Capturing "Online Worms"

[littlebee]

This is a messy document detailing "Online Worms", and the files I have extracted from it for use in W:A/WWP. Updates will continue, contributions are encouraged!

http://littlebee.gq.nu/files/onlineworms.gif

http://www.online-worms.com/ (Japanese)
http://www.onlineworms.com/ (Korean)

Online Worms (Japanese) 21.9 Mb (http://download.online-worms.com/patch/OWJSetup_030703.exe)
Online Worms (Korean) 19.3 Mb (http://wizweb.nefficient.co.kr/wizweb/wizgate/mgrunmng/onworms/full/owsetup.exe)
Online Worms: World Party Aqua (Korean) 65.3 Mb (http://wizweb.nefficient.co.kr/wizweb/wizgate/mgrunmng/wplus/full/wwpasetup.exe)

OVERALL GOAL: EXTRACT "ONLINE WORMS" DATA... (40% complete)

Speech sets:
JAPAN.zip (http://littlebee.gq.nu/files/JAPAN.zip)
KOREA.zip (http://littlebee.gq.nu/files/KOREA.zip)
Man_C.zip (Korean, World Party Aqua) (http://littlebee.gq.nu/files/Man_C.zip)
Man_K.zip (Korean, World Party Aqua) (http://littlebee.gq.nu/files/Man_K.zip)
Man_S.zip (Korean, World Party Aqua) (http://littlebee.gq.nu/files/Man_S.zip)
Woman_C.zip (Korean, World Party Aqua) (http://littlebee.gq.nu/files/Woman_C.zip)
Woman_K.zip (Korean, World Party Aqua) (http://littlebee.gq.nu/files/Woman_K.zip)
Woman_S.zip (Korean, World Party Aqua) (http://littlebee.gq.nu/files/Woman_S.zip)

Music:
music.zip (Japanese, Korean) (same) (http://littlebee.gq.nu/files/music.zip)
streams.zip (Korean, World Party Aqua) (http://littlebee.gq.nu/files/streams.zip)

Korean maps (extracted by JoE, April 2004):
http://www.wmdb.org/101
http://www.wmdb.org/102
http://www.wmdb.org/103

Japanese maps (extracted by JoE, July 2004):
http://www.wmdb.org/816
http://www.wmdb.org/817
http://www.wmdb.org/818
http://www.wmdb.org/819
http://www.wmdb.org/821
http://www.wmdb.org/824

UPDATE 2: Since most menu options for Online Worms and Online Worms: World Party Aqua are difficult to integrate into W:A/WWP without considerable change to W:A/WWP code, and the fact that screenshots are available for these menus, further extraction will not be attemped. However! New extractions of maps would be very nice! Anyone up to the task?

UPDATE 2: Screenshots
http://www.online-worms.com/intro/game/game4.htm (menu nav, Japanese)
http://ras.s28.xrea.com/w/img/ss/002.jpg
http://ras.s28.xrea.com/w/img/ss/004.jpg
http://ras.s28.xrea.com/w/img/ss/006.jpg
http://www.online-worms.com/pds/map.htm (maps, Japanese)
http://www.online-worms.com/pds/screen.htm (screenshots, Japanese)
http://ras.s28.xrea.com/w/img/ss/008.jpg
http://pub.mgame.com/game/worms/guide/guide_item.php (weapons menu, Korean)
http://pub.mgame.com/game/worms/guide/guide_play.php (in-game controls, Korean)

...

Overview:

"Online Worms" (Korean/Japanese) was developed in 2003 by a small group of companies (Korean: MGame, KRG Soft, SONNORI, Dream Entertainment, Neo Vision; Japanese: Global On) who essentially converted W:A/WWP into a bite-size game for online play. Single-player features were removed and several local customizations made. Most significantly, "Online Worms" provided language support for Korean and Japanese users. We could really use this in the latest W:A/WWP patches. OW contained unique maps, music, and in-game/lobby menus. The Korean version saw a sequel, "Online Worms: World Party Aqua", which added an additional host of community-building features, and multiplayer missions, presumably modeled on the WWP release. It remains very popular.

