authentication was broken and it was implemented into WSD and other TP expantion teams.

Another team that surfaced during this time was known as WAD or wowemu. This was the only WoW emulator that the author charged for it's use. On top of charging people for binaries to a server that emulated a retail product. Many people hated the author for this and leaked working versions of his server to the community. The author built in copy protection to the server and that was cracked. There was a battle between the author releasing new copy protection schemes and the community breaking his protection until eventually he gave up.

After the community had moved to blizzhackers and before Team Python expantion teams had included proper authentication a project to emulate the World Of Warcraft client started up. zClient was a text based client that would work with the existing emulated servers as well as the retail Blizzard servers. Zite was the only dev of this project but admits to getting working authentication as well as other help from Foole. This project made quick project and the author released screenshots showing the progression of his client. Unfortunatly after this server had made so much progress it captured the attention of Blizzard and was promptly shut down due to the author being involved in zClient, a sister proxy program named zProxy, as well as various other server emulators.

Another server emulator of note is WoWWoW, an opensource C# emulator that has made very fast progression due to many helpful scripters as well as the diligence of the project's founder - Dr. Nexus. The status of this project is currently unknown.

WoW server emulation is still alive today though it has been cast underground. Developers are more careful about who they talk to about their projects and there are no public teams working on new servers. There are however quite a few public WAD servers running in countries that do not have the same issues with legality as the US servers do.

Teams

Rift (Visual Basic) (http://rift.gotwow.net)
AlexM
One man team AlexM loved Visual Basic and wanted to prove that you can have a fast and stable server coded in it. He managed to get chat working and entering the world and spawning creatures. But people who entered couldn’t see each other.

Future WoW (Delphi) (http://fwow.gotwow.net)
Stanz, Larael
Originally started by Stanz and coded in Delphi. He had quite number of features working. He made a tower of tables making look like the WTC. Then Larael came up and rewrote the whole core making it more stable and even adding more features. Stanz's goal was not to update with client but to get a more functional WOW. It was all the way private and sources weren’t released, that’s why so few things are known about it. In the beginning of 2006 new wave of interest came up to this emulator. Something is on the move, but no one can tell what it really is.

Team Python (C++) (http://www.teampython.com)
Addictman, Battyone, DeathCheese, Deten, don, FreXX, Hedos, Jedite, jimmy, MrSupreme, Munky, page_420, RandomGuy, tmm`, WantedMan, angelic666, c0mputar
They coded it from scratch and had a lot of fun features. They were still in private testing for now, although they allowed their stress test team to play later on even later, they released sources and became open-source. Features included: Vendors, Mounts, Items, Combat, Time Changes, Gryphon Flying, Very Few Spells (2 to be exact :p) and many more GM commands. It was continued many times after (WSD, WOWD) as it was one of few open-source emulators out there.

Team Supreme (C++)
|3io-Hazard, Erufu, MrSupreme, reef_keeper, ShadowHunter, Thorshammer
Developed and led mainly by MrSupreme using some borrowed code from Team Python. Features included: Items, Combat, Mounts, Vendors, Minor Gryphon Flying, Clickable Objects (chairs), Trade, FvF PVP, Duels and Private Channels. Due to drama caused by having no stable host, being accused of harboring bigParax(hacker who took down Stormcraft server) and the downfall of gotwow? Team Supreme disbanded.

Team 0x90 (C#)
Daxxar, Foole, Scar
The 0x90 Prototype server is developed solely by Foole. It started out as a testing ground for the main server, but now is the only working server. The main server, coded in C++, has falling behind in updates and is no longer used. Some instances of Foole's prototype server are Hybby's server (Canada), Rewot's server (Bulgaria) and Scar Server. Features were chat, parties, mobs, and combat. There is a bug preventing items from being sold. Foole also had a forum and posted a bunch of packet analysis of beta 1.

Warforge (C++)
Daxxar, Pasn, Trivex, Xetrov`, Archang3l, Warren, [pez]
There is not much info, since they were private, remained private all the time, and died private handing sources to Blizzard.

Khaos (C#) (http://www.realmsofkhaos.net)
DMod,, forbidden, DesIrae - the first multi-core server(written from scratch)
Features included: multi-core server (login, realmlist,world servers-kalimdor and azeroth enter world, movement, creatures, custome item databases, flight paths, death world, quests).
DesIrae would work on the code almost 24/7 so the features (very very stable ones) would skyrocket in no time(in part because of them having 3 beta accounts for packet logging.)

EWoW (HOAX)
(scammer): Astrobilis
It was instant 100% copy of Blizzard’s server. He did stress tests with imaginary or inactive people from forums monthly and people fell for that. Great numbers of people believed him. Then at one point he said if others want him to continue he will need some closed beta accounts. (NOTE: What do you need closed beta accounts for 100% complete Blizz-like server???). People fell for it again. GotWoW community warned everyone and did not support that team but in the end, everyone who gave their closed beta accounts, got stabbed in the face as website got shutdown and great scammer was gone for good with a bunch of beta accounts.

