[Release] Vindictus

[impunity]

Just to share some news(I'm not at all involved with this just to clarify-only read it from the Korean forums), a couple people have been setting up a 'public' or rather few-exclusive server and (this part is the important one) exposing the existence of our private server files (although no reference to any specific websites like here or specific details about our files) to the Koreans and Korean server GMs. This has been posted in the Korean Vindictus Inven forums and several people from those "selected-few"(lol) literally took screenshots, videos, chat logs and reported to Korean gms like some cyber police spies. The official server players' comments all seemed hateful towards private emulation and unable to understand the need to run a private server + anticipating towards the detection, legal punishment, and eradication of such projects and people behind them.


Honestly I don't even know what kind of inner response I 'should' have and my external response was just that of curiosity towards such resentment and reluctance among the Korean vindictus community towards private servers. Just a forewarning to those who plan to either publicize (and quite funnily try to monetize- since our files are technically public- but still can happen) their servers to random 'selected' people through WAN... it may not be the best idea. There's no right and wrong but I'd say it entails no benefit to anyone.


But anyways, what do 'you' guys think? Are you aware about what I just said or aware of any other news? Do you have any thoughts, comments, questions, reactions, warnings, encouragements, neutral advice? Think there will be any negative impact towards our projects(possible increased encryption in later versions etc) if more exposure and reporting occurs? I'm very curious ^o^

 

[AzumaR2]

Just to share some news(I'm not at all involved with this just to clarify-only read it from the Korean forums), a couple people have been setting up a 'public' or rather few-exclusive server and (this part is the important one) exposing the existence of our private server files (although no reference to any specific websites like here or specific details about our files) to the Koreans and Korean server GMs. This has been posted in the Korean Vindictus Inven forums and several people from those "selected-few"(lol) literally took screenshots, videos, chat logs and reported to Korean gms like some cyber police spies. The official server players' comments all seemed hateful towards private emulation and unable to understand the need to run a private server + anticipating towards the detection, legal punishment, and eradication of such projects and people behind them.


Honestly I don't even know what kind of inner response I 'should' have and my external response was just that of curiosity towards such resentment and reluctance among the Korean vindictus community towards private servers. Just a forewarning to those who plan to either publicize (and quite funnily try to monetize- since our files are technically public- but still can happen) their servers to random 'selected' people through WAN... it may not be the best idea. There's no right and wrong but I'd say it entails no benefit to anyone.


But anyways, what do 'you' guys think? Are you aware about what I just said or aware of any other news? Do you have any thoughts, comments, questions, reactions, warnings, encouragements, neutral advice? Think there will be any negative impact towards our projects(possible increased encryption in later versions etc) if more exposure and reporting occurs? I'm very curious ^o^

"a couple people have been setting up a 'public' or rather" can you share link to forum ?

 

[Patchouli]

I don't have the latest EU client so I can't do anything with that.

I figured out a way to read database without repacking HFS.
In engine.dll look for sqlite/heroes.db3
Change that to sql/heroes.db3, then make a folder Vindictus/sql/ and slap heroes.db3 into it.
Simply renaming heroes.db3 doesn't work. I think that's because of HFS already using the sqlite folder name.

I suspect that E608DF10F284E19AB75FD7D0D8AE9CCF87831041 tells the game what HFS files are which folders. That HFS cannot be unpacked. Unlike other HFS files it does not seem to have an index at the end of the file, just a header. It's probably the index for all other HFS.

Removing it from the HFS folder makes the game give a "can't find materials/console/game_start_widescreen.vtf" error during startup, but I've unpacked that from elsewhere, so it seems like it lost the ability to find that file.

 

[impunity]

I don't have the latest EU client so I can't do anything with that.

I figured out a way to read database without repacking HFS.
In engine.dll look for sqlite/heroes.db3
Change that to sql/heroes.db3, then make a folder Vindictus/sql/ and slap heroes.db3 into it.
Simply renaming heroes.db3 doesn't work. I think that's because of HFS already using the sqlite folder name.

I suspect that E608DF10F284E19AB75FD7D0D8AE9CCF87831041 tells the game what HFS files are which folders. That HFS cannot be unpacked. Unlike other HFS files it does not seem to have an index at the end of the file, just a header. It's probably the index for all other HFS.

Removing it from the HFS folder makes the game give a "can't find materials/console/game_start_widescreen.vtf" error during startup, but I've unpacked that from elsewhere, so it seems like it lost the ability to find that file.