Regrettably, the Japanese network died in 2005, and the Korean network is not available to non-Koreans. "Online Worms" only launches after it establishes a connection to one of these communities; since we can't do this, we can't even view the menus! It is frustratingly difficult to simply open it up and play around, see what's different, extract some toys, whatever.

Documentation: ***Discontinued***

Most maps and all audio have been successfully extracted, and can be easily integrated into W:A/WWP by individuals or patch (preferred). These files make up only about 40% of all the available data in Online Worms. Is it worth going further?

[yakuza]

I played these, they get boring after a week :(

Good effort though, nice post.

[littlebee]

How did you play them? This is the issue I am up against right now. Hence all this wasted time extracting files...

[Evil Bunny]

here's just a guess alright but; he's probably japanese.

[Mablak]

No dice I'm afraid

[yakuza]

The typical problem people encounter is making a login, wich is no longer posible. Back then you just needed a Korean ID, wich could be easily obtained through contacts or websites. Now it's a bit harder since there seems to be a database wich detects if the name you input matches with the id you put.

If you have a login, another problem people encounter is trying to run the game from the files stored on your computer, wich basically doesn't work. You have to login in their website and click the launch button in the web to be able to play.

[littlebee]

Yes that's just the thing. That's why this project has focused on extracting data. It would be nice to just log in and look at it all, screencap it and sort it away, but it's not that easy.

The Japanese and Korean soundbanks ought to be included in a future patch, I think, as they are the only available versions and are (except for one Korean set) thoroughly professional.

I would really like to see Japanese and Korean character support in a future patch, too, seeing how W:A is almost entirely played on XP now, and we could pull the communities together a bit more easily.

[KRD]

You can't just include copyrighted material into an official update of another game... Although you could argue Online Worms is a W2 rip-off. But still.

[Split]

Very nice post, and I have to say that I've used up my share of time trying to figure this out. Even with a friend that can read Korean it doesn't help. You still need to be in Korea to work these.

Also, those ingame menus look like Gunbound, which is a dumb game. So I'm content with not having it.

[bonz]

As KRD mentioned, including copyrighted material in an official patch could be problematic.

But enabling Japanese & Korean people to play W:A is a nice idea.
Littlebee, maybe you could make page where people can download the speechbanks from a single source so the folder names will always be the same.

I have no idea if support for Japanese/Korean characters is planned.

[zzzzzac]

When I click it I get a pop up it says..

Sorry!!!, This game is played in japanese!
- soo... How do I play it

[Seita]

Change your system language to japanese before starting the game.

[zzzzzac]

HOW!!!?
messagetoshortIhateit..

[zzzzzac]

I see. What It does not say japenese.
I am in control pannel.

[littlebee]

Actually, simply changing your settings may not do the trick. My Japanese Windows XP Pro cannot connect to the server (it should look like this (http://www.online-worms.com/intro/game/game2.htm) on a sunny day).

The last Japanese reference to Online Worms I was able to dig up was in this blog (http://blog.livedoor.jp/harmonicser/archives/50271518.html) on December 18, 2005, a passing reference to a few games the writer is "crazy about". That's a long time ago. Yakuza and bonz (forum members) mentioned a few times their experiences, but regrettably there has been no confirmed connection since this topic hit the boards.

Alternative thread (http://forum.team17.co.uk/showthread.php?p=540561), for interest. Good luck and keep trying!

[tomleboubo]

I'm just watching on the forum. I look you're interested about Online Worms. I played all of them.

First, comes Online Worms Japan ( http://www.online-worms.com . It was very great and it had a lot of servers and game modes. But after,in 2003 the Game Masters leaved the staff and all the servers closed, only one survived: the Shoppa server. A lot of players leaved game after this.

