Posting to discuss the data files.

Some clues are found here
https://www.asheronscall.com/en/forums/showthread.php?46283-Monthly-Portal-DAT-i...

0x0000 Start File

[Super  Block]
0x0100 DWord : 0x4C5000 ( HexDump : 00 50 4C 00 )
0x0104 DWord : ???
0x0108 DWord : ???
0x010C DWord : ???
[...]
0x0130 DWord : ???
0x0134 DWord : ???
0x0138 DWord : ???
0x013C DWord : ???
0x0140 DWord : 0x5442 ( HexDump : 42 54 00 00 )
0x0144 DWord : Block_Size
0x0148 DWord : Size
0x014C DWord : Version
0x0150 DWord : Version-2
     !  0 : client_anim, client_gamelogic, client_general, client_highres, client_mesh, client_sound, client_surface
     !  1 : client_local_English, client_cell_1, client_map_1;
     !  2 : client_cell_2, client_map_2
0x0154 DWord : FirstFreeLoc  ! File offset of first free block !
0x0158 DWord : LastFreeLoc  ! File offset of last free block !
0x015C DWord : FreeBlkCount ! Free Block Count !
0x0160 DWord : DirOffset ! Offset to Directory !
 

Check if DWords between 0x104 and 0x13C checksums and CRCs?

Next group :

Directory :
[0x0000] DWord : 00 00 00 00
[0x0004] DWord : 9C 09 00 00
[0x0008] DWord : Directory Pointer 1
[0x000C] DWord : 9C 09 00 00
[0x0010] DWord : Directory Pointer 2
[0x0014] DWord : 9C 09 00 00

Repeat until a pointer to 0x00000000.

The hex addresses above are relative to the start of the directory.  If the DWord at address 0x0160 of the file contains 0x00D00, the 0x0000 address above is 0x00D00 and the first directory pointer is at address 0x00D08.

Mr.B

To avoid all the rubbishy posts from the tards, might want to move thsi to the other bit.

And I still want to get around to re-creating Rodrak's Program.

It is the same format - it's just figuring out the data dump from the .dat files that hte AC decrypter posts up. Something for the weekend perhaps.

There are subdirectories for each pointer, with up to 62 file list pointers.

Sub Directory :
[0x0000] DWord : 00 00 00 00
[0x0004] DWord : 9C 09 00 00
[0x0008] DWord : Pointer to File List 1
[0x000C] DWord : 9C 09 00 00
[0x0010] DWord : Pointer to File List 2
[0x0014] Dword : 9C 09 00 00
[0x0018] Dword : Pointer to File List 3
[0x001C] Dword : 9C 09 00 00
[...]
Repeat up to Pointer to file list 62
[0x0xxx] DWord : 32 00 00 00 ! End of Data (need to confirm 0x32 is the end marker)
 

Organization of file lists:

File List :
[0x0000] DWord : 00 00 00 00
[..]
[0x01F0] DWord : 00 00 00 00
[0x01F4] DWord : 00 00 00 00
[0x01F8] DWord : 1E 00 00 00
[0x01FC] DWord : 00 00 06 00
[0x0200] DWord : <file name>
[0x0204] DWord : <file address>
[0x0208] DWord : 00 10 00 00
[0x020C] DWord : <modification time> (see calculation below)
[0x0210] DWord : 4C 02 00 00
[0x0214] DWord : 08 10 00 00
[0x0218] DWord : 00 00 00 00
 [code]

Need to figure out why DWords at 0x1FC, 0x208, 0x210 and 0x214 have specific values.

The Asheron’s Call people say time is in 0x20C. (see calculation example below)

Each file record in the file list is 8 DWord Long (16 words Long, or 32 Bytes long)
Example  (from client_local_English, a few updates ago)

 [code]
0x000005FC DWord : 00 00 06 00
0x00000600 Dword : 4F 3E 00 0A (0x0A003E4F) file 'name'
0x00000604 DWord : 9C 11 00 00 (0x0000119C) file address
0x00000608 Dword : 00 10 00 00
0x0000060C DWord : 61 8B 5E 45  Modification Time in Seconds since 1970 ????
0x00000610 Dword : 4C 02 00 00
0x00000614 DWord : 08 10 00 00
0x00000618 Dword : 00 00 00 00
 

Time calculation:
0x455E8B61
In Decimal  : 1163823969
1163823969/3600 = 323284
323284/24 = 13470
13470/365 = 36 (rounded)
1970+36 = 2006

Now we have the files.... they start like this:

[0x0000] DWord : <file name>   
[0x0004] DWord :   
[0x0008] DWord :
 

Files seem to vary by type.  The LOTRO unpacker works ok, but not great on DDO files.

