JrMasterModelBuilder

I believe they are in here: http://tronec.org/bm...HeroFactory.zip

Hah, awesome. I didn´t know you had already managed to make them offline. I´ll have to see how you did it. Was I right about my assumption above why it didn´t work for me?

Mints did almost all of the work on this one so I'm not sure what all he did. It doesn't require a server at all though.

Thanks, JrMasterModelBuilder. Those are just the 2.0 versions, though. Are the 3.0 versions anywhere?TotBI

That´s very easy to do and even though I haven´t managed to make fully offline versions of the game, I can do that. I´ll try to upload the 3.0 versions later today, although JMMB should be able to do it as quickly, too.-Gata

Oops, let me add that and Mission Ordeal Of Fire. I thought they were already in there.EDIT: The file has been updated. Thet are now in with the Hero Pad. You can play them from their folders inside the HeroPad folder.

I believe they are in here: http://tronec.org/bmp/files/LEGO/gms/HeroFactory.zip

Thanks so much for saving the old online games! It's good sometimes to relive old times...I don't know if this is feasible, but would it be possible for someone who has experience programming Apps for mobile devices to create App versions of some of these games (for example, an MNOG or MNOG II App for iPod or iPhone or something)? That would be awesome...

Perhaps for the Android or other non-Apple platforms it would be possible to bundle the game into an HTML based AIR application. For an Apple device, Apple's licensing limitations for AIR applications prevent the ActionScript in externally loaded SWF files from executing so the games would have to be recreated from the ground up in a single SWF file using ActionScript 3.0.

Could either of these things be done?

I have no idea, since I have absolutely no experience with programming Apps. This was just a random idea I had.

I'm just wondering how difficult it would be to execute the steps explained by JrMasterBuilder. Is such a thing he has described feasible? Is it really difficult?

The non-Apple AIR applications are feasible assuming there isn't some technical obstacle I'm unaware of. Rebuilding them from scratch for Apple device compatability would require a huge amount of time and would be very difficult as SWF decompiling really doesn't work very well for complex graphics and animation and translating the uncommented ActionScript 2.0 into ActionScript 3.0 (which, while many times better than AS2, has some structural differences requiring totally new coding logic) would be a tough feat.

Thanks so much for saving the old online games! It's good sometimes to relive old times...I don't know if this is feasible, but would it be possible for someone who has experience programming Apps for mobile devices to create App versions of some of these games (for example, an MNOG or MNOG II App for iPod or iPhone or something)? That would be awesome...

Perhaps for the Android or other non-Apple platforms it would be possible to bundle the game into an HTML based AIR application. For an Apple device, Apple's licensing limitations for AIR applications prevent the ActionScript in externally loaded SWF files from executing so the games would have to be recreated from the ground up in a single SWF file using ActionScript 3.0.

I've already listened and compared the old and edited episodes for many many times (I love nostalgy) and just in case I downloaded the files. And yes, there is a considerable difference. The old episodes have sound that is as good quality as the ones in MNOG. The new versions have all warped music which has this strange hissing in the background and everything is just... terrible. But yeah, the difference is present in each and every episode, both the 2002 and the 2003 ones.The best part about all this is that I was right. :PSorry. I just had to say that.

Alright, here you guys go.I edited the original SWF to load the text files containing the text similar to what Jetslandingboard did but without any loss of quality. I also created Flash 4 and Flash 5 Windows projectors for them which should give them the best chance of acting the way they originally did (the last 2 from 2003 were created with Flash 5 which is probably why they crashed Flash payer 4 for Gatanui).

Magnificent! All 2002 animations and the first one from 2003 play with the right speed. The second and third ones from 2003 are still running too fast, though. Thank you very much anyway. Is there a way you could fix the speed for the 2003 animations?Also, have you already replaced the files with the new ones on the BMP streaming library?~Gata.

Hmm, I could maybe try lowering the framerate 1 or 2 FPS with a hex editor. Not sue if that will help. They are projected with the exact same standalone Flash player Templar projected MNOG with, so that must have been the player they were tested with. I'll look into this a bit more later.Yes, I updated the streaming files on BMP.