And us, the frenchies, found a way to play on a non japanese computer (there is a protection). And a lot of french players appeared in the Shoppa server. After that, a lot of japaneses and english guys came back, but the game finally died this year....that made me cry, i was a big fan...

After we found the MGame version of Online Worms (WWP Aqua and Online Worms, OW was pretty bad cause everyone won by using bought items. Not fun. And items were less to spawn.). It was cool but now no more account can be created i think, because google is searching and tracking the Korean ID databanks websites.

Now i'm playing WA and it's more cool than WO :)

[zzzzzac]

The thing is that this is all in jap!
Can someone give me a part by part walk though?
I dont know japanese

[Plasma]

The thing is that this is all in jap!
Can someone give me a part by part walk though?
I dont know japanese
Were you able to get past the Japanese Only message?

[tomleboubo]

Oh...Someone (a frenchy again, and this man was the leader of the french community) modified the patcher to unlock the "only japanese" protection.

[littlebee]

Tomleboubo, great post! Thanks for the info.

Zzzzzac, if you've gotten past the Auto Patch process when launching the exe...

http://image.online-worms.com/image/guide/connect.gif

... and logged in...

http://image.online-worms.com/image/guide/login.gif

... you should be seeing this:

http://image.online-worms.com/image/guide/wait.gif

And if this is the case, then the server is running...? And it looks pretty straightforward, and congratulations! If this is not the case, if you are seeing something else, screencap it and we'll have a gander.

Here is what I have gotten every time I launch:

http://littlebee.gq.nu/files/wormserror.gif

It says, "Server connection failure! Try a second time or connect to another server, and you may play the game."

[tomleboubo]

Exactly what i said: Online Worms is DEAD. And fully now i think (before you was able to loggin but after all servers were locked (only one was open) ).

About the maps, there some .dat thingies in the OW folder. I don't know how to open it, but you should take a look :cool:

[littlebee]

And so we come full circle!


OVERALL GOAL: EXTRACT "ONLINE WORMS" DATA

.... [b]New extractions of maps would be very nice! Anyone up to the task?


We also have this:

.... Regrettably, the Japanese network died in 2005...

The typical problem people encounter is making a login, wich is no longer posible.

The last Japanese reference... was in this blog (http://blog.livedoor.jp/harmonicser/archives/50271518.html) on December 18, 2005....

....the game finally died this year....

Hence, this entire project.
Extract data in lieu of logging in.
Been working on it. :)

[Lex]

Some questions relating to the possibility of map-extraction:

How do the maps and networking work? Does a central server host all the games? If so, are the maps sent to the players by the server or are the maps stored locally? I guess the latter would make more sense. Are the maps sent by the server initially and then cached to be played later, or are they included in the game installation file(s) you've linked in post 1?

[tomleboubo]

I absolutely dont know, but there are level files in the datas. But i didnt found how to export .dat in an image format :-/ . Extracting the maps only with screenshoots will be very hard, littlebee...

[littlebee]

All files are stored locally.

Default install:

C:/Program Files/OnlineWormsJP/

Subfolders and files:

/Avatar
/data
/ksf
/Palette
ConList.dat
dcom98.exe
Dwait.exe
Jpatch.exe

Comments:

/Avatar contains two .mav files. These are of interest.

/data contains these subfolders and files:

http://littlebee.gq.nu/files/ow_datafiles.gif

.../data/gfx contains 1 small file which handles all the basic landgen functions.

.../data/mfx contains 29 folders named Tmap01, Tmap02, ... Tmap29, all of which contain 1 "level.dir" file which corresponds to a .dat file in /data.

.../data/music contains unique music in .wav and .mid files. They are provided for download in the original post.

.../data/water contains water data. It is identical to W:A/WWP.

.../data/wav contains unique .wav speech files, and .sfx files identical to W:A/WWP. The speech files are provided for download in the original post.

/ksf and /Palette contain data for the game's menus. Each folder has a corresponding .ksf and .pal file, for example, "bridge.ksf" in /ksf and "bridge.pal" in /Palette. These are of interest.

dcom98.exe is an assistant patch. It will only install on Windows 98.

