How to recover from a player disconnect (+rant: Fuck stackexchange.com)

Forum rules
Please PM your tutorial to an admin for review before submitting it to this collection!
We want to ensure perfect quality for all information found here. Bad tutorials will be either fixed or deleted.
User avatar
3ICE
Admin
Posts: 2629
Joined: Sat Mar 01, 2008 11:34 pm
Realm: Europe
Account: 3ICE
Clan: 3ICE
Location: Hungary
Contact:

How to recover from a player disconnect (+rant: Fuck stackexchange.com)

Unread post by 3ICE »

An ignorant/misled stackexchange moderator deleted a correct answer to a very difficult question. Only from my years of experience in the field did I even know it was remotely possible to answer. Then I spent hours researching (No results on Google) and typing it all up. Now nobody can see it and I have no recourse. No options whatsoever to request a review or undeletion. I can edit my answer but it will remain deleted and invisible. Silver lining: At least I can still see my own deleted answers... SO thanks for that I guess. (Get it? Capitalized SO for "StackOverflow", their #1 sub-site.)
My original answer follows:

Hi,

Your suggested solution to edit the save is a sound one. I'd love to do it. However there is a major problem that stops me:

For most of the file formats developed and used by Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft III - The Reign of Chaos and Warcraft III - The Frozen Throne there exist reverse engineered specifications. Except for saved games. As far as I know, anyway. *.W3Z remains to be cracked.

There exists however, a hostbot for custom games called Ghost++ that can automatically pause and save the game it is hosting at the very exact moment a player has disconnected from it. Furthermore, the last few frames/packets are automatically discarded to essentially "go back in time" to before the crashing player lost their connection. Recovering from this saved game is used occasionally by unofficial tournaments to avoid a rematch in the event of a disconnect or crash. Very useful and impressive technology.

Note: Use the !hostsg command to host a saved game with Ghost++.

Their website is http://www.codelain.com/forum/

The project is open source, so we can look at exactly how they achieved this "going back in time" to save before Warcraft 3 realizes a player has disconnected. Probably what they implemented is simply ignoring the timeout event or disconnect packet and instead instructing the host or fake player next frame to pause the game and save.

Please keep us updated with anything you find. I am very interested in Warcraft 3 internals. Especially if you get your hands on a saved game's file structure documentation, or find a save game editor.

Sincerely,
Daniel "3ICE" Berezvai

What happened to it? I'll tell you:
Frank reviewed this Dec 4 at 4:23: Recommend Deletion (This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post - you can always comment on your own posts, and once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post. - From Review – Frank Dec 4 at 4:23)
Post Deleted by Ashley Nunn♦

Fuck you Frank, you probably know nothing about hostbots. And lack skills in reading comprehension...
Just because I don't explicitly spell it out for you, doesn't mean the Ghost++ hostbot I suggested in paragraph three is not the solution here. Did you stop reading after the second paragraph? Or did you skip straight to the end, and misunderstand my last one?

During these trying times of persecution and singling out for e-torture, I was still a new user with no tools with which to defend myself. I had a measly 1 point of reputation (for clicking on "Tour" and scrolling down), and you don't allow comments by new users until they amass a whooping 50 points. Fifty! (Fuck stackexchange for that brilliant policy too.) After this swift treatment of injustice, any lesser mind would have been deterred from ever using the SE again, you know. Is that what you want? To scare new users away, before they even have a chance to establish themselves? Did it ever occur to you that I might have left a comment instead of an answer if I was able to leave comments? (Don't bother, I wouldn't have anyway...) Go ahead, count the line breaks I used, or even just each paragraph! Comments aren't supposed to be this long! My answer deserves to be a full fledged answer! Not a tiny comment with all paragraphs shoved into one line. (By the way yes, stackexchange does that too. Bullshit formatting. If the user wants a two line comment, let them leave a two line comment!)

Besides, this is the only answer the question has gotten since over one year ago. Unless you deleted all the other ones too. Achievement farming at others' expense. How's your shiny gold "reviewer" badge coming?
The only other answer came after I bumped the question. And it is a mere copyedit of mine, just a lot shorter with my cheerful commentary and positive spirit removed. Credit thieves... (Of course he got downvoted because he made incorrect assumptions.)

They don't even do MD right. I had to do this: Don't mind me, just adding back the first line of my answer that was deleted... I guess saying "Hi," is frowned upon? I want to say hi! Let me. And my name goes on its own line
ImageImageImageImageImage
Image
ImageImage

BugMeNot
Posts: 141
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2009 12:46 pm

Re: How to recover from a player disconnect (+rant: Fuck stackexchange.com)

Unread post by BugMeNot »

Ducking disgrace, man. And that moderator blindly assumed frank was right. Eff her too. (Yes, she claims to be a female...)
This is a guest account intended for use by people who wish to remain anonymous or hate registering.
(Please don't forget to sign your posts with your name if you want us to know who you are.)
http://www.bugmenot.com/view/3ice.hu

User avatar
3ICE
Admin
Posts: 2629
Joined: Sat Mar 01, 2008 11:34 pm
Realm: Europe
Account: 3ICE
Clan: 3ICE
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: How to recover from a player disconnect (+rant: Fuck stackexchange.com)

Unread post by 3ICE »

I found a way! Asked for moderator review:
I believe paragraph 3 of my response answered the question sufficiently. Use of that "Ghost++" software WILL recover disconnected Warcraft 3 multiplayer games. How they actually did it is only the ***bonus*** question.

Please reconsider this deletion. If necessary I can edit my answer further to improve it until I can meet your high standards.
I'm going to be open about my disappointment too, and am leaving the link to this thread intact, edited in at the top.
ImageImageImageImageImage
Image
ImageImage

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests