solution for what ? Its not server problem and thats where it ends for us. L2J server side has nothing to do with client problems.
Good Day,
I may be cracking some eggs here and if you wish to ban me so be it; but it seems to me that this issue is of paramount importance! What good is a game server if nobody can connect USING THE METHODS YOU PRESCRIBE!
I am sorry for the rant but if a user can't connect to your awesome server -- What the heck good is it. I have followed your instructions to the letter; I believe I have a fully functioning server, I have set the hosts file EXACTLY as prescribed in your wiki, and I get the Game Guard issue, concerning hacking tools.
Without a solution and a working client--what purpose does this awesome product serve??
How is anyone who is following your directions using your server. Could some kind soul enlighten me please?
Discussions regarding illegal "solution(s)" to GameGuard is not permitted on this forum. You will need to take your search out to Google and perhaps you may find a solution(s). Good luck to finding a solution for your issue.
lishawj wrote:Discussions regarding illegal "solution(s)" to GameGuard is not permitted on this forum. You will need to take your search out to Google and perhaps you may find a solution(s). Good luck to finding a solution for your issue.
Just where in my post did I mention any sort of illegal solution to gameguard or otherwise...
I think that there is a general "head-in-the-sand" attitude here concerning this issue. I understand you concerns about illegalities and am in no way suggesting or condoning ANY particular sort of solution...
I am only pointing out that the king of legal knock off servers--"has no clothes". Without a working client what good is this grandiose server of babel you are constructing. What I am saying is that discussion and effort should be put forth and a fix found that satisfies your clientele/users or you will be holding a very full bag of NOTHING USEFUL!
Sorry to be so blunt, but your reply to my question, seems to imply you don't give a damn about the client issue and if that is the case then you are totally off-base. If the only solution is illegal then by continuing work on a product with will only work with an illegal modification makes you complicit. So I would suggest that you might put forth some effort toward solving this issue as your own interests are also at stake.
Sir: This project is a worthy effort, what I am saying is this; You guys NEED to find a solution to this issue or the entire project is worthless... The solution need to stay on the "legal" side (but I am sure that the server project itself could be found illegal easily using modern copyright agreements or the soon to be law International Agreements). Without this piece how can you justify continuing work that is "legally" inaccessible? It seems from the attitude of folks on this forum that the server is the be-all/end-all and that in fact is not the case.
Me: I just want to play on a private server... So how about it -- can someone come up with a solution?????
as you know... L2J project has nothing to do with "client-side".
GG troubles are related with "client-side", so.. we don't care resolve this, due that this part (client part) is responsability of NCZ0ft & the users, then you if you are desperated to solve the GG troubles, just use google or any other search engine.
There is some effective solutions for GG in google.
I think that there is a point in what he is saying... If nobody can use the server, it is worth nothing... And the legality of the server itself is yet to be proven (L2DP is clearly illegal as it holds the quests/recipes and some other things which are exact copies of L2)
The server itself uses crypto from L2 official... Including (tell me if I'm wrong) appendchecksum and encXORpass which look strangely as a conversion from an assembler routine (variable like ecx, edx, ...), the 16 bytes sent as "unknown, GG related ?" and some other stuff. I know that blowfish can't be copyrighte/pattented by NCZ0ft... But L2 keys are more sensible... Look at the fuzz around that BluRay key which found it's way on the internet...
I'm not a lawyer, but, from all what I've read about copyright, it restricts
- making copies
- making derivated products
decoding client files on the Hard Drive is making a copy -> illegal
patching in memory is NOT making a copy and not making a derivated product (it's still the same thing) -> could be legal (at least when we are talking about copyrights)
Changing some client files '(nudeL2 or such) -> illegal (derivated product)
DMCA comes in play... This is a nasty piece of law... L2 client holds some content (the graphics, music, ...) and that content is "unlocked" by the server which tells what you see/hear. So, basically, the server is an "access control system" to the L2 client contents... By emulating the server, you are bypassing the access control, this makes L2J plainly illegal. By chances, not all countries have DMCA-like laws in place... at least until now...
So, back to GameGuard issue :
- changing the executable on disk : illegal
- patching in memory : legal (we need to find some legal way to do it)
- decoding the L2.INI, changing server address, recoding using custom key and patching client : illegal
- fooling L2 to think that L2authd.lineage2.com is some other address : legal
We can't patch any file from L2 directly... but we may create a false DLL which does in-memory patching then transfer the control to the correct DLL... The correct DLL is not copied nor changed, only moved (OK copyright-wise), no file is changed, no derivative product created...
Some good target is the Microsoft redistributable DLL (like DirectX one) because they are not Themida-shell encrypted. Most L2 client files are encrypted (which would require key patching -> illegal)
By the way, it NCZ0ft says that memory patching is illegal, they are in trouble because it's what GameGuard does !!! GameGuard installs itself in all the running processes (sometimes making them crash later, for example, my linksys wifi manager which crashs whenever I exit L2) This GameGuard behaviour put NCZ0ft in a bad situation regarding memory patching.
Another possible legal way to bypass GameGuard is to create our own GameGuard kernel driver... It'd be a driver written from scratch (so no NC Sfot code inside it). That device driver is loaded when Windows starts (we may uninstall it and install another driver without any legal implication). If our own driver mimics part of the GameGuard kernel driver and fools the GameGuard code, it may defang Gameguard without any single byte modification.
There are legal ways of bypassing Gameguard... But not providing one (and pointing people to google) will most of the time result in having people installing a "game guard emulator server" (which is nothing but a web server with copyrighted files hosted... illegal) or doing client decryption/patching (either L2.ini or other, also illegal)... In the end, it's like saying that L2J is something illegal as the only way to use it is doing something illegal !!!
I know that you don't like the idea of client modding as it's calling legal troubles, I agree about that... What I'm saying is that in memory PATCHING should be safe (if NC Soft dares to say anything agaisnt it, you may use the same argument against them saying that it's what GameGuard IS doing on YOUR computer WITHOUT your consent)
Oh... I forgot one thing... There is ONE (and only one) way to make L2J project legal (or nearly legal) : the L2J Client + a custom Data Pack which is in NO way related to official L2 world... At that time, a name change could also help...
If you've project "MMORPGinJava" which is both a client, a server and a datapack which happens to be compatible with L2 client and to emulate L2 if you use L2DP, only L2DP is a legal problem... The server+client+DP would be out of trouble...
But it'd only be true if it's presented as a whole project and if it's far enough from LE to be tought as unrelated (which means that we can't have 7sign + sieges + necro/cata + BS of Mammon + adena/Ancient Adena + priests of Dawn + class tree + ... similar to L2... even if each of these item taken separately is not "L2", their combination IS L2..)
But we lack a proper client, we lack the world development tools (good tools to create map which will export it as Geodata + map files + models + ...),... And creating a world from scratch also means redoing all the balance work (making sure there is no superior race/class, no ultimate item, ...)
Oh... FYI, I was part of BNetD project, a server emulator for Battle.Net... My addition was the code responsible for the ladder 4-8 players computations (perfectly legal code as lader was based on ELO)... That project was closed by blizzard thanks to the DMCA and it was way less illegal than L2J (you still needed to have a serial key to install the client on the computer, there were CD-Checks, ... and you were able to do LAN games without BNetD... BNetD wzs only adding the statistics and matchmaking part). I never got into legal trouble but I followed the case pretty well through EFF, groklaw, slashdot and other.
