Ship vs Ship (SvS) glitch #649: Infinite Ammo

[SangrelX]

well - lol he had a long winded post

my comments are random because his post was long and i skim read it

but a few things

1. I have yet to find anywhere selling cheats to this game LOL - I highly doubt you can buy them for it

And I do have membership to several Online MP Cheat Forums
for those who didnt see any posts where this was discussed - I did 7 years worth of security work amongst other things for several games and Anti-cheat softwares (Punkbuster, Punksbusted , didnt do any work with steam/valve though)

So I had to keep up with what was possible and being done on the games we hosted
needless to say people dont often PAY for any cheats because they are usually posted publicly - like in these forums here - some of these glitches can really be called cheats!


2. Disney taking people in court -- Disney is NOT going to waste Time or Money on anyone that they catch using a glitch, cheating, or hacking -- its just not worth the efforts and most cities / states wont even accept a case like this -- Unless the person caught actually caused damage or harm to the physical machines the game is hosted on AKA Crashing the machines, DOS Attacking etc..

Disney would simply Ban the user most likely via IP which is very easy to bypass

also - Who in the world would really wanna do it that badly - I can go into details as to why its a waste of time in this game to try much but its against Policy of these forums so thats end of that conversation


3. Cheat codes / Glitches / bugs whatever you call em - I agree with your post they are indeed things that they know are in game - its right in front of their faces where the code is and how that code works

But whats not there is like another user said "Ghosts in the machine" as he put it
was pretty close to accurate - the definition of that term has changed over history but basically kept the same meaning

Ghosts in the Machine (Random segments of code comming togather to create what could be called the human pyschie (spelling?) which can act on its own free will) basically AI - the definition given in the movie I, Robot is the current defintion of that term in The Programming World

In this game - these segements come togather to create effects that were not meant to be there!! such as invincibility

but disney didnt do this on purpose - its just random mistakes when a user does certain actions the code doesnt work togather properly

I could give more to support this but im not typing that much!

[Edward Edgemenace]

Originally Posted by SangrelX

but disney didnt do this on purpose - its just random mistakes when a user does certain actions the code doesnt work togather properly

That's what I keep trying to convince myself, but keep failing at. Your "invincibility" example was off, by the way. When a pirate (or mob) re-spawns, it is invincible for a variable amount of time. So, you gave yet another excellent example of where the bug is "right in front." All it then takes, to cheat, is to activate that code. Adding a series of movements to activate it (which can then be simulated when someone types in "/godmode" etc.) can then be spread out over several object's properties. Could that be there for testing purposes? Maybe. Unit-testing code is normally restricted to test servers. Again, I can't convince myself that even one of those "mistakes" would make it through, let alone hundreds that all happen to come together nicely.

Well, whatever. I see more people using the infinite ammo glitch now. For the first time, I've seen French crews using it, not Spanish. So, here is progress, of a sort.

[Tobias Blastpigge]

Unfortunately I think their attempts at solving some of the problems misfired because they failed to understand the problem. We called it the Skeleton or Undead glitch.. they fixed that, but not the "unlimited ammo if you do the glitch" part. Alot on thier plate, and most screaming for new content. Tough decisions.
Although I want more content badly, i'd prefer they fix the "cheat" glitchs first.

I'm pretty sure this is all it is. Remember that this is a business by one of the leaders in the communications industry. While individual programmers may 'play around' a little (like their characters playing guitars) any actual cheating endangers their business.

Programming a game like this is difficult. We don't know what sort of conflicts are in the program, and obviously the programmers don't either. Fix one thing and that may cause another problem. And this program is certainly proprietary so they only have a handful of programmers that can work on it. As Zeppers said, its a tough decision on where to put your energy.

I'm betting the undead/unlimited-ammo glitch will go away fast. It IS discouraging to get sunk that way.

[Edward Edgemenace]

Originally Posted by SangrelX

I didnt give an example of how it worked - so lol it couldnt have been off

Erm, not too fine a point on it, but you said "In this game - these segements come togather to create effects that were not meant to be there!! such as invincibility" My comment there, was that "invincibility" is an actual game element in normal game mode - any time your pirate lands in jail, it is momentarily invincible. So, to some extent, the code (defective or proper) is there in plain sight. (The object property is probably called "invincibility" in their actual source code. Does it allow unreasonable time durations? Yup. The highly disruptive Kingshead glitch would not exist if there were a five minute timer.)

Originally Posted by Tobias Blastpigge

I'm pretty sure this is all it is. Remember that this is a business by one of the leaders in the communications industry. While individual programmers may 'play around' a little (like their characters playing guitars) any actual cheating endangers their business.

Programming a game like this is difficult. We don't know what sort of conflicts are in the program, and obviously the programmers don't either. Fix one thing and that may cause another problem. And this program is certainly proprietary so they only have a handful of programmers that can work on it. As Zeppers said, its a tough decision on where to put your energy.

I'm betting the undead/unlimited-ammo glitch will go away fast. It IS discouraging to get sunk that way.

But that is the least of the SvS glitches. Auto-repair is the worst. Repair-while-sailing is perhaps second. Invincibility is the super-nasty one, but I never see more than one boat on any given server with it (so it is relatively rare.) Invisibility is another particularly nasty one. Infinite ammo, to me, is the bottom of that list.

Did you mean a literal bet, or were you just being figurative? I don't like to bet, but I think it is pretty easy to say that the skeleton/infinite-ammo glitch won't be fixed by 10/31/2008. I guess stakes could be a couple thousand in-game gold pieces?

I do agree that new content vs. glitch disabling is a tough choice. In light of the PLETHORA of new content announced now, it is very understandable that they have not focused on glitches. So much new stuff, it makes more sense for me to just shut up and try to let this thread die quietly.

[SangrelX]

Originally Posted by Edward Edgemenace

That's what I keep trying to convince myself, but keep failing at. Your "invincibility" example was off, by the way. When a pirate (or mob) re-spawns, it is invincible for a variable amount of time. So, you gave yet another excellent example of where the bug is "right in front." All it then takes, to cheat, is to activate that code. Adding a series of movements to activate it (which can then be simulated when someone types in "/godmode" etc.) can then be spread out over several object's properties. Could that be there for testing purposes? Maybe. Unit-testing code is normally restricted to test servers. Again, I can't convince myself that even one of those "mistakes" would make it through, let alone hundreds that all happen to come together nicely.

Well, whatever. I see more people using the infinite ammo glitch now. For the first time, I've seen French crews using it, not Spanish. So, here is progress, of a sort.

I didnt give an example of how it worked - so lol it couldnt have been off

in fact what you said - is actually what im thinking happens as well - its a code glitch when user does that bug - the game is tricked into creating unlimited health on their character

and let me clarify what I stated about Developers leaving cheat codes in their games

This applied to both Multiplayer Games and Single Player Games
Cheat codes are often left in games as easter eggs or goodies to be found by the gamers - this is for Single Player Games YES

However in MP Games - Most Companies dont create 2 diff versions of their games 1 for testing and 1 totally clean no testing ability for public use its a waste of time and effort

so they put a switch in -- sv_cheats 1 or 0 (must be called on execution of the server exe this particular switch is a Q3 Engine Example )

this would enable cheats in a MP game (but the server itself has to be run with the switch set to on in order for them to work)

again these are examples of the methods just about every large developing company uses

Disney themselves - im not sure about because there is 2 versions of the Game Client -- a Test Version can be Downloaded - and The Public Normal Version can be Downloaded

So how they are implementing any "Unit testing Code" as you said Edward
I couldnt honestly tell you - but you can bet they do have them