The 2004 client has been recovered: 倚天II second Chinese closed beta

[Macromango 19]

The client the scene spent years looking has been recovered

Since 2014 this forum has hosted a thread called “Metin2 2004 Beta Client”
Those files turned out to be just a Chinese client from September 2005 as someone already said years ago 
From that, a lot of us concluded that no 2004 client survived at all

Fortunately I had dedicated myself to turn that conclusion wrong

What turned up is the complete client of 内测2, the second closed beta of《倚天II》dated 8–15 October 2004

It sat on the CD bundled with the November 2004 issue of a teenage nerd magazine
The disc was kept by a period-CD collector and may God in person bless him and every other soul involved in that zip

Internal dates close in the week before that beta: PC.epk on 3/10/2004, the patcher on 7/10, root.epk at 00:02 on 8/10
It is the oldest complete Metin2 client that still exists: four and a half months older than the 2005 packs everyone already knows

Lots of map quirks, 310 monsters in mob_proto instead of 397, some fishing extras and.guild buildings that 2005 no longer contains
The YMIR logo over GMs’ heads
The warrior wears a teal-green gem at the neck; in 2005 it is red
 

It is not the Korean 2004 closed beta
It is the Chinese one, six weeks after China launched

I am not releasing the files in this post, but I will release them in a week

I want a short while with the find itself, I will use it to sort the material and to let the exhibition do its work
Sharing only with the two people who have stood behind Primetin2 beginning:
@ Mitachi and @shadowofthelove
The guild buildings alone are worth that pause

We sit on a result that only exists because others, for years, put their own finds in public
So it is implied we owe the same

I intend to release the client not as a public dump, and not onto the open internet, but to a small circle of people whose identity is already established on this forum so this gem will waterfall into the scene with dignity in a graceful way 

Hashes, dates, 3D comparisons, pack stratigraphy and the rest are on Primetin2 site, already laid out for your enjoyment


 

https://primetin2.com/archivio/mostra/yitian2-2004-10

 

 

Edited 7 hours ago by Metin2 Dev International
Core X - External 2 Internal

[Criminus 672]

This is huge and thank you for your help. We've been tracking this client for years with no luck. No one thought of checking with Chinese websites. We were looking in the wrong place. 

[Gurgarath 3697]

I am super stoked by this discovery. Good job guys. You all deserve the utmost respect for finding this gem! I have spent countless night with many others fighting link rot, archiving screenshots & articles about it and never found anything remotely interesting. Now, may we lay hands on the original private beta Korean materials that predates this client, if it is not definitely lost.

[Exynox 3528]

Can't wait to expand my collection !

Jokes aside, I'm honestly thinking of backporting the network protocol of existing server source code in order to allow us to actually get in-game. I wonder if the old r2089/r407/r404 gamecores are compatible with this or even those are too new...

Edited 5 hours ago by Exynox