I've already listened and compared the old and edited episodes for many many times (I love nostalgy) and just in case I downloaded the files. And yes, there is a considerable difference. The old episodes have sound that is as good quality as the ones in MNOG. The new versions have all warped music which has this strange hissing in the background and everything is just... terrible. But yeah, the difference is present in each and every episode, both the 2002 and the 2003 ones.The best part about all this is that I was right. :PSorry. I just had to say that.

Alright, here you guys go.I edited the original SWF to load the text files containing the text similar to what Jetslandingboard did but without any loss of quality. I also created Flash 4 and Flash 5 Windows projectors for them which should give them the best chance of acting the way they originally did (the last 2 from 2003 were created with Flash 5 which is probably why they crashed Flash payer 4 for Gatanui).

If you can find a Flash Player version from back then, it should work fine. The problem is finding such an old Flash Player. I´ve found and downloaded Flash Player 4 once and it could play the 2002 animations perfectly, but it crashed with the 2003 animations. It´s really a shame the animations are broken with recent Flash Players. ~Gata.

I haven't encountered that problem before. How are they broken and in what version exactly? I know Flash Player 11 has broken a few minor things (MNOGII opening cutscene for example). It would be nice to test as I have standalone Flash Players of every major version 3 and up (Windows versions anyway, the Mac versions were Power PC applications or the even older Prefered Executable format until version 9, both of which are dead today).

Not exactly broken, what I mean is that they play way too fast.You know what, if you are going to edit the files to fix the sound, could you try fixing the animation speed as well? What software are you using anyway? Good find on the issue, too. I was suspecting something in that direction.~Gata.

If the originals do sound better, I'll get to work editing them losslessly.

What do you mean by editing?

I used a ActionScript bytecode disassembler/assembler called Flasm (which sadly hasn't been updated since AS3). It's a little tricky because of the differences in ActionScript bytecode to edit the files properly (especially if you don't have a copy of Flash to create new bytecode with [and even if you do, Flash hasn't been able to create SWF 4 bytecode for many years]), but in this case, it's perfect because it won't touch anything but the code. I guess I could have used a hex editor in this case, but I think Flasm is a better choice.As for the animation timing, I can't fix that with Flasm. What's causing it is how the sound appears to be played on events rather than streaming on the timeline so it won't necessary play at exactly the same timing. Better sound, but less accurate. Maybe having them as older projectors will help with that.

AHAH! I bet that's it! Re-encoding anything makes it lose quality (unless you're muxing h.264 files from different containers or something like that).But hold on...upon closer viewing, I see that the edited files take up more space than the unedited. Which might not mean anything, but generally larger file size = better quality.

Considering how decompiling works (or doesn't, as seems to case more often than not) it's not totally unusual that they would increase in size like that. The SWF 6 format supports more features than the SWF 4 format so each tag may contain more data and decompilers can make a mess of things, redefining symbols more than once and such. If the originals do sound better, I'll get to work editing them losslessly.

Hold up everyone! I know what's going on here! The original files Crystal Matrix were later edited by Jetslandingboard to get the text to work. When he edited them, he decompiled them, edited them in Flash MX, and republished them. There's a good chance the sound files were re-compressed loosing more quality. The files did change a bit when he did this:(Original on the left, edited version on the right.)It's worth pointing out the edited version has more bytes of sound, but that doesn't mean it's better quality.I can edit the original SWF's to get the text without touching the sound or anything else but first could someone with a good ear and some free time download these files ( http://www.mediafire.com/?ta4q64d8bbz2aeb ) and compare the sound to tell if the ones in the Originals folder have better quality then the ones not? If so, I will take the time to edit the originals to load the text ASAP.

If you can find a Flash Player version from back then, it should work fine. The problem is finding such an old Flash Player. I´ve found and downloaded Flash Player 4 once and it could play the 2002 animations perfectly, but it crashed with the 2003 animations. It´s really a shame the animations are broken with recent Flash Players. ~Gata.

I haven't encountered that problem before. How are they broken and in what version exactly? I know Flash Player 11 has broken a few minor things (MNOGII opening cutscene for example). It would be nice to test as I have standalone Flash Players of every major version 3 and up (Windows versions anyway, the Mac versions were Power PC applications or the even older Prefered Executable format until version 9, both of which are dead today).

