Jorrit

A couple of days ago I checked the traffic generated by GRAW in ethereal, a packet sniffer. I found the following facts, which I would like to share with you. I also did this once for BF2, and the biggest difference is that the traffic of BF2 to gamespy was not encrypted, and this traffic is. I'm not an cryptanalysis expert, so that's where I'm stuck now. 207.38.11.14 - greconawf.ms0.gamespy.com - port 28910 - encrypted data - constant stream of incoming data - stream grows when refreshing list - open connection - connection closed when relogin - seems to actively inform client of new servers 207.38.11.136 - peerchat.gamespy.com - port 6667 - encrypted - seem to be login server - first message from client is cleartext: "CRYPT des 1 greconawf"

First google hit on installshield "-6001" fixed the problem indeed. Typical that the three suggestions on the dialog have no relation to the actual solution btw: this should be an item in the FAQ thread.

The gamespy part of GRAW is the poorest piece of a game i've ever seen. Almost nothing about it works as it should considering the inwritten rules of software design. I cant login with my account named Jorrit, because the account doesn't exist. I cannot create an account named Jorrit because it already exists. When you try to reposition the cursor to the password field after you've entered the username box it already submits the dialog, you have to use tab. When you check or unckeck the save password option the password field clears. When I have more time I will analyse the traffic between GS and GRAW. With BF2 I've seen that the password is stored encrypted but transmitted as clear text. The password hash in the GRAW XML is exactly twice as long as my password, is it the same with you?

I really tried to get clarity about the dedicated server, but I couldn't get it. And those XML files are used for both the game internals, physics, and you can't change those without triggering anticheat, and for the player config. And Bo told me that there is nothing in the XML you can't change from within the game, so no quake engine-like messing around with the engine.

It's indeed a valid point, but from my experiences with BF2, which has built-in voicecomm, it's rarely used. Of course, BF2 attracts a different kind of public, but I've played it a lot for some time, and it's wasn't even used once for tactical purposes.

Where did you get the information that there is no Star-Force?

Yes, I translated it in a hurry.

The translated version of my experiences with the producer tour in The Netherlands: To prepare the world press for Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Bo Andersson, co-founder and CEO of GRIN, the development studio of this game, made a producer tour to all corners of the world to show a beta version of the game. GRAW.nl was there when Bo was in The Game Syndicate in Rotterdam and asked him questions about specific features which will appear in Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter for the PC. No well-known facts or questions about the number of levels or polygons, but detailed information about the game, and specifically the multiplayer part. While playing the game it would crash every now and then. Bo wasn’t surprised and told us that it should crash, otherwise it would have been the final version. Bo used to be in the military, and his contribution to the game is found in the military aspects and the artificial intelligence for team-mates and enemies. Differences and similarities If you’ve played one of the console versions of Ghost Recon, you’ll on the one hand recognize locations and material, but on the other hand you’ll see differences. The PC version was developed separately from the console versions, but is based on the same image and video material from Mexico City and of course on the same city map. The resulting game is much larger than the console version, resulting in longer missions. We’ve received emails from worried people with questions regarding the stability of the game. Stability has a high priority at GRIN, because missions can last for several hours and you don’t want to crash just before a checkpoint. Using the official internet forums GRIN will try to stay in contact with the community, especially regarding problems with the game. Support This brings us to the patches. Every program contains bugs, even GRAW, something which Bo doesn’t deny. Patches will be released which will contain bugfixes as well as additional content. Another point of frustration with the community is cheating. GRIN chose to develop their own anti-cheat solution, instead of using third-party tools like Punkbuster. The anti-cheat functionality will be updated with patches as well. Multiplayer Now the most important aspect of the game for hard-core gamers: multiplayer. You can play with and against each other over local area network and internet, because cooperative play is also included. Together with your friends and optional AI players you can take on the singleplayer missions, with the difference that the enemies are much more difficult and there is no save option during missions. When a human player dies, he cannot respawn, but it is possible to take over an artificial teammate, when there are any alive. When the last human player dies and there are no more artificial teammates left, the mission is failed. You can start a server from within the game, where you’ll find the option to host a dedicated or listen server. If a separate dedicated server will be available during launch is unsure, it might be developed and released later. GRAW will be using Gamespy for its internal server browser, and you don’t have to memorize IP addresses, because a favourite server save option is provided. The server will be managed using the internal game menu, and there is at this moment no intention to create a remote console option. When you run a dedicated server you’ll need a computer comparable with a computer you need to run the game, with the exception that a server doesn’t need a high end videocard, and needs more memory and bandwidth, depending on the number of players. Something which was previously not possible is possible now: joining a running game. No more waiting until the game is finished, you can join whenever you want, something which is quite normal for less tactical FPS games. For people who want to stick with the old behaviour there will be an option to switch this. Features which might get added in a patch, but which are not included in 1.0 are demo recording and ingame content download, so you’ll be able to join any server, even if you don’t have that map. There will be no ingame voice communication, a decision which I support. There are enough good external tools available, something which GRIN has correctly taken into consideration. The last item we discussed was the availability of modding tools. There will be a mapeditor available, and other aspects of the game will be changeable using the XML based configuration files. Bo wanted to stress that GRIN will keep listening to the community after the release and that features might get added or changed based on the response. Source: http://www.graw.nl/community/features/1794/

LOL! Nice one Deosl, well spotted. What I spotted is this... I want THAT! ← Well I got a brand new GR:AW notepad for sale. Whats the hights bid? Did I hear 10$ ... oh 15$ from the man with the long hair over there... 1.. 2... ← Awe it's just a notepad? I thought it was the full design manual ← Oh.. ehh. I meen. ..ehh. Yea, thats what I meen, I got a brand new manual for sale. ← Well Rocky, Maybe this is what you are looking for, it looks like a design manual folder of GRAW I think we are all going nuts. First we started to make up features of GRAW thet didn't excisit and now we are even making GRAW related things up... maybe we should seek for a shrink ← Um dood, thats a Graw milk! ← Nope, the box for the life-size Bo puppet.

Yeah, they were in a package I received from UBI NL with the comment "do not release before April 6th". They were bundled with the really new screenshots. I didn't check if they were really new. UBI NL isn't the most well-informed UBI department around

As I said, I attended the producer tour stop in The Netherlands, and my (Dutch) report is on http://www.graw.nl/community/features/1794/ Bo asked me to translate this and send it to him, I'll do that this weekend and post the translated version here, I think it's interesting, I asked specifically for MP features.

Yes, I asked him about that. San Francisco only, but I don't know when.

I've had a meeting with Bo this monday in the Netherlands, and yesterday he was in Germany. I think he is really tired now Cannot say anything too, he has to finish his world tour so the press in the first countries don't have an advantage over the press in the countries visited the latest.