[Unkle Nuke]

Greetings Fellow PSO CulTists, If there are any, that is. :P This is your good ol' Unkle here, giving the shout out to any and all PSO enthusiasts to come and discuss, share, and learn everything there is about the inner workings of Phantasy Star Online. My main area of focus is PSO v2 for the PC, but any version is open for this topic. So....if you got some good hacks, disassembly of file formats or program code, tools, or knowledge then come on in and share with us all. The ultimate goal of all this is to eventually do a complete, open-source recode of PSO from scratch, with an extensive set of mod tools for the end user to do whatever his imagination can conceive. Let's get to work and make some history!

[Nettapu]

About 3 years ago I used to play with PSO... I remember turning myself into Sonic, creating new Weopons, disconnecting players... But it's been a while and I doubt if I still got anything from PSO on my hard drive, but I'll check and post stuff if I'll find some.

[Cryomancer]

If someone can come up with nice model and texture rips of the weapons I will attempt to port them to UT. which i've enver done but would learn to do, lol.

[Cho]

I like the sound of your idea if not a little bit optimistic, seeing an open source version of PSO would be godly to be honest with you. I've quit mainly every version of PSO because a.) I get bored or b.) I don't want to pay anymore, so I look forward to seeing a free open source version.I look forward to seeing the final result. Sadly I myself cannot offer any help due to being totally useless.

This post has been edited by Cho: 07 May 2006 - 08:46 AM

[khorney]

they have free servers now cho... http://schtserv.funurl.com/

[Cho]

khorney, on May 7 2006, 09:00 AM, said:

they have free servers now cho... http://schtserv.funurl.com/

You'll notice I said "a.) Got bored or b.) Didn't want to pay anymore". Make free servers for PSOBB and I'm there =P.

[khorney]

well, you can get a free download of PSO PC there if you look around (either that or PSO palace; linked there) as far as im aware its i dentical to PSOBB except for the extra episodes

[Unkle Nuke]

I must say that I am greatly encouraged by this initial response! I'm most likely in over my head at this point in time, but I'm learning. I also realize that PSOpen ( yep....I've already given this open source project a name.) is going to take years to complete, but I'm willing to stick it out and see this through. It is my hope that the legacy we create here will outlive our efforts and PSO will become something far greater and bigger than Sega or the PSOpen Project, just as other fan created versions of other classic games have far outlived the corporate profits and the too brief lifespans of the games they've created. I hope that this will pay homage to those dedicated game developers who created such wonderful worlds, not for profit or deadlines set by the management, but out of the sheer love of doing it. I may be overly optimistic, but look at the countless others throughout history who started small and ended up changing the world in spite of those who kept telling them, "It can't be done!". When PSOpen is finally released from beta to v1.0, it is my hope that the tools we provide the modders will allow everyone to keep the game constantly growing...adding new races, new classes, new weapons and items, new techniques, new textures, new and more expansive levels, and countless other features we cannot even begin to imagine right now. I'm sure the first efforts will be mainly people adding their favorite things from all the existing versions of PSO and the upcoming PSU, but when people begin creating original material is where things will get truly interesting. For PSO to live it has to be shared, not become the property of anyone. It is our duty to make sure that we always have a free and open enviroment where we treat each other with kindness and respect. I want us all to be friends here. If some newbie comes along and offers up some tired, old piece of info that he's discovered, but it's new to him, let him down gently and then encourage him to get back in there and keep at it! We don't need any "uber-hacker" attitude. Let your skills speak for you. Crushing their enthusiasm and running people off with attitude is a sure way to kill this whole idea....and PSO will eventually die forever. I've seen too much of that in the PSO hacking scene elsewhere. We need every person we can find! Nettapu - Anything you have will be greatly appreciated. Especially if it is useful for figuring out the program code of the game. Cho - Nobody is ever useless..unless they choose to be. If all you have to offer is cheering us on then don't hesitate to do so! Cryomancer - Phantasy Star: Unreal Tournament, eh? Sounds kick ass! SANiK - Where do I begin? You managed to get me going and inspire me on this. Now you'll never get me to shut up! LOL. Thank you so very much for that, my friend. But, I'll not pass up your offer for those documented model dumps either. :P And thank you for offering your considerable skills for a chance to make a dream come true. Let's get to uploading and posting everyone! Too much work to do and it'll never get done too soon to satisfy any of us. Got to get our hands dirty, but it will all be worth it when we sit down to play PSOpen v1.0. Power to the people!

