Not the perfect place, but anyway, Tribes 2 Master Server
by James Riley · in Torque Game Engine · 12/14/2007 (10:50 am) · 8 replies
It seems that VU is likely to pull the plug on the T2 master server, and there's still people who enjoy playing. I'm interested in reverse engineering, developing, and hosting my own master server with open registration. I think this would be in the clear now since the game's abandonware essentially. Think the TGE master server would be a good place to start, or is it very different from the T2 masters in which case I should just start doing packet dumps? Think this is even a good idea?
#2
Well, eventually they're going to pull the plug and people will still want to play. There's an alternate master server in place but it's a hackjob and requires modified binaries and as such nobody uses it. It'd be much easier to say "Here, point your game client to this master server" and emulate the normal login and registration (accepting a blank/bs cd key as valid) and such. This would be something I'd develop and then when VU finally pulls the plug I'd put it up, I wouldn't do it while VU was still running their master servers.
I'm a licensee of TGE and TGA, so I have the full master server and such, and I know that'd be a starting point. From there it'd just be reverse engineering the WON packets and adding calls to the master server to communicate with my WON emulator, then getting T2 to connect to that via DNS poisoning.
12/14/2007 (1:33 pm)
I know what you mean about the IP thing.Well, eventually they're going to pull the plug and people will still want to play. There's an alternate master server in place but it's a hackjob and requires modified binaries and as such nobody uses it. It'd be much easier to say "Here, point your game client to this master server" and emulate the normal login and registration (accepting a blank/bs cd key as valid) and such. This would be something I'd develop and then when VU finally pulls the plug I'd put it up, I wouldn't do it while VU was still running their master servers.
I'm a licensee of TGE and TGA, so I have the full master server and such, and I know that'd be a starting point. From there it'd just be reverse engineering the WON packets and adding calls to the master server to communicate with my WON emulator, then getting T2 to connect to that via DNS poisoning.
#3
12/14/2007 (1:34 pm)
IP means Intellectual Property. 
#4
12/14/2007 (1:38 pm)
Is the master server code included with TGE/A? I didn't think that it was. I know that a dedicated server is included, but I didn't think that the Master Server source was included. I could be wrong, though. Most likely am, though I find people making a number of master server resources in PHP or TNL.
#5
The master server that comes with TGE does work with Tribes2, auth fails though, naturally, because it doesn't know the WON auth scheme or how to communicate with WON.
This has been done for Tribes 1, there's a community run master server now, and VU is supportive of it, I don't see why they'd act differently if someone brought up a community master server when they pull the plug on T2.
12/14/2007 (1:41 pm)
Marcus, I work for a record label, I know what IP is. ;)The master server that comes with TGE does work with Tribes2, auth fails though, naturally, because it doesn't know the WON auth scheme or how to communicate with WON.
This has been done for Tribes 1, there's a community run master server now, and VU is supportive of it, I don't see why they'd act differently if someone brought up a community master server when they pull the plug on T2.
#6
12/14/2007 (1:45 pm)
I may be wrong about the master server code being included, I don't see it in my TGEA directories anywhere. I worked with Legends for a while and I know we were using the torque master server... Is that a GG run master or something to that effect?
#7
12/14/2007 (2:22 pm)
I don't think so. I think the legends team had their own.
#8
12/14/2007 (2:25 pm)
I should ask TerroX about that... I was on the Legends team for a short while but stopped working because I had other stuff that was taking up all my time. 
Associate David Montgomery-Blake
David MontgomeryBlake
One thing that you could do is download TNL (under the GPL) and look at the simple master server example. Then begin reverse engineering the master server. I'm not sure what stayed in Torque and what was removed from the tribes days. And I don't think much of it is documented, or at least not in a place where those who signed the NDA back in the day can release it.