Red alert 3 beta?

C

crabhead

Member
Hi, i want to play red alert 3 beta, but i ran into a problem. No its not about where to find it i already installed it, but about the cd-key.
The one that i currently have is not working due to being used a lot of times. I can't find anywhere any crack or keys whatever. Can anyone help me with this?

I want to try it out because the beta version of the game has supposedly has many balance changes, and im kind of a ra3 active player so i want to check it out and make a video on it i guess too.

Thanks,
CrabHead
 
This brings back some memories, its been a long time since I thought about Red Alert 3. I gave my CD key away as part of a competition we had on Digiex back in the day. I'm not sure the copy protection was ever fully cracked for the beta, I remember their been an unlocker for LAN play and such, however that still required you to have a CD key to activate.

Perhaps the crack for the original 1.0 release of the game will work with the beta also?
 
i just noticed, red alert 3 cracks wont work, because normal RA3 uses well different files. So it has to be SPECFICALLY a crack for RA3 Beta. I think i just hit a roadblock here
 
So I return here, after 2, almost 3 years. TL;DR, I never ended up getting in-game. I'm just listing on what i found out and I'm asking for help.

I thought that maybe by swapping EXE files, i'd get somewhere. Turns out nope. Swapping the exe file in the main directory changed absolutely nothing.

Then, after scourging through folders, the folder RetailExe told me the answer why that didn't work. In that directory lies the actual game executable, ra3game.dat. Then I realized I kind of knew this with C&C 3 and then realized the file structure with c&c3 and ra3 beta is the same. But anyways...

It was all cool and games finding this tid-bit out but... I had no other ra3game.dat's to swap around and potentially create a frankenstein out of this. Then I started looking on how the retail version launches and it had vastly different file structure compared to the beta.

Everything was just thrown into one folder (except for the .exe, support and launcher folder) and called it a day. However this also meant that there was no ra3game.dat. Or was there...?

I accidentally found out today, that .game files (like ra3_1.0.game, ra3_1.1.game etc.) are actually disguised .dat files. .dat files on the other hand are just .exe files. That last part might not surprise someone but it certainly surprised me. So I started swapping things around, however still nothing worked.

The only choices I have left, are to somehow bypass the EA Authentication server, or find a working key (or bruteforce it somehow). And here's my cry for help. I don't know if someone's willing to just crack the beta (very unlikely), buuuut.....
InsaneNutter said:
I gave my CD key away as part of a competition we had on Digiex back in the day.
Click to expand...

You say you gave a key away to someone and my obvious question is, do you still have it somewhere? Reason I'm asking is that, to my knowledge, those keys could be used multiple times before being deactivated for being used too many times, and unless that person you gave it to installed his copy on every computer he had, there are still some uses left.

Of course i also must face the possibility that all of the keys were deactivated, although i think there would be a different error message for that like for example:

"GL:5575="Thank you for your interest in this game; however, the trial period for this game has ended. To continue playing, please purchase the full version.”"

It's possible that they also just made all of the keys invalid but i dunno. Still worth a try if you don't really know.
 
crabhead said:
You say you gave a key away to someone and my obvious question is, do you still have it somewhere? Reason I'm asking is that, to my knowledge, those keys could be used multiple times before being deactivated for being used too many times, and unless that person you gave it to installed his copy on every computer he had, there are still some uses left.
Click to expand...

I have actually found one of the keys I gave away, I'll send you a message with it so you can try it.

I'll be impressed if it still works after 16 years. That's also scary saying out loud how long ago that was...
 
upload_2024-9-29_11-39-19.png

Like i wrote in our DM's it still doesn't work. Unless that guy just used the key multiple times it might be possible that all of the keys are now invalid and display that message. But at the end of the day, i don't really know.
The only way we're ever going to access this beta is by cracking it (I don't know how to do that stuff or know anyone who does it so i dont think it'll happen) or perhaps trying every key that a keygen gives in hopes of one being the correct one (so... bruteforcing)
 
InsaneNutter said:
Nice, pretty impressive you were able to make use of that old key after all this time!

Enjoy :)
Click to expand...
Thank you so much.
Using the menu unlocker on this forum, I got the skirmish working and launched possibly the first beta match in 15 years.

Hell, even managed to do a LAN game with someone through radmin vpn.

In short there are a lot of differences between that beta and retail version. again thank you so much
 
crabhead said:
In short there are a lot of differences between that beta and retail version. again thank you so much
Click to expand...

Do you fancy posting these differences and documenting the beta? you are probably one of the few people in the world still able to use it.
 
InsaneNutter said:
Do you fancy posting these differences and documenting the beta? you are probably one of the few people in the world still able to use it.
Click to expand...
Sorry for not responding, i honestly forgot to do that.
I shared that cd-key with some community members and one of them made a document detailing every change they noticed.
I also found a 1.4 beta installer, so overall we have beta versions 1.0-1.4. Unfortunately 1.5 and 1.6 are still missing and i have a gut feeling they were never distrubuted in .exe installers, rather on EA's servers (which are down).
A funny thing, we managed to launch a couple of LAN games, and the game is absolutely broken balance wise (H)

There are plans to also make a TCRF page about the beta and that's pretty much it. I'll send any updates here (if i remember to do that :PPP)
 
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