WoW Taxi-planes and theroies on how they work. Messing with the Zepplin and boats

[SomeWhiteGuy]

lol, theres allot of text here, so here's a small summery:

• When you walk on a boat your character is bound to what I call a "boat-plane"
• As long as you are bound to this boat-plane you will teleport into the other continent.
• You do NOT need to actually be on the boat in order to be bound to the boat-plane. Though normally you are immediately unbound from it when you leave the boat.
• Changing the boat model to something else seems to messup the unbinding event, and you will remain bound to the boat-plan even after jumping off whatever you replaced the boat with.
• If you are on the boat-plane and you take a griffin ride, the taxi path the griffen moves it totally ****ed up (lol and pretty funny to watch).
• ((not verified)) It may be easier to speed-hack when bound to this plane
• When bound to this plane you can go through walls and will not collide with anything, but can still swim in water (only applies to when the boat is moving).

Well the things Im gonna talk about now are going to be really cool and amazing but are based on my theories on how WoW works when teleporting a player from one world into another, and about plane-bindings. And so there will be quite a bit to read here, so if you’re the kinda person who dost want to read much and just wants to see a cool vid, then HERE!
http://www.guybooru.net/wow/GriffinDrunk1.avi
That's me makin the griffen really really drunk and flying in to walls and dumb shit like that (this is done on WoW Live 2.1.2 – if you continue reading you will be able to do this same thing)



Anyways, lets start my story on how I found about “plane-bindings” (a word I made up because I dunno how else to describe it). I was just messing around one day and noticed that the transport ships like the zeppelin and alliance boats are all WMO files. If where your have WMOs, you can have WMO swapping. A few months ago I swapped out the Night Elf Tents in the WSG and replaced them with Menthil Docks, and placed them underground (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIj1qCU438g ). Well now I started to wonder…..

What would happened if I replaced the boats with the Mentril Docks? Would WoW crash? If no…. would it actually display docks intead of the boats? I though this would be hilarious, I mean, these docks are ****ing HUGE! Like, 20 to 30 times large in size than the boats…. What would happen I wonder?

Well, using MyWoWStudio, I swapped out the /World/wmo/transports/transport_ship/ WMOs, and replaced them with the docks (forgot the tee path where they were sorry).



Then I went into WoW, and with my amazement. The huge ass freaking docks were MOVING! Just as if they were the boats!

Video 1 – Watching the docks move like a boat

Well laughing at this I wondered. Can I ride this?

WARNING: Do NOT try the following on your main. I almost lost mine because I did this, not because the GMs see you hacking but because you can cause a server error which will get you disconnected upon logon (every time). Like an idiot I tried messing around on my main and had to get a GM to help me (move my char to hearth location).

So I jumped on, and sure enough I started riding it!

Video 2 – Riding the dock-boats

Now here come here fun part I learned about, and where I will talk about planes and how your character is bound to them. I theorize that every time your character jumps on a boat or the zeplin, you are bound to that plane until you jump off. This is oblivious to us as we seem to go on and off without even noticing. BUT! When you ****zor up the original boat object, for whatever reason the thing dosnt know when you are unbound from the boat plane.

So what happen when you jump off? Well seeing as the “dock”-boat is not smar enough to unbind you from the “boat-plane”,,,, you…. Are still on it. O.O

So what happens when the boat starts moving?..... Well, you move with it! Lol.

In this next video you will see me standing on the boat, zone into the other side of the world, and jump off. Only…. When Im off, I am still bound to the plane, so I will move when the boat starts moving again.

Video 3 – Riding the dock-boats and getting bound to boat-plane

Wow, just wow. I am actually very curious now on what triggers WoW to bind and unbind you. I mean think about it. When on a NORMAL boat, you can still jump off and land in the water. And we know you are unbound because you will not move with the boat, nor will you zone into the other continent if you are off the boat. So how does WoW know? Why does swapping the boat with another object break the unbinding? Why are you bound in the first place for that matter? Unbinding is broken but binding isn’t? What causes that?

After more messing around I noticed that certain attributes are applied to your character when on the boat-plane. For example, you can collide with objects and walk on land when the boat is stationary, but when the boat starts moving, you will not collide with anything, and also fall through land. Here is an example of this:

Video 4 – Falling through the land

I have done more test, but don’t have video of them all. I know what you will not collide with objects when the boat is moving because I went to talk to the griffin master but didn’t make it in time. I was on land through, and suddenly I fell through it. I have also seem my character go through other boats and mic objects when the boat was moving.

