WipEout-Game.com Archive

[Darkdrium777]

The purpose of this thread is to recover whatever we can from the now closed WipEout-Game.com website.
This can extend to the WipEoutPulse.com website as who knows what will happen to it in the future, with online infrastructure for the game being offline and all.
Some of you may know more than others what it feels like when a website for a game goes down, as that website usually contains much of the fiction and art surrounding the universe for that game. When it disappears, so does that content.
This is an effort to preserve this content. This is a collaborative effort, so please help me out. Also, if you do help out try to keep the things you recover linked in one post and edit it as you go so I only have to link to one thing. The keywords you should follow are fast, accessible, concise.

What would be extra awesome is if somehow the ship skinning utility could be brought back in some pure offline form (Though a stable online mirror would do if it's required.) It's a pipe dream I know, but just by opening up some files with notepad I've figured out a few things. Someone with more appropriate tools could probably do much more than just look at things. For that reason I've attached my three ship skins that I still have at the end; use them to work on things if you're feeling brave.

Try to get anything like art assets, text files, the leaderboards, and other things. I know these things are already on web-archive, but I don't know how permanent that is, however I know that it's quite slow to use often times (And it can also switch languages.) The goal is to make something faster and more accessible here.
For file formats try to use standard lossless ones that can be opened on as many platforms as possible, i.e. for pictures you take yourself (screencaps) use .png and not .jpg, use a standard worksheet format for recovered leaderboards like .xls and not .xlsx, etc.
For file uploads use stable and fast links. Imgur (http://imgur.com/) is good for pictures and Mediafire (http://www.mediafire.com/) is good for small file sizes. You can use what you want if you are already set up somewhere else, but make sure it's fast for everyone (Free users included.) For example RapidShare just switched to a 30kb/s download for free users, so if you use that I will say nasty things about you.

You can grab stuff from Web-Archive (http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.wipeout-game.com) and post it here in replies.
Maybe we can get a 50kb exemption for this thread if needed as it might contain lots of pictures in the future.


Contents:
Use Ctrl+F with the bracket codes to navigate


[PIC] Pictures and other art assets

[LOG] Team Logos
[WAL] Wallpapers

Leaderboards
[MIS] Miscellaneous

[PRO] Team Profiles
[SCN] Screensavers




1. Pictures and other art assets [PIC]

1.1 Team Logos [LOG]

1.2 Wallpapers [WAL]

The following are available in 480x272, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1600x1200 and 1920x1200 resolutions. Zip File (http://www.mediafire.com/?8t9a5esmngxyg27).
AG-Systems (http://imgur.com/a/l7bIr)
Assegai (http://imgur.com/a/idhh6)
Auricom (http://imgur.com/a/Mj1i8)
EG-X (http://imgur.com/a/cD23N)
FEISAR (http://imgur.com/a/heBx8)
Goteki-45 (http://imgur.com/a/ySOqb)
Harimau (http://imgur.com/a/iRx1X)
Icaras (http://imgur.com/a/eMs6r)
MIRAGE (http://imgur.com/a/GES9g)
Piranha.A (http://imgur.com/a/eUG6h)
Qirex-RD (http://imgur.com/a/xdNXw)
Triakis (http://imgur.com/a/rmhdK)

[B]2. Leaderboards

Someone might want to create an Excel template or something that can easily be filled in with copy/paste.

[B]3. Miscellaneous [MIS]

3.1 Team Profiles [PRO]

Team Profiles & Statements (http://www.mediafire.com/?yr6cr15sqm8sxaz)
Team Profiles & Statements (Google Docs) (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jkNgrxbrI6TcP2DZUB3UgLbQEjMKYCQ_fncuF3K9RiE/edit)

3.2 Screensavers [SCN]

Download for Windows PC and Apple Computers (http://www.mediafire.com/?ls05j6gnoz14x7g)
Unfortunately not all teams are available.




Attached are team skins for whoever wishes to work on it:

[Sausehuhn]

I backed up wipeout-game.com when it was still online. I’ll take a look at it to check what really has been saved. Livery Editor did not back up as far as I remember.

[Darkdrium777]

Best news ever. :+ Especially if you have the leaderboards. WebArchive has them but they're kind of messed up a lot.
I wonder how you can do a backup though. Any special programs to use?

[infoxicated]

Did you save the site as a local HTML archive, Max?

I'd be interested in having a copy of that - it was something I kept meaning to do to take screen grabs for my portfolio, but never got around to it because I was mostly doing back-end work at the time.

Now I'm more focussed on front-end development again I'd like to have it, if only for nostalgic reasons. :)

[mdhay]

I'm sure there'll be a way to edit skins without the editor, provided we can get images of all the texture sheets.

[Light Buster]

What about the DLC? I recently picked up Pulse but I honestly want the DLC if it's still available.

[stin]

Yes, there is a Pulse DLC. Unless, you have some money through PSN. ;)

You will enjoy these downloads new tracks. :)

stevie:)

[Light Buster]

Yes, there is a Pulse DLC. Unless, you have some money through PSN. ;)

You will enjoy these downloads new tracks. :)

stevie:)

Cool, so where I can find them. I looked around and found no traces of them.

