Rogue and Tetris ported to . . . . . Diablo II?!?! 127
lord2800 writes "While Diablo II is nearing the end of it useable life-cycle, it would seem
that
Diablo II hacking is still alive and well. Diablo II hacking pioneer Syadasti
(Mike Gogulski), has recently ported and released both Rogue and Tetris for
Diablo II. Since Blizzard has not yet released their
upcoming patch, is it left up to the open source programmers to breathe some
life into modern games, with a little retro twist. A quote from the author:
Finally, an answer to the question "what the hell do I do while my bot is
running?" Play Tetris!
Grab yours today at from Otaku-Elite.
Requires bind.d2h and d2hackit. Self-documenting.
(tetris.d2h features an autopilot mode as well, so if you get as tired of
playing Tetris as you are of playing Diablo II, well just turn that puppy
on
and let the computer play for you)
Syadasti (Mike Gogulski) is also the Head of Research for the d2jsp
Development
Team which, among other things, has embedded a Javascript engine within
Diablo
II to facilitate the creation of AI "bots" which can play the game on their
own, "thus freeing the user from the tedium of playing with ... er ... for ...
himself," he says."
i guess this answers the question.. (Score:2, Troll)
Re:i guess this answers the question.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:i guess this answers the question.. (Score:1)
Re:i guess this answers the question.. (Score:2)
Re:i guess this answers the question.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Bot's & Macro's are the nail in the coffin of MMORPG's.
When you work your arse off getting your toon to a respectable level and then get owned in pk by 12 year old's who've macro'ed their toon to the maximum level...
Argh. Anyhow, the paren't isn't a troll, he's making a good point.
There's a *reason* why the dev's of Asheron's Call are adding a kick/ban for unattended combat macroing.
IT RUINS THE GAME.
Re:i guess this answers the question.. (Score:2)
It would seem this would help curb the ultra-powerful pk's players. Less people would use macro's and bot's. Therefore more interaction. Also people would be less likely to become addicted if they could only play their char 20 hours a month.
I know I won't play the EverQuests because of the time it takes to get a decent char. Any thoughts?
Re:i guess this answers the question.. (Score:2, Interesting)
what i would suggest is different servers for different style of players. have all the kids who play every waking moment of their lives on one server, heavy players on another, casual gamers on another...etc. and then ENFORCE it so that hardcore gamers wont go into casual servers and "0wn" everyone. like, if you're caught CONSISTANTLY logging more than x hours a week, you get booted up to a higher server, and if you use less, you have a choice to move down, that way if you take a week or whatever off, you can still run with the hardcore people if you so desire.
i dunno. sounds like a good idea to me. anyone else?
Re:i guess this answers the question.. (Score:1)
The ultra PK chars would still exist, just take longer to make. They would also sell for a lot on ebay, as theres a hard limit of time needed to make them. But you could then make 5-20 chars all at once, then sell them all when they get good (a few months).
But what about the new chars that cant ever beat them because of the time limit on lvling up?
As it is in diablo2exp i made a sorceress, rushed her through hell(beat the entire game by having someone stronger do all the needed quests), then leeched experience on cow games for a day. I was up to level 64 in two days, definitly enough to hold my own in a duel (sure a ww barb could take me out with one hit... if he can get to me while im teleporting around orbing him >:]).
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but the bots used usually arnt for leveling, its for finding magic items. For example, the most popular bots MephBot and Pindlebot just repetitivly kill one boss over and over again(Mephisto and Pindleskin)
Pindleskin does about 500 runs overnight, I havnt tried Mephbot yet.
In that time you do die occasionaly, so it never reall helps your exp any.
the best way to stop rambling is to hit subm--
Re:i guess this answers the question.. (Score:1)
but back to your point, yes, hacks, marcros and, in general, kids with too much time are not a good thing for multiplayer games. I have a post below talking about breaking up players by how often they play, which could possibly solve this and keep everyone happy. i think it would be a great idea for games like this as well as MMORPGs.
Click here. Click here. Click here. (Score:2)
Diablo 2 was fun to play? I thought it was all just click here, then here, then here.......
