Author Topic: Touhou 14.5: 東方深秘録 ~ Urban Legend in Limbo. is HM sequel, demo at Comiket 87  (Read 854390 times)

Can confirm the game freezes after the initial loading screen if not connected to the internet. I can't see an universe in which this was a good idea for DRM.

Beyond that, I haven't experienced any new bugs or graphical issues besides Sumireko's uniform going back to its base green color during her Last Word. Actually, the game runs a bit smoother now: It goes to 50 FPS in the Outside World stage when before it only went to 40, and every other stage stays at 60 FPS at all times.

But this is just me, of course. Hopefully they fix whatever is causing issues with the majority of the players and tone their zany DRM schemes down a notch.

Can confirm the game freezes after the initial loading screen if not connected to the internet. I can't see an universe in which this was a good idea for DRM.
This isn't even DRM. If that was the case they'd have you make an account or otherwise verify that you purchased the game. What this looks like is Tasofro attempting to prevent non-Japanese players from playing online with their "lobby" feature. However, if that was the case the game would just prevent you from using the lobby if it detects your IP as non-Japanese.

Upon startup, once the title music begins to play, the game connects to flets-st1180.kamome.or.jp on TCP port 8888, followed by TCP port 443. Very few data is sent through these sessions. If for whatever reason these connections can't be made or are terminated prematurely, the game will freeze shortly afterward. This means that an internet connection and access to the aforementioned server is required to play the game, whether it's single-player or IP-based player-to-player.

This behavior seems more like regional lockout, since regions that are on a blacklist won't be allowed to play the game at all. Perhaps it's some form of anti-piracy measure targeting regions with high piracy rates? Regardless, many people can personally confirm that the game works from U.S.-based IP addresses, though I still wouldn't recommend using the online lobby due to the game explicitly stating that the feature is to be used by players in Japan only.


Addendum: The launcher that patches the game to ignore DLL hooks such as the one used by nVidia hybrid graphics still works with this latest version.
« Last Edit: April 19, 2016, 10:17:43 PM by aUsernameIsFineToo »

Leon゠Helsing

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Again, I maintain the position that they could've just disabled the online multiplayer if the connection can't be made. At most this is an inconvenience that's more annoying than it has any right to be.
« Last Edit: April 19, 2016, 11:28:25 PM by Leon゠Helsing »

Plubio

  • 宇宙少年
    • Suzunaan
So what if you did buy the game and you're playing outside Japan?
This is bullshit.

So what if you did buy the game and you're playing outside Japan?
This is bullshit.
I agree. It's like buying a DVD overseas only to return home and find out it doesn't play on your DVD player (which is exactly what regional lockout is). Hopefully the game can be tricked into working or even better, have the region check patched out.

Does the game not work for you even with an internet connection?

Leon゠Helsing

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Three letters: VPN.

Gpop

  • Subconscious Rose Girl, Koishi
  • FIRST PLACE BAYBEE!
Three letters: VPN.
Not a good solution if you wanna play against others with that added latency.

FearNagae

  • Hisouten/soku Enthusiast
This isn't even DRM. If that was the case they'd have you make an account or otherwise verify that you purchased the game. What this looks like is Tasofro attempting to prevent non-Japanese players from playing online with their "lobby" feature. However, if that was the case the game would just prevent you from using the lobby if it detects your IP as non-Japanese.

Upon startup, once the title music begins to play, the game connects to flets-st1180.kamome.or.jp on TCP port 8888, followed by TCP port 443. Very few data is sent through these sessions. If for whatever reason these connections can't be made or are terminated prematurely, the game will freeze shortly afterward. This means that an internet connection and access to the aforementioned server is required to play the game, whether it's single-player or IP-based player-to-player.

This behavior seems more like regional lockout, since regions that are on a blacklist won't be allowed to play the game at all. Perhaps it's some form of anti-piracy measure targeting regions with high piracy rates? Regardless, many people can personally confirm that the game works from U.S.-based IP addresses, though I still wouldn't recommend using the online lobby due to the game explicitly stating that the feature is to be used by players in Japan only.