From my understanding, Crystal Matrix saved the exact same files that were on bionicle.com back when they were online way back when. If your watching the original SWF's (and not some video recording of them) they should be exactly the same as they were back then.

The field 'New folder name' was invalid (see tips below).

happend whenever your folder name doesn't meet some requirements. Most of these requirements are listed below.

• [*]Names may only contain A-Z,a-z,0-9 and '-'[*]Names may not start or end with a '-'[*]Names must be at least 2 characters long

There are some other names that are invalid like "thumb" which is reserved for file thumbnails.Are you sure your folder name meets these requirments? I was just able to create a new folder in my account.

The only known copy of the game is owned by a person going by the name of "Deep Brick."

There are other known copies, but their owners either didn't reply or didn't know where they put it in the last 10 years.

Are there? How did/do you know?Anyone can claim to have anything. The only way we know Deep Brick has a copy is because he's provided actual content from it. Which, as far as I know, no-one else has ever done.

Because info from Red Quark says that more than one copy was made.That true, but it wasn't a random "Yeah, I have that game." We actually had to ask them if they had it and it was already reasonable to assume they did.

ok. a if only few people has the copy of a game, and it has a glitch that not allows player pass onua level how in the name of holy God that images happend?how they get them? http://www.brickshel...ry.cgi?f=198718a?

If you are refering to the Gali and Tahu images, they're advertising images. The Onua glitch was well known to the dev team as was the save file structure so they could easily change the save file with a hex editor.

The games rights are in the hands of two different companies, to my understanding. It's with Lego, and the game developers. From what I heard, the game developers went out of buissness, or something to that effect, and as such would not be able to allow Lego to release the game online. Lego isn't gonna do it due to possible legal issues that may arise, so that's out of the question. Many have already asked, and no matter how much we do so, they wont release it. Making a petition that will not succeed isn't going to make matters any different, I'm afraid.

That's slightly incorrect. Lego is the sole owner of LoMN - they hold the copyright to the entire game. It's like with Lego Racers: High Voltage Software developed the game, but Lego holds the copyright to Lego Racers, as evidenced by the "Copyright 1999 The Lego Group" that appears when Lego Racers starts up.

Except the LEGO broke that contract when they decided to quit production. Saffire was never fully paid, so it's a bit of a grey area.

And anyone can find Deep Brick?

Yes and no, mostly no. I might (I don't in fact know) have his name somewhere, but it doesn't help. For the most part, you can only contact Mark who would then have to contact Deep Brick.

The only known copy of the game is owned by a person going by the name of "Deep Brick."

There are other known copies, but their owners either didn't reply or didn't know where they put it in the last 10 years.

You guys need to decide which you want to be the final topic.

Please close this one. Captain Tayz was not aware we already have an active topic and created this one by mistake.

The wastelands isn't a glitch, it's possible, but frustratingly slow and difficult to get through. I have done it before for the charm and willpower training, but it took more than an hour, so for the second visit (to get the crystal), I cheated by editing my progress file. Which version of the MNOGII did you download? The text file saving version or the local shared object (Flash cookie) saving version?

There's no built-in way I've ever found any trace of, but if you playing it offline you can open your "savegame.xml" file in a text editor (Notepad is built-in on Windows) and edit the values in between the "<character_inventory></character_inventory>" tags. The text inbetween in a comma sepperated list on your items and the ammounts. Each item is named like this ITEM_IDENTIFIER~AMMOUNT_YOU_HAVE~THIS_NUMBER_IS_ALWAYS_0 and a comma between each item. For example, for 1 lava launcher, you would have:

<character_inventory>6~1~0</character_inventory>

And for 1 Lava Launcher, 5 Little metal fragments, and 10 Ice metal pieces, you would have:

<character_inventory>6~1~0,254~5~0,2~10~0</character_inventory>

To set everything to 0, just replace all the second numbers between the 2 ~'s and make sure you don't put any spaces, line breaks, or any other extra characters to break the format. For a complete list of items and their number identifiers, look in "CheatCodes.txt" under "LIST OF NUMBERS FOR EQUIP CHEAT" where they are all listed.