Well, so is Duck Hunt. Just put the light pen on a duck and click. I was able to make the score wrap past a million within the first seven days of owning my NES.
Like Whac-a-Mole? You'll love Hampsterdeath, part of the freepuzzlearena suite [rose-hulman.edu]. Except Hampsterdeath ends after three minutes and tells you what percent of the hamsters you hit.
Re:Click here. Click here. Click here. (Score:1)
The level bosses in Internet are really tough, though. The "AI bots" created to play Internet and collect all the stuff are the best, such as Google.
What's the best strategy to play TETRIS? (Score:1)
Is TETRIS solvable in this way at all?
Re:i guess this answers the question.. (Score:1)
And anyway, isn't Bioware gonna tear these guys a new one in the courts for decompiling or reverse-engineering their proprietary product?
Perhaps they will use the DMCA in their arguments, stating that [a portion of] their code was unchanged in the binary representation, and thus the unauthorized distribution of their hack is in violation of the DMCA.
After all, it seems the court system bows down in fear at the use of that acronym, just like Congress bows down for anything GWB wants to do/put into law.
Re:i guess this answers the question.. (Score:2)
It's appropriate (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's appropriate (Score:1)
if they port nethack along with rogue i might want to get into d2
nethack with diablo graphics could get some serious attention..
Re:It's appropriate (Score:1)
Re:It's appropriate (Score:1)
Progress Quest (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Progress Quest (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Progress Quest (Score:2)
i play PQ because it makes a mockery out of the countless hours i've spent on text-based MUDs. though there's really no substitute for beating up helpless forest critters...
w s s castmm rabbit get all corpse sac corpse s castmm rabbit get all corpse sac corpse e castmm rabbit flee recall sleep
--Siva (Expodrine realm)
Re:And when you get tired to play any game at all (Score:1)
So... (Score:1)
Right...
Progressquest (Score:4, Interesting)
Why bother playing at all? I gave up playing mud for Progress Quest [progressquest.com]
Nobody can beat my level 66 battle finch [progressquest.com]!
Employ him! (Score:5, Funny)
I'd say that this shows that todays game engines are pretty flexible, to say the least. How about hacking Quake into a Pacman clone, imagine your own mirror image: big, yellow and round with a mouth covering 50% of your body. And wouldn't it be nicer to get hunted by yellow, pink and blue ghosts instead of really scary corpses and zombies...
Re:Employ him! (Score:3, Informative)
Not that that would be too particularly innovative [mozdev.org].
Re:Employ him! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Employ him! (Score:1)
Ooh, the Descent engine would kick ass for PacMan I bet...
Re:Employ him! (Score:1)
"Gem Game" (Score:5, Funny)
Dark Age of Camelot (Score:2)
Re:"Gem Game" (Score:1)
And if someone gets Diablo II to run Diablo I, I'm sold.
Disappointment (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Disappointment (Score:3, Funny)
Pehaps another 3d fps would be more up to that level of customization.
Re:Disappointment (Score:1)
Same goes with something like Fallout Tactics - another 2d only game with a gigantic install because of it.
Sounds like... (Score:5, Funny)
Now Doctor Mario! There's a game to port!
I've ported Dr. Mario (Score:2)
Now Doctor Mario!
I've cloned Dr. Mario for the PC, and it's available as part of the freepuzzlearena suite available here [rose-hulman.edu].
Trivial.... (Score:4, Interesting)
LONDON, England -- A newlywed man has been jailed for four months after playing a game of Tetris on his mobile phone during the flight back from his honeymoon
Re:Trivial.... (Score:1)
Yet more proof (Score:1, Offtopic)
I doubt that cell phones interfere with planes. In fact, many pilots will use them on planes (mainly smaller ones) as a replacement for their radio if they break.
This doesn't even touch on how unhappy airline staff are to see a PalmPilot turned on (which emits the same RF as my digital camera that they don't care about).
Re:Yet more proof (Score:2)
What's cheaper?
Retrofitting your older models with comprehensive RF shielding, or asking passengers not to use RF emitters during operation of the equipment?
Redesigning your current product line to include comprehensive RF shielding, or asking passengers not to use RF emitters?
