Yes, it is me and it's still in development. I'll probably make a separate thread on the forums explaining how to use it sometime later. So far, I've only figured out how to use this on Android (custom APK). On iOS it could be harder and require a jailbreak. I don't have an iOS 8> device to test it anyway though.
@You-ArePwned You are awesome! Once again it's up to fans to show Sonic Team how it is done. Although, for authenticity you should have spelt Sonic with two "n"s.
Thanks! And yeah, I'll probably have to not use the word Sonic anywhere on the final server website to avoid copyright issues.
Just when I was about to dance and sing "Ding, dong, the witch is dead!", here you go and ruin the fun by bringing it back to life! Just kidding, that's awesome! If it means I can actually play the Puyo Puyo event and try out anything I missed in my original run, I'll be more than happy to play on a private server. Hell, I'd even pay a small amount of money just to be able to play a 'fixed' version that lets me actually access all the content! How much control would that give you over the game by the way? For example, would you be able to choose the amount of points required to advance each story chapter?
I'm still looking for a way to enable some of the old events, because those are designed for older versions of the game. But I do have about 12 different maps (only 3 were available by default), it's just a matter of time and reversing, so it's probably possible to enable old events too. I downloaded all the files that I could from the official server, including music, maps and models. The only event I can enable right away for now is the Sonic 25th Anniversary birthday event. As for control, I can add anything that's possible to tweak server side. For example the casino wheel RNG is server side, which means I can force it to stay on a needed position manually. Same for ring, live amount, number of buddies, other stats etc. The amount of points is determined client side though, but I can tweak it by editing the APK. When I release the APK (or an Xdelta patch to apply to the official one), it won't have the super hard score requirements that SEGA put there for a strange reason. And for now, I guess I'll have to host this server at home, but I may buy a VPS later, which would be around 2 or 3 euros a month. I'll do that if everything goes successfully.
Unbelievably, it announced a 'scheduled maintenance' from 7-9. And closed at 9. I actually attempted connection which generated a 'maintenance' error until 2AM. You got a different error after. SEGA intentionally scheduled a maintenance and had the connection work for the maintenance. Incompetence.
First off, thank you so much I can finish this god damned game. Second, unlock everything if you can. no more F2P2W crap Runners had. if thats not possible then be very generous with the Red Rings and Ring counts. Third, Yes please I second that score lowering! god damn it should take 10-40,000,000 points to complete a chapter. Fourth, are you going to be co-oping with that 1 guy who was collecting the Runners saves for such a case like this? Finally, keep this within a small beta group for now until you can handle the strain of an international release.
Holy crap, I wasn't expecting someone to actually make an unofficial server for this. Good work! I assume you've got copies of the APK for those to use who never got Runners in the first place.
Any chance you would be able to extract the story text for the Easter and Puyo Events. These are the only stories that aren't on YouTube, so at the moment, they are lost forever... I just don't understand how Sega took such an excellent mobile game and messed it up so badly. Every part of the game's existence has had some form of mess ups. The worst thing is they actually have other decent F2P Sonic mobile games!!
I'm not sure how saves alone can help me, but I did see the archived copies of Sonic Runners with savedata in this thread, and I had already downloaded it. And yeah, I'm probably going to do a test run first, before putting it out to the public. Yeah, I have both Android and iOS copies. If it's going to be necessary, I can upload the APK to a file sharing website later. I didn't know those events had a separate story line. I'll see if I can find them.
Don't know if this would help, it's back ups I made of the save data and APKs, starting from the soft launch until the global launch. There's also this thread which has lots or resources (Although you probably already know about it.) All the events had an original story. I've put them all on Youtube expect for Puyo and Easter (as I couldn't capture back when those events launched). Thanks for your help.
Puyo, Easter and 25th Anniversary all had special story events along with special menus with music. Would the Puyo Puyo event art and script even still remain in the game files? But not sure how easy those would be to re-implement into the last version of the game. 2.0 almost completely changed the game menus and interface. It was quite clear that after 2.0 they removed any real way to do events like that again (as it was all just stage recolors after that) I enjoyed Runners while it was half decent, 2.0 really did kill it - but I think even before then it simply wasn't making it's investment back. Great music and some nice character models though.
I am SUPER hyped that you're working on getting Runners up and... no, I'm not going to make that pun. But seriously, THANK YOU for what you're doing! I'd also like to volunteer to be in that beta test, whenever that rolls out. I'd also be willing to help to support the server costs. Ah, and the newest episode of my YouTube series dealt quite a bit with Runners' cancellation (and other "lost games"), and so I'd be up for helping to get the word out whenever the server officially launches. Again, thank you for putting the effort into preserving this game.
@Lanzer Aahhh! I'm so happy. Now those stories aren't lost. But is that the full Easter story? I think it's only the first chapter.
I have couple of questions: 1)Is it possible to write server emulator for this game so it'll be playable offline? 2)Are game's files can be modifed so we can get brand new content? Anyway, great job there!
Yeah, it is possible, but the server I'm making is designed to be used in a web server. You could technically run it on your home PC then make the game connect to it via local network. Or somehow put a web server right on your phone. However I didn't have any plans on releasing something like this yet. The game files can be modified, as I have already decompiled a lot of them, but it would be harder to produce your own files that the game would understand, rather than just view them.
I played Runners a bit when it first came out in Japan or Canada or wherever their test market was. I enjoyed it at first, but the load times kept increasing for me and the freeemium stuff kept getting more annoying. I am impressed with the game's soundtrack though. I never knew they made so many songs for the game (I swear I only ever heard the first level's music). Edit: Speaking of which, has anyone been able to convert the game's sound/music files. I'd love to have some good versions of the instrumental songs they used in the game.
I thouroughly enjoyed Sonic Runners, and I was gutted when the shutdown announcment hit. I've been looking for offline mods and had no luck, but stumbling on this recent development has renewed my faith. You-Are-Pwned, I salute you. I'm behind this all the way. I'd love to see this game brought back without so much pay to win stuff. One question though, can you control the length of time the power ups run for? I really liked how long they used to run before the 2.0 update, and always felt that the timing for 2.0 were too short. It also sucked that they nerfed the equipped power ups running twice as long as a found one.