Not impossible with some of the games, but probably too much effort to implement into something that is already extremely cool.Except for the flash-games. For those you'd need to have the original project files, then load all those graphics into it, maybe even rewrite some code...

Just curious, which games could it work with? Besides the Flash games, there are only Shockwave and Unity3D games, and as far as I know, DCR Shockwave files are impossible to decompile, and so are Unity3d files (at least I have not found a way to decompile them, even though I wish there were ).Also, great to see you stop by in my topic, VF! ~Gata.

Anything can be reverse engineered. I've actually scratched the surface of both the Shockwave and Unity3D file formats. They are both extractable compressed archive formats and most of the resources in Unity3D files can be decompiled (especially the .NET DLL's). But even Flash decompilers don't always work very well at recreating project files. You would be better off making your own game or recreating them from scratch.

What's the compression format on the Shockwave format?

Zlib. Throughout the DCR's, there are chunks of Zlib compressed data, each a different asset. Since I can see you're not a big poster we can't use the PM system, but if you like, we can take this to email where it won't be off-topic. My guess is that you're looking to reverse-engineer the format, and there's more I can share. You can get my address here: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/JrMasterModelBuilder/Profile/contact.txt

I'm currently working to record all the main missions of LEGO Universe, as well as all the flags, binoculars, bricks, etc, in 720p video with Fraps before the end of the game. I then plan to upload it to a certain site, so if this works out we should have most, if not all, of the game documented. Only Crux Prime, Ninjago, The Battle of Nimbus Station, and the WBL worlds left, as well as some assorted missions in Forbidden Valley and Gnarled Forest. Everything else is recorded! I should be able to have this done easily by January 31. I've had some issues with running out of hard drive space (I tend to record about 70 GB of video in a single session), so I've been compressing the videos as I go (don't worry, I'm not loosing any quality in the process). I should hopefully be able to get an external hard drive soon, too, so that will help.

May I recommend recordable CD's or DVD's? They tend to be the cheapest form of permanent storage.

Try right-clicking and un-checking enable backwards compatibility (weird, right? You'll probably want to put it back when done.) or download this version with a standalone executable: http://tronec.org/bmp/games . Both these methods work for me.

Not impossible with some of the games, but probably too much effort to implement into something that is already extremely cool.Except for the flash-games. For those you'd need to have the original project files, then load all those graphics into it, maybe even rewrite some code...

Just curious, which games could it work with? Besides the Flash games, there are only Shockwave and Unity3D games, and as far as I know, DCR Shockwave files are impossible to decompile, and so are Unity3d files (at least I have not found a way to decompile them, even though I wish there were ). Also, great to see you stop by in my topic, VF! ~Gata.

Anything can be reverse engineered. I've actually scratched the surface of both the Shockwave and Unity3D file formats. They are both extractable compressed archive formats and most of the resources in Unity3D files can be decompiled (especially the .NET DLL's). But even Flash decompilers don't always work very well at recreating project files. You would be better off making your own game or recreating them from scratch.

Well, you definitely know more than I do then. Is there any software to decompile Unity3D files? ~Gata.

Not a single program that I know of, but . . . To unpack a .unity3d file, open the file in a hex editor and remove all the bytes before hex "5D 00 00 80", then use the lzma.exe command line program in the LZMA SDK (from the person who made 7-zip) to decompress the LZMA compressed data you cut out from the .unity3d file. Then use my Unity Extractor Air application to unpack the archive you just decompressed. From there, the .NET DLL's can be decompiled into C# with a .NET decompiler like ILSpy. At least some of the asset files can be imported by some methods but I would have to look up how that was done. I just wanted to mash up the files of GA2 with GA3 for an offline saving version of GA2. Of course, it's not really decompiling to a Unity project.

I'm not so sure this is exciting as many people make it out to be, for several reasons:

• [*]Legally, neither Deep Brick nor RedQuark can put up even a demo of LoMN, because they do not hold the copyright to it[*]Lego holds the copyright to the game, so only Lego could legally put the game itself up for download. If Lego gives Deep Brick or RedQuark permission, they could upload it themselves, but I find that unlikely

The last we heard from RQ was that he was working on a secret plan of sorts to allow the game to be made legally available to download. No word yet on how this has progressed during the forum downtime, of course.

