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*3/14/2014* DNF Gearbox Downgrade Patch WIP = TESTING

#1

Here a patch (not done by anyone "I" know) is something that might tickle you.

https://mega.co.nz/#...oyBcFl-nfoPfA2g

I like many of you were quite dissappointed when Gearbox decided to remove the console, so i've been working on a patch that would restore it to the first version. Allows you to use the console, which is a powerful semi-documented tool and allows you to remove things like DOF or increase FOV.

I could have a patch ready in a few days time (to polish it off), I have a few concerns (and the DLC probably will still not work):

1) It would require a nocd (should that be included in the patch?)

2) Multiplayer would not work

3) Outside of that it would either require old copywrited files or reversion code edits (think bindiff). Are those allowed here?

4) If I don't do a bindiff style patcher, how could/should I make sure that someone owned or at least installed the steam version properly?

5) Should I include any tools/utilities for dnf from the community that often are hard/nay impossible to find now.

If you have a hard drive big enough you can technically have both versions (steam and this) so long as they aren't installed the same place, they also read their saved games from different places.

This post has been edited by Drathian: 14 March 2014 - 01:40 PM

7

User is offline   Micky C 

  • Honored Donor

#2

It's nice to see your enthusiasm to make a mod, but depending on how much effort it will take, I don't think it's worth it. I doubt very many people play the game online anymore, and I seriously doubt anyone still plays the single player. I think god intended for us not to play the singleplayer. I'm not talking about the quality of the levels or anything, merely the fact that you can only hold one save game at a time, and that if you do try to jump into any of the later levels, your ego resets itself while the game expects you to have lots of ego boosts from all the previous levels, making it much harder than it should be. And on top of that, the incredible linear nature of the levels and the big spaces where nothing happens doesn't help.

However why not try modding Duke 3D? There's still a big audience for that, bigger than DNF anyway.

Edit: Btw what tools and utilities are you talking about? Unfortunately there's no official modding tools for DNF, which is a major reason everyone forgot about it so quickly.

This post has been edited by Micky C: 06 January 2013 - 02:13 AM

0

User is offline   Hank 

#3

We had a designated forum section for potential modding. With the sub title that read something like: Discussion about mods that will never be. The forum did have information about altering the game settings and so on. That forum section was deleted. It is not that people forgot about it, but no one will re-post that what was deleted.

As Micky C wrote, if you love Duke Nukem, give EDuke32 a chance. It is your best chance to explore your talents within the community.
0

User is offline   faked 

#4

All I kow is if there were such a patch,I would use it.End of story for me.Bye!
0

User is offline   Hank 

#5

The license when you get DNF reads:
You agree not to: Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, prepare derivative works based on or otherwise modify the Software, in whole or in part; Remove or modify any proprietary notices, marks or labels contained on or within the Software.

No one will ever have an official, Gearbox sanctioned, patch, unless they themselves will issue one via a DLC (Downloadable Content), for another $10 US Dollars. :P
0

#6

I feared that might be the case. Just testing the waters so to speak. I finished a patch it is rather small, but I won't be releasing it as it is against the rules, oh well.

I have heard of eduke, etc... I'm not very good with art so I doubt i'd be much help. Back to modding other sanctioned games. Bye for now.
2

User is offline   Micky C 

  • Honored Donor

#7

View PostDrathian, on 06 January 2013 - 09:30 PM, said:

I feared that might be the case. Just testing the waters so to speak. I finished a patch it is rather small, but I won't be releasing it as it is against the rules, oh well.

I have heard of eduke, etc... I'm not very good with art so I doubt i'd be much help. Back to modding other sanctioned games. Bye for now.




That's a shame, eduke32 has a very in-depth scripting language that allows you to control every aspect of the game, allowing for a huge amount of potential gameplay without even touching the art or anything else.

And as for DNF, as if anyone ever follows those rules Posted Image
0

User is offline   Hank 

#8

View PostDrathian, on 06 January 2013 - 09:30 PM, said:

I feared that might be the case. Just testing the waters so to speak. I finished a patch it is rather small, but I won't be releasing it as it is against the rules, oh well.

