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Post by undoubledzim on Oct 29, 2011 17:22:01 GMT -5
Just wondering if Den or anyone else has managed to find the gun stats yet ;D
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Post by bel on Oct 29, 2011 22:04:02 GMT -5
I feel like a zombie wandering around the battlefield going "STAAAAAATS... STAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTS"
Has anyone actually looked at it yet?
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Post by volgon on Oct 29, 2011 22:27:08 GMT -5
The game has been out 5 days and the game files are encrypted. Den may be good but he's not a supercomputer with cracking technology running 24/7. People should learn some patience.
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Post by bel on Oct 30, 2011 3:30:45 GMT -5
Okay, for both Bad Company 2 and Black Ops, Den was active on the site posting information as it came out. There were stats beginning to come through for BC2 a full month before the game was actually released, and he was visibly doing BO groundwork well before it came out as well. Things look different this time, which is why people are asking.
It's completely up to him if he wants to keep quiet, these things are obviously a volunteer service and are (also obviously) hugely appreciated, but I feel like standing around grumping about kids these days being impatient is a little silly when we've had more info at this time on every major release since MW2. People are just excited.
And if everything is encrypted, which I haven't seen Den confirm, and we're looking at a repeat of MW2 where we have to make it all up ourselves, that's worth knowing too.
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Post by garlock on Oct 30, 2011 4:20:28 GMT -5
My question is: How can I help the process? What tools do I need, what information can I dig up, Where can I get information?
How can I help?
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Post by raraavis on Oct 30, 2011 5:55:07 GMT -5
Den is probably enjoying the game ( farming coop missions or platinum stars)--indeed it is likely time consuming work to extract, format, and upload the information as succinctly and elegantly as possible. Also it's probably more practical for him to maintain and revise it alone. Be patient.
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Post by danielzy on Oct 30, 2011 6:54:20 GMT -5
Just tried to read all the sb files of the game as Hex, I guess it IS encrypted as I couldnt find any known ifnromation about any weapon [for example, searched for 850 as the firing rate of the F2000].
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Post by garlock on Oct 30, 2011 13:31:23 GMT -5
So are there super 1337 irc channels that decompression tools can be found in? Or does Den do all the haxxing himself? I'm perfectly patient, but if I can aid in the process, and let Den have more time to frag, I'm totally willing.
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Post by frankelstner on Oct 30, 2011 14:33:08 GMT -5
It's not about using extractor tools but writing them. There are no tools because no one has found the time to write them yet as the BF3 archives are tougher than the BC2 ones.
With BC2 the folks at xentax quickly created an fbrb extractor. fbrb files were simply two gzipped files glued together with the first file telling the file name and where the file is found in the second file. The file then extracted to dbx files (DICE binary xml probably) and res files. For the dbx files there were a few reference files in My Docs which helped writing a tool to convert dbx to xml.
BF3 has .toc files with simple encryption which Rick at xentax quickly identified. Once you undo the encryption on toc files you can use the toc file to extract the sb files. The sb archives extract to bundle files and chunk files.
Bundle files are archives again. The necessary information to extract bundles is in the bundle file itself. Once that is done you end up with three different file types. One of them seems to be fairly similar to dbx. Basically this file type should be converted to txt, xml or similar.
It's not that complicated really if you take a hex editor and stare at the files. Some basic programming knowledge in a language of your choice is of course necessary to automate the extraction. It's just a big puzzle game which will take a while.
If you want to help, take a picture of the Data folder and another one of the Win32 folder inside. I need to make sure the files I have behave the way they ought to.
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Post by undoubledzim on Oct 30, 2011 16:38:38 GMT -5
Not trying to be demanding or impatient, Just wondering if anything had been found out.
I'm a 360 user so I don't really know what it takes or if my limited computer knowledge could be of any use.
Anyway thanks for the info we've got so far didin't know that sombody had to actively write a program to decompile the information.
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Post by danielzy on Oct 30, 2011 17:18:45 GMT -5
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Post by undoubledzim on Oct 30, 2011 20:09:25 GMT -5
Looked at link honestly have no idea what they are talking about though = (
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Post by bel on Oct 30, 2011 21:16:01 GMT -5
I'm fairly sure that link was directed at the more tech-oriented guys. xentax is a pretty cool forum, they have quite a lot of talented and interested people wandering around. Looks like someone's worked out the encryption on the toc files (although I did think that had already been done...), if someone else manages to use that to get the data from the sb, we're on our way.
Good to know people are on it. That's all I needed to be told.
And thanks for the info, frankelstner. I can post shots of my folders when I get home from work if those are still needed.
