[Spoily] How to obtain a wand of wishing with 2 billion charges.
Todd Smith
avid player of ADOM, and a lurker on this newsgroup. I have remained
quiet because I prefer to keep silent unless I have something
interesting to say.
What I have to say is highly cheaty and highly spoily, but the main
reason that I present it is because it is excellent for conducting
research on ADOM 1.0.0. The method does not involve defeating
checksums or CRCs, nor does it involve editing the ADOM binary. I'll
save a description of the methodology for below the spoiler space.
The objective here? To obtain a blessed wand of wishing with 2^31-1
(2,147,483,647) charges. Unless you want to play the game as an almost
invincible tourist, acquiring this object is almost certain to ruin
your gameplay (though I personally like to go through a game as a
tourist at least once, especially after I have won legally several
times). As I alluded to above, this is most useful for conducting
legitimate research on the game and its behavior.
Without further ado ...
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I play ADOM exclusively under Linux and FreeBSD, so I can only 100%
vouch for the procedure on those systems. I imagine, however, that
this method should also work for Windows-variant systems (it would
probably actually take effort on Mr. Biskup's part to make it not
work). Also, I have only tested this procedure for ADOM 1.0.0 - it is
not likely to work for other versions of ADOM.
We need two things to acquire our wand of wishing. We need a game in
progress (technically we just need the file
$ADOM_DIR/tmpdat/adom_tld05_1, the temporary file which represents
Terinyo) and a hex editor. A third thing would also be useful -
proficiency with your hex editor. I used KHEXEDIT, the hex editor
whichcomes with the K Desktop Environment (KDE); it's not a
particularly good hex editor (very buggy with a lousy converter) but
it works in a pinch.
Here are the steps:
1. Start a new game. Any race and gender will do, but we must create a
Wizard. The reason for this is that a Wizard begins the game with at
least one wand. We could technically create a Merchant, but we'd neat
a little luck to get the requisite wand affinity.
2. Venture to Terinyo and enter it.
3. Walk as far north as possible without leaving the town. Walk as far
west as possible without leaving the town. This grid location is
(2,2).
4. Walk one square to the east. This grid location is (3,2). This is
where we want to be. (Any location will do technically, but this
removes some of the mechanical difficulty of the impeding edit.)
5. Select a wand from your inventory and drop it. Any wand will do. Be
certain that the wand is the only item at the (3,2) location. If it is
not, then pick up all other items (but leave the wand). Remember how
many charges are in your wand.
6. Leave Terinyo (just walk north one square). Do NOT exit your game.
7. Using a shell, a DOS prompt, a file manager - something - enter the
$ADOM_DIR/tmpdat directory. Do whatever is appropriate to your
interface to retrieve a file listing of this directory. You should
observe that a file adom_tdl05_1 has been created. This is an
unencrypted, unchecksummed binary file representing Terinyo and its
contents (inhabitants and items) as 2's complement binary integers in
little-endian order (don't worry about the jargon, you don't really
need to understand it if you don't). It was created when you left
Terinyo.
8. Open adom_tdl05_1 using the hex editor of your choice. Familiarize
yourself with your hex editor before continuing. Hopefully you have
some rudimentary experience with this kind of utility, though not much
is needed and the basics are quickly learned.
9. Using your editor's hex search feature, locate the hex string 03 02
(the grid coordinates of your wand). In my experience, there will only
be one such match in the adom_tdl05_1 file.
10. Move your cursor ahead two bytes (starting at 03).
11. The signed short (2-byte quantity) that you are now pointing at
marks the beginning of an item record in the temporary file. This
quantity is the object id number, effectively an index into ADOM's
item table - it tells the game engine what kind of object is located
here. I can't tell you what these two bytes will be since a) I don't
know what wand you dropped and b) I haven't mapped out all the object
indices yet. By changing this quantity, we can transform any item into
any other item. Now overwrite these two bytes with 3E 01, the object
id number of a wand of wishing. (Starting with the grid coordinates
you should now see: 03 02 3E 01.)
12. Move your cursor back two bytes to the location containing 3E.
Count 112 bytes forward. Most hex editors display sixteen bytes per
row - if this is the case for your hex editor, you can simply move the
cursor down 7 rows (7 * 16 = 112).
13. The signed long (four-byte) quantity that you are now pointing at
represents wand charges. You should double-check that the number under
the cursor matches the charges in the wand that you left behind.
Overwrite this quantity with FF FF FF 7F (2^31-1 in decimal). You have
now upped the number of charges in your wand of wishing to
2,147,483,647.
14. Reposition the cursor at the location in Step 11 (the byte that
you set to 3E). Count 28 bytes forward with your cursor.
15. This byte quantity represents the cursed/uncursed/blessed status
of the object. A value of 00 represents cursed, a value of 01
represents uncursed, and a value of 02 represents blessed. Set this
byte to 02 (if it isn't already). You now have a blessed wand of
wishing with 2,147,483,647 charges.