Addendum: The launcher that patches the game to ignore DLL hooks such as the one used by nVidia hybrid graphics still works with this latest version.

CMIIW but I recall unabara saying they don't have any idea about IPs being unable to connect to their site. I think this block is similar. For one, in Indonesia, not all IPs are blocked- just some players who happen to be unable to access tasofro's site gets this freezes/crash.

This isn't even a region block anymore if that is the case. Not to mention, ZUN would probably get pretty pissed if tasofro does such thing.

Leon゠Helsing

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Not a good solution if you wanna play against others with that added latency.
Still better than having the game freeze on you just because you had the misfortune of living somewhere that can't connect to Tasofro's server, at any rate. Of course, better alternatives would be appreciated.

FearNagae

  • Hisouten/soku Enthusiast
They're not going to fix this aren't they?

More evidence is collecting with these actions that TasFro is indeed racist.

They KNOW that Touhou is popular outside of Japan with ZUN going to conventions in America for crying out loud!  >:(

Spoiler:
Fuck DRM

N-Forza

  • Information Superhighway Robbery
  • *
  • I said it was a steal, but not for whom
Can everyone just chill out? If Tasofro was racist, they certainly wouldn't have sold me the 8 copies of ULiL I bought last year, nor would they have asked me how the players liked it.

They're probably being a little over-zealous with the online lockout, but I don't think they're stopping anyone from at least doing local play.

Leon゠Helsing

  • 0 - The Fool
  • Pave your own path
They're probably being a little over-zealous with the online lockout, but I don't think they're stopping anyone from at least doing local play.
Has anyone asked Tasofro to sort this out, at the very least?

By the way, for the record I'm attributing this more to poor programming practices rather than outright malicious intent.

Quote
for the record I'm attributing this more to poor programming practices rather than outright malicious intent.

After dealing with DRM crap from Steam, EA, Ubisoft and a host of other game developers, It saddens me to see that even doujin circles are trying to get in on this awful trend. If TasFro is so concerned with keeping their multiplayer lag free then there are many other better ways to go about rectifying that problem than just downright stopping people from playing the game... especially those who *bought* the disk in front of them but had to fly back home away from Japan.

It's not the first time that a game company has screwed over their loyal customers. Anybody remember the Payday 2 backstabbing when the company who made it said "we will never add micro-transactions to the game, never!" and then later on they did anyway? Companies need to be held accountable for their actions!

TasFro has to at least make a statement saying if this is an accidental fault or if they are deliberately trying to stop westerners from playing the game. Couldn't they at least do something as simple as that so that we don't try and guess what their intentions are?

I mean, bloody hell, couldn't they are least use offshore servers or something to put the pressure off of the Japan only community and lag? Anything is better than locking people who PAID for the game out of their purchased product.

I checked this thread yesterday, learned about the IP block, and decided to take a look at it.
And so I made a crack for that: http://www.mediafire.com/download/5a96dv4rr9vrv0g/th145_130_no_ip_block.zip
Some notes:
- I'm not in a blocked region, so I could only test by disconnecting from internet.
- I didn't test the netplay.
- I don't understand what I made. Without internet connection, the game was stuck in a loop, I changed an instruction to make it go out of the loop (JGE -> JMP). I don't know what that loop was doing. I might have completely broken the netplay. And as I said above, I didn't test the netplay.
- Due to a bug in th145arc, some textures fail to load, and are replaced with white or black squares. Make a dash and you'll see. Fixed
- It is based on the English patch, and so it have a lot of cracks from the english patch. If the English patch works for your nvidia card, this should work too. And it should work on XP (despite a font problem).
« Last Edit: April 20, 2016, 04:41:10 PM by brliron »

Leon゠Helsing

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- Due to a bug in th145arc, some textures fail to load, and are replaced with white or black squares. Make a dash and you'll see.
They also recently switched to a new VFX engine, could that have anything to do with that?