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Post by kommie986 on Oct 30, 2011 21:34:44 GMT -5
I have a question. I followed that link, DLed the file, and clicked on BF3Encrypt.exe. A black cmd window popped up and quickly disappeared again. What did it do? Sorry, I have no idea about all this file stuff, I just wanna know the weapon stats. XD
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Post by bel on Oct 30, 2011 21:51:23 GMT -5
If I had no idea about "all this file stuff", I probably wouldn't be downloading strange .exes off the interwebs and running them. In fact, I don't and I'm not. Just sayin'.
I haven't run it myself, but if you believe the guy it decrypts some of battlefield's archives. It's going to need to be run through command line and told where the resources are. Even then you're going to need a hex editor to read the decrypted file.
For all the other people who also have no idea about all this file stuff - myself included - it's sure as heck not at the point where we can double-click some dude's program and magically get the stats. Come on.
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Post by skittls on Oct 30, 2011 23:00:49 GMT -5
I'm not sure I can handle the wait (eternal wait if it ends up being like MW2), so I am going to do the unthinkable. I am going to ask DICE. Yeah, you heard me.
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Post by frankelstner on Oct 31, 2011 2:16:49 GMT -5
I'm fairly sure that link was directed at the more tech-oriented guys. xentax is a pretty cool forum, they have quite a lot of talented and interested people wandering around. Looks like someone's worked out the encryption on the toc files (although I did think that had already been done...), if someone else manages to use that to get the data from the sb, we're on our way. Good to know people are on it. That's all I needed to be told. And thanks for the info, frankelstner. I can post shots of my folders when I get home from work if those are still needed. Yup the XOR encryption on toc files was the easiest part and had been done by Rick on xentax about a month ago. As stated before, I've extracted sb archives and part of the bundle archives within, but the actual non-archive files still remain to be done. I still would like to see these screenshots, make sure the file size shows up. I wonder if they really sticked to these horrible nyan archives.
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Post by SheWolf on Oct 31, 2011 5:16:53 GMT -5
I'm not sure I can handle the wait (eternal wait if it ends up being like MW2), so I am going to do the unthinkable. I am going to ask DICE. Yeah, you heard me. madnes! seriously though; i hope you have luck. but i somehow doubt it, devs are ususally rather uptight about giving out exact data. for what reason, i do not know. though if you actually succeed, power to you.
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Post by bel on Oct 31, 2011 6:22:37 GMT -5
Can't be buggered finding an image hosting site. This the info you're after?
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Post by frankelstner on Oct 31, 2011 6:36:24 GMT -5
Can't be buggered finding an image hosting site. This what you were after? Yup, thanks. It's quite unbelievable though. In the alpha files there were sb files and unencrypted toc files. In beta they added encryption to the toc files (for no reason at all). In retail they put the content of the sb files in cas files (for no reason at all). So basically now there are three layers of archives until you actually reach the files. Some folks have managed to extract cas files, but it's annoying nevertheless.
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Post by skitrel on Oct 31, 2011 23:57:34 GMT -5
I presume the extra difficulty getting in is the same reason they've turned down modtools "for the time being". The official statement being that they don't want anybody getting to look into any of the inner workings of their Frostbyte 2 engine. I presume they don't want any competitors in the deformable terrain department. I'm also guessing BF3 isn't using the engine to it's full capability yet either.
I'm aware that these files don't really give away too much about engine workings but there's hints in there, I'm guessing Dice want to protect everything as much as possible for as long as possible, they're leaps and bounds ahead of all competition at the moment, they use projectiles effectively with good hit detection now while everyone else is still on hitscan, that itself is pretty impressive, let alone how far ahead they are with destruction.
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Post by fazzmania on Nov 1, 2011 0:54:24 GMT -5
Because BF3's terrain destruction and general destructibility is so revolutionary.
Oh.
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Post by yrrnn on Nov 8, 2011 7:36:57 GMT -5
Is anybody actively working on this?
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Post by frankelstner on Nov 8, 2011 9:14:05 GMT -5
Sure.
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Post by omalley on Nov 10, 2011 23:13:34 GMT -5
just wanted to thank Den and all you crazy techie guys who do so much work to get the rest of us our beloved stats ;D thanks!
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Post by bmwtx on Nov 11, 2011 11:36:20 GMT -5
just wanted to thank Den and all you crazy techie guys who do so much work to get the rest of us our beloved stats ;D thanks! Seconded; assisting with what I can and crunching the numbers from the in-game stats via testing in the mean time until we have hard data to replace it.
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