wow-midnight-server

Bot control — every switch, and what it is for

Two kinds of bot live in this system and they are managed differently:

Everything here is GM-gated except the companion commands, which need the per-command permissions listed at the end.

1. Switching the population on

The permanent way — config

# worldserver.conf (in this repo: docker/etc/worldserver.conf.template)

# How many autonomous bots to bring into the world at startup.
# 0 disables them entirely and the server costs nothing extra.
Pbot.WorldPopulation = 10

# How many different maps the population may spread across. Default 5.
# This is the memory dial, not the bot count: the cost of a population is the
# maps and zones it keeps loaded, so ten bots on ten maps cost far more than
# sixty on one. Lower it if the host is tight.
Pbot.WorldPopulationMaps = 5

Restart the server; the bots appear in staged batches over the first minutes. Staged on purpose — spawning sixty players in one tick trips the core’s 60-second anti-freeze watchdog and takes the server down with it.

The immediate way — console

Attach to the running server and type:

docker attach tc-worldserver     # leave without stopping it: Ctrl-P Ctrl-Q

.pbot world populate 20

2. Creating and removing world bots

Command Arguments What it does
.pbot world populate <count> [level] [mapFilter] [maxMaps] Spreads count bots across the world’s population spots — different zones, different continents, both factions. mapFilter restricts to one map id; maxMaps overrides Pbot.WorldPopulationMaps for this call. The normal way to fill a world.
.pbot world spawn <count> [level] [class] Spawns bots around where you are standing. In-game only. Useful for watching behaviour up close.
.pbot world spawnat <map> <x> <y> <z> <count> [level] The same, at explicit coordinates. Console-friendly — this exists so an operator with no game client can create and observe bots entirely from a terminal.
.pbot world clear — Removes every world bot. Their characters are deleted; this is not a pause button.

level defaults to a spread appropriate to the spot. class accepts a class token (warrior, mage, …); omit it and classes are picked at random.

3. Watching what they do

These are the reason the bots work at all. Every defect listed in README.md was found by one of these contradicting an assumption — not by reading code.

Command Answers
.pbot world list Who is alive, what level, where, and what each is doing right now
.pbot world time Where the population’s day actually goes, as a share of ticks per activity: fighting, travelling, questing, gathering, town errands, idle. Add any argument (.pbot world time reset) to zero the counters and start a fresh window
.pbot world craft The chain from “has a profession” to “is standing at a workbench”: how many bots have a craft, know a recipe, hold materials for one, and need a forge. Whichever number collapses is the answer
.pbot world market Goods worth selling, auctioneer reach, mail waiting. The three things that fail independently in an economy
.pbot world upkeep Bags free, gear durability, junk carried, whether a vendor or repairer is reachable
.pbot world combat Kills, deaths, and how targets are being chosen
.pbot world quests Quest logs: how many held, how many complete, the newest one
.pbot world nodes What gathering nodes a bot can see, and why it can or cannot open them
.pbot world who Each bot’s personality — greed, diligence, aggression, wanderlust
.pbot world bands Level bands across the population, and who has outgrown their zone
.pbot world hunt Target selection: what is in range and which of it passes the fair-fight filter
.pbot world bglist / bgdiag Battleground templates, and per-bot queue/objective state

Reading .pbot world time

 29%  fighting        22%  travelling      20%  questing
 14%  gathering        8%  idle             3%  town errands

Exactly one stage claims each tick, so this tally is the day. A healthy population looks roughly like the above. Two shapes that mean trouble:

4. Moving them about

Command Arguments What it does
.pbot world tele <map> <x> <y> <z> Teleports the whole population to a point. For staging a test, not for play
.pbot world bg <battlemasterListId> Queues the population for a battleground

5. Companions — bots that belong to you

Command Arguments Notes
.pbot spawn <class> Creates a companion of that class, levelled and geared to match you, and it follows you. In-game only
.pbot dismiss — Sends the companion away; the character survives
.pbot retire — Deletes the companion for good
.pbot list — Your companions, their level, health and stance
.pbot selftest — Runs the built-in behaviour checks and reports what passed

The older creature-based companions are still there: .bot add, .bot remove, .bot info.

Talking to them

Companions listen to ordinary chat. Say the word, they do the thing — no command prefix, no syntax:

Say They
за мной, следуй, фолов Resume formation and follow
стой, стоять, на месте, ждать, жди Hold position
ко мне, сюда Come back and re-form now
в бой, атакуй, бей, фас, атака Attack your current target immediately
ассист, помогай, помощь Stance: fight what you fight (the default)
защита, защищай, прикрой Stance: go after whatever is attacking you
пассив, не атакуй, не лезь, не нападай Stance: never engage on their own
стоп, отбой, хватит Break off the current fight — the stance is unchanged
статус, доклад, как дела, инфо Report level, health and stance
команды, хелп List what they understand

Address a specific bot by name, or the lot of them with все, всем, боты, отряд.

6. Permissions

Commands Permission
Everything under .pbot world RBAC_PERM_COMMAND_SERVER — GM only, console allowed
.pbot spawn 1010
.pbot dismiss, .pbot retire 1011
.pbot list 1012

The world commands are deliberately locked down: each bot costs a full Player tick, and they belong to nobody who could clean them up.

If a custom permission “does not exist” for a GM who plainly has rights, it was granted at security level 0 only. Grant it at the account’s actual SecurityLevel as well, reload RBAC, and log the account out and back in.

7. When nothing seems to happen

The bots say nothing at all. Almost always the log level. TrinityCore’s levels run the opposite way to intuition and Logger.root = 5 means errors only, so everything the bots write is discarded — a server that looks exactly like one with no bots in it. The config in this repository sets Logger.scripts.bots = 3,Console; if you are deploying elsewhere, set it yourself.

.pbot is not a known command. The scripts compiled but were never registered: TrinityCore ships AddCustomScripts() as an empty stub. See custom_script_loader.cpp.

The server was killed while they were spawning. Bots appear in staged batches for a reason — creating them all at once exceeds the 60-second anti-freeze watchdog. If you have modified the spawner, keep the staging.

The machine stops answering while still replying to pings. Out of memory, not crashed. A population’s cost is the maps and zones it keeps loaded: lower Pbot.WorldPopulationMaps, or give the host more RAM — see the table in ../docker/INSTALL.md.

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