As for my warning above; I noticed if you fall through the ground and die, and do not rez, and then zone into the next continent, you will be disconnected. This happened to my main. I tried getting back on line 20 freaking times - got disconnected upon load every time. I was NOT banned because I had an alt on the same server that I could get on successfully. I had to get a GM to move my character back to hearth to fix it.
As for why this error happens - I think it's because you get auto-rez on boats. In case you haven't noticed (In WoW 2.1.2), if you die on a boat, and the boat zones into the next continent, you character is suddently alive. BUT! what happens when your character is below the lower limis of the 3D world (where you die from falling into). How can your character rez in that very spot? Well. You cant. It causes a server error and you just get DC'ed


Anyways, I was still left with the question; how does WoW know when to bind and unbind your character from the boat-plane? Thinking that perhaps there were flags associated with the polygons the boats were made of, I swapped the boats with another well known taxi - the Zepplin. Unfortunately, each vertex of the zeppelin is placed too low in comparison with the boats and I got this as a result initially:



So I had to open the Zepplin WMO in WoWMapEditor and shifted each vertex up a bit. Initially it shifted the wrong way (it’s a technical thing, the Y-vertices (which are really the Z verticies (don’t ask me why) is apparently stored in negative (again, don’t ask me why)). So I actually wound up shifting it down. Seeing this I tried it anyways to see if it would take me around and if I would get “stuck” on the boat plane.

Video 5 – Riding the Zepplin (with Z axis shifted down)

It SEEMs to work fine but I noticed something again. When I jumped did you see what happened? Towards the beginning I jumped twice while the zeppelin-boat was in motion and both times I did NOT move WITH the zeppelin while in mid air. Why is this? Well here is the interesting thing. I don’t think I was bound to the boat-plane when I jumped on it. You will notice that when I jump off I no longer move with it. I theorize that I didn’t continue moving with it like in the other videos because rather than getting stuck on the boat-plane, I was never on it. Hence why when I jump I don’t move with it (with normal boats and the normal real zeppelin you move with the zeppelin when jumping.). But now I have another question, what about anti-speed-hacking? Doesn’t the server watch your character’s speed? If I was NOT on the boat-plane,,, then I am established with the normal world right? And what about my X,Y location? It’s moving the speed of a boat! That’s pretty fast dude,,, why didn’t I get disconnected?
Seeing this makes me wonder if literally ALL anti-speed hacking is done client side.

Anyways, I fixed WoWMapEditor so when I tell it to move the Z axis up it really does it, and fixed the zeppelin into place. I think I increases the Z axis of each vertex by 20 or 25 and got this as a result (lol, ignore how the front-nose is all down like that, looks like I didn’t select all the vertices after all, hehe):



Now I finally try riding the Zeppelin from one continent to another. Surpisingly it worked…. Kinda.

Video – Riding on the Zepplin in place of a boat (with corrected Z axis)

Well there are a few things messed up there. I think it messing up on rendering because I also replaced some flags of some of the polygons. Originally I fell right through the zeppelin flooring (I think I had to replace flag 32 with 96 – This can be done in WoWMapEdit). I dunno I think I ****zored up other things in the process.

But anyways, the point here is that I did NOT get stuck on the boat plane. Was I on the boat plane to begin with then? I didn’t try jumping at all in that video (forgot, sory), but I’m pretty sure I was – I think so because of the fact I zone into the other continent. I did another test by moving my characters XY axis where the boat disappears in the ocean and zones into the other continent, and waited there. When the boat came, it stopped right over me, and then disappeared – I did NOT zone with it. Seeing this makes me think that I really was on the “boat-plane” in the previous test because I seems one must be on it in order to zone into the other continent – It’s not a simple matter of teleporting all characters in a given area because the boat disappear right over me in this test and I didn’t go with it.


Getting the griffin to go ****ing crazy, lol
Anyways, randomly, when I was still bound to the boat plane, I tried riding a griffin somewhere to see what would happen.
I couldn't possably STILL be bound to the boat-plan could I? On a griffin?
Well, lol, yes, you are. So when the boat starts moving, the griffin's flight path, and the boat's taxi path are merged somehow. It's quite obvious that one dosnt not override another, lol, I mean seriously, just look at the videos!

