Game tables

Most of WildStar's rules live in the client's game tables: every item, quest, creature, spell and archive article is a row. This page covers how the server loads and reads them, and the switch that decides which ones it loads at all. The byte layouts are on Game tables file formats.

What they are

The client's data

The 16042 client ships 384 game tables (.tbl) and a text table per language (.bin), packed in its archives. Running it locally extracts them with NexusForever.MapGenerator. They're the client's own data, so they never go in the repository; every server reads them from your extract.

Vocabulary

Term	Meaning
Table	One .tbl file: a fixed-width row per id, with a string table at the end
Row model	The C# class a table's rows are read into, named after the table plus Entry: ArchiveArticle.tbl becomes ArchiveArticleEntry
[GameData]	The attribute on a GameTableManager property that makes the server load that table
Text table	en-US.bin and its siblings: localized strings by id
LocalizedTextId	A row field holding the id of a string in the text tables, not the string itself

How the server loads them

[GameData] is the switch

GameTableManager declares a property for 377 tables, and only the ones carrying [GameData] load: 132 of them on stable, plus all three text tables.

A property without the attribute isn't an error. It just stays null, and the first code that touches it throws, long after start-up. A table that nothing reads is the clearest sign a system was never started, so switching one on is the first step of most features (Adding a player feature).

Columns map by position

A row model's fields are matched to the file's columns in declaration order, not by name: the first field is the first column, and the first field is always the id. An array field marked [GameTableFieldArray(n)] takes n columns in a row.

A Debug build checks every loaded model against its file at start-up, by column count and by type, and stops on a mismatch. A Release build doesn't check, and reads a wrong model into wrong values without a word.

Note

Every row model with a 16042 table was checked against it, by column count and type order, and all of them match, including the tables nothing loads. That check can't see two same-typed fields in the wrong order, so compare a field's name with the column's before trusting what it means.

Loading

The world server loads every switched-on table in parallel at start-up. Any table that fails to load is reported by name, and start-up stops after the batch.

The text tables are the exception. A missing en-US.bin isn't caught at load: it surfaces later as a null reference in the customisation code. A missing French or German table only logs a warning.

The chat and friendship servers load just one table each, the word filter, through a smaller loader.

How code reads them

Need	Do	Cost
One row by id	GameTableManager.Instance.<Table>.GetEntry(id), which returns null for an unknown id	A single array lookup
Rows by anything else	Scan Entries, the rows in file order	Linear, so build a dictionary once at start-up if it's hot
A row's text	GetTextTable(language).GetEntry(localizedTextId)	A single array lookup
A row by its name	SearchManager, which keeps a reverse index of every string	Used by commands like teleport name and item lookup

A feature that needs a lookup the tables don't offer builds it once at start-up, the way the Galactic Archive builds its unlock rule index.

The knobs

Knob	Where	Effect
GameTable:GameTablePath	WorldServer.json, ChatServer.json, FriendshipServer.json	The folder holding the .tbl and .bin files. Relative paths resolve against the server's own folder
[GameData]	Each property in GameTableManager.cs	Whether that table loads
The build configuration	Debug or Release	Whether row models are checked against their files
GameTable:Cache	The example configs	Nothing at the moment: the cache it configures isn't called

Where the code lives

Piece	Path
The table properties and the loader	Source/NexusForever.GameTable/GameTableManager.cs
Reading a table and the layout check	Source/NexusForever.GameTable/GameTable.cs
Text tables	Source/NexusForever.GameTable/TextTable.cs
Row models	Source/NexusForever.GameTable/Model/
Reverse text search	Source/NexusForever.GameTable/Text/Search/
The subset loader for chat and friendship	Source/NexusForever.GameTable/GameTableLoader.cs