16. Save the modifications to adom_tdl05_1.
17. Switch back to ADOM and reenter Terinyo. Walk to the (3,2)
location. If all went well, then you will see a wand of wishing
(2147483647 charges) - it will be blessed, though if the item is not
fully identified then the game will not report this fact. If things
didn't go well, then your game may have crashed when you tried to a)
reenter Terinyo or b) step on grid location (3,2).
18. Enjoy!
As a suggestion, you may want to backup the modified adom_tdl05_1 file
so that you can import it for different characters in the future (so
that you don't have to edit the binary again).
This is not all that I have learned about the structure of the object
records in the temporary files - I have also learned where DV bonus,
PV bonus, melee-to-hit bonus, missile-to-hit bonus, damage bonus,
attribute selector, attribute bonus, item count, and one or two other
quantities are located. If there is sufficient interest in mapping out
the item record structure fully (i.e. if people offer to volunteer
their time and resources to assist me), then I shall endeavor to
conduct and publish further research on the subject.
If these directions seem unclear, then please e-mail me at
kirn...@yahoo.com for further assistance. An already hacked
adom_tdl05_1 file is available at
http://enigmastation.com/~cislyn/misc/adom_tdl05_1 - this is my wife's
website and she really loves traffic (though this file will have a new
official home once my resource site goes live).
I hope that those of you who are conducting ADOM research find this
post useful. Please write me or extend this thread if you have any
questions, comments, or feedback which you think would be useful or
worthwhile for public consumption.
Thank you all for your patience and interest. Perhaps you will be
hearing more from me in the future.
Todd Smith
Dominic Jones
"Todd Smith" <kirn...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:96d133cc.02090...@posting.google.com...
> Hello, everyone. My name is Todd Smith. I am a software engineer, an
> avid player of ADOM, and a lurker on this newsgroup. I have remained
> quiet because I prefer to keep silent unless I have something
> interesting to say.
>
> What I have to say is highly cheaty and highly spoily, but the main
> reason that I present it is because it is excellent for conducting
> research on ADOM 1.0.0. The method does not involve defeating
> checksums or CRCs, nor does it involve editing the ADOM binary. I'll
> save a description of the methodology for below the spoiler space.
>
> The objective here? To obtain a blessed wand of wishing with 2^31-1
> (2,147,483,647) charges. Unless you want to play the game as an almost
> invincible tourist, acquiring this object is almost certain to ruin
> your gameplay (though I personally like to go through a game as a
> tourist at least once, especially after I have won legally several
> times). As I alluded to above, this is most useful for conducting
> legitimate research on the game and its behavior.
> hearing more from me in the future.
>
> Todd Smith
I think I can see you getting horribly flamed for this. Get your flame
resistant clothing ready.
Most of the more experienced players know how to do this already for the
purposes of testing. Transferring items between games is easy too. I recall
running a test on RoDS at once point. Some testers may even kept a heap of
items around to test with.
The point I'm making, is that you've said nothing new, and nothing that the
group didn't know already (in general, I don't pretend to speak for
everyone). You don't seem to have posted here before (a quick Google
reveals), and this is kinda not a great way to introduce yourself the group.
I'm not saying anything negative. I'm just warning that that might happen. I
don't know the precise definition of trolling, but I think you might just
have qualified.
Try not to take any offense from what I say, none is intended.
~Dominic
haxot
Snip< Instructions on hacking adom
I already Bug'd it.
I suggested a few solutions, really easily implemented, to prevent this
abuse.
I have already mapped out the files, and the relations per item.
I have promised not to give anyone the files.
I am now waiting to see if he will repair this anytime soon.
Cracking should not be shared.
haxot
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Frances Kathleen Moffatt
> I already Bug'd it.
> I suggested a few solutions, really easily implemented, to prevent this
> abuse.
Why? From what I've heard, Thomas doesn't really care--he deliberately
hasn't bothered to prevent save-scumming, or the item duplication trick.
> I have already mapped out the files, and the relations per item.
> I have promised not to give anyone the files.
> I am now waiting to see if he will repair this anytime soon.
> Cracking should not be shared.
Again, why? If someone knows how, they either cheat or they don't. If
someone cheats, then either they admit it or they don't. If they lie
about it, either they get caught (posting a YAVP with a blessed, uncursed,
and cursed Wyrmlance, for example) or they don't.
If you (generic you) lie about it and get away with it: Congratulations.
Have a cookie. What's the big deal?
Love and coffee,
Frances
haxot
haxot (Ha...@softhome.youdontknowme.net) writes:
Why? From what I've heard, Thomas doesn't really care--he deliberately
hasn't bothered to prevent save-scumming, or the item duplication trick.
It's not simple duplication.
I have taken it much farther then that.
I realize that it's relatively easy, and it ruins the game.
Again, why? If someone knows how, they either cheat or they don't. If
someone cheats, then either they admit it or they don't. If they lie
about it, either they get caught (posting a YAVP with a blessed, uncursed,
and cursed Wyrmlance, for example) or they don't.
I suppose....
And that triple wyrmlance was just fun and games.
If you (generic you) lie about it and get away with it: Congratulations.
