Welcome to Whoa, an unofficial open source implementation of the World of Warcraft 3.3.5a (build 12340) game client in C++11.
Currently, Windows 10+ and macOS 10.14+ are supported, including recent versions of macOS on M1 and M2 processors. Support for Linux is in progress.
To build, ensure you have installed a recent version of CMake and an appropriate C++ build environment, and run the following from the whoa directory:
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make install
Assuming all went well, you should see a dist/bin directory appear in the build directory. The dist/bin directory will contain a Whoa executable.
Whoa doesn't currently support reading from MPQ archives. Instead, it assumes you are launching the Whoa executable from the root of a fully extracted MPQ archive set for World of Warcraft 3.3.5a (build 12340). You can obtain a valid set of MPQ archives to extract by installing World of Warcraft 3.3.5a from legally purchased original install media. Whoa does not provide any copy of game data.
Assuming all goes well, you should be greeted by the login screen, complete with its flying dragon animation loop and background music. The options panels can be interacted with, although some options currently do nothing. Game credits can be viewed. You may log in to a server and interact with the character select screen.
Whoa is very much a work-in-progress: in its current state, it doesn't support entering the game world, doesn't permit character creation or deletion, and doesn't persist game settings to disk. These things will be supported over time.
Please follow the guidelines contained in CONTRIBUTING.md when making contributions.
Why?
It's fascinating to explore the development practices used to build a modern major video game.
Why 3.3.5a?
The game and its libraries have become significantly more complex in the intervening 10+ years. By picking 3.3.5a, it's possible to imagine this implementation will eventually be complete.
Can I use this in my own development projects?
It's probably a bad idea. The original game is closed source, and this project is in no way official.
This project is released into the public domain.
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King ©2008 Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved. Wrath of the Lich King is a trademark, and World of Warcraft, Warcraft and Blizzard Entertainment are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.