BG:EE Launcher Communication

blwavg

From what I can see:
1. The client phones home and checks client version.
2. Pulls the news
(http://www.beamdog.com/files/motd/en/766.txt)
3. Sends user creds via ssl back to the servers for auth (thank you). This could possible do more, but the session is really short.
4. Checks for system prereqs - This can be useful for making this work with WINE.
(http://www.beamdog.com/client/prerequisites)
5. Then it shoots down some product info.
(http://www.beamdog.com/client/products/766)

This is a big assumption on my part, but I wonder if I will have enough free time during the week to set up a server at home to respond to this message that would either change the current date or the "available on" and seeing if that unlocks the game. Probably not, but man, that would be fun. Although, I would suppose actual activation would either be in the SSL tunnel or just built into the launcher.

What do you guys think?

This is the client
** THIS OUTPUT WAS MODIFIED FOR FORUM FRIENDLINESS **
--CLIENT--
#GET /client/products/766 HTTP/1.1
#Host: www.beamdog.com
--SERVER--
#HTTP/1.1 200 OK
#Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2012 06:38:38 GMT
#Server: Apache
#X-Powered-By: Phusion Passenger (mod_rails/mod_rack) 2.2.8
#ETag: "**REMOVED**"
#X-Runtime: 10
#Cache-Control: private, max-age=0, must-revalidate
#Content-Length: 2128
#Status: 200
#Vary: Accept-Encoding
#Connection: close
#Content-Type: application/xml; charset=utf-8
#
#/?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?\
#/Products\
# /Product id="766" updated_at="1353652646"\
# /Price\19.99//Price\
# /Rank\0.848//Rank\
# /Name\/![CDATA[Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition]]\//Name\
# /Summary\/![CDATA[The greatest roleplaying game of all time. Enhanced.]]\//Summary\
# /Url\/products/baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition//Url\
# /AvailableOn\1354296600//AvailableOn\
# /BeamSize\1439677496//BeamSize\
# /InfoHash\e2d5db0759986c7ba4f09ec94f0aaa6062f1e948//InfoHash\
# /BeamFile\/client/beam/766//BeamFile\
# /BoxShot\//BoxShot\
# /Screenshots\
# /Value\/assets/products/10862/original/screen23.png//Value\
# /Value\/assets/products/10863/original/Screen09.png//Value\
# /Value\/assets/products/10864/original/Screen02.png//Value\
# /Value\/assets/products/10865/original/Screen06.png//Value\
# /Value\/assets/products/10866/original/Screen10.png//Value\
# /Value\/assets/products/10867/original/Screen22.png//Value\
# /Value\/assets/products/10868/original/Screen03.png//Value\
# /Value\/assets/products/10869/original/Screen19.png//Value\
# /Value\/assets/products/10870/original/Screen11.png//Value\
# /Value\/assets/products/10871/original/Screen08.png//Value\
# /Value\/assets/products/10872/original/Screen14.png//Value\
# /Value\/assets/products/10873/original/Screen17.png//Value\
# //Screenshots\
# /ChipShot\/assets/products/10240/original/Chip-Template.jpg//ChipShot\
# /Categories\
# /Value\7//Value\
# //Categories\
# /Tags\
# /Value\/![CDATA[baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition]]\//Value\
# /Value\/![CDATA[Baldur's Gate]]\//Value\
# /Value\/![CDATA[Dungeons And Dragons]]\//Value\
# //Tags\
# /Icon\/assets/products/10254/original/icon.jpg//Icon\
# /Cwd\00766//Cwd\
# /Cmd\/![CDATA[baldur.exe]]\//Cmd\
#
# /Arguments\//Arguments\
# /RqSystemRam\/![CDATA[512 MB]]\//RqSystemRam\
# /RqMinimumGraphic\/![CDATA[GeForce 2 or Equivalent]]\//RqMinimumGraphic\
# /RqProcessorSpeed\/![CDATA[1 GHZ]]\//RqProcessorSpeed\
# /Prerequisites\
# /Value\4//Value\
# //Prerequisites\
# //Product\
#//Products\

I do not actually plan to circumvent any measures put in place by Beamdog. I understand they have put a ton of effort into the product and if I want something cool like BG2:EE, then I should play by the rules. The intent of this post is to show the excitement/over bearing enthusiasm I have for this game.

Cheers.

Shin

You'd still need a download of an additional ~500MB of game data that wasn't included in the preload, and run another install though. Changing the date through your own server wouldn't change that.

elminster

I think that waiting 5 days won't kill me. Well, at least the statistically likelihood of me dying before BG:EE is out is very, very low.

So all this business of finding a way around the existing protections in order to play the game just isn't my cup of tea. Plus like @Shin said we still need to download another 500mb.

Finally, I'm honestly petrified that Phillip Daigle is going to come into my home and magically gradually age my perishable food items at a slightly faster rate, as he has already threatened to do with piraters. The guy probably has some crazy geas up his sleeve.

Bercon

Those dates are most likely just for visualization and have nothing to do with what you can actually download from the servers. Plus its likely that they are still working on minor updates before the launch date etc.

SharGuidesMyHand

Shin said:

You'd still need a download of an additional ~500MB of game data that wasn't included in the preload, and run another install though.

I don't get this part... What is the point of making this available for preload, if we still have to come back and compete with each other for another download on opening day anyway?

CaptRory

Well, I'd rather download 500mb on launch day than almost 2gb. They're cutting their Launch Day traffic among preorders, which are probably a very large category, by 75%. It also saves fans time downloading. Would it be nice to get everything ahead of time? Absolutely. But just because there's another smaller download on the Day doesn't mean there's no point.

elminster

SharGuidesMyHand said:

Shin said:

You'd still need a download of an additional ~500MB of game data that wasn't included in the preload, and run another install though.

I don't get this part... What is the point of making this available for preload, if we still have to come back and compete with each other for another download on opening day anyway?

Probably so that they can get a lot of the heavy downloading over with for a lot of the hardcore gamers, but it still leaves them the opportunity to look over files they haven't had the chance to look over (or fix bugs etc).

CaptRory

elminster said:

SharGuidesMyHand said:

Shin said:

You'd still need a download of an additional ~500MB of game data that wasn't included in the preload, and run another install though.

I don't get this part... What is the point of making this available for preload, if we still have to come back and compete with each other for another download on opening day anyway?

Probably so that they can get a lot of the heavy downloading over with for a lot of the hardcore gamers, but it still leaves them the opportunity to look over files they haven't had the chance to look over (or fix bugs etc).

It also gave them an excellant stress test of the server. Poor server, prolly gonna crawl into a corner and die now. XD Assuming it didn't do that already.

elminster

CaptRory said:

elminster said:

SharGuidesMyHand said:

Shin said:

You'd still need a download of an additional ~500MB of game data that wasn't included in the preload, and run another install though.

I don't get this part... What is the point of making this available for preload, if we still have to come back and compete with each other for another download on opening day anyway?

Probably so that they can get a lot of the heavy downloading over with for a lot of the hardcore gamers, but it still leaves them the opportunity to look over files they haven't had the chance to look over (or fix bugs etc).

It also gave them an excellant stress test of the server. Poor server, prolly gonna crawl into a corner and die now. XD Assuming it didn't do that already.

Yea but don't say that in some of the threads on the forum "yaaa they should have gone with steam" has been the cry of a vocal minority.