Official Warppipe/DemaSked Discussion

by **KingofRedLions** on Thu Dec 16, 2004 3:36 am

Dude the Xbox IS huge, its like huger than huge. Its so big its not even funny

by **brandnew707** on Thu Dec 16, 2004 3:50 am

Deep Thoughts by KoRL.

by **eecuber17** on Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:46 am

BN, LOL!

Nice.

by **133t** on Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:50 am

EE, you are going around every where saying, "Get on topic now" and yet you just post some random thing congratulating someone with an off-topic post. Do the rules not apply for the mods?

by **KingofRedLions** on Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:56 am

133t wrote:EE, you are going around every where saying, "Get on topic now" and yet you just post some random thing congratulating someone with an off-topic post. Do the rules not apply for the mods?

No he is almighty, he can do whatever he wants, untill Rick steps in. Rick is the most almightyist of everyone.

New Word YAY!

Deep Thoughts by KoRL.

Just for your info, I thohgt long and hard about that post

by **Badtz** on Thu Dec 16, 2004 12:50 pm

Ok guys, please. Let's talk about Demasked.

Devillion started a thread earlier about Demasked that I thought was worth talking about here. For anyone who missed it this was his post:

devillion wrote:...Nintendo launched the DS without DeMasked. You can really tell that they are waiting for DeMasked to be done. All the major games have been delayed to the DeMasked date, and many are delayed later, perhaps in anticipation of a DeMasked service that won't be out in time.

It seems like the release was rushed. Don't get me wrong, i like my DS...but honestly, the release wasn't that good, and you can tell nintendo is holding back. =\

If this is DeMasked discussion, just close this thread.

I guess my question here is, why are we assuming that Nintendo and Demasked have anything to do with each other?

I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe that Nintendo contracted a tiny group of enthusiasts on the internet to create the online service for a console that they have literally millions of dollars invested in. I don't know much about Warp Pipe, honestly. I don't know how good they are, or how many people they have, or anything. But I just find it hard to believe. If it's true, then it's a great story and I'm all for it. It must mean that Nintendo as a company has a lot of confidence in their talents.

However, there's no proof at all that this is the case, outside of rampant speculation that has somehow become complete fact. Almost everyone on this board believes Demasked is an official Nintendo venture without Nintendo ever having made a press release on the matter.

Ask yourself a few questions. If Nintendo was really behind all of this, would they allow Warp Pipe to create all these online clues and everything by themselves, without any kind of marketing approval? I think we can all agree that they were not of the highest quality, and I should think that if Nintendo was going to let them do something like that, they would have some standards for how they handled it. Also, it's been pretty widely confirmed by a simple whois search that the demasked.com domain name was registered by Warp Pipe, and more specifically a Warp Pipe employee, with Warp Pipe as the contact. If Nintendo were behind this, why the hell would they not register all the important domains themselves?

To me, until Nintendo acknowledges what Warp Pipe is doing, then Demasked is just a third party project that may or may not be backed by some kind of actual venture capital. If it recieves some kind of Nintendo seal of approval, then third party developers may end up supporting it in their games.

Right now, tho.. I just don't think you can blame the delays for launch games on waiting for Demasked. Assuming that Nintendo has nothing to do with them, they are probably not writing any of their games with the idea that it would run on a third party matching service. I'm almost certain that Nintendo is creating their own online service, in house.

Like I say, I'd love for it to come out that Demasked is really a Nintendo service, and that they saw something in a tiny group of guys on the internet and gave them a huge contract to make it happen. I think that would be a fantastic story, and it would be pretty awesome. However, common sense tells me that it's probably not true. That doesn't explain why I have to wait so long to get Mario Kart DS, but to say that it's because of Demasked is a little silly, I think.

by **HELP!** on Thu Dec 16, 2004 2:58 pm

Badtz wrote:Ok guys, please. Let's talk about Demasked.

Devillion started a thread earlier about Demasked that I thought was worth talking about here. For anyone who missed it this was his post:

devillion wrote:...Nintendo launched the DS without DeMasked. You can really tell that they are waiting for DeMasked to be done. All the major games have been delayed to the DeMasked date, and many are delayed later, perhaps in anticipation of a DeMasked service that won't be out in time.

