Looking for really OLD (2002-2004 era) hexed clients

[oldinroplayer]

Hey folks, old time player from inRO Beta/EP2 (pre-Comodo) days looking for that nostalgia fix with a casual twist... want to setup a local server for myself and a few friends to play casually, the old on-again/off-again thing but with progress saved locally :)

Currently stuck on the client side trying to get a clean copy of kRO+Sakray from the 2002-2004 era & "matching" hexed client (bypass patcher + read the data folder first). Most links on forums and such are dead, would be really helpful if someone could point me to known good links or a share copy from their archives. Thanks!

[Brynner]

2 hours ago, oldinroplayer said:

Hey folks, old time player from inRO Beta/EP2 (pre-Comodo) days looking for that nostalgia fix with a casual twist... want to setup a local server for myself and a few friends to play casually, the old on-again/off-again thing but with progress saved locally

Currently stuck on the client side trying to get a clean copy of kRO+Sakray from the 2002-2004 era & "matching" hexed client (bypass patcher + read the data folder first). Most links on forums and such are dead, would be really helpful if someone could point me to known good links or a share copy from their archives. Thanks!

i think the client you are looking for is packed with the old version of emulator like Darkweiss and Vidar. it uses loader for the client which i believe the 2004 clients.

[oldinroplayer]

13 hours ago, Brynner said:

i think the client you are looking for is packed with the old version of emulator like Darkweiss and Vidar. it uses loader for the client which i believe the 2004 clients.

Thank you, I'll trying looking for these other emulators. I don't really recall using either of these. I am pretty sure I was running eA SVN version (don't recall the SVN number lol) and since rA is a successor of the eA project, was wondering if I could find some help here

Also, would you have any pointers on where to find the diffs for these clients? NEMO doesn't seem to like them and none of the default patches are working... If I recall correctly, a different program was used to patch EXEs back then, it would operate off of a diff/xdiff file and the EXE itself .

Edited October 29, 2022 by oldinroplayer

[Brynner]

18 minutes ago, oldinroplayer said:

Thank you, I'll trying looking for these other emulators. I don't really recall using either of these. I am pretty sure I was running eA SVN version (don't recall the SVN number lol) and since rA is a successor of the eA project, was wondering if I could find some help here

Also, would you have any pointers on where to find the diffs for these clients? NEMO doesn't seem to like them and none of the default patches are working... If I recall correctly, a different program was used to patch EXEs back then, it would operate off of a diff/xdiff file and the EXE itself .

im not sure if rathena supported those client. also NEMO does not work on the older version of client. k3dt's diff patcher or ShinsDiffPatcher might work. it so hard to find diff patch of old client not.some of it is already patched and will work on specific old server emulator.

 

and also most of the important svn link is no longer working for older version of clients repo because it was already remove by assembla svn. that's why is so hard to find server and client files.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Brynner

[myngpfye]

Hello, I'm also looking for similar aged clients and the best I could get close to is this post in a German support sub forum. It has some pre-diffed clients and old server software which I want to try, however, my stuck up problem is I do not have a aged enough + clean kRO folder to try this clients.

Best,
Myng

Edited October 29, 2022 by myngpfye

[Brynner]

2 hours ago, myngpfye said:

Hello, I'm also looking for similar aged clients and the best I could get close to is this post in a German support sub forum. It has some pre-diffed clients and old server software which I want to try, however, my stuck up problem is I do not have a aged enough + clean kRO folder to try this clients.

Best,
Myng

you can try this. but pre-diffed clients not included. just a clean kro.

 

[Slammer]

On 10/28/2022 at 9:00 PM, oldinroplayer said:

Hey folks, old time player from inRO Beta/EP2 (pre-Comodo) days looking for that nostalgia fix with a casual twist... want to setup a local server for myself and a few friends to play casually, the old on-again/off-again thing but with progress saved locally

Currently stuck on the client side trying to get a clean copy of kRO+Sakray from the 2002-2004 era & "matching" hexed client (bypass patcher + read the data folder first). Most links on forums and such are dead, would be really helpful if someone could point me to known good links or a share copy from their archives. Thanks!

maybe someone is interested in a concept like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tru2h_SFYDI

[oldinroplayer]

On 10/29/2022 at 2:54 PM, Brynner said:

im not sure if rathena supported those client. also NEMO does not work on the older version of client. k3dt's diff patcher or ShinsDiffPatcher might work. it so hard to find diff patch of old client not.some of it is already patched and will work on specific old server emulator.

