BNETDocs Redux

NOTICE: Telnet is a legacy protocol that is not used on Battle.net anymore as of 2005. All the below information should be taken with a grain of salt.

When receiving data from a Battle.net Telnet-enabled server, there is a format that follows:

#### NAME PARAMS() EOL

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#### is a 4-digit decimal number, padded with zeros if necessary.
NAME is a name identifier for the number (####).
PARAMS() are parameters (data) delimited by 0x20 (spaces); this is packet-specific.
EOL is the End-Of-Line: Caret return (0x0D) and/or Line feed (0x0A).

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Now normally, a packet would look something like:

1018 INFO "Something spectacular."

However, as you can see, 1018 isn't exactly close to 0000, is it? There's a pattern here.

The first '1' tells the type of packet that was received, a list of known id's:

1xxx

EIDs, or SID_CHATEVENT event id's.

2xxx

SIDs, or SID packets.

This can be proven by this algorithm:

1018 INFO = 1000 + 18 = 1000 + 0x12 = 0x12 EID_INFO

And to prove it even more, SID_NULL is 0x00, or 2000 NULL, correct? Check this out:

2000 NULL = 2000 + 0 = 2000 + 0x00 = 0x00 SID_NULL

If you still do not believe this algorithm, then you surely cannot deny this one:

2010 NAME = 2000 + 10 = 2000 + 0x0A = 0x0A SID_ENTERCHAT

As we all know, SID_ENTERCHAT is responsible for giving you your online username, as seen by others within channels and games -- 2010 NAME does that as well.

Is there a coincidence? I don't think so. Blizzard did this on purpose.

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Knowing this, we can assume other EIDs and other SIDs to follow that format, for example:

SID_MESSAGEBOX("An error occurred which caused this dialog to appear.")
...can be displayed as...
2025 DIALOG "An error occurred which caused this dialog to appear."

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This opens a world of possibilities for the Telnet protocol.

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