PSO: Dreampi Spoofing Overdue?

[Sega1Dream]

Thank you all for the contributions you have made to allow us to even get online at all, to continue to enjoy PSO years later!

This was a very interesting thread, that really makes me appreciate all you "PSO server peps" did to get around the HL checks and allow playable function online.

Just a friendly "Thank You" to all!

[DR TEAMCAST]

@bluecrab @aleronives thanks for the detailed explaination, that's what i was looking for

what is this update functionality? what was\would have been updated?

[BlueCrab]

Sega could basically send runtime patches to your Dreamcast, changing functionality in the game, or doing any number of other things. They could also use the functionality to try to check for cheat devices and other such things. Basically, most things that can be done with the PSO Patcher disc (that don't affect things until AFTER you're online) could be done that way instead, for instance. Heck, you could essentially make a "patch" that replaces the running copy of the game with some sort of homebrew program or something if you wanted to (like what was known as PSOLoad or PSUL on the Gamecube).

There have been people working on sets of patches for PSO for Gamecube using this functionality to fix bugs and things like that.

[Aleron Ives]

It's also worth noting that Sega may have scrapped the separate HL server in order to prevent anybody from avoiding the HL fee. Back when the server was still running, there were whispers about a CB code that would let you play USv2 online for free.

Such a code was not made public on CMGSCCC or the other code sites, but if it did exist, it would probably work similarly to the bypass BlueCrab made: if somebody forced the game to skip the HL check in 2001, in theory it would have allowed you to connect without paying the HL fee, as the game server assumed all connections had been approved already by the HL server. Integrating fee management into the game server would have prevented this exploit, if it ever existed.

[BlueCrab]

It's also worth noting that Sega may have scrapped the separate HL server in order to prevent anybody from avoiding the HL fee. Back when the server was still running, there were whispers about a CB code that would let you play USv2 online for free.

Such a code was not made public on CMGSCCC or the other code sites, but if it did exist, it would probably work similarly to the bypass BlueCrab made: if somebody forced the game to skip the HL check in 2001, in theory it would have allowed you to connect without paying the HL fee, as the game server assumed all connections had been approved already by the HL server. Integrating fee management into the game server would have prevented this exploit, if it ever existed.

And there's no reason to believe that such a code didn't exist back then, especially since (as I demonstrated before releasing the patcher), it's only a two line code to do it with CodeBreaker. I don't believe for a second that I was the first to figure that out, especially not with all the (very talented) "code developers" that were around back then.