Dwait.exe will not execute. It gives an icon association error.

Jpatch.exe is the connection/launcher.

That's all! Online Worms does NOT allow random map generation, to my knowledge. There are 29 fixed maps. All this information was provided under "documentation" in post 1, but was removed due to an apparent lack of interest.

"JoE" extracted some of the maps from OW and Korean OW via screencap when he had access to them in 2004. These files are provided for download in the original post.

Initially, and where possible, I playfully overwrote W:A files with OW files, with only one "success" -- a modified and unresponsive landgen editor when OW's "gfx.dir" replaces W:A's "gfx.dir". I have not tried using CyberShadow's wkFileOverride yet.

UPDATE: Here are 26 of the 29 maps available for OW, from the official site:
http://www.online-worms.com/pds/map.htm .
They are not awe-inspiring. They are very basic.

This information is provided in the interest of being thorough. I contend that all worthwhile data has been extracted from OW (about 70%), with accessing the game, or the menus, being the only remaining goal. Any extraction of Korean OW will yield a great deal more. Currently, only about 20% of Korean OW is available to us.

[Etho]

A Land.dat file is the last file worms creates before loading the map and other data into memory. The online worms games install a specific number of these files to your local hard drive for use in the game. When you select a map, it will copy, and decompress if necassary, one of these files to the main Land.dat file.

All the 2nd generation worms games use Land.dat files. You should be able to perfectly rip a map from any foreign, wwp, w:a, or w2 game by using the 8 bit map steal feature of CutWorm. First, you need to overwrite wwp's Land.dat with the other uncompressed, 1920 x 696, 8 bit Land.dat file.

[tomleboubo]

littlebee, i have a OW account, i'll check if there is a way to get maps but i think the maps are the same of the japanese.

[Lex]

When you select a map, it will copy, and decompress if necassary, one of these files to the main Land.dat file.They're obviously not compressed because they have the exact same file size.

[Etho]

Yes, but the ones used in wwp aqua are compressed.

[tomleboubo]

Is the project dead?... :(

[Deadcode]

I've extracted all the maps from the Korean and Japanese OnlineWorms, directly from the landnn.dat files. AFAIK nobody else has done this, or at least nobody who has posted the results; this surprised me. (JoE's extracted maps are from screenshots, and are badly palettized, truncated where there was water, and edited — presumably in spots where there happened to be game sprites.)

I've noticed:
OnlineWorms has some new terrain textures, even though AFAIK, users are not given the ability to generate maps.
16 of the landnn.dat maps appear to be textured monochrome maps, like they were generated from .BIT files. Two of these use terrains textures unique to OnlineWorms (although one is not entirely original; only its objects are unique).
There are at least two versions of Korean OnlineWorms. One has a 67 MiB installer, and maps very similar to the Japanese version; the other has a 19 MiB installer and has a smaller, mostly different set of maps.
The small Korean version has some 960x696 maps. Six of these are shrunken versions of the corresponding Japanese / large Korean maps. Four are original (though three of these use bits and pieces from existing WA/WWP maps). Does anyone know if these are playable, and if so, how the game deals with the reduced size?
7 of the maps are virtually exactly the same as WA/WWP mission maps. 4 are based on pieces from various ones.