Have a cookie. What's the big deal?
Becasue I am very cranky on this subject.
Because I did try pulling wool.
I stopped YAVPing because I now can crack ADoM without a trace.
I feel very strongly about this.
*****End Transmission*******
I will not be responding to any more posts on this thread.
I have said my piece, it's their forever.
I shan't be the flaming anyone either on what they say about me.
Call me what you will. :)
Big grins,
Arturus Magi
Newsgroups: rec.games.roguelike.adom
Date: 9 Sep 2002 08:54:45 -0700
>9. Using your editor's hex search feature, locate the hex string 03 02
>(the grid coordinates of your wand). In my experience, there will only
>be one such match in the adom_tdl05_1 file.
There are other ways to get a match, but the first match would probably be the
cooridinate header.
> If there is sufficient interest in mapping out
>the item record structure fully (i.e. if people offer to volunteer
>their time and resources to assist me), then I shall endeavor to
>conduct and publish further research on the subject.
>
I don't really have time to map it out, but once it's been done, I could try to
rig up an editor program of some sort.
R Dan Henry
dv...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Frances Kathleen Moffatt) declared:
And if you want to lie about your great win, you can read a few YAVPs
and write out your own without ever touching the game. Make up a few
stories about close calls with liches (lichen? that's what the
spellcheck says, anyway :-) or gripe about losing *3* girdles of giant
strength to trapped doors to make it convincing. Far easier and while
Thomas *could* create some sort of secret "winner code" to confirm
victories, that would be a large investment of effort for minimal
gain... plus he'd have to personally confirm/deny all posted victories
and I'm sure he has better ways of wasting time.
Cheating at roguelikes is cheating at solitaire, anyway. You're only
cheating yourself.
--
R. Dan Henry
rdan...@earthlink.net
Alexey Dobrijan
<snip method of obtaining wand of wishing>
> I think I can see you getting horribly flamed for this. Get your flame
> resistant clothing ready.
>
> Most of the more experienced players know how to do this already for the
> purposes of testing. Transferring items between games is easy too. I recall
> running a test on RoDS at once point. Some testers may even kept a heap of
> items around to test with.
>
> The point I'm making, is that you've said nothing new, and nothing that the
> group didn't know already (in general, I don't pretend to speak for
> everyone). You don't seem to have posted here before (a quick Google
> reveals), and this is kinda not a great way to introduce yourself the group.
>
> I'm not saying anything negative. I'm just warning that that might happen. I
> don't know the precise definition of trolling, but I think you might just
> have qualified.
> Try not to take any offense from what I say, none is intended.
>
> ~Dominic
You prevent me from doing similar thing. Thank you for that!
Todd Smith
<< snipping my own quoted text >>
> I think I can see you getting horribly flamed for this. Get your flame
> resistant clothing ready.
>
> Most of the more experienced players know how to do this already for the
> purposes of testing. Transferring items between games is easy too. I recall
> running a test on RoDS at once point. Some testers may even kept a heap of
> items around to test with.
>
> The point I'm making, is that you've said nothing new, and nothing that the
> group didn't know already (in general, I don't pretend to speak for
> everyone). You don't seem to have posted here before (a quick Google
> reveals), and this is kinda not a great way to introduce yourself the group.
>
> I'm not saying anything negative. I'm just warning that that might happen. I
> don't know the precise definition of trolling, but I think you might just
> have qualified.
> Try not to take any offense from what I say, none is intended.
>
> ~Dominic
Thanks for the warning, Dominic, but I already expected some
hostility. Fortunately my skin is pretty flame retardant. Reading the
daily news and enduring pop-up ads draws my ire far more these days
than anything which could ever possibly be said here. You were very
courteous and I took no offense whatsoever from your response. I
sincerely hope that others will be so kind! ;)
I realize that there are known exploits with temporary files, but to
my knowledge the ones known involve simple backups and replacements -
I won't describe the process here in detail as it would be
inappropriate. This method is slow and tedious, however - you'd
probably spend more time dwelling on the mechanics of the operation
than you would on testing. I was offering a method of (relatively)
simply and quickly procuring the means to do advanced testing *within*
the boundaries of the game (i.e. without hacking the ADOM binary). So
I am forced to disagree politely that I have said nothing new (where
"new" means "not already well known on this newsgroup"). Whether or
not others wanted to read it is admittedly a different story.
And believe it or not, I wasn't really advocating cheating. Can you
use the file crack which I described to cheat? Hell yes! But in my own
opinion, you'd barely be *cheating* because you wouldn't really even
be *playing*. A wand of wishing with 2 billion plus charges? That's
not playing ADOM, that's mental masturbation. It goes without saying
that using the exploit to advance a character (especially one you
might YAVP) completely defeats the spirit of the game.