Like I have been saying, our Chad has some.........explainingto do.

by **DSMarioMan** on Thu Dec 16, 2004 7:17 pm

Ya the damn Xbox is huge in size, especialy now that the playstation released its new model..... It takes up far too much of my shelf space..
And it dosent have enuff "Original" great games to warrent that much space on my shelf...... I have at least 2x the amount of games for the other systems.....

by **glitterbug** on Thu Dec 16, 2004 8:21 pm

I think Badtz is right. Why would the warp pipe employees need to buy their DS'es at walmart?

by **eecuber17** on Thu Dec 16, 2004 10:27 pm

133t wrote:EE, you are going around every where saying, "Get on topic now" and yet you just post some random thing congratulating someone with an off-topic post. Do the rules not apply for the mods?

Uh, was your post on topic? NO.

Now, continue.

by **devillion** on Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:32 am

Badtz: Good point. I'm not too familiar with the GC tunneling stuff, outside of the slashdot articles and sh*t, so i didn't really know WarpPipe was an amutuer deal. (Though perhaps i should have guessed, judging from their immature behavior with the clues thing).

There seemed to be some stuff about Mario-Net. There was only like, one clue, or something, but perhaps Mario-Net was Nintendo's own "in house" online project, like you suggested they had. Maybe they stopped working on this, to focus on the DS itsself, and allowed Warp-Pipe to take their work and combine it into theirs.

Then, trusting Warp-Pipe to finish their project on time, they informed the game designers and companies about the oppurtunity that the software Warp-Pipe was working on would provide. Then, the whole thing probably spun out of porportion, and all of the big name launch games were riding on the promise of a small company and their software.

This would make sense, because Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, and Chrystal Chronicles all had Launch or Q4 2004 as their realease up until the day in october(?) when warp-pipe missed their press confrence about demasked.

At that point, nintendo probably realized that they were riding to much on one company, and pushed the games back. Mario Kart, in fact, was delayed a few weeks past launch (Decemeber 8th, i remember because thats when my preorder says it will be out). I think nintendo at this point gave them another chance to get it done.

But it was probably too far out of reach, and Warp-Pipe couldn't finish in time. About the time the clues stopped, all the games got pushed back to Q2 2005 or later.

This is because Nintendo probably stepped in at this point, and started having a heavier hand in the DeMasked production. They probably got to crew to stop doing clues, and get to f***ing coding. At the same time, the release was done, and we were all excited, but really, it was a pretty shitty launch compared to what it could have been.

I don't really have much proof to this theory...aside from the timing of the delays, and announcements. The biggest clue i have is, in the most recent interview chad gave, he said that "things were out of his control anymore"

That sounds like a nintendo crackdown to me. =\

Perhaps help, if he truely is from either company, could give us some information as to when DeMasked and Mario-Net first started. When were the projects concieved? That should not be under NDA. This is not a stab at you, it would just help validate my theory. I'm like 99.9% sure dates are not under NDA.

Maybe not even help. Please, SOMEONE break NDA, throw us a f***ing bone here. ANYTHING. We deserve it after the hype machine you pust us through this summer. NDAs get broken all the time, don't be a pussy about it ;P

Anyway, i'm pretty much just working out of my ass here. Unlike my other theory, this one is pretty much all conjecture. But hey, at least we can keep the discussion going.

by **Methos** on Fri Dec 17, 2004 5:25 am

There seemed to be some stuff about Mario-Net. There was only like, one clue, or something, but perhaps Mario-Net was Nintendo's own "in house" online project, like you suggested they had. Maybe they stopped working on this, to focus on the DS itsself, and allowed Warp-Pipe to take their work and combine it into theirs.

Then, trusting Warp-Pipe to finish their project on time, they informed the game designers and companies about the oppurtunity that the software Warp-Pipe was working on would provide. Then, the whole thing probably spun out of porportion, and all of the big name launch games were riding on the promise of a small company and their software.