Retooling your fabs to build equipment with comprehensive RF shielding, or asking passengers not to use RF emitters?
Risking the possibility that your testing hasn't revealed a gap in your comprehensive RF shielding that can be exploited by a current or future RF emitter, or asking passengers not to use RF emitters?
Keep in mind that planes have been around a lot longer than passenger-operated RF emitters, so there was originally no problem to solve. For many years the problem could only be solved by legislation, because the post-PDA planes hadn't even been built yet.
[Disclaimers]
Yes, I'm aware of the theory that the whole question might be moot, since passenger-operated RF emitters may not actually pose a threat to aircraft electronics.
Yes, I'm aware of the theory that cell phones are banned because of some sort of deal between the phone companies and the airlines, rather than because of any threat cell phones might pose.
No, neither of these theories is relevant to the quote-and-response above.
Well, the thing is... (Score:2)
What's easier is not what's best. What's best will reduce the amount of non-terrorist passenger stress, and remove the possibly of abuse by real terrorists.
But the US continues to follow the path of least resistance, rather than imposing regulations that would actually increase airline saftey without abusing normal passengers.
Tetris for Diablo 2 might be ILLEGAL (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless they got permission from The Tetris Company LLC [tetris.com] to use the TETRIS mark, this mod may infringe on Elorg's registered trademark on TETRIS [uspto.gov] for video game software.
Working link to Tetris trademark (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Tetris for Diablo 2 might be ILLEGAL (Score:3, Offtopic)
tetraminoes (Score:1)
Ultima Online (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ultima Online (Score:5, Funny)
Uh, can you hear *ban*, RUSH home, UO moderators are closing your account right now. Ever heard that they kind of dislike unattended macroing (and that they might also be rather active slashdot readers). ;) ?
Re:Ultima Online (Score:1)
Golf Hack (Score:5, Insightful)
The game was pulled by the website hosting it.
Using a bot to play a game is pretty lame.
I was working on a CS bot at the time too. It never saw the light of day after I realized just how lame it was.
Play for fun. Hack AI to provide yourself challenge. Do not hack to play.
Potty break, or Core Wars (Score:3, Interesting)
Using a bot to play a game is pretty lame.
Not always. What if you really have to use the restroom? Slashdot previously covered an effort to have the game take over for you during a potty break [slashdot.org], which is better than pausing an online game.
I was working on a CS bot at the time too. It never saw the light of day after I realized just how lame it was.
Ever heard of Core Wars? That was one of the first popular bot vs. bot games. You wrote a program, and your opponent wrote a program, and both programs ran in the same memory space. First program to segfault loses.
Re:Potty break, or Core Wars (Score:4, Insightful)
So go to the restroom. Oh, you might lose? Yeah... so what? If you're playing on the stratospheric level where there's actually money involved that's one thing. Otherwise does it really matter?
And yes, I play online games. I know that there's other people playing as well and that in team games they're relying on you -- if you can't just quit the game to go AFK, then let them know you're AFK and they'll cover for you.
Ever heard of Core Wars? That was one of the first popular bot vs. bot games
Non sequitor. The OP was not playing a bot-vs-bot game, where the purpose is to write a better program than your adversary. It's a level playing field.
Writing a bot for a human played game may show you have programming skill, but actually using it to defeat other players is just lame. It doesn't prove you have any skill regarding the actual game. It just proves that you can code and are willing to cheat to make you look better.
Using a bot written by someone else to play is even lamer. That just shows you have no skill in any manner.
(tan) Deep Fritz and Pinocchio (Score:1)
Context: Diablo 2 hacks, which led to Diablo 2 bots, which led to use of a bot to improve a human player's character in a video game
Writing a bot for a human played game may show you have programming skill, but actually using it to defeat other players is just lame.
Tell that to Deep Fritz's coach.
It doesn't prove you have any skill regarding the actual game. It just proves that you can code and are willing to cheat to make you look better.
The way I see it, developing and using a bot makes a human player a lamer only if he misrepresents the nature of a bot or of an account on which he has used a bot. If you write a bot that can pass a significant subset of the Turing impersonation test and otherwise pass for a human player, and you name it Data (from ST:TNG) or David (from Spielberg's AI) or Pinocchio or something that makes it obvious that it's a bot, I don't see a big problem.