So I guess that I should speak a little more as to my intent. I often
see threads on RGRA where people are discussing research on various
aspects of the game - probabilities of acquiring different Ch
modifiers for amulets of the cold heart, determining the effect of
cursed/uncursed/blessed items on undead, etc. People also lament to
varying degrees that research is more cumbersome since ADOM 1.0.0 now
that WADOMF is no longer available to further testing. I saw a niche
and (after a quick, less-than-thorough search turned up no formidable
solutions) decided to fill it. I understood that some would be
incensed by my crack, but I certainly was not trolling. It was never
my intention to deliberately irritate anyone, and I still hope that
some will find my post valuable. I am also not a cracker by nature,
though I am guilty of being very curious about details. It is unlikely
that I shall make another post in this vein which does not follow
immediately from my original post.
It is certainly possible to find fault with both my intentions and my
methodology. To those people I can only offer my humble apology, but
with a respectful reminder that they lack the standing and personal
involvement to earn the right to be truly offended. That honor belongs
to Mr. Thomas Biskup, for ADOM is his baby, his creation. I hope that
he would not disapprove. All I can say on that point is that ADOM is a
masterwork of complexity and intrigue, a game which does not give up
its secrets easily. I personally feel that the desire to test, to
probe, to understand the intricacies of his work constitutes a
celebration of his efforts, not a mockery of them. Others are
certainly not obliged to share my position.
At any rate, I do not feel that this newsgroup is an appropriate venue
at this juncture for further elaboration of my politics regarding
intellectual property, so I'm going to wisely quit while I'm ahead (or
while I'm just a tad behind, as the case may be).
If anyone would like to take serious issue with my original post, then
I suspect that fellow newsgroup readers would appreciate it if you
directed your concerns to my inbox rather than consuming the communal
bandwidth, and so would I. Thanks!
Todd Smith
Malte Helmert
>
> So I guess that I should speak a little more as to my intent. I often
> see threads on RGRA where people are discussing research on various
> aspects of the game - probabilities of acquiring different Ch
> modifiers for amulets of the cold heart, determining the effect of
> cursed/uncursed/blessed items on undead, etc. People also lament to
> varying degrees that research is more cumbersome since ADOM 1.0.0 now
> that WADOMF is no longer available to further testing. I saw a niche
> and (after a quick, less-than-thorough search turned up no formidable
> solutions) decided to fill it.
I am one of those lamenters, I guess. I considered your post
interesting, but I think that unlimited wishes aren't really a
replacement for WADOMF. What I like most about WADOMF is that it makes
it possible to look at all the numbers that you don't see in the game,
like satiation and corruption counters. I'm sure we'd know a lot more
about crowning and all that stuff if WADOMF could display the piety
level(s) of the PC. I don't even need to be able to modify the numbers,
just being able to read them would be enough...
Malte
Gero Kunter
> [ ... ] I often see threads on RGRA where people are discussing research
> on various aspects of the game - probabilities of acquiring different Ch
> modifiers for amulets of the cold heart, determining the effect of
> cursed/uncursed/blessed items on undead, etc. [ ... ] I saw a niche and
> (after a quick, less-than-thorough search turned up no formidable
> solutions) decided to fill it.
The research on the cursed/blessed weapons issue that I've just posted was
also done with massively modified items. I also had a Wand of Wishing with
16 billion charges at hand, which made testing much, much easier (thanks
again to Haxot!). So you didn't post anything I'd object to.
> [ ... ] That honor belongs to Mr. Thomas Biskup, for ADOM is his baby, his
> creation. I hope that he would not disapprove. All I can say on that point
> is that ADOM is a masterwork of complexity and intrigue, a game which does
> not give up its secrets easily. I personally feel that the desire to test,
> to probe, to understand the intricacies of his work constitutes a
> celebration of his efforts, not a mockery of them. Others are certainly
> not obliged to share my position.
Amen to that!
Cheers, Gero
--
Gero Kunter (gero....@epost.de)
Barry Kearns
"Frances Kathleen Moffatt" <dv...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
news:aliv6k$fc5$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
> haxot (Ha...@softhome.youdontknowme.net) writes:
>
> > I have already mapped out the files, and the relations per item.
> > I have promised not to give anyone the files.
> > I am now waiting to see if he will repair this anytime soon.
> > Cracking should not be shared.
>
> Again, why? If someone knows how, they either cheat or they don't. If
> someone cheats, then either they admit it or they don't. If they lie
> about it, either they get caught (posting a YAVP with a blessed, uncursed,
> and cursed Wyrmlance, for example) or they don't.
>
> If you (generic you) lie about it and get away with it: Congratulations.
> Have a cookie. What's the big deal?
I must say that I concur with Frances on this issue. My view is (and I
believe has always been) that the function of games is to provide enjoyment.
Different people find enjoyment in different ways. I've long been an advocate
of the position that you should do whatever helps you to enhance the pleasure
you receive from the experience.
It would be a different matter if ADoM was a multi-player experience, where
the behavior would directly affect the enjoyment of others. But ADoM is very
decidedly single-player. If it makes you happier to save-scum, or level-scum,
or hex-exit, or whatever... by all means, feel free. In my view, you're not
hurting anyone else in the process.
With respect to what Todd's done, I'd have to say that I'm thankful for the
effort and consideration that he put forth, and the willingness to share it,
so that others might have the opportunity to either enhance their enjoyment of
the game, or to pursue knowledge by making the testing process easier. I also
appreciate his well-thought-out presentation.
