Information for Beginners

[Pedregon]

If your starting out in the world of emulation you should understand the following to better understand how everything works, etc. This is just the basics for starting out in world of warcraft emulation without the uneeded extra information. Sorry if this is a 'repost'.

Contents

1. WoW Emulation History
2. Understand the Emulator and which to use
3. Understanding the Database
4. Extra: Links

WoW Emulation History

Refer to this link regarding WoW Emulation History - 01 - Ancient History - GotWOW?

Understand the Emulator and which to use

There are Five Main Emulators right now for World of Warcraft;

MaNGos - one of the most stable and fully working emulator at the moment,
with working vehicles, major spell support, and other features that many other emulators do not have

TrinityCore - the most stable and fully working emulator; based off of MaNGOs, with working vehicles, major spell support, and other features that many other emulators do not have

ArcEmu - an WoWD emulator based off of OpenAscent; very flexible and costomisable. Supports LUA scripting with "LuaHYPArc" Pre Added to the SVN.

Sandshroud - an emulator based off of AspireCore aka Hearthstone, which is based off of Summit; another WoWD based emulator with alot of bug fixes, vehicles, latest patch support,etc.

I recommend either using TrinityCore if you want a 100% blizzlike realm, or Sandshroud/ArcEmu/; if you want a fully customisable realm without any limits regarding what you can or cannot add to your server if your an C++ illiterate.

Understanding the Database

The database is absolutely required for the emulator to spawn the entire world with game objects, npc's and other things that the game needs to simulate or emulate the world of warcraft. it is also needed or accounts as well as character creation to log into the game, etc. It is also very customisable as in; you can create custom creatures, vendors, spawns, game objects, etc.

There are a few databases out there that I actually recommend.

UDB: Mangos Database
PSMDB: Project Silvermoon Database; Mangos Database
SADB: Sandshroud Aspire Database
TDB: TrinityCore Database
IFDB: ArcEmu Database

Extra: Links

Links for each project listed above as well as guides and tutorials on how to add each specific emulator and more information regarding World of Warcraft Emulation;

ArcEmu Project Website - ArcEmu - World of Warcraft Emulator - Open Source Private Server - 3.2.2a
IFDB Project Website - IFDB
TDB Project Website - Trinity Database
MaNGos Project Website - getmangos.com > Home
Sandshroud Project Website - Sandshroud • Index page
TrinityCore Project Website - Trinity Core MMo Server Framework - Powered by vBulletin
UDB Project Website - http://udbforums.kicks-ass.net/index.php

Tutorials/Guides:

HowToCompile MaNGos+Database+Scriptdev2
http://www.mmowned.com/forums/world-...v2-images.html

HowToCompile TrinityCore+Database
http://www.mmowned.com/forums/world-...ase-super.html

HowToCompile ArcEmu/Sandshroud+Database
http://www.mmowned.com/forums/world-...r-scratch.html

SVN/GIT References
http://www.mmowned.com/forums/world-...nce-lists.html

Credits

All credits go to the respected owners of the links listed above as well as all information listed in this thread.

and of course the prophecy.

Spacey’s prophecy

…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 once again…

[grandmst20]

Eh, YTDB and UDB are the 2 best databases, hands down. YTDB is the most up-to-date. Both for Mangos. Also, Trinity is more stable than Mangos and has extra patches.

[Pedregon]

Added UDB, Thanks

[Newez]

Nice informations for the beginners!
As a database dev in the starting stages I can just recommand everyone who starts learning how to develope a database to work with Trinity and YTDB. It's a great database and easy to work with. (though I gotta admit I'm stuck refering spells in spell_proc_event to each other, but that's me. )

Anyways like I said, very nice thread for beginners!

[Haith]

Thanks for linking that history page. As a long time WoW emulator junkie, there was some great nostalgia in that read

Very nice information for newcomers as well. Nicely done!

[TrueSpacey]

Haha good old times; now that was a long long time ago since I told of that prophecy. Glad to see the emulation scene is still alive and kickin' !

Regards,
Spacey

[Pedregon]

Thanks everyone. And Yeap Spacey! :]

- Updated