Guild Wars .DAT File

[Dinoguy1000]

I'm fairly certain that at least the first three posted here a few times, but I'm not sure if they did so as guests or what.

[Xuerian]

xttocs helped out with assembly code for the other three I'm fairly sure.

I've sent a mail to Nicoli, I only found one address, but I'm fairly sure I can track him down one way or another. Avenger might be more difficult as whereas Nicoli is still on the current version of the site in question, Avenger is no longer on the staff, as I found the emails on a cached page.

[Bane]

I was just wondring if there was any new infor on this? This seems to be one of a very few games that no one has been able to extract anything for the .dat file.

[Dinoguy1000]

Well, we've recently had a new person posting some interesting ideas at the WIKI... Head on over and have a look: Main Page | Discussion page

[nicoli_s]

hi guys, just checked my hotmail account and got that message. as far as how much info we have on GW, all the real info is on the wiki. I'll try and talk to the guy who made the extractor for us and see if he'll release the source. last time i tested it, it extracted all the files, but no real filenames, so it was pretty difficult to tell what was what. xttocs was able to find a few audio files and i was pretty certain at one point i had found the model files, but i cant remember now where they would have been.

[Joey B]

I am new to this, but it seems to me that you could decompile the exe, look for that part that unpacks the data and use that same algorithm.

[OneOneSeven]

I'm not sure if this would be of any use to you guys but I've been able to get a good amount of the textures/skins from GW via a DLL hook. Not sure if having a look at these would be of any use to you? It appears GW will also build skins on-the-fly by looking at your armor, hair type, etc. and will jam most of it together into one single DDS. This may be why you guys are having some problems.

I am new to this, but it seems to me that you could decompile the exe, look for that part that unpacks the data and use that same algorithm.

Unless you're a very good hacker or know ASM really really well this is impractical. As a bit of a programmer myself I found the only way to look at the source outside of the actual operations the CPU performs (ASM, or assembly language) is if you have it to begin with... Turning it back into C/C++ or something else a bit more readable can't be done at time of writing.

[Bane]

Did anyone ever find a method of extracting the files from the gw.dat. I also checked the wiki page, but nothing seems to be updated as of late, didn't know if this was still being looked at.

[OneOneSeven]

Nope, not yet. I've hooked stuff from the draw calls, but that's really the farthest we've gotten.

[AnonAMouse]

decompression easy, extraction harder.
gw.exe -image to download the decompressed gw.dat

(The game client with this switch on the command line or in the shortcut (-image only as you cant run the game with this switch active) will download and decompress the files in gw.dat, it still leaves you the issue of ripping files etc but at least its already decompressed.)

[OneOneSeven]

I can imagine that would improve performance a bit as well, with GW being the uber-demanding game it is, every little bit helps

This would probably scrap most of the progress on extraction so far, too. How is it in terms of size comparison?

[AnonAMouse]

As for the size difference it obviously depends on which guild wars games(/expansions) you have installed, but for me a 2.5 gb special edition gw.dat expands to about 3.5 gb and yes it does seem to speed zone transition up a fair bit, your mileage may vary.

Regarding gw.dat contents I found this info here: http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/534/534454p2.html linked from: http://vnboards.ign.com/guild_wars_gene ... 404/p1/?12

Jeff Strain: While no game is hack-proof, our goal is to provide you a very secure game environment. We accomplish this by developing a game structure that is hard to break and easy to fix. The foundation of our secure gaming environment is our client asset model.

With Guild Wars, all the file assets placed on your computer are assets that are not directly associated with the logic of the game. Hence they are considered "dumb" assets. They include art assets, music files and the like. All of the files related to the logical systems of the game - the "intelligent" assets -- are held only on our secure servers. Limiting access to the intelligent assets of the game makes it more difficult for the game to be corrupted. Most games are designed first as a single-player experience, and the source files are stored on the gamer's computer. Therefore the files have a greater inherent vulnerability to hacking. The design of Guild Wars as an online-only game allows us to maintain our source code in the most secure manner possible, on our servers.

And for the person who was asking about adding / modifying the music… http://www.directsong.com/support/helpd ... .asp?ID=17 …explains how to get direct song music into guild wars, it may or may not help him.

Ok more info, they also seem to be using a variation of the MPQ format.

In general, MPQ archives don't contain names of archived files.

Found here: MPQ archives - Name breaking
As it only has hashed filenames.

Hope you find this information useful.

[OneOneSeven]

That would actually make a lot of sense, considering the gibberish filenames of the few successfully extracted files.

[Nukem]

Ok more info, they also seem to be using a variation of the MPQ format.

In general, MPQ archives don't contain names of archived files.

As it only has hashed filenames.

Just because of that it doesn't have to be a "variation of the MPQ format".

If so, it was also a variation of the WAVE format, as it stores data binary, too...


I guess Diablo III MPQs will have >256 chars per filename, and be completely randomized regarding directories / serialization.
Then it is time to make a REAL Seti@Home clone built on KAD and completely decentralized.

[AnonAMouse]

Just because of that it doesn't have to be a "variation of the MPQ format".

Yeah but if you read my message I did cover this with:

Ok more info, they also seem to be using a variation of the MPQ format.

If so, it was also a variation of the WAVE format, as it stores data binary, too...

Possible but in that case it is also a variation of the binary format

I guess Diablo III MPQs will have >256 chars per filename, and be completely randomized regarding directories / serialization.

Don't know about Diablo III MPQs...
But it's interesting how DirectSong merges it's music into a players version of the game: http://www.directsong.com/support/helpd ... .asp?ID=17