If it's not the sort of thing you would want to take advantage of, then don't.
Meanwhile, I'm sure that there are others who would find the information
useful, and I wouldn't deny them that.
For me personally, I've always wanted something of a struggle in my game play,
and that's why I ended up pursuing some of the "challenge" game formats that I
did. I've always been attracted to the concept of "barely possible". That's
why I loved the original "Rogue" so much. I knew it was POSSIBLE to win, and
the tremendous challenge that it represented was what made it attractive.
(Likewise with "Dungeons of Daggorath on the old CoCo).
Some people enjoy struggle and difficulty... others no doubt simply find it
frustrating. Since the executable itself doesn't contain (to my knowledge) a
"Wizard Switch" to allow for the relief of that frustration, nor for the ease
of testing out various concepts without substantial overhead involved, it's
nice (in my mind) that Todd has chosen to share this.
There's a quote that sums it up nicely for me: "These eight words the Wiccan
Rede fulfill; An ye harm none, do what ye will."
--
Barry Kearns
barry...@qwest.net
Stephen White
> The objective here? To obtain a blessed wand of wishing with 2^31-1
> (2,147,483,647) charges.
Sorry, but I did it already. If you Google search this group
for a post with the words "Unidentified item appearance testing"
in the subject in you should find a post where I mention I have
a Terinyo with such a wand stored for testing (Amiga PPC 1.0.0
version).
If you are really dedicated to ADOM research and have the time,
read the post mentioned above and undertake the research I
proposed in it, to determine information about unidentified
appearances of all items in the game.
That would certainly earn my respect (if that matters to you
of course! :)) and probably quite a bit from other people
here for providing information useful to everyone.
--
NOTE : The FROM email address of this post is used for SPAM ONLY.
Email sent to this address will remain unread.
Frances Kathleen Moffatt
> Frances Kathleen Moffatt wrote:
>> Why? From what I've heard, Thomas doesn't really care--he deliberately
>> hasn't bothered to prevent save-scumming, or the item duplication trick.
> It's not simple duplication.
> I have taken it much farther then that.
> I realize that it's relatively easy, and it ruins the game.
So let people figure out that it ruins the game for them--hell, I know
that I used the duplication trick for enough gold to get crowned once, got
crowned, and then quit twenty minutes later, because it had gotten boring.
Or, let them discovr that they like playing the game that way and play it.
It doesn't ruin it for them, and their doing it certainly doesn't ruin it
for me. So you finished the game in forty days with every skill on the
planet, a dozen cool artifacts, stats at 99, and no corruptions? Cool.
Hope you had fun. I still did saved the world with Sfap, and I know *I*
had fun, regardless of your game.
>> Again, why? If someone knows how, they either cheat or they don't. If
>> someone cheats, then either they admit it or they don't. If they lie
>> about it, either they get caught (posting a YAVP with a blessed, uncursed,
>> and cursed Wyrmlance, for example) or they don't.
> I suppose....
> And that triple wyrmlance was just fun and games.
(*blinks* Dear gods, it's been so long--was that you?)
So let these things be fun and games for those who enjoy it, and avoided
by those who don't enjoy it. As long as no-one lies in a YAVP, I don't
think they're doing a bad thing, and if they do lie, it's still not going
to hurt anyone.
>> If you (generic you) lie about it and get away with it: Congratulations.
>> Have a cookie. What's the big deal?
> Becasue I am very cranky on this subject.
> Because I did try pulling wool.
> I stopped YAVPing because I now can crack ADoM without a trace.
> I feel very strongly about this.
Okay. Feel away. No-one's telling you not to. :) But that's not the
same thing as telling someone who put in a mass warning that he was
giving out cheaty information that he's doing a bad thing, and it's
certainly not the same as saying what the Creator should and shouldn't
do in his game.
(Suggestions and RFEs are okay. Those are suggestions and requests.
"Should" is different.)
Love and coffee,
Frances
haxot
*Haxot comes out of surgery, having his grumpiness removed*
Sorry for being boorish.
I must admit that I don't quite feel as strongly as I forced people to
think.
And I just realized, I have had no commune barring the dis of the files
I have.
Ah well.
I Apologize.
And yes, good lord, that was me with that YAVP.
I want'ed to see who all reads those huge lsits of items very carefully.
I didn't mention that I had done it until afterr the fact.
Anyhoo, Todd, shjould be an email in your box from me, read it and get
back to me, alright?
And apologies to all, and to all a good night.
Haxot
Dominic Jones
I hadn't reacted personally to your post, but I could have seen it being
possibly seen in the way I described. Fortunately it wasn't, so all is well
^_^.