Patchouli, do you have an idea if/how we can mod morrighan model's wings into our hfs? I've seen mods from like 2011 that were detected long since that changed trans to morrighan and even were able to just put the wings on evie model(all evies would have huge wings by this way) and succubus hair. All their mods files are unavailable at least to my knowledge since they were such shared such a long time and I'm not sure exactly what to modify

 

[halo2008]

can you share that post

 

[Patchouli]

Disregard what I said about Multiplay mode earlier, I think I mixed up the files. It's the newer version that might not have multiplay mode.

impunity
If you have the wing mod files there should be instructions on how to install the mod, inside the archive. Use GSL and put the files in the data folder. There's a wing item slot in our version, and since we have access to both client and server we could add our own wings now.

I wasn't aware that the Koreans were upset. I can't read Korean, and I don't have any Korean friends. I'd expect them to be upset as anyone would be when their game gets private servers. But if they are smart, they should understand that private servers exist because there is demand for it. Private servers have pros and cons. There are things you can do on private servers that you can't do on official.

When I quit Vindictus it was because they made it increasingly difficult to play alone or with a single friend.
They made it very costly to play (in-game and real money), and it wasn't fun. They also blocked all mods, and mods are the most fun part. Even with the private server, I get tired of the game pretty quickly. It's the mods that make me want to play it. With mod access I can do whatever I like. I've already fixed tons of stuff I didn't like, and added new stuff that I like. If you've seen some of the popular mod videos, you'll know Nexon copied some of those ideas and put them into the game.

That's why private server/emulation > main server. It's very simple.
You don't have to deal with all the stupid bullshit designed to waste your time, you can just have fun.
But my stance is different from people who want to make their server public. I don't have any interest in that.

Nexon is a greedy company but I think they should just ignore the private servers.
As long as they keep making new content, private servers won't be able to keep up. People who want to pay and play on their servers are already doing it. People like me who don't want to play on their servers will play on our own private servers. Nothing they do will make me want to play on their servers ever again.
I honestly thought Vindictus would have died by now. I was surprised that it's still going strong.
I would never have looked back at Vindictus if this private server wasn't leaked.

 

[impunity]

"a couple people have been setting up a 'public' or rather" can you share link to forum ?

1. Inven forum post #1 (

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2. Inven forum post #2 (

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3. Chatlog publicization in forum(I hate these kind of people the most who publicize private chats) (

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4.

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<- the internet cafe-blog used to share client and WAN(Not sure if it's our WAN setup method since I haven't looked at those posts) this link is also referred in the #1 link and this cafe-blog is shutting down a few days later probably due to the forum posts. The forum posts are already a weak old.
5.

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(one of the reporter's personal blog used to upload videos which the reporter claims to have sent to the gms through nexon korea ticket)

I think there were 7 ppl involved with this incident. Two reported separately. Most are written in Korean. One was vindictus cafe-blog admin, who owns the blog that I linked. Goo.gled the links cuz I felt like there's nothing 'good' about putting these links on search engine index.

This is just one incident, but if I mean if several of these incidents happen internationally and exposes to official players of NA,EU,TW,KR etc, probably nothing would be beneficial......?

"a couple people have been setting up a 'public' or rather" can you share link to forum ?

1. Inven forum post #1 (http://goo.gl/8Lc9Uw)
2. Inven forum post #2 (http://goo.gl/1HkuuL)
3. Chatlog publicization in forum(I hate these kind of people the most who publicize private chats) (http://goo.gl/Ubq3GN)
4. http://goo.gl/etVGpH <- the internet cafe-blog used to share client and WAN(Not sure if it's our WAN setup method since I haven't looked at those posts) this link is also referred in the #1 link and this cafe-blog is shutting down a few days later probably due to the forum posts. The forum posts are already a weak old.
5. http://goo.gl/0865qQ (one of the reporter's personal blog used to upload videos which the reporter claims to have sent to the gms through nexon korea ticket)

I think there were 7 ppl involved with this incident. Two reported separately. Most are written in Korean. One was vindictus cafe-blog admin, who owns the blog that I linked. Goo.gled the links cuz I felt like there's nothing 'good' about putting these links on search engine index.

This is just one incident, but if I mean if several of these incidents happen internationally and exposes to official players of NA,EU,TW,KR etc, probably nothing would be beneficial......?

 

[Patchouli]

I think most of us have zero intention of setting up a public server. They should just leave us alone.

 

[impunity]

@Patchouli
Unfortunately I do not have the wing mod files and I do not even know how to get GSL working properly. All the versions I used didn't work, so I'm not sure if I used it improperly or if it is detected on our client, sadly touche. I'm not even sure if anybody involved with our project has the wing folders, since the original modders most likely quit and have not bothered to re-share their 'detected' files.