I don't think so, th145arc only replaces files, it should not be concerned with the graphic engine. Plus, I've already had this bug with the HM patch: http://i.imgur.com/RToWSjp.jpg

Leon゠Helsing

  • 0 - The Fool
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Huh. Did you manage to resolve the one in HM though?

No, I've been able to avoid it by not unpacking/repacking th145.pak, thanks to Riatre computing the original RSA key used for encrypting the archives. To get around it the same way, we'd need to not unpack/repack th145.pak and th145b.pak, and so we'd need to add a 3rd archive. I'm working on it.

Edit: fixed. I updated the download link above.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2016, 04:41:20 PM by brliron »

cuc

  • *
  • Probably won't respond 'til this mess is sorted o?
One of patch 1.30's bigger tweaks is changing the property of Kasen's Occult Attack from projectile to melee. The next day Tasofro released patch 1.31 to roll back this change. Then they realised this patch's "fix" of an incorrect behavior when bouncing from stage edges would crash the game, and immediately released patch 1.31b.

BTW, unlike patches of the 1.2x period, which continued to use the 1.11 executable, patch 1.31b has a different .exe file from 1.30.

I wonder if we'll see any more patches in the weeks before they show ULiL for PS4 at Reitaisai.
« Last Edit: April 23, 2016, 04:36:09 PM by cuc »
Touhou Fantasy News: twitter

Leon゠Helsing

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One of patch 1.30's bigger tweaks is changing the property of Kasen's Occult Attack from projectile to melee. The next day Tasofro released patch 1.31 to roll back this change. Then they realised this patch's "fix" of a bug about incorrect behavior when bouncing from stage edges would crash the game, and immediately released patch 1.31b.
:getdown:
Good fucking God Tasofro, your programmers are pretty lol. Really, I like you guys, but this is just hilariously bad. :V

Plubio

  • 宇宙少年
    • Suzunaan
Ignoring programming affairs (it's kinda sad tbh....):

Quote
One of patch 1.30's bigger tweaks is changing the property of Kasen's Occult Attack from projectile to melee.

Who thought this would be a good balance idea?

Leon゠Helsing

  • 0 - The Fool
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I'm gonna echo Gpop's statement that Tasofro doesn't exactly make the smartest balance changes. :V

FearNagae

  • Hisouten/soku Enthusiast
It seems like they admitted that the whole game freeze thing is a bug now. (The IP block thing is also not intentional in the first place).
I assume this is caused by the in-game update checker they implemented since 1.30 (or 1.22?).

Though, they should have announced it...
« Last Edit: May 07, 2016, 12:49:57 PM by FearNagae »

Leon゠Helsing

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Well, at the very least they admitted it was a mistake.

ZM

  • Overly Eager
  • Sanae~

Leon゠Helsing

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Huh, wonder if her story's gonna take place after LoLK or before.

Anyway, is she gonna be purely console-exclusive (*cough*Astebreed*cough*) or a timed exclusive?

cuc

  • *
  • Probably won't respond 'til this mess is sorted o?
Unless Tasofro announces Reisen for the PC version, please keep this thread focused on PC, and discuss the news in the PS4 thread from now on, thanks :-)
« Last Edit: May 08, 2016, 05:46:52 AM by cuc »
Touhou Fantasy News: twitter

cuc

  • *
  • Probably won't respond 'til this mess is sorted o?
It seems like they admitted that the whole game freeze thing is a bug now. (The IP block thing is also not intentional in the first place).
I assume this is caused by the in-game update checker they implemented since 1.30 (or 1.22?).

Though, they should have announced it...
I almost forgot. Are you talking about this post on their support forum?
Touhou Fantasy News: twitter

FearNagae

  • Hisouten/soku Enthusiast
I almost forgot. Are you talking about this post on their support forum?

Well... that wasn't where I figured it out, I was merely looking for reports about it on their twitter. But I guess the above thread also means the same thing?