Riding griffin while bound to boat plane - Video 1
Riding griffin while bound to boat plane - Video 2



Anyways, I am going to continue testing shit out, and thought I would share my finding with everyone so we can figure out how exactly the zeppelin and boat taxies work.


Questions I’m still left with:

• Why wasn’t I caught for speed hacking in Video 4? Is all anti-speed hacking really done client side?
• What triggers the event of breaking the binding to the “boat-plane”?
• Why can you get bound to the boat-plane when you replace the boat with the Mentheral Docks, but cannot unbind from it?
• If bindings get ****zored up when replacing the boat object with another, then why does it work with the Zepllin? What is it about the Zepllin that makes the object so special when it’s just a regular WMO file like all the others (i.e. buildings, some tents)?

[nosfiarmus]

Great job, finding out about all this.

and i hope you will get you answers.

[Demonkunga]

Nice post here SomeWhiteGuy I also hope you can get your answers. Your helping a lot of people by doing this kind of research. Keep at it

[Flying Piggy]

Great post , go go super drunk gryffin +rep

[Newbs_r_us]

Very nice work. That actually made me use my brain a bit for the first time since school's been out (d'oh).

[Catch-22]

Ah I've messed around with boats and zeppelins before too. There's not only a "boat-plane", in fact all game coordinates whilst on the boat remain relative to the boats position. This explains most of the strange goings on with things like the griffin and being able to move through other objects. One of the reasons that you can tell a "boat plane" exists is because if you log off whilst in the middle of a boat trip, your character will stay where it is in relation to the boat, NOT where it is on the map (otherwise if you logged out whilst in the middle of the sea, when you logged in again you'd be in the middle of the ocean with no boat). This is also true with Zeppelins. If 20 people were riding a Zeppelin and then the server disconnected, those 20 people don't just fall out of the sky, their position is maintained on the zeppelin, when they log back in it may be on another continent, but you're in the same spot, if that makes sense. I'll try to get some vids for you of what I've messed around with.

My theory is thus: WMO's are placed in a certain spot on the map I will call "The Taxi Graveyard". The coordinates of this graveyard is around 0, 0, 0 xyz respectively on both Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. This, for Kalimdor is about 50 feet below the ground in Stonetalon Mountains around the Boulderslide Ravine area. For the Eastern Kingdoms, it's very similar except you're beneath the Alterac Mountains, southeast of Dalaran. The boats/zeppelins or any WMO you can travel on, remain in this "Graveyard" until a given time when they magically appear in the spot on the map when they first come in (so, out in the middle of the ocean). To my experience, if I wait in the graveyard on a boat or zeppelin, it will eventually arrive at a destination, it will never leave. In other words, the map doesn't change. The WMO's are a "zone" of some kind, because they have associated background music files with them. The "zone" is unrecognised because if you press the map button, the map just defaults to the last recognised zone (which is usually where you are anyway). Chances are, if ever a boat/zeppelin does not come for some reason or another, you'll find it at the graveyard. I will also try to get vids up of the graveyard, it's quite strange. All the taxi's are stacked on each other.

I'd also like to add that I currently believe that there are several different WMO's each with it's own unique identifier associated with a given path. That means, when I'm in the graveyard I'll see several of the same looking boats, but they'll each end up at a different destination. It's hard for me to get a good look around the graveyard to see just how many boats/zeppelins there are, because they're hardly ever all there at the same time, and if they are, it's only for a very short time.

[Demonkunga]

I like your post Catch-22 . I know what you mean by the graveyard. Back in the day when I was changing zep coords to make the zepplin go different places (such as GM island) , when your on the Zep it would take you to the "Graveyard" when it was usually stopped at its dock, if you understand what I mean.

[SomeWhiteGuy]

o.O wow, I am at a loss for words. I never knew about the "grave yard". How and where do I go to see it? If I goto the location Catch-22 talked about, do i need to go underground to see it? By {0,0,0} you are referring to the center of the loaded 3D world and not the top left corner right? Also, why does it go there? Is this a place it goes to on the server when when "between" the continents or something?

[Edit:] Btw, can you give the the quardenents to it? I went to Boulderslide Ravine (in Stonetalon Mountains), and use WoWMapEdit ro remove the land and place water everywhere. I am swiming around but am having a hard time finding it. What is the in game and in-zone location (quardenents WoW plugins use)?

