WoW Emulation is an open-source community building the tools, servers, and research to run World of Warcraft Classic on your own hardware — fully local, with no dependency on Battle.net. We cover every Classic generation: Classic Era (1.13.x, 1.14.x, 1.15.x), TBC Classic (2.5.x), Wrath Classic (3.4.x), Cataclysm Classic (4.4.x), and Mists of Pandaria Classic (5.5.x).
Join us! Drop into our Discord or community discussions to meet fellow enthusiasts, ask questions, and contribute to the future of WoW Classic preservation.
- Content delivery — cascette-rs implements Blizzard's NGDP distribution pipeline and CASC archive format for Classic clients; cascette-py is the Python companion for format analysis and prototyping. warcraft-rs parses and creates the game file formats (MPQ, DBC, BLP, M2, WMO, ADT, WDT, WDL).
- Client modification — wow-patcher patches WoW executables to connect to a server you control: login redirection, RSA modulus replacement, and custom certificate bundle injection.
- Servers — wooly-beast runs the game world (TrinityCore fork for Wrath 3.3.5); tavern provides the Battle.net account and authentication services the clients log in against.
- Research and tooling — binanana maintains symbol databases and
Ghidra analysis scripts for Classic client binaries;
protobuf-decompiler reconstructs
.protofiles from protobuf reflection metadata; rilua is a from-scratch Lua 5.1.1 interpreter for addon support; recast-rs provides navigation mesh generation and pathfinding.
| Project | Description |
|---|---|
| cascette-rs | NGDP/CASC content delivery for Classic clients |
| warcraft-rs | File format parsers (MPQ, DBC, BLP, M2, WMO, ADT) |
| tavern | Battle.net account and authentication services |
| wooly-beast | Game server (TrinityCore fork, Wrath 3.3.5) |
| wow-patcher | Client patching tools |
| binanana | Symbol database and Ghidra analysis for Classic |
| rilua | Lua 5.1.1 interpreter in pure Rust |
| recast-rs | Navigation mesh generation and pathfinding |
We're all learning together — mistakes are how we grow.
- Join our Discord and say hello
- Introduce yourself in our community discussions
- Check out our Contributing Guide
- Look for issues labeled "good first issue" in our projects
- Ask questions — we love helping newcomers
New to open source? We've all been there. Need help with Git? Want a mentor? Ask in discussions.
- Community Discussions - Your questions make our community better!
- Discord - Join our server! Many members are creators of WoW modding tools.
- Mastodon - Follow us @wowemulation@wowemulation.dev
- Email us - For anything you'd rather discuss privately
- @danielsreichenbach - Our friendly primary caretaker
