Difference between revisions of "Network protocol (Worms 2)"

Revision as of 14:43, 9 July 2020

The Worms 2 servers host rooms in which users can meet to then connect to each other's PCs for playing games.

Official servers

The following servers are hosted by Team17:

Server communication

The server hosting the user, room, and game lists (referred to as "sessions" in the following) communicates with packets in the following format:

Packet format

Packet contents

As specified above, the Code of a packet determines the Action to take on either the server or client side and in effect which fields are used. Some codes are reused for multiple occassions, and some are unused in the 1.0.1.5 patch.

Client query packets are also used for server notices, represented by the Type column in the following table:

• Query: A client query to execute an action on the server, always getting a reply (even codes only).
• Reply: A server reply to a client query, always reporting back an Error code, 0 for success (odd codes only).
• Notice: Same as query, but coming as an out-of-bound server packet to update the state on the client, like when another user joins or creates a game.

It should be noted that the same ID counter is incremented for users (UID), rooms (RID), and games (GID). If a user logs in with UID 3 and immediately creates a room, the RID will be 4.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Only ever sent as a notice by the server, clients disconnect without any query and awaited reply.
2. ↑ Since the host reports its incorrectly detected NAT IP here, Worms 2 Memory Changer has to be used to inject the actual IP address into Worms 2 before creating a room.
3. ↑ Original server always reports E_FAIL in error code, even though messages were sent.

Session info

Several packets identify a user, room, or game with the Name and Session Info fields. The latter provides the following information:

It should be noted that passing other values than the ones given above or creating invalid combinations like "passworded user" will display either a French flag with the default state in the UI, or a question mark.

The Worms 2 1.0.1.1 Demo uses significantly different values compared to the full version 1.0.1.5 patch, causing said question marks to appear. However, interactions with full version users still work.

Nation / Flag

The nation field determines which flag is displayed with the user, room, or game. Two flags are custom (Skull and Team17) and are not normally selectable. Des patch can unlock the selection of them, and adds another entry for an "invalid" country code, creating an empty flag.

Game release

Game release becomes 50 if CD detection failed. The CD detection consists of the following tests:

• Find CD drive, where drives A: and B: are ignored - a found drive letter is stored in the registry under HKCU\SOFTWARE\Team17SoftwareLTD\Worms2\CD. (error 2 otherwise)
• Check the CD being "Worms 2" or "WORMS2". (error 1 otherwise)
• Check if the CD has no free space to ensure it being a CD-ROM. (error 3 otherwise)
• Check if the CD stores an "autorun.inf" file. (error 4 otherwise)

Game room communication

The players are connected via P2P using DirectPlay. This means the ports 47624 (for the lobby connection itself) and 2300 to 2400 (for each player connection) should be forwarded in any router. The fact that each player is connected to another means that the host can leave the game at any time, the remaining players can continue playing without dropping, unlike in Worms Armageddon or Worms World Party.