Forcing Clients

[SeifUO]

ServUO Version

Publish 58

Ultima Expansion

Renaissance

Hello! I was wondering if there was a way to force clients (IE only use a version of razor and disabling Orion/UOSteam etc).
Thank you!

 

[Chucl]

yeah, anyway in my opinion it just doesnt worth the effort, old game, small playerbase... aim big, let people use whatever they want

 

[nag0L]

yeah, anyway in my opinion it just doesnt worth the effort, old game, small playerbase... aim big, let people use whatever they want

He doesn't have a smaller player base and is looking for options to standardize it across the board.

#bump - interested in this also if anyone can share

 

[Voxpire]

IMO the best option currently is to just use ClassicUO, you can change up the networking or add encryption so only your version is able to connect.

You will have to obfuscate whatever changes you do make, or they will be reverse engineered eventually.

Since ClassicUO fully supports Razor, it's a win-win...

 

[nag0L]

IMO the best option currently is to just use ClassicUO, you can change up the networking or add encryption so only your version is able to connect.

You will have to obfuscate whatever changes you do make, or they will be reverse engineered eventually.

Since ClassicUO fully supports Razor, it's a win-win...

Vox, I want to say Seifer is already running ClassicUO using your launcher for his shard, but is still offering manual connecting for those that don't want the launcher, but is most likely looking to stop that and force only through launcher.

To make that happen, is networking or adding encryption still required to force IPL launcher/ClassicUO only? How do you go about configuring something like that? Do you accept payment by the hour? LOL

 

[Voxpire]

Vox, I want to say Seifer is already running ClassicUO using your launcher for his shard, but was still offers manual connecting for those that don't want the launcher, but is most likely looking to stop that and force only through launcher.

To make that happen, is networking or adding encryption still required to force IPL launcher/ClassicUO only? How do you go about configuring something like that? Do you accept payment by the hour? LOL

That makes things easier by having a centralized distribution for the game files, so long as the zip file also contains the modified client files then the IPL isn't required.

The mod can be as simple as moving all the packet ID's up by 1, which would confuse non-compliant clients, but there are other things that can be done, such as changing the login flow itself.


The problem is that you can easily drag and drop a copy of ClassicUO.exe into a .NET disassembler and rip the code out and use it in a non-compliant client to make it look compliant; to protect against this, the code needs to be obfuscated, or alternatively, compiled to native ahead-of-time assembly.

Another less effective solution is to simply use a custom version string to identify your client from another; if CUO reports emulation for client 7.0.20.0 for example, you can tweak the version to use the revision bits as flags; 7.0.20.123 and check that when the ClientVersion packet is received on the server-side.

I honestly don't think someone will need hired for this task; some people have already built a proof of concept for compiling CUO to NativeAOT, which will likely become a standard option in the CUO repository for any shard that wants to adopt it in the near future.