Discouraging this was not my plan - I expected a counter argument, it's the duke way, sort of speak. :P

Here is another project DNF related that came back to live
http://www.skacik.pl...ured&Itemid=101

and another one
http://www.richwhite...x.php?postid=65
0

#9

View PostHank, on 07 January 2013 - 12:54 PM, said:

Discouraging this was not my plan - I expected a counter argument, it's the duke way, sort of speak. :P

Here is another project DNF related that came back to live
http://www.skacik.pl...ured&Itemid=101

and another one
http://www.richwhite...x.php?postid=65







Sorry I'm a little used to ban happy forums, I really didn't want to give up B) .

AFAIK re-reading the license agreement there is nothing even in that would render this patch illegal except for two files in it, I'll get to that in a minute. This is not a way to hack the console in, or create a console because that was already in place by the company that developed it. My patch simply is a downgrade patch, using the least amount of data. Imagine the legal precendence if companies could say old versions of software are illegal, it would be laughed out of court. Like saying that you have to update your iphone every year or its against the TOS.

The only problem I found in a legal sense is my patch is based on a hacked version (2 files), which does violate TOS of both steam and gearbox and 2k etc... However there is a way around that, if I can locate the first version exe, I didn't have the forsight to think that they'd pull a number like this so I didn't save it. I think it may be on the dvd I think, I'll have to figure out how to extract that. Then all you would need to do is disable steam cloud and steam updating the game and it wouldn't violate any license agreement. (just don't play it with multiplayer) I wouldn't be distributing the exe, but a patch that is useless if you don't already have one (hopefully by buying the game) for the executable file and others.

This type of data patching, is how I and others like me have for years got around the legal hurdles thrown at us by companies like Nintendo/Sega on the ROM hacking scene. Its still a grey area but I don't think by itself violates the DMCA, or its subsequent addons YET.

Then they can stomp their feet all they want, and call me a pirate, but I'm really just an angry customer that refuses to let their lack of vision destroy a icon of gaming history. I wonder if they even care anymore tbh, otherwise we'd see some plans about new DLC, at that is as likely to take another 12 years if ever /sarcasm.


EDIT:

It seems valve and gearbox already thought of this, and disabled my idea from working (throws an error 2 steam servers are too busy to handle this install) so no working legitimate downgrade option. I repeat there is no legal way to downgrade to a working 1, although it can be done using an unauthorized patch, since I can't release the full patch I can do the next best thing in a followup post.

This post has been edited by Drathian: 08 January 2013 - 11:19 PM

2

#10

**DISCLAIMER** Although in this case respecting copyrights, makes this process much more complicated then it needs to be, I will nonetheless respect copyrights by not distributing copyrighted files, nor directly help people that have not a valid copy of this game on Steam. Furthermore I'm not a reverse engineer nor do I pretend to be, i simply messed with some files until they worked, i have no idea how really stable this is, though I haven't had any problems.

First off, it was a royal pain to find a version 1 dnf. As the /System directory is mostly downloaded off of steam during even new installs, it made this more annoying.

My initial experiments, I think the console is held within the exe and possibly extended by engine.dll.

Luckly for us, gearbox was rather lazy at blocking the console they barely updated a handful of files in the /System directory primarly.

Although 287 Files at minimum are changed from the initial 1.0 build (that is 675mb), only 8 files are necessary to revert to the 1.0 build with console. These files will enable it to work even with the newer versions of the other files I guess this is some weird unintentional backwards compatability.

Version 1.0 files required:

D3DDrv9.dll

dnAI.dll

dnCommon.dll

dnGame.dll

DukeForever.exe (*)

engine.dll (*)

MegaPackage.dat

MilesAudio.dll


-This will get you back to a workable 1.0 without having to jump through mighty hoops of doom.

