Pier Solar: Official Thread

[Joe Redifer]

Did you go to the one house and get the chick's weapon? I know you have to go to someone's house and get a weapon out of a treasure chest. Or maybe I'm thinking about Lunar. Either way you can't just buy them a weapon, I don't think.

[N.Saibot]

You have to go to Alinas house (a big house on the left, with workers doing something on the roof) and get her bow.
You also have to search Hostons house for his fathers dagger.

You are not supposed to buy anything at that stage, because they all have their own stuff and not enough money to begin with. You also advance the story by visiting Alinas house.

[Teancum]

Looks like some one finally figured out how to dump this.

I'm sure some one will be angry that I even mentioned this happening but figured that the news is worth discussing.

[Genesis Knight]

Site is gone already? Interesting bits from Google cache:

Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m a terrible person for explaining how to do this. It’s what I do — I like the challenge, as do a lot of people. Others also just like to read about it.

If you want to debate me on the ethics of this, piracy, or whatever else, have at it if you really want. Or if you just want to threaten me, we can play it that way, too.

[Teancum]

Yeah not sure what happened to the site. Some of it is viewable via Google Cache though.

[Kamahl]

Man, props to Watermelon, they protected the game like crazy! No wonder people can't dump it.

[N.Saibot]

It would be interesting to know how and if this affects the sales of the game. Before the release there were several discussions on the old Pier Solar forum about this. I always thought a ROM would mean nothing to the sales, because of the collectibility of the game itself. By now we already know about the awesome packaging that Watermelon made for the game, which cannot be dumped or replicated.

Unfortunately, the game got dumped only this late, so the sales probably dropped a lot anyway, if there are any at this point.


[Edit:] duh, forgot the game isn't compatible with emulators yet. By the time the ROM is easily available somewhere and some emulator works with it, WaterMelon very well might release Project Y, or whatever game's next.

[Kamahl]

[Edit:] duh, forgot the game isn't compatible with emulators yet. By the time the ROM is easily available somewhere and some emulator works with it, WaterMelon very well might release Project Y, or whatever game's next.

And this trick will no longer work. If this guy had waited he could have dumped 2 games.

[Barone]

The first guy that I saw hacking it is the same hacker that made those bizarre Rock N' Roll Racing hacks. I don't know how far he can get but other guys where suggesting to organize a hacking group around this task. If they convince r57_shell and Nemesis_c to work with them things can go crazy.

To clear things up a little bit:

- the so called "full" dump available on the internet is nothing but a few kB bootcode repeated all over 8MB ROM size. I know this because I already had many requests by email about "adding support" for this one and this is always exactly what I got when dumping my own cartridge with a retrode. So you can stop hoping about emulators being "updated" to support that ROM because it's useless and only 0.5% of the "full" ROM. Off course, it's possible to have access to more ROM by analyzing what that bootcode does before testing checksums and mimic it (probably what those russian hackers managed to do) but it needs a custom hardware setup in the end and there is high risk you could permanently damage the cartridge during the process, without even knowing it.

- Even if fully dumped, the game will not be compatible with emulators, not because of some kind of anti-piracy conspiracy from emu authors or because it's a 64Mb game but simply because it uses on-board hardware (that is obviously only on the real cartridge) which has its own purposes, one being necessary for the game to run. I doubt there is any "unemulated" 68k instructions involved as it does not make much sense for anyone having minimal understanding how an emulator works. The reason you got garbled graphics is probably because the cartridge extra stuff is used for graphic/code decompression...among other things . I hardly see this "fixed" soon considering 1) it's most likely not a known chip (even the SVP was) being used but some kind of specific FPGA 2) the people involved with the protection know their stuff when it comes to hacking

Man, props to Watermelon, they protected the game like crazy! No wonder people can't dump it.

Looks like I was right when I said that a hacking group could do it... Oh, well.

[N.Saibot]

And this trick will no longer work. If this guy had waited he could have dumped 2 games.

Yeah, would have been interesting to see how well the sales go, if the game is dumped early on.

[Teancum]

[Edit:] duh, forgot the game isn't compatible with emulators yet. By the time the ROM is easily available somewhere and some emulator works with it, WaterMelon very well might release Project Y, or whatever game's next.

Actually it can be run on a modified version of MESS

[Genesis Knight]

It would be interesting to know how and if this affects the sales of the game. Before the release there were several discussions on the old Pier Solar forum about this. I always thought a ROM would mean nothing to the sales, because of the collectibility of the game itself. By now we already know about the awesome packaging that Watermelon made for the game, which cannot be dumped or replicated.

It would have zippo effect on sales IMO, even if it had happened earlier. The vast majority of the people who buy this stuff are going to buy it regardless of there being a ROM dump.

[Joe Redifer]

What Watermelon is likely trying to prevent is unauthorized reproduction carts or, worse yet, hacks. If a reproduction cart was released it could tarnish Watermelon's reputation as the packaging may not be up to their usual standards. Not everyone goes out of their way to make it known that a repro is a repro.

[sheath]

If WM was selling these games for $200 plus, like developers for some other consoles, I'd just wait for something like this to happen. As it is, I'll probably buy whatever they make just because it's good and I want it. Pier Solar will always stay on my shelf because it will always be the only way I can play it on real hardware. Dang, I need to actually finish this game.

[Genesis Knight]

Is it evil of me to hope he does something similar for Wukong, Star Odyssey, and Beggar Prince? Because no one should have to pay the eBay prices for those games, they're just not worth it.