[HN Gopher] Show HN: Resurrecting a dead Dune RTS game
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Show HN: Resurrecting a dead Dune RTS game
Author : wheybags
Score : 333 points
Date : 2024-07-13 19:00 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (wheybags.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (wheybags.com)
| smcin wrote:
| 'Emperor: Battle for Dune', a 2001 RTS game by Westwood Studios,
| essentially a Dune-themed 'Command & Conquer'.
|
| Play as one of the three main factions: House Atreides,
| Harkonnen, or the (non-canon) Ordos.
|
| https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Emperor:_Battle_for_Dune
| romanhn wrote:
| The original C&C was in fact based on Dune II, the OG RTS game
| that came out in 1992. The cutscenes from Dune II are still
| burned into my memory, what a great game it was.
| nick__m wrote:
| Dune II was so great for a 11yo !
| elric wrote:
| "The planet Arrakis, known as Dune. Land of sand. Home of the
| spice melange. The spice controls the empire. Whoever
| controls Dune controls the spice. The emperor has proposed a
| challenge to each of the houses. The house that produces the
| most spice will control Dune. There are no set territories
| and no rules of engagement. Vast armies have arrived. Now
| three houses fight for control of Dune. The noble Atreides.
| The insidious Ordos. And the evil Harkonnen. Only one house
| will prevail. Your battle for Dune begins now..."
|
| Just thinking about the soundtrack to that most excellent
| game gives me goosebumps. Fond memories there.
| grafelic wrote:
| Very interesting and in depth article. I really appreciate the
| amount of detail and knowledge shared about how to go about
| reverse enginnering and patching abandonware like this. Thank
| you. Saw the game in a local thrift store, but left it be, since
| I only played Dune II rts. I will pick it up for sure now.
| brightball wrote:
| I wonder if it would run under Wine?
| bbor wrote:
| This is the most amazing things I've seen in ages, very
| exciting!! I'm very far from the technical work here, but I
| appreciate how approachable you made it. Can't wait to try it
| when I get home!
| lmz wrote:
| I wonder if they can use manifests / registration-free COM to
| avoid the registry dependency of the online component.
| wheybags wrote:
| I did come across some mentions of that, but it sounded like
| you would need to configure it at build time. If you know of a
| way to do it with a pre-existing binary that wasn't designed
| with that in mind I'd be very interested.
| lmz wrote:
| In theory the manifest could be external (app.exe ->
| app.exe.manifest; lib.dll -> lib.dll.manifest), but you
| already seem to be patching the binary so maybe embedding it
| directly as a resource wouldn't hurt. Ref:
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/win32/SbsCs/assemb... and
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/win32/SbsCs/applic...
| cshokie wrote:
| I came here to also post about regfree COM. If you can get
| it to work that seems like the ideal solution.
|
| See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/win32/sbscs/creati...
|
| "Activation contexts enable COM objects to be used without
| requiring that they be registered."
| Kerbiter wrote:
| This is how we avoided COM registration for Blowfish in YR,
| maybe this well help you.
|
| https://github.com/Phobos-
| developers/Phobos/blob/develop/src...
| metadat wrote:
| Great article, wish I could go out for a night on the town with
| the author, I feel like they're pretty darn fun and intelligent.
|
| The cute expandable explanations are just the bee's knees, and
| also useful. I felt like I was playing some sort of choose your
| own adventure RPG just reading TFA, which was a new kind of
| experience.
|
| --
|
| p.s. re: _> CS:GO, which was only retired in 2023_
|
| I thought CS:GO was rebranded to CS2. Am I mistaken? (very
| probably, yes, pretty please enlighten me!)
| tslocum wrote:
| CS2 is considered by some to be a downgrade compared to CS:GO
| (yours truly included). I have heard reports of tournament PCs
| being unable to hold a decent FPS in CS2, whereas they worked
| great with CS:GO. You can find many user reports sharing
| similar results, even with higher-end PCs.
|
| Valve wants CS2 to be seen as the continuation of CS:GO, and
| instead of making a better game to replace it naturally, they
| forced the change on their playerbase. I, and others, will be
| bitter about this for some time, as CS:GO is an excellent game.
| Insanity wrote:
| Their CS2 "server browser" is kinda disgraceful, especially
| considering that the game was carried for decades on custom
| maps and mods.
| fragmede wrote:
| Remember GameSpy? Oh man.
| kchr wrote:
| Not to mention All-Seeing Eye!
| doix wrote:
| Complaining about the new CS is tradition. When go came out,
| people said source was better. When source came out, people
| said 1.6 was better. They changed bunny hopping and AWP quick
| scoping somewhere around 1.3-1.5 and people said the previous
| version was better.
|
| Although I guess in this case they _forced_ people to change,
| which sucks. Let the niche communities keep playing the
| version they like. I guess it's because it's a live service
| game and they need to keep selling their loot boxes.
| Sesse__ wrote:
| And I do vividly recall someone saying that the later CS
| betas had lag-compensating things that were unfair, and
| invited others to play beta 1, "where you actually hit what
| you aim at"!