However, it will still not work without the addition of 3 (*) hacked files that aren't exactly lawful (note that this entire process breaks Steam dependencies for the game, break the dlc, and break multiplayer AFAIK.)

steam_api.dll (*)

Steamclient.dll (*)

SKIDROW.ini (*)


If you wish to try this method I recommend that you make a copy of /steamapps/common/duke nukem forever/ to a place you have space and mess with it there, if you can't afford hard drive space, then just make a copy of the unaltered (that is no texmod dukeforever.exe etc) steam /System directory before messing with it, and remember not to launch it via steam or it will update it away.

Legally I'm not able to upload the following hack files (steam_api.dll, Steamclient.dll and SKIDROW.ini) rely on your own methods to find a working duke nukem forever version of them.

However for those of you are lucky enough to have bought steam version of dnf, doesn't matter if it has or doesn't have the dlc as long as it is up to date, i have a special treat. I know its complicated for legality reasons and a general pain in the butt but if you don't want to hunt for and redownload a game you already have try this:

Here 11.72 MB, is a file that contains the changed data, and a tool to patch your steam version to this version 1. Remember you'll still need to find those other 3 files as I can't include them nor even their changes. When you have the dnfpatch.zip downloaded extract it all to the base root directory of "steamapps/common/duke nukem forever". In case you forget to backup your files it does it by making first a directory /SystemORIG and then copying original files to *.original extension, it will only let you run it once to avoid corruption so turn off your antivirus temporaly and then proceed to run the dnfpatch.bat and you'll have a version 1 console dnf ready. ***Add those other three unincludable files to /System and it will work as intended.*** If something messes up simply delete" steamapps/common/duke nukem forever/System" and rename "steamapps/common/duke nukem forever/SystemORIG" to /System. It is also and easy way to go back to the steam version.

NOTE: your saves will not carry over if you wish to use the saves from steam copy them from "C:\program files\steam\userdata\(random #)\57900\remote" or "C:\program files (x86)\steam\userdata\(random #)\57900\remote" to "%LOCALAPPDATA%\SKIDROW\57900\Storage"

I'd love to just include the 10 files and it be an easy patch but I'm trying to follow the law. So please forgive the convoluted nature of this project.

This post has been edited by Drathian: 08 January 2013 - 11:34 PM

8

User is offline   Bloodshot 

#11

Now all we need is a way to get one of the UE level editors working with DNF :P

Seriously though, nice work
0

#12

View PostBloodshot, on 09 January 2013 - 08:20 PM, said:

Now all we need is a way to get one of the UE level editors working with DNF :P

Seriously though, nice work


Funny you should say that, is exactly what i've been working on after this. Although a release of such software would be a copyright nightmare, I just want to do a POC (proof of concept) to see if it can even be done. But shhhhhh I don't think i'm supposed to be doing this lol.
1

User is offline   Micky C 

  • Honored Donor

#13

View PostDrathian, on 07 January 2013 - 04:36 PM, said:

Then they can stomp their feet all they want, and call me a pirate, but I'm really just an angry customer that refuses to let their lack of vision destroy a icon of gaming history. I wonder if they even care anymore tbh, otherwise we'd see some plans about new DLC, at that is as likely to take another 12 years if ever /sarcasm.

It seems valve and gearbox already thought of this, and disabled my idea from working (throws an error 2 steam servers are too busy to handle this install) so no working legitimate downgrade option. I repeat there is no legal way to downgrade to a working 1, although it can be done using an unauthorized patch, since I can't release the full patch I can do the next best thing in a followup post.


Yep, that's pretty much how I feel. I payed $100 for a standard copy of DNF, under the assumption that I would not only be playing the game, but all the awesome mods and user maps that would follow for years to come... boy was I ripped off.

And yeah people have tried various ways in the past to get the console back in, and Gearbox didn't just take it out, they put quite a lot of effort into making sure it couldn't be brought back. They even disabled the developer console I think.
Still, without any actual extra content, a little console and whatever other minor graphical tweaks that can unofficially come out are not enough to motivate me to reinstall and open up the game.
0

User is offline   Bloodshot 

#14

View PostDrathian, on 09 January 2013 - 10:29 PM, said:

Funny you should say that, is exactly what i've been working on after this. Although a release of such software would be a copyright nightmare, I just want to do a POC (proof of concept) to see if it can even be done. But shhhhhh I don't think i'm supposed to be doing this lol.