I really don't think Nintendo and Warp Pipe are working together. At all. Even remotely. For two reasons...

1)
If they were, Nintendo would have made them sign an NDA. And all the clue-dropping and mysterious crap that the demasked team has done would most likely be a breach of that NDA, and Nintendo would probably sue them for that. Nintendo is very very serious about secrecy. I really don't think they would have let the demasked people drop hints like that.

Even if they didn't sue, I imagine at the least they would have broke ties with them.

2)
Someone would have said something by now. Secret as Nintendo is, something on some level always, ALWAYS gets out about stuff like this. By this point, we would have seen some sort of mention on IGN or somewhere that Nintendo and the Demasked team were working together on something related to the DS.

But we haven't. In fact, the only sites that seem to be covering Demasked seriously (or at all) are European sites with non-confirmed sources and fan sites. And us.

That does not inspire confidence in me.

by **HELP!** on Fri Dec 17, 2004 2:40 pm

Methos wrote:
There seemed to be some stuff about Mario-Net. There was only like, one clue, or something, but perhaps Mario-Net was Nintendo's own "in house" online project, like you suggested they had. Maybe they stopped working on this, to focus on the DS itsself, and allowed Warp-Pipe to take their work and combine it into theirs.

Then, trusting Warp-Pipe to finish their project on time, they informed the game designers and companies about the oppurtunity that the software Warp-Pipe was working on would provide. Then, the whole thing probably spun out of porportion, and all of the big name launch games were riding on the promise of a small company and their software.

I really don't think Nintendo and Warp Pipe are working together. At all. Even remotely. For two reasons...

1)
If they were, Nintendo would have made them sign an NDA. And all the clue-dropping and mysterious crap that the demasked team has done would most likely be a breach of that NDA, and Nintendo would probably sue them for that. Nintendo is very very serious about secrecy. I really don't think they would have let the demasked people drop hints like that.

Even if they didn't sue, I imagine at the least they would have broke ties with them.

2)
Someone would have said something by now. Secret as Nintendo is, something on some level always, ALWAYS gets out about stuff like this. By this point, we would have seen some sort of mention on IGN or somewhere that Nintendo and the Demasked team were working together on something related to the DS.

But we haven't. In fact, the only sites that seem to be covering Demasked seriously (or at all) are European sites with non-confirmed sources and fan sites. And us.

That does not inspire confidence in me.

Took you all a while to get this figgered out, huh?.............................

by **Satek** on Fri Dec 17, 2004 3:19 pm

Good points everyone! Also I remember reading a recent interview with Shigeru Miyamoto where he said we would probably see marionette, or what it has turned out to be, at E3. But it sounded more like he was talking about a game.

Either way we look at it, Nintendo must be working on something. I still have Reggies E3 2004 speach on my PC and to quote it "But what if your friend is more than a few feet away, say, a few timezones away... No problem!"

Nintendo will surely follow up on this next E3 2005. The games all being delayed makes so much sense. I would not even be surprised if Warpipe was just going to try and compete with nintendo net, or something like that. After all, there is no way Nintendo would let all that hint dropping occur!

by **Badtz** on Fri Dec 17, 2004 3:20 pm

HELP! wrote:
Took you all a while to get this figgered out, huh?.............................

Dude, you are getting on my last nerve. Could you at least try to contribute something worthwhile to this board, besides your asinine one-line responses?
Nintendo employee or not, you produce nothing worthwhile here. Get over yourself, and start actually contributing to the discussions.

Now, staying on topic. Devillion. I don't know enough about the shift in release dates for launch games to be able to even discuss whether or not I think they coincide with Demasked. It seems to me however, that if certain titles were being positioned to release so they could use Demasked, that in addition to that, Nintendo would have announced what Demasked was as well. The fact that we still don't even really know what it is says to me that there was never any actual hope that it would even exist at the DS launch. If that's true, then why shift the dates of the games?

The more plausible explanation is that this is just standard operating procedure for Nintendo.. which sadly, it kind of is. Let's face it. The DS launch is Nintendo's training mission for the Revolution launch. It was their practice session for beating the PS3 to market, and it looks like they have some bugs to work out.