> I realize that there are known exploits with temporary files, but to
> my knowledge the ones known involve simple backups and replacements -
> I won't describe the process here in detail as it would be
> inappropriate. This method is slow and tedious, however - you'd
> probably spend more time dwelling on the mechanics of the operation
> than you would on testing. I was offering a method of (relatively)
> simply and quickly procuring the means to do advanced testing *within*
> the boundaries of the game (i.e. without hacking the ADOM binary). So
> I am forced to disagree politely that I have said nothing new (where
> "new" means "not already well known on this newsgroup"). Whether or
> not others wanted to read it is admittedly a different story.
*nods* I'm currently trying to make a save file with a lot of items in for
testing. I've always enjoyed reading about formula's for how games work, and
would also find it fun to find a few for Adom maybe. I'm fairly in to
computer games and would love to make my own one day. Believe me I have no
illusions as to how difficult that task will be. Finding a sensible formula
for variance was tough enough.
> And believe it or not, I wasn't really advocating cheating. Can you
> use the file crack which I described to cheat? Hell yes! But in my own
> opinion, you'd barely be *cheating* because you wouldn't really even
> be *playing*. A wand of wishing with 2 billion plus charges? That's
> not playing ADOM, that's mental masturbation. It goes without saying
> that using the exploit to advance a character (especially one you
> might YAVP) completely defeats the spirit of the game.
Yes, it's horrendously cheating. But cheating at a game will for me, usually
remove most of the fun from it, depending on the game and the cheat.
Cheating to remove some monotony on a very simple process, that is already
available in the game, then I might cheat at that. Like for example,
gambling to get money, where I'll just reset if I lose. It's got no lose,
just boring and time consuming. So a cheat for infinite money I would allow
myself in this circumstance (No cheats ever on a first play through though).
There is no such scenaria in Adom that I would consider just a process,
except _possibly_ finding a giant boar. Even so I don't feel the need to.
> So I guess that I should speak a little more as to my intent. I often
> see threads on RGRA where people are discussing research on various
> aspects of the game - probabilities of acquiring different Ch
> modifiers for amulets of the cold heart, determining the effect of
> cursed/uncursed/blessed items on undead, etc. People also lament to
> varying degrees that research is more cumbersome since ADOM 1.0.0 now
> that WADOMF is no longer available to further testing.
As someone already said, WADoMF allows you to see the hidden numbers, it's
greatest benefit. the WoW does allow for a fair bit of testing though.
> Todd Smith
Others points in this post I wanted to comment on...
<referring to Haxots b/u/c Wyrmlance>
I never heard about that one Haxot, lol... I'll Google that one up I think,
sounds like an interesting post :p
<creating a YAVP from scratch>
Yea, easily doable, and you're only cheating yourself. No real gain.
~Dominic
Malte Helmert
> <referring to Haxots b/u/c Wyrmlance>
>
> I never heard about that one Haxot, lol... I'll Google that one up I think,
> sounds like an interesting post :p
Try the following link (posts 9-18 in the thread):
http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=a32ml4%241p6%242%40newsreader.mailgate.org
> <creating a YAVP from scratch>
>
> Yea, easily doable, and you're only cheating yourself. No real gain.
I don't know about YAVPs, but this is a fake YASD that I quite liked:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3d056fa5%241%40post.newsfeed.com
Malte
Dominic Jones
"Malte Helmert" <hel...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote in message
news:3D7F0488...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de...
Lol, I remember reading that one a while back. A very cool post indeed ^_^.
When I said no real gain, it cannot apply to that post ^_^. I like the idea
of the vampire monk....
"Here, take this holy symbol as a sign of our faith" - venerable monk
*Vampire takes holy symbol and places it about his neck"
"Ahhh it burns!!" - stupid Vampire
Doesn't quite work o.o;
Vampires would be fun in Adom, but considering there is no 'night' in the
surface world of ADoM, then they probably wouldn't get very far ^_^ (I'm not
advocating that Vampires should be added...but I'd still be keen on a Faery,
for no logical reason).
Mind you, if Faeries DID exist, they'd be able to equip everything any other
character would (else it would mean breaking Adom's rules). A Faerie with a
two-handed sword and Moloch armor. Hmmm... =D
~Dominic
Todd Smith
Malte Helmert <hel...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote in message news:<3D7E2155...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de>...
<< snip >>
> I considered your post interesting, but I think that unlimited wishes
> aren't really a replacement for WADOMF.
You're right. Limitless wishes have limits, and as such are not an
equal replacement for WADOMF - not by a long shot. But it's a better
than nothing. :)
> What I like most about WADOMF is that it makes it possible to look at all the
> numbers that you don't see in the game, like satiation and corruption
> counters.
I can't think of any ways to glimpse your satiation counter from
inside ADOM, not without fiddling the binary directly or scanning
memory (see below). But the wand of wishing may provide a workaround
for the corruption counter. Scrolls of dark predictions give the
player an effective glimpse at the corruption counter, I think. A
strategy could be formulated for reading these to gain some insight
into how much corruption accrues from walking around in a corrupted
zone or being struck by a corrupting attack. It's not as granular as
what WADOMF provides, but it could be insightful.
> I'm sure we'd know a lot more about crowning and all that stuff if WADOMF
> could display the piety level(s) of the PC.