Re:Potty break, or Core Wars (Score:3, Interesting)
From the point of view of an outside observer, I can see this point. However, one of the things I used to do when playing Quake II: Weapons of Destruction was to hop on a server where at least a couple of bots were running around. It used to annoy the hell out of me when I found what was obviously a bot playing on a server (firing rail shots without facing you, etc), but once I started to get a bit better in the game, I began using them for practice. It's like playing against the best players in the game any time you like; after a while, that's the level on which you're playing. Once you become a difficult target for a bot, you become an nearly impossible target for a human. And if you've only got two or three chances at most to kill your target, you learn to fire accurately and quickly. The end result was that I could log on and cream some of the best players in the game at the time. It was even more fun when logging onto a server with 15 or 20 mediocre players and slaughtering all of them while they complain about how you must be a bot, because no one can move like that and fire that accurately.
Props to RAV, we were young and cocky, but hot damn we were good.
Re:Potty break, or Core Wars (Score:2)
Re:Potty break, or Core Wars (Score:2)
From the point of view of an outside observer, I can see this point. However, one of the things I used to do...
I don't see your point - you seem to be advocating using a bot (the word "however" above), but then you give an example of not using a bot.. (your example of using them as practice drones.. someone else was using them, you were not.)
So.. why is it OK to use a bot again?
Re:Potty break, or Core Wars (Score:2)
I never commented one way or another on my feelings about people using bots. My only comment relating to that was to say that when I first started, they were annoying, but they later became useful to me.
As far as whether or not I think it's ok to use a bot? On some things, I don't see a problem with it; such as first-person shooters (quake, UT, etc). Where I do see a problem with bots is when someone has invested significant time and energy to build up a particular character which can in some way be damaged by someone elses' use of a bot. An example here would be a MUD which allows pkilling (player killing). On a game like Quake, if you're killed by a bot, so what? You've lost nothing, just press 'fire' and you'll respawn. The only exception there would be tournament play, or clan matchs; both of which generally have very strong bot detection in place anyway, though I would say it's wrong to use a bot in that instance. Basically, in the context in which I was playing, I can see no real fault with the use of bots, unless they're making the game somehow unplayable for everyone else (spamming non-stop nukes, lagging the server, etc). In all honesty, most bots are really no different from a very good player. If you assume that no bots should be allowed to be used in a game like Quake, then you should also assume that no especially good players should be allowed either. My reasoning is that from the perspective of the other players in the game, there is no difference between a very good player and a bot. I, myself, along with many other good players I knew personally, were often accused of being bots, when in fact we were just talented and well-practiced. Whether it was me, or someone's bot slaughtering 20 mediocre players on a server made no difference to those playing, except that I usually cracked jokes throughout the game. On the other hand, as I sit here remembering how I was when I first started playing, I can understand how someone might think me a bot when they've jumped from a very high spot and get railed on their way down to the floor at a high rate of speed, especially at an odd angle.
On a lighter note, I actually considered writing a bot to practice against once. The reason was that I'd never seen a bot that made any significant use of the 'hook', while I and some others I played against made frequent use of it. The result was that when playing against bots on a server, I could practice foot-on-foot shots, hook-on-foot shots (me using the hook), but not hook-on-hook shots (by far the most difficult). My only real practice for those was against friends, which left me at less of an advantage. My saving grace was that very few people used the hook as much as I did - I actually used the hook more than walking for movement; the obvious advantages being less predictable movement, speed, momentum, and direction.
If you don't care about winning, don't play (Score:2)
Re:If you don't care about winning, don't play (Score:1)
Re:If you don't care about winning, don't play (Score:2)
I hate playing an RPG, and suddenly finding myself in competition with a munchkin who can't get over the fact that his character is "cooler" than mine.
I also hate playing a fighting game and finding myself bitched at for being "cheap", because my opponent is a scrub who insists on imposing personal rules on his gameplay and mine, rather than trying to master the available techniques and outwit me.