Aside from asking Lego - who, as the copyright holder, is the only entity who can legally distribute LoMN - for permission, I'm not sure what RedQuark could do.

Well, RQ has understandably not revealed details of his plan yet, so there's no real way to judge whether it will work short of waiting for further word from him. As for the programming stuff, members such as JMMB, DJ Reidak, and alpha123 seem convinced that they'll be able to pull this off given enough time. I don't know much about that kind of thing, so I'll leave it up to them to respond if they wish...

Unfortunately, they don't know what they're getting themselves into. They've made the assumption that the bugs lies in the data files, which is probably not true. The bugs are most likely in the game engine itself, and without access to the source code, to fix the bugs, they'll have to:

• [*]De-compile the LoMN executable, which is legally questionable in and of itself[*]Figure out where the bugs are in the de-compiled executable, which is comment-less assembly code, which I doubt any of them can or could understand - I know I can't

Actually, the data files is exactly where most games store level data. For example, LEGO Island 2 areas are defined by external 3D model files and collision files. Rock Raiders has external level definitions. LEGO Racers is almost certainly set up this way as well. I can't think of any video games that even appear to have level definitions in the executable itself. It's not practical. That all assuming that we even have to bother. A Saffire employee said that all you have to do is edit the save file to get around the major bugs. EDIT: Ah, -Takua- , you beat me. It's also possible the collision areas are defined by files external to the 3D model.

I'm not so sure this is exciting as many people make it out to be, for several reasons:

• [*]Legally, neither Deep Brick nor RedQuark can put up even a demo of LoMN, because they do not hold the copyright to it[*]Reverse-engineering the level format is helpful, but only if we already have the media and game engine to begin with (neither of which we have)[*]Lego holds the copyright to the game, so only Lego could legally put the game itself up for download. If Lego gives Deep Brick or RedQuark permission, they could upload it themselves, but I find that unlikely[*]This game was designed for Windows 9k/2000. Since Windows 7, IIRC, broke ABI compatibility with earlier versions of Windows, the only way anyone could play the game even if they had it would be if they had a copy of Windows 95/2000 on hand, or used WINE (which is Linux-only)

Frankly, I think we should just leave both Deep Brick and RedQuark alone, use this community's talent to create a new Bionicle fangame that is better in every aspect, and free of all these legal issues. I and my 6 1/2 years of programming experience are willing to pitch in.

Personally, I think releasing the game falls under fair use. My Frogger video game was designed for Windows 95 but runs without any compatibility settings on Windows XP (haven't had to try any newer computers with that game, but I wouldn't be surprised if it could be made to work on Windows 7). Rock Raiders, LEGO Racers, LEGO Island, LEGO Alpha Team have all been reported to work on Windows 7. I wouldn't bet it can't work on newer computers. Also, Wine can be used natively on Apple OS X and it's easy to install Linux under a virtual machine to run Wine, though I find this a rather unlikely approach.

Man, that was a good game. I don't have it anymore, because I got a new laptop, and it was on the desktop computer that I don't use anymore. Does anybody have a download link or the install file?

I suppose you are referring to BIONICLE: The Game? BIONICLE: The Legend of Mata Nui was never released to the public after all, only a few copies from a beta production stage are available (although a beta test never took place). ~Gata.

Oh, sorry. I was thinking of the Mata Nui Online Game.

Oh. As far as download links for MNOG are concerned, try the big banner in my sig. Or you can try tronec.org as well. ~Gata.

