F.A.Q. (Please read and follow before asking for help)

[bobsobol]

A: In all probability, you can.

Remember that laptops tend to switch off or over heat if you leave them running unattended though. I've used a Pentium II 750Mhz with 128Meg ram and a 8Meg PCI Graphics card to run a PT server though.

It was much easier to set up than a Core2 Quad with Server 2008 on it, and seemed to perform equally well with a low user count and no clan system.

I'm not saying you should do this, I'm just saying that most of the specs server rentals quote to draw you in are not important to you if all you want to do is host PT. Some of the things which will be (bandwidth, SQL support, ports and routing management, firewall control, physical up-time etc.) will not be listed at all. (isn't that always the way with such advertisements?)

Above all, probably the best thing to know when renting server space, is that you can count on your provider, and have good communication and friendly relationship. You don't want them to pull your game server the moment someone says "court order" without notifying you. You do want them to let you know if the hardware needs maintaining in a way that will affect your users. You do want them to be flexible if you need extra ports open, packet filters in place, IPs blocked etc. Are they happy for you to perform such blocks, do they want you to ask them to do it and if so can they do it in a timely manner. (If an IP is DDoSing you you want to stop it fast!) Talk to them, see who you get along with.

[bobsobol]

A: You are probably over-powering.

Reduce Exp multiplier / damage etc. until they stop.

These disconnections are designed to prevent cheats... while this is your game, on your server, you are still effectively cheating the game.

There are ways which people have removed, or reduced the limits for the cheating disconnect with OllyDbg. But it is a hard job, and usually introduces other instabilities.

If you want to level quicker, it's usually easier, faster and safer to modify the table which relates experience to level. This must be done both to the client and the server, and each will calculate a "checksum" for the data table... but that's still a lot easier than finding the many places in code which the server and client boot the connection for excessive rewards.

If you want easier monsters, the simplest solution to that is to reduce the Absorption rate for each monster. There is a GM command to do this per-monster. But you can also do it from the data files in the server. Remember, if you kill too many high level monsters too fast, you will gain too much Exp too quickly again, and still hit the limit and disconnect.

[bobsobol]

A: The Koreans where the first to develop PT, and much of it's internals, in any language version, are still in Korean.

The Korean Clients also have the most game "features" of any client and tend to get new developments first. Finally, the Korean client is the least heavily protected and easiest to work on... both in terms of security measures against packet injection and reverse code engineering protection. (debugging, disassembling etc.)

I've always considered the Japanese PT clients to be equally simple to develop, but they do still lag a couple of months behind the Koreans in terms of feature release, and have the same MBCS (Multi-Byte Character System) problems for people working in languages with Latin Script.

[bobsobol]

A: I have tried to answer that, as fully as I can in this guide.

Please try to post examples of configurations, if you think something is wrong, in Korean text, not how ever it shows in your language.

I can often translate it back, but it can be very difficult for others, and depending on what language Windows is installed on our PC, the Korean characters will be turned into different characters on our system... so unless we stick to one form (overriding the default configuration for our system) it can be very confusing. You can only translate the commands if they are in Korean, so it makes sense to use that, where ever possible.

[bobsobol]

A: The server is compiled on Microsoft Visual C++ 7.1. (Officially labelled .Net, 2002 or 2003, but it isn't a .Net program)

To develop your PT server executable, you should understand Win32 x86 RCE principals. This means, you should understand x86 Assembler mnemonics, and be able to work in a low level debugger.

Most of us work primarily with OllyDbg. But SoftIce, IDA Pro, Immunity, WinDbg, PE Explorer, CFF Explorer and Syser are all good tools too. Many of us will use one or more of these in conjunction with Olly, because while they can provide more insight, or allow us to see relationships between code and data or interactions between functions more easily, only Olly makes writing back modifications to an executable a simple matter of in-line assemble / binary edit, copy to file dump, save the dump to a new file.

Beyond that... understanding how Microsoft Visual C++ creates x86 executable code from C++ source code is an invaluable skill, both for developing, and for communicating with other developers. Clearly, understanding C++ is advantageous.

You should also be aware, however, that much of the code in both the client and the server (as already stated, actually part of the same source project on the official developers system) is written as C, not C++. So many of the conventions and principals of well structured C++ are not followed in the source (which we don't have) and that affects the final x86 code in the executable. The point where C++ has to be used, for DirectX, ODBC and other such "new" APIs introduces a "cross-over" where much of the code you will see in your disassembler looks very messy indeed. Also, because the original project was written by students, (or equally untrained persons) and seems to have been to hard to understand and modify by the company that bought it, so it is actually written "badly" in many areas.

In other words, because there is a standard, well defined and commonly reproduced method of solving a problem, don't assume that that is the method PT uses... and if it isn't, don't assume there is a "good reason" for an alternative method to have been used.

[bobsobol]

A: Yes, sadly PT is pretty insecure. The best you can usually do is detect them and then automatically disconnect them, and optionally block their IP or account from your server.

There are some good guides and releases here to help, but this subject is constantly evolving. If you can't find information on the particular exploit you are experiencing, please share what you are seeing with the other Devs and Admins. We will all want to clamp down on new exploits as soon as possible.

This is one of the key starting points to a more secure PT server. There is (was) some excellent information on protecting against SQL injection in your PHP code here. Changing the ports has confounded noob hackers for some. DarkKnightH20's PT Protector or Gregoos' PT Protector Reloaded! are also a pretty common base for automating detection and disconnection of cheats.

[bobsobol]

A: We won't tell you any of that here!

We are PT server developers and administrators, we are not game cheats and will not help those who are. In fact, our purpose is to stop such things where ever possible!

[bobsobol]

A: Yes, but... Please search our forum for similar questions first.

If you don't find anything that helps, you will probably get less aggression from existing users if you link the posts you've read and explain why they aren't quite what you are looking for, or what confuses you.