Custom Server Project by Pioneer 7

[slyfox299]

Good Day Everyone!

My name is Zach, and I represent the group of Pioneer 7. We are beginning a brand new task and would like everyone's support and help with this project. No, we're not so low as to beg for cash; we're looking for people who may be able to share information and knowledge to further this on.

Our plan, inspired by the great folks of SCHTHACK, is to develop and build our own Private Servers. This is real, everyone, not just some fly-by-night attempt. Time and effort will be and is being put into this project. Our current attempt is to begin either an Alien Front Online server or an Outrigger server.

Currently, I have ripped images of both these games and extracted all the data out from them. So, in other words, rather than a cd image file, we have the raw data ripped from the disks.

I currently have access to IDA Pro with the SDK installed, and I have attempted to open up the .bin files on each game. We'll start with Alien Front Online. Inside of many of the .bin's which can be determined as level files, it's possible to find real text by examining the files with a hex editor. It is therefore possible to edit the level data and text. To further this, by using IDA Pro, I can see some things that are put together by IDA. If it's possible to determine the location, my goal is to edit the IP Address of the server that the game is trying to connect to. If that is possible to be found, we can then create a DNS tool which can be run on the player's computer which forwards requests, made to that server, straight to a new IP address. This can even be accomplished with some packet sniffing, but I'm working on the hex method now.

So here come a slew of questions. Has a project, other than SCHTHACK, like this been attempted? Has anyone ever tried to open or edit the .bin or .dat data files? Have they been successful? Would anyone be interested in this?

I've already received plenty of flame over this. Whether it be from "You can't do that" to "it's not possible because of reason X", I've heard it. Please feel free to post your opposition, but have a valid reason to back it up, please.

Thanks for your time reading this and post your thoughts below! Mods, please edit this as necessary and if I have broken any rules(I did read them and believe this is clean), by all means take any action necessary.

[BlueCrab]

There are other private servers for PSO around, including my Sylverant project. I can tell you that in my experience, its a whole lot easier to figure things out by looking at packet dumps than by trying to reverse anything from the game binaries itself. That said, I don't know of any resources for packet dumps from Alien Front Online or Outrigger, so that option may not even be possible at this point.

I don't think you'll find much by reading the level data, you're much more likely to find what you want by disassembling the game binary itself. That said, it can be extremely difficult to follow the stuff that disassemblers put out, especially if you're not experienced in doing so. I wish you all the luck in the world at doing what you're attempting to do, but I doubt I'll be able to offer any assistance beyond that.

[slyfox299]

I've been looking through the server code and it looks good! I don't really have any desire to run my own PSO server; I'll leave that to those who have earned it by their talents and time.

I've been trying several methods of dissassembly and, from a hex viewpoint, there's definitely some interesting strings in 1ST_READ.BIN on both games. I'm still searching and I haven't found the IP address info that I want, but I think I may have found the section of data that the game uses to connect to a server and find/run/host a game. It's still going to take time, but there's no rush.

I've had a little experience in ASM language so I understand some of the data, but this is definitely a good refresher course.

Thanks for the positive response BlueCrab. I appreciate the fact that you actually encouraged me and you're not dissing the idea. Kudos to you!

[soul21]

I'm very interested in this! Though I probably cant be of any help I don't know anything about it haha But I support you!
I still occasionally play Quake3 and PSO on my dreamcast and I run a few quake 3 servers myself.

A lot of people and I would be excited if you could get servers back up for alien front online! and outrigger! and whatever else!
Ya know, Unreal tournament still works, master server still up, but no one could ever get a server working, they have gotten ones to show up on the list but denies it to connect, if you could help them along the way too that would be amazing! I would host a couple! =)

Do you know any other sites where people would want to help you? You really think you can do it?

[spinksy]

Awesome - hope this goes ahead !!

[phisejr]

Hey hows the progress coming along ? hows the process of changing the IP ? have you gotten close to.

[Cast128dreams]

yes that very interesting!!new games for the dc comind back online are always welcome and iam glad that someone started working for a server to bring some games back online for the dc...!!:)

Do you have any progress on that?very interesting

[phisejr]

Still no news on this project ?