The AI plays arena: small team fights in World of Warcraft, two or three players a side. New to the game? Read arena in five minutes first.
The project runs its own copy of the game server rather than the official game. It needs millions of matches, control of time and complete records, and the official game doesn't allow automated play.
Comps#
A comp is a team's mix of classes and specs, and it is the unit of training: a team trains together toward a shared win, and any agent in it can be replaced by a human player. The first comps are the three two-player pairs of a rogue, a mage and a priest; the first three-player comp is all three together. The order of growth is fixed: two-player before three-player; within a bracket, one meta comp, then a few, then more; meta builds before others; each step once the previous one trains reliably.
Accuracy#
Agents learn whatever the server allows, bugs included. Before a comp trains, the mechanics it uses are checked against the real game, and the bugs that affect it are fixed. See getting the game right.
In World of Warcraft terms#
The rules are WotLK Classic's final state, Season 8, run on the 3.3.5a client and the AzerothCore server engine. The server is arena only: four arenas, no world content, and a small hub where humans queue. Gear follows the 264 meta. Everything a player would otherwise grind for is free and instant. Which version of the game covers what counts as the source of truth; checked mechanics covers disputed rules and reported server bugs.
Pages in this section#
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Arena in five minutes | For readers who have never played World of Warcraft: what an arena match is, what players do in one, and what makes it a problem for AI. |
| Which version | The client, server and ruleset the project runs, what counts as the source of truth when sources disagree, and what stays as in 3.3.5a. |
| The server | An arena-only copy of the game server, where every character is ready at level 80 and nothing an arena player needs costs time or gold. |
| The 264 meta | The gear baseline every character plays in: Season 8 Wrathful gear, the 277 weapons, and PvE items up to item level 264. |
| Getting the game right | How the project checks that its server plays like the real game: bugs judged by what an agent could exploit, leads from many kinds of source, a spec of sourced claims, data diffs and live tests. |
| Checked mechanics | Arena rules players argue about, and clear rules the server engine was reported to get wrong - how each works here, what it is based on, and how sure the project is. |