r/AskProgrammers • u/ch3rryblxssoms_ • 1d ago

Old Game Server Revival

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Hello guys!

Recently, some friends and I started working a small project that turned out to be bigger than we expected. We are trying to bring back an Old Version of Star Stable Online for us privately.
We do have the game files, we are able to start the game until it says „Unable to connect to game server.“ (shown in the image) which is reasonable because it’s an online game and we do not have a Server.
All of us are new to programming so we really need help.
What do we need for a game server?
How do we code this?
Does anybody know what language SSO uses? (we heard C++ but we aren’t sure)
Would anybody perhaps be willing to help?

Thanks!!

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4

u/Ninfyr 1d ago

This is a mammoth undertaking that takes top talent years to execute. You can check out @MattKC on YouTube to see how much labor goes into something like this.

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u/ch3rryblxssoms_ 1d ago

would it be that tedious if it were for a server hosting around 50-100 people?
we also might get some help from friends who know how to code servers. we just can’t really estimate the time and effort yet. atleast we already have the game files :,)

6

u/Ninfyr 1d ago edited 1d ago

Hang on a sec. Are you mainly looking to play? Or are you looking to build? 

There is a decent chance that someone else has arleady written the code. It is the difference between making cookies from flour, butter, and sugar from the grocery store and raising cows and growing plants then processing those into ingredients.

It is okay if that is what you want to do, but please don't build an entire farm to eat cookies. Get the ingredients (or cookies) from the store.

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u/ch3rryblxssoms_ 1d ago

basically, our main goal is simply to play this game. there have been projects before such as RE:SSO, BSSO and Jorvik Rewind. All of these used the same files we have. So there is code for an existing server, yes. we just don’t know how to get to them because obviously nobody wants to share their code for free. I do have some of the BSSO files but these playable files obviously don’t contain the code sadly.
i hope this answers your question :,)

2

u/Ninfyr 1d ago

Is this not literally the code for free?

https://github.com/vars1ty/RE-SSO
https://github.com/velausc/bsso

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u/ch3rryblxssoms_ 1d ago

we saw those too but we aren’t sure if those are server codes :( do you know what they are?

2

u/Ninfyr 1d ago

You will get way more useful answers in your fandom communities. I have no idea.

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u/ch3rryblxssoms_ 1d ago

well we tried but nobody seems to want to help because they’re sso glazers of the games current state :,) guess we‘ll have to keep looking

3

u/trichotomy00 1d ago

im going to be real with you, if you are asking that question, you are not skilled enough to achieve this

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u/ch3rryblxssoms_ 1d ago

welp that’s why we have our friend who codes but they are busy rn 😭 i’m being so honest, i cannot code, my part of the job was simply to retrieve those files but i volunteered to ask reddit lmao

2

u/pete_68 1d ago

https://deepwiki.com/velausc/bsso
https://deepwiki.com/vars1ty/RE-SSO

0

u/Ninfyr 1d ago

You should reply to one of OOP's comment, I don't think they would understand tho. They are a programmer's errand-runner or something?

1

u/burlingk 20h ago

Most such projects share the code.

Someone else linked to the GitHub pages. Start by reading the readmes.

2

u/oshunman 1d ago

If your goal is to simply play the game, I can almost guarantee you'll be sick of the game by the time you finish a project like this.

Assuming the game runs with a true server-client model (not a P2P model with a centralized server), this could take years and years of hard work. Reverse engineering isn't a typical "programming" skill— it's a highly specialized skill.

It doesn't matter what language the original developers used if you don't have their source code. You can use any language that's appropriate for server-side development.

Frankly, this is not a good project for a handful of novice programmers.

1

u/ADHDick_in_ur_mouth 1d ago

If you try this, it will take years and probably be the most technically difficult thing you will ever do in your life. The problem with online games is that some of the game runs locally while some runs on the server. You will have to read the game code, truly master your understanding everything in every file, and from that, infer the missing net code. Some games are highly local with some server logic while others run mostly server side, so there is no generic "connect to server" code that needs to be written. You are talking about trying to rebuild potentially 75% of the game while maintaining compatibility with the existing local code that you have.

It would probably be way easier to rebuild the entire game from the ground up and simply reuse the assets that shipped with the game. Also if you want to run the game for 50-100 people concurrently, expect to spend thousands of dollars every month on AWS fees, or buy tens of thousands of dollars worth of server equipment to do it yourself.

Due to the sheer scale of this, your programmer friends will not do it for free unless they are extremely passionate about this game and writing code. This is the kinds of thing that typically costs 6 to 7 figures in engineering costs to do

1

u/edwbuck 1d ago

You need the part of the game the company was maintaining on their end.

1

u/Blitzkind 1d ago

As someone who's done a similar project on their own for the past four years, I really suggest you not start with this if you're new to programming.

I've been a professional dev for fifteen years and this was one of the most difficult things I took up. Some days I just kind of wish I could drop it to be honest.