[open source] make_prepatcher

1 and 2) Someone makes their own pre-patcher? Good for them. Now lets see them continue to make it. Go through and decrypt everything. Learn the new encryptions. Take hours and hours to figure out how to do it. It isnt a 5 minute process, it takes alot of time and hard work to get it going. Someone else wants to dedicate time, fine. Only a few that I can think of (the list is very short) have that time and patience. So people can post about how to make a pre-patcher, or how to decrypt everything, but the time it takes to do it would just be too difficult for many, as it is continually changing.

I have done exactly that. It involves no decryption. It was quite easy to make. Nor is it continually changing; this script should work without modification for future versions of Maple.

[COLOR="Red"]EDIT 4/7/09: FTP stuff changed so the script is broken, I'll fix it when I have time.

EDIT again: Fixed. New version can take an optional command-line parameter saying which version to download in case the autodetection stops working. Example usage: easy_prepatcher 00070[/color]

UPDATE: I have made a new version. Now you don't even have to download the patch files from the ftp, the script will download them for you. All you have to do is run the program, and it will get the files it needs and create the patcher. It will first see what the most recent version on the ftp is, and ask you to confirm that you want to generate a patcher for that version (useful on patch night to see if it's up yet).

I have renamed the script to "easy_prepatcher", because it's so easy to use.

Download is here: http://www.cs.stevens.edu/~gnajda/make_p...atcher.zip

To use it: Just unzip it in a new folder and run it. That's it. You don't need to make a new folder for each patch, just leave it there.

 source code

Perl source is here: http://www.cs.stevens.edu/~gnajda/make_p...source.zip (with BasePatcher.dat), http://www.cs.stevens.edu/~gnajda/make_p...patcher.pl (without BasePatcher.dat, you can look at the source right in your web browser)

I recommend that you back up your MapleStory folder just in case something goes wrong.

Credit and thanks to maststef for explaining how to make a prepatcher!

Edit: easy_prepatcher and its source code are public domain; that means you can redistribute it, modify it, do whatever the heck you want with it.

Edit 8/13/08: Fixed a bug that only affects people who are not using the included BasePatcher.dat for security reasons.

Extra info:

 Spoiler

Both links include BasePatcher.dat, which is derived from any ManualPatch.exe from the website. Already having that instead of the script having to download ManualPatch.exe could greatly speed up the script if the ManualPatch.exe on the website is large.

If you want a patch for something other than the previous version to the current version, use make_prepatcher instead (see the spoiler below)

The security-conscious will realize that BasePatcher.dat goes directly into the patcher; they should download ManualPatch.exe from Nexon's website and let the script generate BasePatcher.dat if they don't trust where they got BasePatcher.dat from. A ManualPatch.exe can be downloaded on the main Nexon site at http://maplestory.nexon.net/WZ.ASPX?PART...amePatches

The script was packaged in a .exe using PAR-packager.

first post (earlier version, called make_prepatcher):

 Spoiler

I wrote a Perl script that generates a prepatcher, given any old manual patcher, the xxxxxtoyyyyy.patch file from the ftp, NewPatcher.dat from the ftp, and the patch notes (yyyyy.txt) from the ftp.

Download is here: http://www.cs.stevens.edu/~gnajda/make_p...atcher.zip

That contains make_prepatcher.exe. If you don't trust me, you already have a Perl interpreter, or you just want the source, download the source at: http://www.cs.stevens.edu/~gnajda/make_p...patcher.pl. The source was packaged into an executable using PAR-packager. I am placing the source in the public domain.

If and only if you choose not to use the .exe and use the Perl source instead, you will need the Perl interpreter, which you can download here: http://www.activestate.com/store/downloa...d58c2648ca (download the x86 MSI). Once it is downloaded, install it. Again, you do not need to do this step if you are using make_prepatcher.exe

Now put make_prepatcher.exe or make_prepatcher.pl in a folder along with the ManualPatch.exe from any recent version (available at http://maplestory.nexon.net/WZ.ASPX?PART...amePatches), the patch file for the new version (xxxxxtoyyyyy.patch) from the Nexon ftp, NewPatcher.dat from the Nexon ftp, and the patch notes for the new version (yyyyy.txt) from the Nexon ftp. (ftp://patch.nexon.net/Maple/patch/)

Run make_prepatcher.exe or make_prepatcher.pl (if you installed Perl, make_prepatcher.pl should be double-clickable). This will create a file of the form 00058_patcher.exe in the same folder. That's your prepatcher, run it and patch. I recommend backing up your MapleStory folder first, just in case it doesn't work.

Credit and thanks to maststef for explaining how to make a prepatcher!

You can also find the directions inside make_prepatcher.pl.