If you were to get it to work, I honestly think it'd be ok as long as people don't go posting it everywhere for GBX to take notice
0

User is offline   zwieback 

#15

the game is dead, i think not even gbx cares. keep up the good work!

however i'm playing through the dlc now - which is great :P

This post has been edited by zwieback: 11 January 2013 - 08:52 AM

0

User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#16

View Postzwieback, on 11 January 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

the game is dead, i think not even gbx cares. keep up the good work!

however i'm playing through the dlc now - which is great :P


There's nothing great about it. It's the same exact bullshit with a different skin!
0

User is offline   MusicallyInspired 

  • The Sarien Encounter

#17

No, it's a bit better. It sure felt funner than the regular campaign.

This post has been edited by MusicallyInspired: 11 January 2013 - 05:01 PM

0

User is offline   TerminX 

  • el fundador

  #18

I couldn't bring myself to hate DNF. It wasn't nearly as good as it should have been after such a long time, but I waited so damn long for it (and I love the Duke Nukem character so much) that there was no way I could just outright hate it. I still thought it was much better than a lot of games that have huge followings (Half-Life 2, for example).
4

User is offline   xMobilemux 

#19

IMO I think DNF was fine, I'm very happy that Duke was still Duke and not redesigned into a something pathetic like some all of the other game characters and franchises that I was a huge fan of, I hate what they are now, Duke is the only one who hasn't stabbed me in the back, he's the same guy I became a fan of 16 years ago and I love him even more for not changing like those other pricks. Plus if you think about it, DNF was doing everything a Duke game should have done, it ripped off what was popular at the time and gave it a Duke paint job. Duke 1 & 2 ripped off games like Megaman and such with a Duke paint job, DN3D ripped off Doom and gave it a Duke job while at the same time ended up becoming one of the greatest and legendary games in FPS and gaming history, Time to Kill and Land of the Babes ripped off Tomb Raider and now DNF rips off games like Half Life and Halo with a Duke paint job. So I think Duke's still being Duke both character wise and game wise, I think that's gonna change with Gearbox though.

This post has been edited by Wesker500: 11 January 2013 - 06:01 PM

2

User is offline   Micky C 

  • Honored Donor

#20

View PostTerminX, on 11 January 2013 - 05:27 PM, said:

I couldn't bring myself to hate DNF. It wasn't nearly as good as it should have been after such a long time, but I waited so damn long for it (and I love the Duke Nukem character so much) that there was no way I could just outright hate it. I still thought it was much better than a lot of games that have huge followings (Half-Life 2, for example).


Half life 2 was no where near as good as I expected, but it was still pretty good, especially in the second half of the game, and IMO better than DNF. Certainly much more polished and balanced. Plus it did many of the things DNF did, only 7 years before it was released.
Although I guess one of the big reasons HL2 has such a huge fanbase compared to DNF is the mod tools. I doubt even HL2 would have survived this long if there were no user maps or mods for it.

@Wesker, although Duke didn't change a huge amount, he did change a bit, and that bit was in the wrong direction.

This post has been edited by Micky C: 11 January 2013 - 06:02 PM

0

User is offline   xMobilemux 

#21

View PostMicky C, on 11 January 2013 - 06:02 PM, said:

@Wesker, although Duke didn't change a huge amount, he did change a bit, and that bit was in the wrong direction.

I agree that he was a little bit changed in the wrong direction, but not enough to make me hate him like all my other favorite franchises and characters have, I guess that can kinda be blamed on the writing during the hellish development, but he's still the Duke I love and of course he was done a bit better in the DLC.
0

User is offline   Bloodshot 

#22

I honestly don't want to dislike DNF, but I was just shocked at how boring the game was, I couldn't even bring myself to play the last level because I was just tired of it by then. I think it was one of the few games I played that I thought was too long (normally I want the game to be really long)
1

User is offline   Micky C 

  • Honored Donor

#23

It's not that the game was too long, it's just that boring stuff was put/left in to fluff it up to make it longer.
If it had been the same length but with different stuff in the place of the long stretches of dullness, than it would have been just fine.
1

User is offline   zwieback 

#24

View PostCommando Nukem, on 11 January 2013 - 09:27 AM, said:

There's nothing great about it. It's the same exact bullshit with a different skin!


