The Adventurers' Guild

Hello everyone.

I was wondering if it would be possible to revisit the concept of disassembling the Bard's Tale II game for the C64, much like ZeroZero, Horpner, myself, and other did over the past couple of years?

As I recall, there was a form of anti-piracy protection on the disks called "Pirateslayer" or something.

Is it doable?

Darendor,

Both BT1 can use V1 or V2 of the pirate slayer BTII only uses V2. see links.

I am myself trying to duplicate some originals to emulator images, trying to get rid of the trap issue with BTII on emulator images.

Linkhttp://c64preservation.com/dp.php?pg=pirateslayer

Linkhttp://c64preservation.com/dp.php?pg=database do a search for "bard"

I look forward to following this thread and learning a few things.

T[/url]

Toll wrote:Darendor,

Both BT1 can use V1 or V2 of the pirate slayer BTII only uses V2. see links.

I am myself trying to duplicate some originals to emulator images, trying to get rid of the trap issue with BTII on emulator images.

Linkhttp://c64preservation.com/dp.php?pg=pirateslayer

Linkhttp://c64preservation.com/dp.php?pg=database do a search for "bard"

I look forward to following this thread and learning a few things.

T[/url]

As far as I remember, BTI did not have Pirateslayer at all, hence the progress that myself and others were able to make on decoding that game.

Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight EA 1986 Verified sets:3
Protection: pirateslayer v2 - track 2 signature
Notes: cifo - verified several times - NTSC/PAL releases are the same

From the above second link you posted.

Darendor,

the below is also from the same website. The only thing I can suggest with your previous efforts with BT 1 were that the copy protection was removed from your copies BT1

I remeber we were never able to copy BT1 or BT2 with out burst nibbler and a parallel cable installed into the 1541 dive.

Toll

Bard's Tale (newer version) EA 1986 Verified sets:1
Protection: pirateslayer - regular track 2 variant
Notes: cifo - verified - disk 2 is always different due to saved status, disk 3 always matches across versions.

Bard's Tale (older version) EA 1985 Verified sets:1
Protection: pirateslayer v1 - t36/37
Notes: cifo - verified - disk 2 is always different due to saved status, disk 3 always matches across versions.

Bard's Tale (PAL) EA 1986 Verified sets:0
Protection: pirateslayer v2
Notes: cifo - genuine PAL release (does not boot in NTSC) - disk 1 is the only one that differs, disk 2 is always different due to saved status, disk 3 always matches across versions.

Toll wrote:Darendor,

the below is also from the same website. The only thing I can suggest with your previous efforts with BT 1 were that the copy protection was removed from your copies BT1

I remeber we were never able to copy BT1 or BT2 with out burst nibbler and a parallel cable installed into the 1541 dive.

Toll

Bard's Tale (newer version) EA 1986 Verified sets:1
Protection: pirateslayer - regular track 2 variant
Notes: cifo - verified - disk 2 is always different due to saved status, disk 3 always matches across versions.

Bard's Tale (older version) EA 1985 Verified sets:1
Protection: pirateslayer v1 - t36/37
Notes: cifo - verified - disk 2 is always different due to saved status, disk 3 always matches across versions.

Bard's Tale (PAL) EA 1986 Verified sets:0
Protection: pirateslayer v2
Notes: cifo - genuine PAL release (does not boot in NTSC) - disk 1 is the only one that differs, disk 2 is always different due to saved status, disk 3 always matches across versions.

Fair enough. It stands to reason, then, that if the Pirateslayer copy protection was successfully removed from the first game, it could also be done to the 2nd.

Darendor wrote: As far as I remember, BTI did not have Pirateslayer at all, hence the progress that myself and others were able to make on decoding that game.

Oh, it does. It just don't make use of its track/sectorloading features in all occations. Starting up the engine makes use of it, but not while being in the game itself. BTII uses the later Pirateslayer with the files encoded with $EA.

Toll wrote:I am myself trying to duplicate some originals to emulator images, trying to get rid of the trap issue with BTII on emulator images.

I look forward to following this thread and learning a few things.

T[/url]

I don't think that its an issue with the emulator-images or the nibbling - I honestly think that this is a bug - or do you have experiences from the real thing which might point in another direction? Even without cracking the game fully, I believe we could fix this issue - we just need to know the track, sector and disk, de-$EA the file, fix the bug and re-$EA the file and write it back to disk. I can't recall if me and ZeroZero ever located the file containing the problematic trap-event?

Anyone here make any headway on this project?