[original~GANK~staz]

right here and about this thread, i was and still am very interested in this subject, a month and a half after i got this game i wanted to "break it down" if u will, conquer it, and i think we should team up to pwn blizz, like nogg aholics did

Edit: i think i put all the pices together, i have been searching,taking notes, and watching zeps and ED, actually i even got some info from a VW movie, i dont want to explain everything that i found because if its true then i dont want people to know about it

[SomeWhiteGuy]

right here

Thanks with that info I was abel to get there and see it for myself.

Video - why does my char blink inside?

Here is a map edit I made to get to it (drop that in your WoW Data directory and use MC).

However I am still unable to see any changes. I don't see any taxis other than a single boat, and it never moves. Didn't someone say they saw more than one on top of one another and see them disappear?

I only see this.



It also does indeed appear to be a special object (instanced by the server) as it does not appear in WoWMapViewer.


[EDIT:] Holy crap!! I just loged out a minout ago on the boat and just now logged back in... I cant move!!
Wow, anyone remember that weirdness from back when you could mess with the Zepplin taxi-path to get to GM island? For a part of the trip you were stuck in place, kinda like I am now.........
.......hm,, I probably shouldn't of done this on my main, lol.

[original~GANK~staz]

o shit, i wouldent know i never been on it, my bad, just ticket a gm saying u lagged and fell on a zep can u port me back to my hearth stone plz or soemthing

[Catch-22]

Also, why does it go there? Is this a place it goes to on the server when when "between" the continents or something?

Well if you use one of the telehack programs you should still be able to obtain coordinates (and not actually teleport to them), and yeah, it kind of is the centre of everything. What I believe happens is there are two separate boats for each path, when one a boat hits the end of a path on one continent and the loading screen comes up with the next continent, the boat you were just on waits in this graveyard until the same boat trip is coming back.

I'll try to get some vids up of when all the boats are there Just being lazy...

[original~GANK~staz]

people say that the boats go to the spots when the servers about to crash

[Catch-22]

Wow, anyone remember that weirdness from back when you could mess with the Zepplin taxi-path to get to GM island? For a part of the trip you were stuck in place, kinda like I am now.........

Yeah, you'd actually go to the graveyard (only due to the crude methods described in messing with taxi nodes) when there's no actual path given, the boat will wait in the graveyard until a time when it's due at another node, if that makes sense.. but the actual player wouldn't freeze, as I recall, just the boat would seemingly be "stuck" underground for a while. The player wouldn't be stuck, that could be due to your map editing, I'm not sure. Depends what you mean by stuck, if you mean can't physically move the char, that shouldn't really happen, although it does happen if you use a teleport to plane hack, then log out whilst still on the plane (I think, or at least it did with older versions of the hack). If what you're describing is like falling but not actually moving anywhere, then I know what you're talking about haha, GM would be the way to go unless you felt like map editing your way out, but seems a bit much.

I got some vids now, just gotta upload them.

[SomeWhiteGuy]

What I believe happens is there are two separate boats for each path, when one a boat hits the end of a path on one continent and the loading screen comes up with the next continent

OOOOOoooh. Yeah, that makes sense, your probably right. Dunno why the server just doesn't delete the instance of the boat, but meh, whatever.

Depends what you mean by stuck, if you mean can't physically move the char, that shouldn't really happen, although it does happen if you use a teleport to plane hack, then log out whilst still on the plane

Yeah, that's what happened to me. Couldn't walk any direction or rotate (turn) my character. I could rotate the cemera, but not move the character.
Anyways, it's cool, I just used auto un-stuck, which turns out used my Hearth Stone and afterworld everything was cool.

An no, this was not an effect of the map-edit. All I did was remove the ground over the boat and put water everywhere so I could swim down to it. If you want you can try it out your self (map linked in my last post).

As for those vids I'm anxious to see them. Cause I swear I'm standing on this boat for a while and expecting it to move..... and it just dosnt.

Do I need to not be on it to see it move? Hm... interesting...
Because if the theory is correct (where there are two boats for each boat-path between continents) then one should be able to sit on one in the graveyard, wait, and suddenly be transported when the boat instance "loads" into the current continent... or at the very least see other people (other passengers) suddenly appear.



[Edit:] Aw crap, I UL'ed the wrong video in my last post. Ok, deleted the URl source and uploaded the right one (link).