Like pointed out by other members there is much more happening on less space - it is not as stretched out as the main campaign => and that's why it is so much better imo.
besides: the dlc IS really funny compared to the main campaign.
But don't drag this discussion further off-topic, we have a special thread for the dlc :P i just felt like posting this after you said that it is the same exact bullshit B)
0

User is offline   Bloodshot 

#25

You know what, I'm gonna reinstall DNF and play through it again to see if I really dislike it as much as I remember.
0

#26

UPDATE on EDITOR:

While I've been able to decompile the entire source tree (that is the *.u to *.uc) for DNF the engine appears to be the problem. What bastard version of Unreal did they build this from? I have all of the unreal games, it seems to be a mixture between 1 and 2. Unfortunately for us we are missing at least 1 DLL (core.dll) and a proper accepting (unrealed.exe) very tiny files is all that stands in the way of us having a full editor, I'm very frustrated after spending 8+ hours working on it.

I did notice a few things if anyone else more skilled then me wants to take it on at some point. The system.ini and user.ini are slightly modified unreal based files for example:

unreal 1 (Default.ini, Unreal.ini)
[size=2][URL][/size]
Protocol=unreal
ProtocolDescription=Unreal Protocol
Name=Player
Map=Index.unr
LocalMap=Unreal.unr
AltLocalMap=UPack.unr
EntryMap=EntryII.unr
Host=
Portal=
MapExt=unr
SaveExt=usa
[size=2]Port=7777[/size]



dnf (system.ini)
[size=2][URL][/size]
Protocol=duke4
ProtocolDescription=DNF Protocol
Location=Duke_Nukem
Map=Index.dnf
LocalMap=Entry.dnf
Host=
Portal=
MapExt=dnf
SaveExt=d4
Port=7777
Class=dnGame.DukeMultiPlayerAssets


or

unreal 1 (Default.ini, Unreal.ini)

[Core.System]
PurgeCacheDays=0
SavePath=..\Save
CachePath=..\Cache
CacheExt=.uxx
UseCPU=0
Paths=..\System\*.u
Paths=..\Maps\*.unr
Paths=..\Maps\UPak\*.unr
Paths=..\Textures\*.utx
Paths=..\Sounds\*.uax
Paths=..\Music\*.umx
Paths=..\Meshes\*.usm
Suppress=DevLoad
Suppress=DevSave
Suppress=DevNetTraffic
Suppress=DevGarbage
Suppress=DevKill
Suppress=DevReplace
Suppress=DevSound
Suppress=DevCompile
Suppress=DevBind
Suppress=DevBsp
Suppress=DevNet


dnf (system.ini)

[Engine.System]
PurgeCacheDays=30
SavePath=../Save
CachePath=../Cache
CacheExt=.uxx
Paths=../System/*.u
Paths=../Maps/*.dnf
Paths=../Textures/*.dtx
Paths=../Textures/Compiled/*.dat
Paths=../SkinMeshes/*.dmx
Paths=../Sounds/*.dfx
Paths=../Sounds/*.cvp
Paths=../StaticMeshes/*.dsm
Paths=../Particles/*.dps
Suppress=DevLoad
Suppress=DevSave
Suppress=DevGarbage
Suppress=DevKill
Suppress=DevReplace
Suppress=DevSound
Suppress=DevCompile
Suppress=DevBind
Suppress=DevBsp


unreal 1 (User.ini)