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| CS2 was uploaded under the same application ID as CS:GO, but
| they remade the entire thing in a new engine. It is not a
| rebrand.
| AHTERIX5000 wrote:
| CS2 uses Source 2 engine with DX11 or Vulkan renderer in
| contrast to old, Source 1 based CS:GO.
| binary132 wrote:
| I am really stoked about this actually, I thought it could not
| happen
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Hats off. Amazing effort. Great read. I haven't used IDA on a
| game in a long while and this is next level effort. Bravo.
| tonfreed wrote:
| The soundtrack he links to reminds me of a game from the 90s
| called 7th Legion. It was average at best, but the music was
| killer
| Klaster_1 wrote:
| Totally agree. Back in those days, I played the game for a
| couple of hours at best, but the soundtrack has stayed in my
| music library for decades, what a masterpiece!
| personjerry wrote:
| Any chance to port this to mac? :)
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| It's ~50 bucks for a second hand X86 laptop that can run this
| game (less than an Apple thunderbolt cable), if you actually
| want to play it now, instead of waiting for a Mac port to fall
| out of the sky.
| wheybags wrote:
| Highly unlikely I'm afraid :(
| chaostheory wrote:
| On a related note, there is a modern Dune RTS on steam
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/1605220/Dune_Spice_Wars/
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| It's pretty good, too!
| dalanmiller wrote:
| Yeah this isn't an RTS at all. As someone else said
| definitely more of a 4X with very minimal realtime troop
| movement.
| 8372049 wrote:
| Calling it an RTS is a stretch. It's more of a 4X game. It has
| a low pace and combat isn't particularly important.
| evanjrowley wrote:
| I loved this game very much. Best soundtrack of any Westwood
| Studios game. So glad it's still playable.
| imp0cat wrote:
| I totally missed this one! I went from Dune 2 straight to C&C.
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| Damn, what if we don't have any access to a physical copy of the
| game?
| lewispollard wrote:
| There's a certain organisation on the internet where certain
| things are archived.
| renegat0x0 wrote:
| There still appears to be existing a fan page
|
| https://dune2k.com/Duniverse/Games/Emperor
| Kerbiter wrote:
| That's a great writeup and a great effort! Perhaps we could
| integrate with your efforts at CnCNet somehow. Come hang out with
| us on CnCNet :)
| cmcaleer wrote:
| This game actually holds a ton of significance for the RTS genre
| as a whole. A very typical view of the RTS genre is that you have
| peasants who harvest resources that you gave to protect, and the
| Dune RTS was a real progenitor in this.
|
| But it was only like that because of the book. Were it not like
| that, maybe RTS as a genre would have gone down a different path.
| Maybe it's inevitable that it would have eventually gone down the
| path that it took eventually, but there's a good chance that it
| would have been unrecognisable. Maybe you'd have gotten resources
| by just harvesting your base's resources instead so opponents
| would have harassed you by harassing your buildings instead.
| Maybe there would have been different bonuses for map control
| other than better access to resources.
| RichardLake wrote:
| To be clear the article isn't about Dune 2; it is about
| Emperor: Battle for Dune.
| Loughla wrote:
| I think that maybe it would've always been like that. History
| sort of leans on the peasant as resource base, ruler as
| strategist trope.
|
| While Dune itself is like that, so is all of history.
| Sesse__ wrote:
| Very nice post! I did something related to this a decade back,
| except it was for Tiberian Sun and to patch its networking code.
| Jumping into other people's code like this is like having a
| shared connection in a sense. I noticed to my horror that there
| was a completely separate stack for modem play; it wasn't like
| they just sent TCP/IP over the modem or something. Some poor soul
| must have spent months of their life writing all this custom code
| for framing and syncing and error handling (what happens if the
| connection goes down and you have to re-dial, etc.?). Which was
| irrelevant almost already when the game originally came out.
| bikson wrote:
| I think that was for another reason. IMO sole purpose was
| calling t the another modem not connecting to the internet via
| dial up. I never use this but a lot ofbold games Has those
| option.
| Sesse__ wrote:
| Yes, obviously. Direct dial-up plus local serial cable.
| le-mark wrote:
| > UI design is my passion.
|
| So great, I really miss writing like this. Reminds me of Steve
| Yegge blog posts, among others.