My skill level and enjoyment went up in VF4 because my best friend never once complained about my cheap tactics. He just kept coming back until he discovered the devastating counterattacks. Nowadays, I never rely on cheap tactics, because I get my ass handed to me if I do. Playing against a truly competitive opponent becomes a mental game that is enjoyable in ways that noncompetitive gamers will never comprehend.
Re:Potty break, or Core Wars (Score:1)
What about Deep Fritz or Deep Blue, or even the bots in first-person shooters programmed by the game manufacturers themselves? Even the monsters in Diablo could be defined as bots. I would not say using these bots to defeat human players in a human played game is lame (granted I don't think you meant to say this). If you're upfront about using a bot and your opponent agrees to the bot use, then it's definitely OK, possibly not lame, and possibly an interesting battle between human and computer. On the other hand, if you're tricking your opponent into thinking a human is at the controls, that's when it's lame.
Re:Potty break, or Core Wars (Score:2)
Re:Potty break, or Core Wars (Score:2)
Saying Core Wars is about two bots is like saying that a debate is about two speeches. The real contest is between two human minds, in a specially defined arena.
Others have already pointed out that the current discussion is about scripted play vs. realtime play, and how people who signed up for realtime play are unpleasantly surprised to discover that they're at a disadvantage vs. scripted players. Games that allow for both modes of play are probably a Bad Thing.
Re:Golf Hack (Score:1)
Re:Golf Hack (Score:5, Interesting)
The golf game was not even reasonably complex. It was just a driver distance game. Five commands: Begin the swing, Wait
It took some coder a week to code and I broke it in a few seconds. Made me feel like an utter piece of crap. It would have been neat to have just one high score up there. But I had all ten, was playing 4 games every second with 12 instances running. What I did was DOS the game out of existance. Inelligant and Ignorant.
Re:Golf Hack (Score:4, Insightful)
Writing a game that a bot can beat a human at is pretty lame. I spent years hacking a netrek [netrek.org] cyborg/bot client, and finally came to the conclusion that I was, by and large, wasting my time. Info features were useful, but as for getting it to fly and aim weapons, it got smacked by clued human players nearly every time, because the mechanics of combat meant that you had to beat the opponent, not beat the game engine. It shocks me just how badly designed most commercial game are in this respect: they give too much info to clients, they trust clients too much, and they allow dreadful behaviour like "Make an immediate turn to point right at opponent X, and fire the railgun. Gib!" Tsk tsk.
That's been done better: Dark Rain (Score:5, Interesting)
*That* is cool.
Next in Game Hacking... (Score:5, Funny)
Tired of Tetris in Diablo II? Play NetHack in Tetris in Diablo II!
Well, it would be an interesting thought, how far into a game can you hack before it becomes useless to do so?
Pong (Score:3, Funny)
You can't beat Pong.
Re:Pong (Score:1)
If you're tired shooting aliens, you can play pong on your cockpit display. What I did most of the time, since my alienshootingskills are limited. Well, I could have played standalone Pong, but it's much cooler if you have these damn cool 3D graphics in the background!
Useless therefore ... great ? (Score:1)
Not trolling, just crawling in meaningless features to get something worth reading/playing
Thank God! (Score:2)
so, what language are these things in? (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess my Diablo experience is pretty limited anyway, all I remember is cow-orkers playing it in '97 and the one shopkeeper who'd say "wot kin I DEWWWW fer ya?"
Re:so, what language are these things in? (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Gain access to the running diablo ii process
2) replace the diablo 2 window's message handler with a dumby one to trick diablo ii into loading some assembly code.
3) The assembly code loads up a dll and therefore causes the dllmain function to be executed.
That's how the loader works.
Now, let's get an idea of how d2hackit works.
1) Patches variuos diablo ii functions so that it can intercept them and then run custom code. (replace an assembly call with a jmp call to your own code, execute... have another jmp call return it back to the diablo code.
2) Locates various functions for send messages, packets, etc... (makes them available so that the d2hackit can print messages to the user or spoof packets to the battlenet servers)
3) Creates a sort of command line system using the text message prompt.
4) implements various commands for loading up other custom dynamic libraries
Okay, now that you have an idea of how the hack actually inserts itself into the diablo runtime, let's evaluate what it took to get this example to work.