[Darkdrium777]

They are only available in Europe.

[Sausehuhn]

Seems like the site is more or less intact. Leaderboards do not work, as they direct to missing sites. All images are saved including team logos and wallpapers. Screensavers are there as well. Flash banner, too. Even language selection works as far as I can tell. Got to check later.

Unfortunately I was not logged in when doing the backup, so there’s not all content left.

PS: Flash content seems to be really tricky to back up. Does anybody have a clue of how to backup wipeoutpure.com, wipeoutpulse.com and wipeouthd.com? I already tried but did not get past the language selection. Same problem occured when I tried to back up wipeoutfusion.com back in the day. I got the intro and the team-sites (as they opened in pop-ups) but that’s it. Seems like there is some kind of redirection within the flash files. Is there any way to search the server’s file structure to get direct access to those files?

PPS: Checking my browser’s cache it seems that wipeoutpure.com refers to the folders /Repository, /Flash and /XML which give you direct access to the site’s content such as images (http://www.wipeoutpure.com/Repository/JPG/HeritageImages/TimeLine3.jpg) and videos (about:cache-entry?client=HTTP&sb=1&key=http://www.wipeoutpure.com/Repository/FLV/Weapon3.flv). You cannot access the whole folders, unfortunately.

The good thing, though: The whole website’s text seems to be stored in this XML (http://www.wipeoutpure.com/Xml/Generic/2057_GenericStrings.xml). Time to start a new thread in the appropriate board?

PPPS: Okay, here’s the deal: When one visits wipeoutpure.com every file necessary to display the site’s content is either stored on you HDD or at least there is a link saved to the origin of the file (try about:cache in Firefox and you’ll see what I mean). Now if one saves each of those files in the correct folder-structure, one should be able to load the entire website offline, shouldn’t he? I installed an add-on for Firefox which should let you download the raw cache files directly into a folder, but it didn’t work. Seems one has to download each file individually. I will give it give it a go later.

PPPPS (:D)
wipeoutpure.com offline – it works!

[Light Buster]

They are only available in Europe.

I knew it. I knew that this would happen. Oh well, at least I can save money.

[Szei]

It's been forever since I've been to that site so I don't recall. Is the site itself necessary to download skins or can they be uploaded via another site for download on PC and then transferred to PSP?

[Darkdrium777]

I believe it was necessary to create skins, hence my suggestion of someone working on an alternative if they thought it were possible. However I don't know at all if it was required to send skins to other people (ie I have no idea if the downloads I propose will work on your PSP without going through the site).

[covelmo9242]

Not sure if anybody knows (or even cares :lol) but, you can access most of the site through web.archive.org

http://web.archive.org/web/20101226170544/http://wipeout-game.com/html/main/Home

[Ricanebleu]

Hello guys, it has been a while. Life seems to ask for its token of days. I see that what I feared back in 2008, when the site was just being put into service, has happened :brickwall , just as with the Fusion site . So , because of a stupid management of this game on behalf of Sony now we have no way of inserting any skins in the game , as the cover and ingame loading screens, so boldly, are stating. And even more, for some reason, which I will never understand, Studio Liverpool has been shutdown, so no one, officially, can make a stand alone skin manager. :brickwall So, is it ever possible, technically and legally, for anybody to make an alternative to wipeout-game.com skin manager? :brickwall :brickwall :brickwall :brickwall

EDIT: So no answer, I suppose people don't care that much about skins anymore. Too bad, so much work gone wasted.

[Xander Ze iTec]

EDIT: I suppose people don't care that much about skins anymore.

Heck no, i would do anything to get ship skins back. its a shame i got really into the wipeout franchise after a few months ago, If only sony had one job and it was to not even touch the websites.

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

Dude, thread-necro. Not cool, man.

Don't worry though, I'm sure we'll figure out the skins. I think they're in .PCT format (I'll need a conversion tool), but high-definition versions are available in .TGA format from the PS2 files. If you want, I can convert them to PNG and put them up on Google Drive.

As far as I know, you can still view skins on the first page from the archived website, but the download links aren't working, just a series of dead-end redirects.

[Autian]

I have looked at the skins of the OP some time ago and it looks like a skin has three uncompressed indexed textures with 16-color (4 bit) palettes. That's what I think after loading the skins as a raw format in GIMP and Wipeout and comparing them. I have the capability to write a small commandline tool working for both Linux and Windows, but I still need to analyze the file format further.

[Connavar]

Not sure if anybody knows (or even cares :lol) but, you can access most of the site through web.archive.org

http://web.archive.org/web/20101226170544/http://wipeout-game.com/html/main/Home

Unfortunately most of the data in unavailable. Many records from Talon's Junction and Outpost 7, but nothing from De Konstruct, Tech de Ra, The Amphiseum etc. I'd say about 85% of the top 10 records are missing :/

Edit: took all the records from the archived and uploaded them here, with glitched times removed:
https://www.wipeoutrankings.com/#c=all&e=all&g=wipeout%20pulse&m=all&matrix=ratio&p=all&s=all&t=all&v=overall&x=ranking

(That's the overall ranking page for Pulse)

In total, 4973 records.

[kanar]

Connavar you are so precious to the community...