Reverse engineering Diablo v1.09b (last patch)

[TheKillerVortex]

Hello, I would like to say thanks for your work on this. I am a fairly experienced modder for Diablo II and have been getting back into the first game recently.

Hi there, GalaXyHaXz! Welcome to the forums.

You're experienced with creating mods for Diablo II? That sounds exciting! I used to reverse engineer Diablo II way back in 2005. I customized some of the leaked TPPK hacks for myself. The source code was terrible to look at, but it worked.

I also updated (in the past few years, for that matter) some of the more popular bots' scripts (back when mmBot was still online: I also wrote customized scripts for my characters and updated the more generic scripts that were provided).

RedVex was O.K. to use (the content was... Not really heavy, we'll say).

As far as "mods" on Diablo II go: I do not believe I ever actually used a mod (other than TMCBPK's IAS/FHR/FCR editor). That was more or less strictly for PvM though. I never felt a reason to use it in PvP.

I noticed there were a couple remakes floating around (like freeablo). There is also an HD remake titled "Belzebub". Unfortunately the first one is far from usable and the latter is closed source.

Yes! I noticed there were some very old mods floating around (including some of the older more popular ones). Apparently a lot of people play, but nobody's on the public servers anymore (Battle.net; which is where I still roam). I see the occasional post here and there from stragglers inquiring for assistance.

I figured we could respark the D1 modding community by reversing the entire game back into the original source code. Once that is done, we can fix bugs and update the UI/resolution. Would you be interested in this?

'Respark?' With all due respect: Diablo has dwindled down into the hundredths of persons percentile. There's literally less than 5,000 players world-wide (globally).

Reverse engineering the game is a behemoth of an undertaking (that's in reference to a professional programmer / reverse engineering specialist). You would be better off creating your own Diablo clone with a popularly supported API! Such as OpenGL, SDL, SMFL, DirectX, Allegro or another.

Fixing the bugs in Diablo? In v1.09: There aren't honestly that many bugs (especially note worthy ones, to me). If you'd like to address bugs and patch them: That might take a month or two. Depending on how busy your day-to-day life is.

For starts, IDA pro would be used to create the struct/enums, and then decompile into Pseudo C++ code. After which, the code will be cleaned up and branched until it assembles a working game. Then, bugs will be squashed.

IDA Pro? Isn't that as old as W32Dasm? Wow! SoftIce. Memories. I used to use OllyDbg (32-bit version) for the longest of times. After it recently became obvious that it was not going to be supported (64-bit version is buggy): I decided to find something new. x32dbg is more or less a clone of OllyDbg, but with a vast more set of tools and an open plugin (which is AWESOME). x32dbg and x64dbg, I should say.

The decompiler ("Snowman") that comes with them is fairly decent at identifying structures (accurately, from what I've witnessed). It sometimes defers to inline assembly with the C code though. Diablo is quite old though. I know next to nothing about compiler theory.

As far as: "Am I interested?" No. Unfortunately. Thank you, though.

You're more than welcome to post any fun information in this thread here though.