1) Locate the Diablo II call for printing text to the D3D context.
2) Port a text based tetris game to the windows api and modify it to print the text to the diablo ii window instead of to a terminal.
To all you
What's the point!!! (Score:4, Funny)
To me sort of like having someone else make love to your girl friend for you, while you watch!
Then again some of you may enjoy that......
Re:What's the point!!! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What's the point!!! (Score:1)
I say break out of this abusive relationship before it gets nasty and goes to divorce.
Re:What's the point!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Some people run bots that kill the same highlevel monster over and over and over, and looks for valuable items dropped there. Doing that yourself is tedious and boring (its called boss runs) but its the only way to get hold of the items you need to survive in the higher levels. So people either do Boss runs by hand (ultra boring, and you never stand the chance to even get close to what the bots make), run bots doing it for them, use cheating and hacking tools to dupe or steal their way into the item economy or buy stuff on ebay and friends, spending real dolares (or euros).
All 4 ways suck.
And Blizzard, in its eternal wisdom, has announced to make the game even harder to beat, thus making the pressure to get good items even more urgent.
Dont believe those assholes claiming DiabloII is "too easy" or such. People who say that are those who already have all the über items.
There is a kind of glass ceiling in the game. If you dont have the right items, you never stand a chance to get to a place where you might find them.
I've tried for months to break through that ceiling while doing neither runs nor the other methods. No friggin chance in hell.
Re:What's the point!!! (Score:1)
Re:What's the point!!! (Score:2)
Only if the someone is mechanical (Score:1)
Where no piece has fallen before... (Score:1)
Speaking of Rogue... (Score:3, Interesting)
Interestingly, Rogue also spawned the first (AFAIK) game playing bot, Rog-O-Matic [princeton.edu] back in 1984. In a way, it really ruined the game, as top ten lists on mainframes all over began to fill up with "Rog-O-Matic" entries. However, watching it play (ultrafast) was mesmerizing.
I don't think it took advantage of the infamous arrow bug though...
Tetris? Try Gradius! (Score:2)
We were the same guys who did Quake Superheroes and Quake Superheroes II, in case that means anything to any of you.
Now if only this could be adapted to WC3 (Score:1)
Re:Now if only this could be adapted to WC3 (Score:2)
Everything from RPGs to Monopoly..including many, many arenas, commando wars, tower defence..even capture the flag
But... (Score:1)
You know, for when the Everquest servers go down.
Yes, but.... (Score:2)
Rogue ported to Diablo II (Score:2)
And what will be the preferred 'unique' item for this 'Tetris' class?
Diablo II (Score:1)
I worked out how long it would take to get them all, based on the released drop probabilities, and that was the last thing I ever did with the game. =P
I'd be interested if anyone had any hard data, but, unless you're clustering 50 or 60 computers, and have been running them non-stop since LoD came out, I doubt any exists.
Re:Diablo II (Score:1)
Re:Diablo II (Score:1)
That's why you have the Player2Player trade/sale abilities
Every time I've gotten a set item I take it to the channel they've got set up for trading set items and say "Hey, I've got a $SET_ITEM, who wants it?"
Better yet, don't even identify it. Sure, you may not be able to get as high a price, but you're guaranteed to have more people interested in buying/trading it.
The P2P trading has resulted in some pretty odd things. I've seen people running "Eastern Imports" and bringing back high quality weapons/armor to resell to newbies in the earlier episodes. Most of the commerce is conducted in gems, though. Waypoint tradings was pretty popular the last time I played (generally either for free or for Town Portal scrolls)
Anyway, there are thousands of people playing D2 and if they didn't do something stupid like sell set items to the NPCs you'd see a lot of folks with full sets.
This was done for TRIBES long ago (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This was done for TRIBES long ago (Score:1)
At some point we were having more fun writing dumb little gadgets for Tribes than actually playing the game!
Last Post! (Score:1)
friends who, immediately upon buying a snakebite kit, would be tempted to
throw the first person they see to the ground, tie the tourniquet on him,
slash him with the knife, and apply suction to the wound.
-- Jon Bentley
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Re:Commander Keen (Score:1)