[Nettapu]

I deleted my whole PSO folder (btw, is nowadays a website or a good torrent to download it?) but fortunately, I found some of my notes I took during some 'sniffing sessions', when I was anylising the packets that were sent and received by the client. I'll post them after I put them together..Question to Unkle: which 3D engine you are planning to use?And one thing: if we want to keep it open source and 'legal', I dont think it's a good idea to use dumped models from the game. Remodelling them wouldn't be a good idea?

This post has been edited by Nettapu: 07 May 2006 - 11:49 AM

[Unkle Nuke]

I'm not sure exactly which engine would be used. Unless there's a need to code one from scratch, I'm leaning towards Crystal Space since it seems to be the most completely supported open source engine out there. 3D State makes a decent one as well and it's open source because the development was funded by the U.S. military for use in various simulators. I've downloaded pretty much every single open source engine that's worth looking at. The same goes for graphical and modeling tools. I think Blender is the best choice overall for modeling, but there's several others that might be simpler to use, like Panda 3D. And the only real choice for texturing is GIMP, imho. I suppose you could use commercial tools also, like Photoshop and Poser for creating content. Not to worry about the model rips, either, Nettapu. SANiK is just giving everyone something to start with. Knowing how a model is done will help a lot in creating new ones. I hope that PSOpen will have high and low polygon count models with high and low res textures so even people with older PCs can still play. PSOpen is going to be a raw recode. Done 100% fresh from the ground up, so to speak. It's not going to be a kludge with PSO content ripped from the existing games and then tossed together with an open source game engine. Any rips, disassemblies, decompiles, etc. will be used as reference materials to give us a starting point, not included in PSOpen...so not to worry.

[Demi]

Me and Cryo > *. :D

[Nettapu]

Unkle Nuke, on May 7 2006, 06:14 PM, said:

PSOpen is going to be a raw recode. Done 100% fresh from the ground up, so to speak. It's not going to be a kludge with PSO content ripped from the existing games and then tossed together with an open source game engine. Any rips, disassemblies, decompiles, etc. will be used as reference materials to give us a starting point, not included in PSOpen...so not to worry.

That's my point :]

[Gen]

You may wan't to take a look at Ogre3D. Its pretty cool.

[Johnny_Tsunami]

I'll post links here as well.http://snowfox.biz/forumshttp://www.xbox-fusion.comI strongly suggest checking out both places for info on the inner workings of pretty much any version of PSO. Check out xbox-fusion especially if you're interested in PSOX; the creator of that site did more with PSOX than anyone else I saw.

[Gen]

I can help out with any Mac builds.

[Unkle Nuke]

The fact that Crystal Space is coded in C++ and there is such a large community around it developing tools and add-ons is another reason I'm favoring that engine. The fact that all my tools and books I have invested in cover mainly C++ and assembler has committed me to that path as well. Everything is still in the planning stages and nothing is being left out of consideration at this point. I'd like for all of us to make sure we have the best possible tools and foundation for building PSOpen. Ogre 3D isn't a game engine. It's a graphics rendering engine and it does a damn awesome job at it. I've considered plugging it into CS, but it would depend on how much impact that would have on performance. With all the rendering and physics engines out there, it would be possible to simply use those around a core engine made from scratch and then add in other libraries like Allegro and Open GL ( but I absolutely hate glut..it's obsolete and not open source ), but all that might be totally unnecessary if CS has all we need. I've downloaded g3d, but haven't looked over the docs for the API yet. First glance at it was interesting, though. When it comes to engines, graphics, and rendering I've pretty much overloaded Sourceforge's servers with all the stuff I downloaded. I've spent many months thinking about PSOpen and sat many hours simply scanning Sourceforge's entire site for any relevant libraries, software, and tools. Maybe it was overkill, but I like to be thorough. Google probably has a server reserved just for me to handle all the searching I've done there as well. lol You don't collect over 30 gigs of software and documents without some effort, that's for sure. All that said and done, you have a point about portability, Nettapu. Although my main concentration is on developing an x86 Windows build, I would very much like to see Unix, Linux, and Mac versions for the x86 as well...hell, even the SPARC and Alpha, if we can swing it. Thanks for offering your skills, Gen. I suppose this makes you our resident Mac build expert. Now you're in for it! lol The more platforms we cover, the better. I wouldn't mind dragging some of the homebrew consolers into this and having builds for the Dreamcast, PS2, and Xbox. The Gamecube would be a real challenge since no DVD burner for the PC can create GC mini-DVDs, in the format they use, at this time. I hope someone can work around that, someday. Thanks for the links, Tsunami. Anyone that wants to, go have a look and see what you turn up. Geez...there's a certain Japanese game company that's going to hate us for even trying to do this. lol