EX3 (C++)
Fr3DBr, Nicoli_s, Republicola, A9Master, Eggy
Fr3DBr talked to Generin to obtain the source code of his project and continue developing it. After some time Nicoli_s decided to give the project a public name "Abyss-X" since we were based in Abyss-X code. But as time elapsed they had to get new Dev's to help with the project. The new Dev's helped to recode the core to get a stable server. They then left the group and Abyss-X was abandoned. The project was revamped by Fr3DBr and the name changed to EX3. EX3 is the continuation of all the previous Abyss-X servers. The features included Mobs, Leveling, Groups, Vendors, PvP, first event system and much more!

Vibe (C++)
McKay34, Spr4ttel
Vibe server was a server in heavy development, with many features. It was known for being very stable. It is currently the only WoW server that interfaces with IRC but im pretty sure Fr3DBr shared some info for that.

OWS (C++)
OloKKM
One man team OloKKM he took his time added feature when he felt like it but he had so many feauteres working and there was a really nice video showing the features.

Soul Asylum (C#)
Benjou
This server was packed with unique features it was really popular but Benjou stopped development. However Soul Asylum continued to host the server privately until something better came out.

WoWDaemon (C#)
Codemonkey, Foole, Tharaxis and Benjou
WoWDaemon - the was the first open-source project server started by Codemonkey. Its developers were the most talented on the WoW scene. WoWDaemon had great potential as a fully scriptable server. Codemonkey was an individualist and he wanted to do thing his way.
Same thing with coding WoWDaemon really fast and the team members were pissed since he wasn’t dividing work with the team. So basically, Codemonkey was working on his own. His team has broken and Codemonkey later decided to leave project. When Codemonkey left WoWDaemon, he released the source code of his older version (he did it even if it didn’t make sense). People in the forum were making their own script addons and stuff like that so they decided to become a team and continue works on WoWDaemon and they named the team WoWCraft.

zClient (C#)
zite
With help from Foole on auth and the A9 packet zite created the first and only alternative wow client. It was text based and worked in retail around 1.3 or so. You could create a character, delete characters, log in, move around in the world, interact with vendors, cast spells, open chests, instance, party, chat, attacking, tracking other players, and various other things. It had the ability to be easily scripted to automate tasks and could be used as a bot. It progressed quickly and was squashed by blizzard just as fast.

WOW(D, Daemon, Craft, Quest)
WOWCraft is based on WOWDaemon. First the team WOWDaemon was made consisted Codemonkey and Foole and some others. Since Codemonkey was coding everything himself and wasnt reporting to the team, there was a conflict in the team so it has been halted. Codemonkey went back to code for Stormcraft and released WOWDaemon C# source code so others can pick up from there. AnGrA and a group of people began to make modifications to the source they got from Codemonkey so they decided to become a new team and called themselves WOWCraft and they only released binaries for Phase3 Beta (with a little help from Codemonkey) as they wanted to keep it closed before reach certain level of functionality. Stormcraft got closed down (Generin signed over the Stormcraft source) and Codemonkey disappeared, and said he wants to work on new Stormcraft source in private (but as he hasn’t shown up again, new Stormcraft is probably doomed). WOWCraft was afraid of Blizz so they decided to halt the project and give source to Blizz (I’m not sure about this as somebody says they did it and somebody said they don’t). They wanted to join another team, but could not decide what source to use…

Stormcraft
Lax, Generin, TheDamned, Psycho, TheUndying, Codemonkey, Coldice, Fr3DBr

Team Python
Addictman, Battyone, DeathCheese, Deten, don, FreXX, Hedos, Jedite, jimmy, Munky, page_420, RandomGuy, tmm`, WantedMan, angelic666, c0mputar

Team Supreme
|3io-Hazard, Erufu, MrSupreme, reef_keeper, ShadowHunter, Thorshammer

WSD
M4rku5, RaSCaO, SiTWulf, balko, Sikon

Abyss
Generin, Fr3DBr

WOWDaemon // WOWCraft // WOWQuest
Yellow, Codemonkey, AnGrA, Phaze, Afinda, LegoPirate

WOWemu
wad and scripting team: Slayer, dadesign, kirp, munche, gvr, MadMaxan, Des, Shaman, Zanuff, RomanRom2

WOWD
Ignatich, sYkez, Munky, Rguy, Mooseman, Daxxar, Foole, hiperzone, WantedMan

WowwoW
Dr.Nexus, and many scripters…

OpenWOW
MarkusWin32, Power2All, Havner, poelzi, zap, AlexM, Joker

See also

• World of Warcraft
• Blizzard