Now, I'd like to clarify once again that I am not saying that it's impossible for Warp Pipe and Nintendo to be working together. I just think it's highly improbable given the reality of how these things usually work. Like Methos says, something would have leaked by now. Something this big doesn't happen in total secret. Just look at the history of the DS. Before Nintendo even acknoledged its development, people online knew there was a project Nitro, and there were rumors about Nintendo partnering with Sharp over touch screen technology. IGN knew the name of the Gamecube months before Nintendo even announced it. Hell, think about the new 'Adult' Zelda game that's on the horizon. There were rumors of a game like this being on the boards before Windwaker even came out.

On top of all this, even if Nintendo could keep Demasked secret internally, there's no way that they could keep smaller dev houses quiet for this long. If games are being made with Demasked support, then developers know about it, and they know a lot about it, and there's no way they could keep stuff from leaking out about it.

I still think that Warp Pipe is on their own with this. I think they are making some kind of project independent of Nintendo or any developer, and they have created, intentionally or not, a great free marketing campaign for it. I think that Nintendo's PR department has no involvement in them whatsoever, because if they did, what we had seen and heard from them to this point would be drastically different.

by **devillion** on Fri Dec 17, 2004 10:37 pm

Once again, i'd like to renew my call for some new information. Anything. Break NDA, get fired, i don't care. Come live with me if you lose your job, lol.

I'm almost at the point where i want clues to start back up =\

Wasn't there a ScreenName you could IM, and talk about DeMasked with?

by **HELP!** on Sat Dec 18, 2004 5:35 am

devillion wrote:Once again, i'd like to renew my call for some new information. Anything. Break NDA, get fired, i don't care. Come live with me if you lose your job, lol.

I'm almost at the point where i want clues to start back up =\

Wasn't there a ScreenName you could IM, and talk about DeMasked with?

nope. That was all a lie. You could ask amall.........he might have info

by **Dark Fox** on Sat Dec 18, 2004 5:50 pm

It seems like we're all worried about Warp Pipe and their DemaSked. I'm barely worried on what's going on, because I know no matter what, Nintendo's working on something WiFi for the DS with -or without- Warp Pipe's help. Reggie's quote already posted, even seems to say so

The only thing I'm worried about, is when this service will be released. I'm salivating on what this service will be like, DemaSked or not.

If Warp Pipe isn't working with Nintendo, I'd say that Warp Pipe is just doing what they do best: making tunneling software and making baffling videos that don't explain anything except some dude with a "Help Me" sign that doesn't do squat. And when they release the DemaSked service-if they're not working with Nintendo-it's not going to be anything exciting. Warp Pipe's tunneling for GameCube, wasn't all too exciting, you had to have too much stuff... BroadBand Adapter for Cube, a Cable internet service for PC, wires to hook up GC to your PC, then you needed to download they're software, in which case was still in testing (and still probably is, I'm not so sure...). If Warp Pipe is working with Nintendo, they might just be working on something other than that, I don't see DemaSked being anything to big right now. I just hope I'm wrong in the future.

But about the DemaSked service being free, that's what Warp Pipe hints, if Nintendo has already stepped in, or are working on their own service, Nintendo's not going to want it absolutely free. There will never be free internet access, maybe after I'm dead knowing my luck, but there will never be free internet. No matter how much Nintendo wants it. The internet is annoying to me. I run a 56K modem in my computer, I'm barely involved with Earthlink, I don't access anything valuable from them, I just dial into their service, but I still pay a fee every month to dial into a toll free number... If DS would have something that could just send out its own signal to other DSes, I'm sure we'll still have to pay more than just one fee.