Thanks, I'm downloading a couple of the games. So what exactly is Legend of Mata Nui about? :3

LoMN was supposed to be the very first BIONICLE video game, announced for fall 2001. If you have seen a video of Onua waking up on the beach or other pictures of Onua on Mata Nui, they are possibly from the game. It was developed by Sapphire which bankrupted soon after the game was cancelled by LEGO, whose official reason was that it did not comply with LEGO´s quality standards. A few beta tester spots could be won in a LEGO Magazine contest but the beta test most likely never took place. Last year, gameplay videos emerged, recorded by DeepBrick, who is possibly the only person in the world to own the game. The problem with the game is that it only works on old systems and on a very specific high-performance gamecard. This compatibility issue was probably the main reason for cancelling the game, for it could not be finished in time, added to the fact that said gamecard was very good for that time, thus expensive, and that not everybody owned it. I think the upcoming of Windows XP on that year, where the game did not work on, was another reason. DeepBrick has access to a computer complying with all those requirements, but only once in a while, hence the slow progress. We have, however, been given several files by DeepBrick, including the save file, which we are trying to deduce of how it works so that we can progress to another area in the game and skip an unpassable area that has impeded any gameplay beyond the Onua level. We are now eagerly awaiting news from DB, so we can try the modified save files. Another problem is that the copy is most likely illegal, so DeepBrick does not want to release it without a definite permission by LEGO. I think that covers it all. Please let me know if I have made any mistakes! ~Gata.

Some clarifications: LEGO's offical PR statement from that time was that it didn't meet LEGO's standards of quality (pretty generic) or "chip compatibility and timing" ("timing"?). Some Saffire employees (including higher-end-of-the-pay-scale employees) say that LEGO cancelled the game (a 3rd person shooter game [when LEGO was still very anti-violence]) on account of what happened on 9/11/01 (bad timing?), which impacted and cancelled may different media productions. Who's right, who's wrong, we may never know. RedQuark said the beta test never took place according to several letters from LEGO. At least one other Saffire employee was given a copy, but he wasn't able to find it. DeepBrick says he can only get it to run properly on a certain computer with an nVidia graphics card. We don't know the full range of what it will or won't work with or what all DeepBrick has tested. Also, we have conflicting reports of how complete the game actually was when it was cancelled ranging from the next year to almost "gold" as they say.

Not impossible with some of the games, but probably too much effort to implement into something that is already extremely cool.Except for the flash-games. For those you'd need to have the original project files, then load all those graphics into it, maybe even rewrite some code...

Just curious, which games could it work with? Besides the Flash games, there are only Shockwave and Unity3D games, and as far as I know, DCR Shockwave files are impossible to decompile, and so are Unity3d files (at least I have not found a way to decompile them, even though I wish there were ). Also, great to see you stop by in my topic, VF! ~Gata.

Anything can be reverse engineered. I've actually scratched the surface of both the Shockwave and Unity3D file formats. They are both extractable compressed archive formats and most of the resources in Unity3D files can be decompiled (especially the .NET DLL's). But even Flash decompilers don't always work very well at recreating project files. You would be better off making your own game or recreating them from scratch.

Hey, thanks for starting this topic again, -Takua-!I don't know if there are any other binary reverse engineers on this website, but I would like to post that some progress has been made on the onua.blk file RedQuark gave us.I have figure out most of the file format, so here it is:

0x00 > bytes{4} = 0x424C4B46 = (BLKF) Header0x04 > bytes{4} = 0x01000000 = UNKNOWN (Probably an unimportant version number)0x08 > unit{4} = Number of files (0x81000000 or 129 in onua.blk)//Repeat for each file:bytes{40} = File name (Null terminated)unit{4} = File size.bytes{4} = UNKNOWN //These byte's uint value is always greater than the file size. Maybe the uncompressed file size?bytes{4} = Unknown, but always 0x03000000 in onua.blkuint{4} = File positions in the .blk archive//And the rest is just the bytes for each file.

Based on this information, I created an extractor:BLK Extractor Version 1.1 (Runs on the Adobe AIR runtime)With it, you can extract each individual file in onua.blk into a folder. Unfortunately, each individual file is compressed in some unknown format not described by the BLK file (as evidenced by the broken headers in the binary Direct X (*.x) 3D model files). Until we can figure this compression out, we can edit the files in onua.blk. For anyone who wishes to attempt this, I have put together a list of all the files and their associated data (except the 0x03000000 that is associated with all the files) in two formats below:SpreadsheetPlain TextI have asked RedQuark about this (months ago) and he said he would ask Deep Brick if he had any info and if he would provide directory listings of the CD and install folder. No word back, as of yet.

Great work getting this topic put together Auron! I love how the topic fits with the new design for the site.