The tough part will be figuring out the file types and what they mean.

well if the .dat file name is a hint on file type I'd say the following :

*look at the ddo directory content*

client_anim.dat : should contain the animation information.
client_cell_1 & 2.dat : no idea
client_gamelogic.dat : well game logic whatever that means.
client_general.dat : general game information, whatever that means too.
client_highres.dat : High Resolution Textures
client local_xx.dat : DE Kraut local stuff, FR Frog Local stuff.
client_local_English.dat : English local stuff. Local stuff meaning descriptions, fluff texts.
client_map_1 & 2.dat : maps ? maybe the world map... but that's a WAG.
client_mesh.dat : the mesh ( whatever that means I know it has some meaning in 3D rendering. )
client_sound.dat : Sound files, music, kobold still hates you, and so on.
client_surface : the surface, again whatever that means... I has some meaning when used in conjunction with the mesh in 3D Rendering

But that's just looking at the file names I didnd't check the real content.

Now another Wild Assed Guess is that what is called file in the posts from Mr Brown is not a real file, but it may contain, encapsulated in some DDO stuff real files... It's just because it's the way things are done nowadays, you encapsulate things you want in the format you want it and make software decapsulate it so that it can throw the result at another bit of software for use.

So I'm sure that if we look at the sound dat file we will see lots of vorbis files ( there's 2 Vorbis DLLS in the DDO directory, so it's not a WAG, it's almost a certainty ) stacked one after the other with some DDO relevant information between them so that DDO can retrieve the "Kobold Remember Waterworks" one line when needed.

Ok, I just spend my time encapsulating PPPoE ( or ATM)  into VLANs then into Pseudowires, then into MPLS and decapsulating it back at the other end... I even encapsulate X.25 into IP then into VLANS then... well get the drift, there's even weird stuff like X.25 encapsulated into IP encapsulated into X.25 encapsulated into ATM encpasulated into IP encapsulated into pseudowires and then into MPLS... and I've come to the conclusion that most of the modern computing is just about encapsulating old ( as in 10+ year old ) stuff into something more shiny to make it look new.

No one plays this game anymore, or cares. Post this on reddit or something.

arjiwan wrote on May 14^th, 2013 at 1:23am:


I miss the 5 players you never run with thread, but I think it illustrates what an empty place DDO is becoming. The forum FUBAR isn't exactly doing them any favours either. That plus the character copy issues in Lamma have disconnected me from the game still further. Both my running partners have left or are on hiatus.  It just feels that I'm running through a ghost town when I log in, although admittedly I don't play in primetime.

If they want to deliver a casual MMO there are games that do it very much better with fewer bugs. I for one am enjoying the hell out of Neverwinter, and think the Foundry has real potential to give it legs.

One could post an absolutely undetectable plat dupe exploit here and I wouldn't log on to do it. 

THAT'S bad.

whothefuckami wrote on May 15^th, 2013 at 8:23pm:


Because you're not stupid?

I'm no pussy, I got away with a lot of posts on the DDO forum by not naming my account here GrandpaBill.  I just figured that if they could definitely tie a post there to an account here they'd infract with extreme prejudice.

The bonus of getting banned is you no longer have to participate in that the thing they call a forum.

Bill Z Bubb wrote on May 16^th, 2013 at 11:07am:


Well, I haven't been really hiding who I am on the main forum, and any regular Vaultie should know it by now. So far I haven't been infracted with extreme prejudice.
Actually I have even been asked if I would join The Mournlands Puppet Show. ( I never answered that one... for obvious reasons )

Now I hope Mr Brown cannot be tied in anyway to an account, because what he has been giving us is pure gold.
I couldn't resist having a look at the file to check the information, so far it match, if only I was better at programming in visual <insert crapastic modern language here>... 
Coding a tool in assembler is going to take me ages

Now THAT sounds like the actions of a pussy.