[DefaultPlayer]
Name=Player
Class=UnrealI.FemaleOne

[Engine.Input]
Aliases[0]=(Command="Button bFire | Fire",Alias=Fire)
Aliases[1]=(Command="Button bAltFire | AltFire",Alias=AltFire)
Aliases[2]=(Command="Axis aBaseY  Speed=+300.0",Alias=MoveForward)
Aliases[3]=(Command="Axis aBaseY  Speed=-300.0",Alias=MoveBackward)
Aliases[4]=(Command="Axis aBaseX Speed=-150.0",Alias=TurnLeft)
Aliases[5]=(Command="Axis aBaseX  Speed=+150.0",Alias=TurnRight)
Aliases[6]=(Command="Axis aStrafe Speed=-300.0",Alias=StrafeLeft)
Aliases[7]=(Command="Axis aStrafe Speed=+300.0",Alias=StrafeRight)
Aliases[8]=(Command="Jump | Axis aUp Speed=+300.0",Alias=Jump)
Aliases[9]=(Command="Button bDuck | Axis aUp Speed=-300.0",Alias=Duck)
Aliases[10]=(Command="Button bLook",Alias=Look)


dnf (user.ini)
[DefaultPlayer]
Name=
Class=dnGame.dnMalePlayer
team=1
Mesh=c_characters.Duke
Face=0
Torso=
Arms=
Legs=
Voice=dnGame.MalePlayerSounds
Icon=
Spectate=

[Engine.Input]
Aliases[0]=(Command="FireDown | OnRelease FireUp",Alias=Fire)
Aliases[1]=(Command="MeleeDown | OnRelease MeleeUp",Alias=Melee)
Aliases[2]=(Command="Axis aForward Speed=+1.0",Alias=MoveForward)
Aliases[3]=(Command="Axis aForward Speed=-1.0",Alias=MoveBackward)
Aliases[4]=(Command="Axis aStrafe  Speed=-1.0",Alias=StrafeLeft)
Aliases[5]=(Command="Axis aStrafe  Speed=+1.0",Alias=StrafeRight)
Aliases[6]=(Command="Axis aLookUp  Speed=+1.0",Alias=LookUp)
Aliases[7]=(Command="Axis aLookUp  Speed=-1.0",Alias=LookDown)
Aliases[8]=(Command="Axis aTurn    Speed=-1.0",Alias=TurnLeft)
Aliases[9]=(Command="Axis aTurn    Speed=+1.0",Alias=TurnRight)

I have gotten the editor to load the data stream format and translated it enough, its just useless without the proper dynamic link libraries (DLLs) and a proper unrealed.exe because the engine can't handle it (has some werid probably proprietary rigged graphic related properties regarding the engine seems like it was patched and subpatched a lot) and will crash on anything. The good news is that it appears to be "unreal engine" enough that certain things will be possible at some point like making a standalone server outside of steam, and notwithstanding other unforseen limitations changing renders (like directx9 to opengl etc).

I'm done with this project for the meantime. Too bad I couldn't get a basic version of the editor running, I was going to translate the dlc to the console patch and fiddle with it, but oh well. Good luck for anyone who wishes to look at it again.

This post has been edited by Drathian: 14 January 2013 - 11:56 AM

3

User is offline   Inspector Lagomorf 

  • Glory To Motherland!

#27

View PostDrathian, on 14 January 2013 - 11:49 AM, said:

What bastard version of Unreal did they build this from?


That just about sums up the story of DNF in a nutshell.
1

User is offline   Bloodshot 

#28

Shit, too bad you hit a wall with the DLLs. So close :P

I hope GBX/2K/whatever decides to at least release a map editor with the next game, with the recent success of titles such as Far Cry 3, that comes with one out of the box, unmoddable as it may be.

This post has been edited by Bloodshot: 14 January 2013 - 04:20 PM

0

#29

View PostDrathian, on 14 January 2013 - 11:49 AM, said:

UPDATE on EDITOR:
What bastard version of Unreal did they build this from?

I laughed my ass at this :P

This post has been edited by Mr.Deviance: 17 January 2013 - 07:20 PM

-1

User is offline   lambdist 

#30

This program creates ".original" files. B)
Posted Image
What's next? :P
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