I can't think of how to get at this from inside the game, either. It
might be technically possible to use a memory scanner to examine the
contents of ADOM's data segments to find both the satiation level and
the piety meters. It would be tedious work, though, but once the
relative offsets of those quanta were discovered, an external tool
could be written to monitor these items while the game was running.
This would be easier under MS-DOS/Windows, but this could even be
achieved on Linux using /proc/$ADOM_PID/mem. There are so many things
that change every turn on any average map that it could be very
challenging to find what you're looking for (I assume, anyway - I
haven't looked).
For piety, it might help to use the OC map. If you get lucky enough,
then you might have an altar generated there (I've seen several there
myself). To my knowledge, no monsters are ever generated there except
for the initial ogres. So once you've killed off all of the ogres,
you've completely eliminated monster movement as a factor to cause
changes in memory (unless the code continues to track monsters on
other maps, which would be very expensive for minimal gain, and
therefore an unlikely behavior). Time would still pass, satiation
would still decrease, and probably several other things would happen
on each turn. But piety should also decrease with time, so the first
step would be to find a quantity which diminishes with time. The next
step would be to identify a diminishing quantity which increases with
every sacrifice made on the altar. The procedure could be conducted
for lawful, neutral, and chaotic altars to determine whether there are
different counters.
An analogous solution (involving eating instead of sacc'ing) could be
used to monitor satiation. Again, it might be best to try it in the
ogre cave.
Todd Smith
Todd Smith
<< snip >>
> I Apologize.
Thanks for the apology, Haxot. From where I sit it was unnecessary,
though. You freely expressed your opinion and I respect that. You were
certainly at liberty to take issue with my post. I have been lurking
here for several years now without posting, so I have learned
something of the personalities of the locals, but one doesn't really
get a true sense until one takes the plunge and delurks. I expected
some criticism, and on the whole I found my welcome to be surprisingly
warm. Even those who detracted could have been much harsher on me. No
hard feelings at all. :)
And for future reference, if I should transgress the etiquette of
Usenet and RGRA in particular, then I hope that someone will give me a
good swift kick where it counts. I know that someone will. ;)
Todd Smith
haxot
> haxot <Ha...@softhome.youdontknowme.net> wrote in message news:<3D7E582C...@softhome.youdontknowme.net>...
>
> And for future reference, if I should transgress the etiquette of
> Usenet and RGRA in particular, then I hope that someone will give me a
> good swift kick where it counts. I know that someone will. ;)
I won't do that, that's John Rowat's job.
He is in charge of the arsaenla around here.
Then Frances comes with a band-aid. If she's upset(very rare), expect
vinegar in the bandage.
And Karkadinn(whne his computer works) fires nice little parting shots
that hot/miss as needed(I suspect that he makes some miss on purpose).
Mind you, these are just general caricatures, and may not apply to RL or
IL at all.
And they are qquite nice, everyone, as long as you don't post a stupid,
pointless html page on the news server, like someone I could mention(me).
VBG alkl around,
Frances Kathleen Moffatt
> Then Frances comes with a band-aid. If she's upset(very rare), expect
> vinegar in the bandage.
Oh my god, I've been summarized. :)
Love and coffee,
Frances
haxot
> haxot (Ha...@softhome.youdontknowme.net) writes:
>
>>Then Frances comes with a band-aid. If she's upset(very rare), expect
>>vinegar in the bandage.
>
>
> Oh my god, I've been summarized. :)
Heh, I hope you like the summary more then I liked mine after I posted
that stupid html page. :)
OTOH, you haven't ever done somethiung that stupid, I bet you read the
usenet faq and this newsgroupos faq first thing.
Unlike me :(
Frances Kathleen Moffatt
> Frances Kathleen Moffatt wrote:
>> haxot (Ha...@softhome.youdontknowme.net) writes:
>>>Then Frances comes with a band-aid. If she's upset(very rare), expect
>>>vinegar in the bandage.
>> Oh my god, I've been summarized. :)
> Heh, I hope you like the summary more then I liked mine after I posted
> that stupid html page. :)
I suspect so. :)
> OTOH, you haven't ever done somethiung that stupid, I bet you read the
> usenet faq and this newsgroupos faq first thing.
> Unlike me :(
Heh. Actually, I blame it on BBSes. And SOs. There is nothing like
first learning about electronic messages on an old-fashioned BBS and then
dating geek purists for five years to condition you to snipping, not
top-posting, and anti-binary/HTML messages. <:)
Love and coffee,
Frances (the Usenet-conditioned)
bd
> 13. The signed long (four-byte) quantity that you are now pointing at
> represents wand charges. You should double-check that the number under
> the cursor matches the charges in the wand that you left behind.
> Overwrite this quantity with FF FF FF 7F (2^31-1 in decimal). You have
> now upped the number of charges in your wand of wishing to
> 2,147,483,647.
I saw 00 00 00 *04*, the last byte was found by counting ahead 7 rows. I
replaced with ff ff ff 7f, and I got a WoW with only 127 charges. Oh well,
better than nothing, I suppose :)
--
Dirksen's Three Laws of Politics:
(1) Get elected.