I'm being pessimistic about this whole thing now because I'm just getting tired of waiting and tired of speculation. I absolutely think when next E3 comes, we're either going to have nothing, or Nintendo's "big announcement" that's coming, is going to be something unexpected, something that won't have anything to do with wireless internet for DS, and/or something that's going to be taken in as, "OMFG WTF is dat?!!11" among the general public. When Warp Pipe gets their little service going, it's gonna be something we already have, a tunneling service, I can see it now...[/i]

by **amall** on Mon Dec 20, 2004 4:36 pm

Back to the DeMasked service, is anyone willing to open theirs up and try to get a firmware dump? Perhaps if we examined the code a bit we could find some hidden, yet-to-be-unlocked secrets. Also, has anyone experimented with wireless commands? Has anyone found a way to pump data into the ds in anyway besidescards? If chad will no longer give us clues, lets get off our butts and start probing the DS.

by **Jay-Rad** on Mon Dec 20, 2004 4:40 pm

ive been out of the loop for a while, can someone sum up what we know for sure about the demasked thing, like an exact answer?

by **TAGE** on Tue Dec 21, 2004 4:36 am

I don't think it is too out of line for nintendo to trust warp pipe with a big project, they did hand over the metroid series to a small and untested developer named retro didnt they....

And besides guys, we know it is not tunneling, Chad said it wasnt tunneling, and to argue about that is useless.

by **devillion** on Tue Dec 21, 2004 4:39 am

TAGE wrote:I don't think it is too out of line for nintendo to trust warp pipe with a big project, they did hand over the metroid series to a small and untested developer named retro didnt they....

And besides guys, we know it is not tunneling, Chad said it wasnt tunneling, and to argue about that is useless.

No, i think chad said/meant that it isn't tunneling in the form we have seen it before.

And to whoever asked: What we know for certain is nothing. DeMasked could still be a box full of free kittens.

by **SoD519** on Sun Dec 26, 2004 12:00 am

Why does something 'have to already' be on the ds? What if something is going to be included in a DemaSked enabled upcoming game? :roll:

by **devillion** on Sun Dec 26, 2004 3:25 am

SoD519 wrote:Why does something 'have to already' be on the ds? What if something is going to be included in a DemaSked enabled upcoming game?

Because if it was on the game, that would require more usage coming from that cart and going onto the DS proc? If it was already on the DS, it would not have to be pulled from the cart anytime you play, and would go on the system proc, not the DS one. Same thing for my idea, a DS option pak. Since the DS processes the 2 pak slots separately, having DeMasked on the gba proc and the game on the DS one would mean better performance.

by **Rax2015** on Mon Dec 27, 2004 7:58 pm

I don't think it is too out of line for nintendo to trust warp pipe with a big project, they did hand over the metroid series to a small and untested developer named retro didnt they....

One difference I see in this though, is that Retro is actually a company. As far as I know, Warp Pipe is not a company, isn't it just a bunch of people who do stuff to make a system go online?

I may be wrong, please correct me if so.

by **brandnew707** on Mon Dec 27, 2004 8:26 pm

No, Warpipe is actually a company now. They're website says so.

by **devillion** on Tue Dec 28, 2004 4:27 am

Are there any press confrences scheduled or anything coming up?

by **amall** on Wed Dec 29, 2004 6:07 pm

Anybody try any patent searches?

by **Tymonator** on Sat Jan 01, 2005 8:19 pm

My theory is that Nintendo will have the DS go through some sort of a firmware upgrade in order to get online... this can be done simply by sending 1or 2 carts to a retailer and performing your upgrade there in the store to charging 49.99 for a year of online service and the cart come with the subscription pak. This is all regardless of the fact that DemaSked may or may not be an "integrated" part of Nintendo's online future.
I would also like to point out that if DemaSked has nothing to do with DS online then who really cares because if Ninty actually comes out with their own inhouse online service, DemaSked will go the way of the Quaga. I would like to add that if DemaSked is a multiplatform service that would explain why there is a theory out there about playing MP2 Echoes with MP Hunters. I am not saying DS and Cube will communicate even though it is not totally out of the question I am refering to Nintendo's Revolution having backward compatibility with the Cube Games and therefore users would be able to potentially play Home system versus Handheld System.

Just imagine the possibilities with MarioKart etc...

Just some food for thought.

by **Ruzbeh** on Mon Jan 03, 2005 10:33 pm

Reminder for you all:

Warppipe isn't doing some kinda tunneling gig. They already said so a zillion times now.

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