| herodoturtle wrote:
| > It's got a 28.8 BPS modem
|
| _Active matrix, man. A million psychedelic colors._
| 42lux wrote:
| _RISC architecture is going to change everything._
| Log_out_ wrote:
| The idea that modern add-HD riddled and pay to win shovelware
| gets defeated by old classics is deeply entertaining to me. Just
| one hacker helping.. and the audience would drive the crapware
| out of town on a rail. Almost like good things of the past in an
| eternal medium will always outcompete mediocre things of the
| present.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| I see this kind of note regularly in blog posts:
| This is probably a good time to mention that I am not a skilled
| reverse engineer.
|
| Nope. You've walked the walk, you've earned the right to talk the
| talk. We're all building experience as we go.
|
| You're now at least a junior reverse engineer, and seeing the
| size of this project, you can even drop the junior as far as I'm
| concerned. Enjoy!
| inetknght wrote:
| IMHO the difference between "skilled" or not is whether you
| know where to look for help without causing more problems, and
| even more importantly: _when_ to look for help. Documentation
| might be all the help you need, and reading documentation
| definitely makes you skilled, but plenty of people don 't know
| how to search for it!
| metadat wrote:
| Since it's now abandonware, you can download Emperor: Battle for
| Dune from archive.org directly or via torrent:
|
| https://archive.org/details/EmperorBattleForDuneUSAEurope
|
| (For others who, like me, want to try this game out with the
| wheybags patch :)
|
| Just for fun, I also dug up the past pirate releases:
| releaseName TYPE
| releaseDate
| ------------------------------------------------------- --------
| ------------------- Emperor_Battle_for_Dune_v1_06_Update-
| RAZoRDOX GAMES 2001-06-21 00:00:00
| Emperor.Battle.for.Dune.Update.v1.07.Cracked-MYTH DOX
| 2001-06-30 16:16:43
| Emperor.Battle.for.Dune.All.Level.Saves-EyM 0DAY
| 2001-07-10 12:07:49
| Emperor.Battle.for.Dune.Update.v1.08.Cracked-MYTH DOX
| 2001-08-17 08:17:39
| Emperor.Battle.For.Dune.Update.v1.09.Cracked-MYTH DOX
| 2001-10-06 06:04:21
| Emperor.Battle.for.Dune.Update.v1.06.Cracked-MYTH DOX
| 2003-07-11 22:33:37 Emperor-Battle_For_Dune-NORDiC-DOX-
| RUSDOX DOX 2003-07-11 22:33:45
| Emperor.Battle.For.Dune.Poradnik.POLiSH.PDF.eBook-KiOSK BOOKWARE
| 2006-03-10 01:48:50 Emperor.Battle.For.Dune.Money.Trainer-
| FLTDOX DOX 2006-10-10 21:52:25
| Emperor.Battle.for.Dune.v1.06.Update-RAZoRDOX 0DAY
| 2006-10-10 21:52:30 Emperor_Battle_For_Dune_Money_Trainer-
| FLTDOX DOX 2006-10-10 21:52:30
| Emperor.Battle.for.Dune-DEVIANCE GAMES
| 2007-02-15 17:25:00 OST-Emperor_-_Battle_For_Dune-
| CD-2001-DGN MP3 2010-09-01 22:45:42
|
| I was surprised to see there is even an OST soundtrack! Amusing.
| safety1st wrote:
| The soundtrack for this game was badass, particularly the
| Harkonnen section. Easily one of Westwood's best. Here's a
| YouTube playlist:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1SUUkhKkXo&list=PL4E8A87285...
| slavik81 wrote:
| When I think of Emperor: Battle for Dune, I hear "Ride the
| Worm" in my head. The music really sells the majesty of the
| armies battling in feudal war across a dangerous desert
| filled with behemoth creatures that could devour them all.
| https://youtu.be/czXaKxcQNkQ
| inetknght wrote:
| Hey this is nice! This comment stuck out to me:
|
| > _Westwood Online (WOL) doesn 't work anymore, so you can't play
| multiplayer except through LAN_
|
| I loved Command & Conquer in my younger years and I know a small
| bit about Westwood Online from the client side.
|
| If I recall XWIS.net did a lot of support after WOL went offline!
| It might be worth the author reaching out to the niche developer
| community there, although I think it's truly dying out. If I
| recall, the work that XWIS guys did ended up getting recognition
| from EA and they did a lot of help to continue WOL support for
| C&C Renegade.
|
| There's also FreeRA project that is the direct ancestor of
| several of the recent re-releases of C&C on eg Steam. They might
| also be able to help get WOL working.
|
| I say this because WOL was pushed as its own library, and so a
| replacement of the library will probably be fairly easy compared
| to (re-)reverse-engineering the WOL stack.
|
| _Edit:_
|
| Oh, as I continue reading the post, it goes on to discuss how the
| WOL component is also fixed. Extra nice!
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(page generated 2024-07-14 23:00 UTC)