[Nettapu]

Unkle Nuke, on May 8 2006, 10:58 AM, said:

All that said and done, you have a point about portability, Nettapu. Although my main concentration is on developing an x86 Windows build, I would very much like to see Unix, Linux, and Mac versions for the x86 as well...hell, even the SPARC and Alpha, if we can swing it.

The differences between platforms would be mainly in communication with the server (here the code differs most), so it would not be a problem to port the game to other systems, espacially when considering Crystal Space, which as far as I know does not require any changes (or just minor changes) in code to compile it for an other platform.Also I suggest writing the server for Unix systems at first, as they are far more popular than other platforms when it comes to server-side applications.

[Gen]

Nettapu, on May 8 2006, 11:59 AM, said:

Also I suggest writing the server for Unix systems at first, as they are far more popular than other platforms when it comes to server-side applications.

I would suggest writing it for some sort of BSD package.Also, what about physics? I know of an excellent cross-platform physics sdk called newton. Its free, has Linux, Win32, and MacOS support. Theres also ODE. ODE hasn't really advanced for a while now, so I'd recommend Newton. Although, ODE would definatly be a good choice if PSOpen were to be ported to a console (ODE is under a BSD opensource license).Also, as far as Ogre3D, it runs great on the Mac platform. The only real problem is Apple not fully implementing some features in thier OpenGL drivers (no FBO support, GL_NV_vertex_program3 is broken, no GL_NV_vertex_program1 support, ect.). Theres also some wrappers for Newton and ODE for Ogre3D available.

This post has been edited by Gen: 08 May 2006 - 03:09 PM

[Unkle Nuke]

There should probably be two types of servers, personal and main. Personal servers can be for individuals wanting to host their own games and are able to connect to other personal servers to form an ad-hoc, decentralized network similar to the way bittorent does so that a game can persist even when one or more personal servers drop out. I think we first need a working Windows version of this since most of the people out there in the PSO mod scene are on some sort of Windows platform Main servers would be those that make up the "official" administrated network, with registered accounts. I see the "official" network as being like Pioneer 2. We could even implement allowing the characters to explore and "live" in this ship that is a city. I would like to eventually see the "official" main ship server network running under Unix/Linux. Since Unix and Linux implement sockets differently than Windows, it does make them more secure than Windows, relatively speaking. The official servers should be decentralized as well, with clients automatically jumping to the next server if the one they're on drops out or crashes. IRC has done this for ages. Of course, as much as I like the Open Source movement, I think that whole "more secure" thing needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I remember back in the golden age of hacking, shortly after the movie "Wargames" was released, that any kid with a modem and an Apple II or Commodore 64 was cracking Unix systems like eggs ( shadowed password files were a joke ). I've seen enough to know that people who believe in computer security are delusional, at best. How to implement allowing players to be able to see each other's character mods in game is something I know everyone wants. I'm thinking this would be more practical as a feature exclusive to the main ship server network, with "registered" players being able to permanently store a copy of their character to the main server database. I suppose you could take the bittorrent style networking thing a step further for personal servers by allowing players to temporarily upload a copy of their characters while playing. I've got both Newton and Open Dynamics Engine. Newton has more features than ODE, but I think Crystal Space has a physics engine already. It all comes down to what's best in the end. I'd rather do this game right than take shortcuts, even if it means the extra pains of adding in external physics and rendering engines. Since MacOS X is basically FreeBSD, I think there shouldn't be too much trouble using Crystal Space and the other tools and then porting the game over to the Mac from Linux. Guess I'd better hurry up and get this whole programming thing down. Too much to learn and not enough time. *sigh*