This is the link that I'm refering to in regards to the mod(

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According to this post it seems like the mod involved a modded bin that overwrites the FileSystem_Stdio.dll
They say that in data\materials\models\player\evy, we need to change "morrigan_wing_.vtf" to morrigan_wing_wW.vtf or morrigan_wing_w.vtf for white or black wings(what the f this means I have no clue since I don't have the original mod files and haven't opened any dlls yet and don't even know which hfs this \player\evy paths belongs to. However they say just most former .vtf add to no texture and therefore no visible wings) - I have no idea what filestdio does how we can outsmart it and with hex edit it's not even legible english words -it says this program cannot be run in dos mode in file - i'm kinda new to hex edit so I don't know if this is error or normal.

Any ideas if I 'can' make any progress with morrighan wing mod without original files and if we can add a new wingslot item or replace like elchulus wings with morrighan wing texture?

Btw thanks for your insight. Sorry about these super long posts that can be difficult to read

 

[Patchouli]

The mod was originally posted on GameVixenZone.

The filestudio version is very very outdated.
There's a new GSL in the help section, in the thread about mods. Did you try that version?

 

[impunity]

@Patchouli
I cannot find the the new GSL, if you can link, I'd really appreciate. I will try it once I get my hands on.
Yet I think my first step would be to find where materials\models\player\evy is located, look at it and think about it... which I have no idea where to start

 

[john007]

Patchouli
I cannot find the the new GSL, if you can link, I'd really appreciate. I will try it once I get my hands on.
Yet I think my first step would be to find where materials\models\player\evy is located, look at it and think about it... which I have no idea where to start

Here's version 18 of GSL links

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I figured out a way to read database without repacking HFS.
In engine.dll look for sqlite/heroes.db3
Change that to sql/heroes.db3, then make a folder Vindictus/sql/ and slap heroes.db3 into it.
Simply renaming heroes.db3 doesn't work. I think that's because of HFS already using the sqlite folder name.

I suspect that E608DF10F284E19AB75FD7D0D8AE9CCF87831041 tells the game what HFS files are which folders. That HFS cannot be unpacked. Unlike other HFS files it does not seem to have an index at the end of the file, just a header. It's probably the index for all other HFS.

Removing it from the HFS folder makes the game give a "can't find materials/console/game_start_widescreen.vtf" error during startup, but I've unpacked that from elsewhere, so it seems like it lost the ability to find that file.

Awesome ways if it'll work so we don't need to use the VZipFlip.

 

[Patchouli]

From this thread: http://forum.ragezone.com/f946/help-mods-vindictus-1108168/

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Maybe we should take this to PM so we don't clog up the releases thread.

 

[IamTheWolk]

What client are you using atm? 1.65?

I don't have the latest EU client so I can't do anything with that.

I figured out a way to read database without repacking HFS.
In engine.dll look for sqlite/heroes.db3
Change that to sql/heroes.db3, then make a folder Vindictus/sql/ and slap heroes.db3 into it.
Simply renaming heroes.db3 doesn't work. I think that's because of HFS already using the sqlite folder name.

I suspect that E608DF10F284E19AB75FD7D0D8AE9CCF87831041 tells the game what HFS files are which folders. That HFS cannot be unpacked. Unlike other HFS files it does not seem to have an index at the end of the file, just a header. It's probably the index for all other HFS.

Removing it from the HFS folder makes the game give a "can't find materials/console/game_start_widescreen.vtf" error during startup, but I've unpacked that from elsewhere, so it seems like it lost the ability to find that file.

What client are you using atm?

 

[Patchouli]

US client July 8th.

 

[john007]

Anyone can upload full latest client EU? if you do,try to split by parts or torrents. I think patchouli would loves to work on EU client too.

 

[nultar]

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Idk how updated these links are though, they are from the official homepage, you might have to let it patch.

I would upload the Client but my connection is too shitty for that :/

 

[impunity]

Got hfs mod to work with gsl.
But enhance_effect.txt just simply doesn't work.
I did everything correctly but it just doesn't work. Ah my brain pop!

 

[john007]

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Idk how updated these links are though, they are from the official homepage, you might have to let it patch.

I would upload the Client but my connection is too shitty for that :/

You can't patch it because US IPs been blocked by EU.

 

[nultar]

Ohh gotcha, well hopefully someone from the EU who isn't me can patch and upload it then.

Sorry for forgetting about the IP restrictions