(2) Get re-elected.
(3) Don't get mad, get even.
-- Sen. Everett Dirksen
bd
> Todd Smith wrote:
> Snip< Instructions on hacking adom
>
> I already Bug'd it.
> I suggested a few solutions, really easily implemented, to prevent this
> abuse.
> I have already mapped out the files, and the relations per item.
> I have promised not to give anyone the files.
> I am now waiting to see if he will repair this anytime soon.
>
> Cracking should not be shared.
How idealistic. Fact is, if you want to cheat, you should be allowed to. As
long as you put disclaimers and spoiler space in YAVPs, of course.
--
For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat, and wrong.
-- H. L. Mencken
bd
> I will not be responding to any more posts on this thread.
> I have said my piece, it's their forever.
> I shan't be the flaming anyone either on what they say about me.
> Call me what you will. :)
Funny, I see 3 more replies *after this one* by you.
--
In Pierre Trudeau, Canada has finally produced a Prime Minister worthy of
assassination.
-- John Diefenbaker
Barry Kearns
Is it painful? Reminds me of when I first became part of an adjective... =P
Andy Williams
> Malte Helmert wrote:
> > I'm sure we'd know a lot more about crowning and all that stuff if WADOMF
> > could display the piety level(s) of the PC.
> I can't think of how to get at this from inside the game, either.
It is certainly possible to detect, and change, piety
level in a save file, however, since it has been done,
albeit not with 1.0.0. Lee Morgan, posting under the
Vick...@aol.com email address, has done this. Lee
did extensive research on crowning gifts by changing
the piety level to generate become crowned PCs on the
second turn of the game.
Check Google groups for a thread entitled "Crowning
Gifts in g12. Long and spoily" started on May 18th,
1999.
I am not aware of the offset myself.
--
Andy Williams
ADOM Guidebook: http://users.rcn.com/andy.williams/adom.html
Todd Smith
<< snipping my own text >>
> I saw 00 00 00 *04*, the last byte was found by counting ahead 7 rows. I
> replaced with ff ff ff 7f, and I got a WoW with only 127 charges. Oh well,
> better than nothing, I suppose :)
The low-order byte of the wand-charge quantity should be 112 bytes
after the low-order byte of the item-id quantity. You need to start
with the 04 (where your 7f now is) and replace it and the next three
bytes with ff ff ff 7f. Try that and see if it works.
My apologies if I was unclear - and bigger apologies if I was actually
wrong!
Todd Smith
anon
from the manners, eloquence, and humility of those that post here, if think
we should start the planet over using ADOM players as the basis for life.
Todd Smith
<< snip >>
> If you Google search this group for a post with the words
> "Unidentified item appearance testing" in the subject in you
> should find a post where I mention I have a Terinyo with such
> a wand stored for testing (Amiga PPC 1.0.0 version).
>
> If you are really dedicated to ADOM research and have the time,
> read the post mentioned above and undertake the research I
> proposed in it, to determine information about unidentified
> appearances of all items in the game.
>
> That would certainly earn my respect (if that matters to you
> of course! :)) and probably quite a bit from other people
> here for providing information useful to everyone.
Thanks for pointing me the way to that post. I did a search on Google
to see if anything similar to the WoW crack had been done, but a
cursory examination (and it was very brief) didn't show me anything,
so I decided to go ahead with a post of my own.
I don't have that much spare time at the moment - work is very
time-consuming and I have several large personal projects which devour
(most of) the rest of my time. If I hadn't been able to figure out the
WoW cheat in about 20 minutes, then I probably would've moved on
presently.
Having said that, I'll try to figure out how much work the task would
be and how much time I can dedicate to it. Is this work already in
progress? If so, it would certainly be better for all engaged parties
to work together, lest we be duplicating the work.
Todd Smith
matija
the world is already being taken over. my spies and agents
are in top positions worldwide, waiting for my command.
i am god, lest you not forget that.
--
there is a cheer. the gnomes have learned a new way to say hooray. [-shpongle]
address is scrambled - remove SPAMISEVIL to reply
Stephen White
I have not personally done anything on it, for the same reason -
lack of time. I suppose if you came up with a good enough plan
people in this NG might be willing to help out with the actual
work. I would certainly be able to spend *some* time, just not
enough to do the whole thing on my own.
Benoit
I
> > replaced with ff ff ff 7f, and I got a WoW with only 127 charges. Oh
well,
> > better than nothing, I suppose :)
>
> The low-order byte of the wand-charge quantity should be 112 bytes
> after the low-order byte of the item-id quantity. You need to start
> with the 04 (where your 7f now is) and replace it and the next three
> bytes with ff ff ff 7f. Try that and see if it works.
I've been a long time playing on an amiga, and when I started editing, and
removing the CRC check, I realized that 4-digits numbers weren't written in
the same order on different systems.
By the way, there exists tables with the description of items, and also
quite complete description of the hero (But that is for saved games).
I don't remember where I have found it, but the newsgroup must know it.
Or I can open my amigabox ance again if you are interessed.