Yes, it was an eAthena SVN codebase, but the forums and website are down. Thank you for the pointers on k3dt's diff patcher & ShinsDiffPatcher, will look into these. I was able to find an old darkWeiss v2.8 or thereabouts precompiled zip on wayback machine, but unfortunately no source code and map pack and no client EXE either

On 10/29/2022 at 2:54 PM, Brynner said:

and also most of the important svn link is no longer working for older version of clients repo because it was already remove by assembla svn. that's why is so hard to find server and client files.

yeah, this is a significant challenge and the link rot is real, but then again, this is perhaps to be expected looking for 15+ yrs old ancient stuff

 

On 10/29/2022 at 10:25 PM, myngpfye said:

Hello, I'm also looking for similar aged clients and the best I could get close to is this post in a German support sub forum. It has some pre-diffed clients and old server software which I want to try, however, my stuck up problem is I do not have a aged enough + clean kRO folder to try this clients.

Thank you, will look at this, this is perfect to try with the dump of old clients can be found at https://archive.org/details/software?query=ragnarok+online. The iRO Beta 1 and Australian clients are from 2002-2004. There's a slightly newer Japanese Beta 2 client as well. I have them downloaded but couldn't test any because I did not have hexed clients. I will try with the hex clients posted here

On 10/30/2022 at 1:29 AM, Brynner said:

you can try this. but pre-diffed clients not included. just a clean kro.

Unfortunately the GDrive links do no work for me (permission denied, and yes, I checked that I'm logged into my personal gmail ID). I'll continue using the wayback machine clients above. Request to OP to please upload their copy of the ISO to wayback machine so that folks can access it in the future a bit more easily.

 

 

 

On 10/30/2022 at 10:58 AM, Slammer said:

maybe someone is interested in a concept like this?

Interesting idea, but for me personally, the client is a big part of the nostalgia and kick of getting back to the ye olde days. However, I do recognize that a lot of changes have happened since and it may not be practical to continue using an old client and server version for public use

 

On 10/30/2022 at 12:44 PM, oldinroplayer said:

I will try with the hex clients posted here

@myngpfye thank you for sharing that link. It sort of works (tried a few clients, the kROsakexe1017aO version loadswith few error messages -- nothing too crazy) and I can see the login screen. The Australian image is actually India Ragnarok or inRO, and here's the login screen... an image I'm all too familiar with :). I'll continue looking at the server files attached in that page, there seem to be a few archive files of the old eAthena, will try them next and share what I find.

[Brynner]

3 hours ago, oldinroplayer said:

Thank you, will look at this, this is perfect to try with the dump of old clients can be found at https://archive.org/details/software?query=ragnarok+online. The iRO Beta 1 and Australian clients are from 2002-2004. There's a slightly newer Japanese Beta 2 client as well. I have them downloaded but couldn't test any because I did not have hexed clients. I will try with the hex clients posted here

Unfortunately the GDrive links do no work for me (permission denied, and yes, I checked that I'm logged into my personal gmail ID). I'll continue using the wayback machine clients above. Request to OP to please upload their copy of the ISO to wayback machine so that folks can access it in the future a bit more easily.

 

 

if i have extra time im going to look on my archived files to see for those older client versions of mine that i used before.

[KazumaSatou]

Episode 5 Yuno Official Installer from pRO

[oldinroplayer]

On 10/30/2022 at 3:08 PM, KazumaSatou said:

Episode 5 Yuno Official Installer from pRO

This is very nice!! Do you have a recommendation for a corresponding server and hexed client that work with it? I feel these files would be very helpful if you can share
 

On 10/30/2022 at 2:19 PM, Brynner said:

if i have extra time im going to look on my archived files to see for those older client versions of mine that i used before.

Sure, I'm working on this over weekends and my weekend is just about finished
I got past the initial issues, sort of and will share the progress I've made so far in a bit.