Common to Japanese and large Korean versions (if logo is mentioned in description, it is "Global On" or "mGame", respectively)
land01: textured -Hell cavern
land02: textured -Desert island
land03: textured Pirate cavern
land04: original? two islands, one with a bird resting on a nest, and the other with a sign (logo in Japanese version, text in Korean version); drawn in the same style as many WWP maps
land05: textured Sports double-island
land06: textured Pirate cavern; 960x696 in small Korean version — weirdly squeezed with mixed aspect ratios
land07: textured -Beach island
land08: textured Gulf terraced cavern
land09: textured Snow island
land10: textured Snow island; 960x696 in small Korean version
land11: textured Snow cavern
land12: textured WormMap (-Desert with Korean objects, tiled with logo) cavern
land13: textured -Beach island
land14: textured -Forest island
land15: textured Tmap15 (entirely original texture) cavern
land16: same as Chateau
land17: same as GunBox
land18: same as Snow
land19: textured -Sports double-island
land20: same as Sci; 960x696 in small Korean version
land21: same as Toys; 960x696 in small Korean version
land22: same as Flowers
land23: same as Stonehenge
land24: textured -Forest double-island
land25: original; sporty map with trophies, a stadium, and logo-ridden soccer balls
land26: original; hockey rink with worms wearing shirts bearing the Korean or Japanese flag
land27: original? a log, drawn in the same style as many WWP maps; 960x696 in small Korean version
land28: original; clouds, and a sun wearing sunglasses
land29: original? two islands joined by a drawbridge with crocodiles underneath, possibly drawn in the same style as some WWP maps; 960x696 in small Korean version
Unique to small Korean version
land01: based on TakeOutTheTrash/WWPMission6 with bits from Boats/JumbleSail, GoodShip, and Cars
land02: original; two anime robots; roper map
land07: 960x696; based on Train with bits from WWPMission20, WWPMission42, and OnTheRocks
land22: 960x696; based on Cars and WWPMission39
land23: 960x696; FruitBastilles, with clouds drawn in
land30: 960x696; a set of diagonally staggered clouds, with sprites borrowed from the game

I do not think it'd be proper for me to post the maps I have extracted, however the next W:A beta will have the ability to open land*.dat files in the Map Editor.

[franpa]

will support for worms 2 maps be added? is it already added?

[Lex]

Great work, Deadcode! Thanks for this. :DI do not think it'd be proper for me to post the maps I have extractedWhy not? The game and all its data is freely-downloadable.

[Vader]

Why not? The game and all its data is freely-downloadable.

As were the demos K^2 extracted maps from.

[Lex]

Can you point out where it says this map data isn't allowed to be shared? If Deadcode has access to it, why shouldn't anyone else have access to it? Also, if you're going to use K²'s example, please point out more proof of that example. I don't know the history.

[franpa]

Great work, Deadcode! Thanks for this. :DWhy not? The game and all its data is freely-downloadable.

so if i downloaded a closed source program from the internet that is freeware... i can extract any encrypted data from it that is normally not accessible and post it online?

[Run]

Team17 hold the copyrights to the artwork don't they? Just send Spadge an email and have him give permission, that'll save all this fuss

[bonz]

Team17 hold the copyrights to the artwork don't they? Just send Spadge an email and have him give permission, that'll save all this fuss
T17 surely don't have the copyright to the new maps in those Asian versions.

[Vader]

Can you point out where it says this map data isn't allowed to be shared? If Deadcode has access to it, why shouldn't anyone else have access to it? Also, if you're going to use K²'s example, please point out more proof of that example. I don't know the history.

Basically, K^2 extracted some maps from the Worms:Forts demo on xbox and converted them for use in Worms 3D on PC... or something along those lines. Team17 asked him to stop and he (arguably) didn't and got banned from this forum as a result.

The two scenarios have a lot in common so I can understand Deadcode's aprehension.

[xJoEx]

Badly palettized indeed... using MS paint :P

for Korean OW / regular use:
user: WermzDotCom
pass: testlogin

[Evil]

I would love the "BatWorm" map shown in this video XD

youtube.com/watch?v=HXoYd__qBbo

Any chances to extract it or play it in WA somehow? =o

[SwampWorm]

Anybody got a link for Online Worms (Japanese) (OWJSetup_030703.exe) download or has a file and can host it somewhere? I would really appreciate it. All links I've found on google are dead. :(

@Evil

Here's batworm map:
http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/8972/batwormhi6.th.png (http://img390.imageshack.us/my.php?image=batwormhi6.png)