So, there’s this:
1) gpcm.gs.nintendowifi.net. The WII connects here and logs in. Sending commands in plain text. e.g.:
\ka\\final\
\lc\1\challenge\RDBZBOAJSR\id\1\final\
\login\\challenge\WueRfHcc0laFAgNzgYS2gJuuZY8kN5WJ\authtoken\NDSuz+Pjy/i7LbJpDxtVzYP/UadZQDOVR9/Onsy4VEpvH5QLp5kVSWNTvh/Xo7CwRa8K5wKR2VWTFMRqh1Y4h/TS294D7KI0Vl3Zu8Pi75Fiaqv18Pi/Y++sDEe+wkyCC5Z\partnerid\11\response\e07cafa8bde43cc5be91a1e8607128ef\firewall\1\port\productid\11887\gamename\tatvscapwii\namespaceid\16\sdkrevision\11\quiet\id\1\final\
...A bunch of stuff with adding/removing rivals...
...A bunch of stuff being notified when rivals/friends go on/offline...
...other.....stuff....
\logout\\sesskey\188505323\final\
Did a bunch of googling and found this:
http://aluigi.altervista.org/papers.htm
I now understand what I’m dealing with. GameSpy is an off-the-shelf solution for online gaming. Many more games than just Tatsunoko-vs-Capcom use it. The login challenge response thing is pretty much figured out by these guys with example C code accompanying it. Not only that, some of their tools are on the path to making fake servers to allow the game to function without Nintendo’s servers at all.
I’m not bothering with any of above. It’s not interesting. What is interesting, however, is:
1) I set up the ranking charts for other people to be able to view in their browsers. I’ve seen several hits every week to it so there are people out there who care about the current ranking. すごい!
2) During ranked battle searching when a match is about to begin the WII sometimes sends a 132 byte message to Nintendo containing my PID and some other interesting numbers.
Examples:
By observation, I highlighted the bytes that are clearly important, representing…. something. For each set of bytes, the left-most 4 bytes at the bottom highlighted in red appear to be the pid of the opponent I’m about to fight in little-endian. e.g. the “rankmatchstart2.bin” file’s 0×8c32d614 is most likely my opponent’s pid.
When I change all the 0×01 into 0xFF, when my opponent selects his character, nothing show up. On the versus screen, his side is completely black with the exception of small looking cloud-like things near the top. Then the game freezes up and I have to hold the power button on the WII for a hard-shutdown.
I hope to figure out something cool here. Maybe modify who I fight as, like being able to pick 2 giants when the game normally makes you use giants without a partner. Or any other strange effect.
We’ll see if I can figure anything out! あとで!