 

Progress so far:

1. Using a "FrankenClient" which has the following components:
   1. Base: Australian/Indian RO installer (dated 2003, data GRF is about 572MB)
   2. Pre-Hexed Client: kROsakexe1017aO from the wayback machine page @myngpfye shared
   3. Data: Merged Data v2 + Full Data links from the wayback machine page @myngpfye shared
   4. Lua: Didn't face any challenges here, guess these ancient clients don't use Lua
2. For Server:
   1. eA ZIP (supposed to be r14785 but I have no way to be sure)
   2. Compiled on Ubuntu 22.04 with gcc 10 (had a few challenges with this combo right)
   3. Not using Map Cache but reading data GRF (again lots of NPCs issues here)

What Works:
☑ Login & basic connectivity to local server
☑ Char creation with Old style stat restrictions and Novice Grounds quests
☑ Combat, Item Drops, Item Pickup and Player Skill Use (only First Aid tested so far) works

Biggest Issue : EXP doesn't get counted for (i.e I kill mobs as normal player not GM and still do not receive EXP for it -- client side EXP/JEXP bars don't update), this is irrespective of map : tried in Novice Grounds, 1S Prontera, 1S Payon -- it is all the same... and a few relatively smaller issues:
☒ A few sprite crashes - needs a better data folder
☒ Items missing description & showing up as "Unknown item" (mainly Novice Potion from training ground)
☒ NPC locations in Payon is messed up (this version has old Payon)

Would be extremely grateful if folks here could share any pointers on the EXP not updated issue (guessing probably a packet handling issue?) or additional files as the client will probably not be as stable due to a combination of mix & match pieces.

Finally, here's a few screenshots edited for saving size... it isn't anything great but it is enough to give me some hope of having an okayish close to "RO from our days" server.

 

------ clarifying that this section is a confirmation message from @myngpfye which I received on Discord, added here as it corrects a few weird issues such as "EXP Loss" from my original setup above -------

@oldinroplayer I am confirm similar results with

• (a) Server -- Main complete [PACKETVER 9][20081126][For Sakray]
• (b) Client -- RAG_SETUP0923.exeRAGEXE0923 and RAGRE_SETUP0923.exe both installed into C:\RagnarokOnline\ directory
• (c) EXE -- kROsakexe0220aO - O = Use OLD Login Background. [PACKETVER 7]
• (d) EXP issue -- I do not face this problem, everything is normal
• (e) Game client instability and crash on occasion -- this is present, 3 crashes in 2 hours of playtime
• (f) Unknown Item -- I do not face this problem

I don't add screenshot as there is nothing new and I'm still testing this setup more before making changes, I will wait for others experience and guidance really around the instability and crash problem

Best,
Myng

------------------

I replicated this setup once again on a different machine/environment and it works fine (i.e no "EXP Loss" issues that I was originally facing).

Edited February 8, 2023 by oldinroplayer

[KazumaSatou]

@oldinroplayer@myngpfye Try the installer I sent both of you. Its online right now. The client is build on 2007-05-21a kRO Sakexe. (Own selection of diff)

User Accounts :
[99 GM Suit Male] test : test
[Normal Male] test2 : test
[99 GM No Suit Female] test3 : test
[Normal Female] test4 : test

Exp Rates Changed to 1,000x
Drop Rates Changed to 5x

Edited November 2, 2022 by KazumaSatou
Change EXP And Drop Rates

[oldinroplayer]

On 11/2/2022 at 7:24 PM, KazumaSatou said:

Try the installer I sent both of you. Its online right now. The client is build on 2007-05-21a kRO Sakexe. (Own selection of di

This is awesome, quite close to what I'm wanting to get going for our group. Could you also share the server side files or version of rA used? I'd like to try this locally.
I logged onto the server and messed around for a few mins, it is really smooth. Just one thing : Payon is still using the old map but the NPC and warp locations are newer ones (i.e post remodel).
 

 

On 10/30/2022 at 4:49 PM, Brynner said:

if i have extra time im going to look on my archived files to see for those older client versions of mine that i used before.

@Brynner hey, just checking if you got around to finding any of those older client files?

[pandabro]

Hi,

I've already create so many ancient server that I still have some very old files. I know that the 2006 have the diff file too. I uploaded what I've found into mediafire folder:  https://www.mediafire.com/folder/2vfno778op5mx/Old_clients

Hope it helps.

[oldinroplayer]

On 6/10/2023 at 2:29 AM, pandabro said:

Hi,

I've already create so many ancient server that I still have some very old files. I know that the 2006 have the diff file too. I uploaded what I've found into mediafire folder:  https://www.mediafire.com/folder/2vfno778op5mx/Old_clients

Hope it helps.

Thank you, these are helpful :)

[oldinroplayer]

In case anyone is looking for files related to inRO (India Ragnarok Online): I was able to salvage and archive an old inRO CD and the Newbie Manual that used to be handed out at cybercafes and also bundled with the free CD. Thanks friends that contributed to this effort :)