single-player server · 3.3.5a
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Docs › Core and internals

Building LonelyIce

LonelyIce builds on Windows, Linux and macOS from the same sources. Documentation is written in English only.

Windows

Visual Studio 2022, CMake 3.22 or newer, Git, Boost 1.87 and OpenSSL 3.

git clone --recursive https://github.com/LonelyIceProject/lonelyice
cd lonelyice
tools\build-ui-deps.ps1
cmake -S . -B build -DBOOST_ROOT=<boost> -DOPENSSL_ROOT_DIR=<openssl>
cmake --build build --config RelWithDebInfo --target lonelyice_release

build/lonelyice-release then holds the application, plugins/ and setup/.

Linux and macOS

Not tested yet. The Linux and macOS builds are written to work but have not been built or run so far. Reports and fixes are welcome.

The game client stays the Windows Wow.exe and runs through Wine: [client] runner in lonelyice.ini names the program that starts it (default wine; arguments separated by spaces, e.g. wine64 or a Proton/CrossOver wrapper). The server, the launcher and the tools run natively.

Linux

A compiler with C++20 (GCC 11+ or Clang 14+), CMake 3.22 or newer, Git, Boost, OpenSSL 3 and the development packages SDL3 needs for X11, Wayland and OpenGL. On Debian / Ubuntu:

sudo apt install build-essential cmake git pkg-config \
    libboost-all-dev libssl-dev zlib1g-dev libbz2-dev libreadline-dev libncurses-dev \
    libx11-dev libxext-dev libxrandr-dev libxcursor-dev libxfixes-dev libxi-dev libxss-dev libxtst-dev \
    libxkbcommon-dev libwayland-dev wayland-protocols libegl1-mesa-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev \
    libdrm-dev libgbm-dev libdbus-1-dev libudev-dev libasound2-dev libpulse-dev

Wine (sudo apt install wine) runs the game client.

macOS

Xcode command line tools (xcode-select --install) and Homebrew:

brew install cmake git boost openssl@3

tools/build-ui-deps.sh finds Homebrew's OpenSSL by itself; pass -DOPENSSL_ROOT_DIR="$(brew --prefix openssl@3)" to CMake as below. The game client needs a Wine build for macOS (for example from Homebrew or CrossOver).

Build

git clone --recursive https://github.com/LonelyIceProject/lonelyice
cd lonelyice
tools/build-ui-deps.sh
cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
cmake --build build --parallel --target lonelyice_release

On macOS add -DOPENSSL_ROOT_DIR="$(brew --prefix openssl@3)" to the configure line. tools/build-ui-deps.sh uses all CPUs; JOBS=4 tools/build-ui-deps.sh uses fewer. As on Windows, build/lonelyice-release then holds the application (LonelyIce), plugins/ and setup/.

Notes

  • The server core is the external/azerothcore submodule; LONELYICE_CORE_DIR points elsewhere.
  • Plugins in plugins/ (submodules with a plugin.json) are built and shipped with the release; LONELYICE_PLUGIN_DIRS replaces that list. Some plugins have their own requirements, see their READMEs.
  • Interface text lives in src/assets/lang/<code>/*.lang (key = value, {0} for arguments) and is embedded in the executable; code uses Tr("key", ...), the markup @{key}. English is the fallback for missing keys. With LONELYICE_ASSETS=<src/assets> the launcher reads the markup and these files from disk.
  • tools\build-ui-deps.ps1 (Windows) and tools/build-ui-deps.sh (Linux, macOS) fetch and build the libraries LonelyIce adds to the core into deps/ once: SDL3, FreeType and RmlUi for the interface, StormLib for client archives, miniz for plugin packages and libcurl for downloads (TLS through Schannel on Windows, OpenSSL elsewhere).