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Rogue and Tetris ported to . . . . . Diablo II?!?! 127

Posted by Hemos from the gettin-it-on-with-the-golden-oldies dept.
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."
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Rogue and Tetris ported to . . . . . Diablo II?!?! More

Rogue and Tetris ported to . . . . . Diablo II?!?!

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  • What do you do when you've hacked the game to the point that it's not longer fun to play.

    • Re:i guess this answers the question.. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cei ( 107343 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:55AM (#4444926) Homepage Journal
      Sure. It's not even particularly new. (ok, hacking totally diffferent platform styles into an existing game MAY be...) but back in 1990 I was using the level editor that came with Arkanoid 2: Revenge of Doh to build self clearing boards of increasing complexity. Since all the angles in paddle/ball games are predictable, you could arrange bricks in such a fashion that releasing the initial ball from center, far right or far left would clear the board without further player input.

    • Re:i guess this answers the question.. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Hey, that's not a troll!

      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.
      • I agree, it seems that it might make sense that some of these MMORPG limit the hours a char can play. Or if they raise a level they have to sit out a day or so.
        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?
        • limiting hours of play in MMORPGs, while it would accomplish what youre talking about, would NEVER be implemented by any subscription games out there. even tho it pains me to say it, there are a lot of people out there who play 20 hours a DAY. and if they can't play like that, then they wont play at all. its just how it is. game services like everquest and asheron's call want as many players paying as possible, so turning a good portion of their player-base away with limiting would be a horrible move.
          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?
        • That would make it VERRY unfair.
          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--
      • i know this is a bit of a touchy subject, but Diablo II is NOT a MMORPG. 8 people per game isn't exactly massive. granted, the chatroom system where you get people together to play games has a lot of people in it. but the population of the actual game world with real people is what determines if a game is massively multiplayer or not. otherwise, you could call any yahoo game massively multiplayer. ever heard of massively multiplayer chess? =)
        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.
    • You try to solve it. Did anybody find a best TETRIS strategy? One that is statistically the best way to play, and that can give you the best move for each position.

      Is TETRIS solvable in this way at all?

    • I was under the impression that Dmitry Skylarov was the Diablo II hacking pioneer. I have no idea where I dreamed that up, but it sounds right.

      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.

    • So Diablo II has finally come around! I've been playing ProgressQuest [progressquest.com] for several months now, mostly because you don't have to deal with all the tedious "click-and-kill" that Diablo (and EverQuest, and DAoC, etc) saddle you with. Looks like those guys over at Blizzard have finally learned what Grumdrig has known for a while -- people just want to see their character grow!

  • It's appropriate (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PenguinLord ( 555013 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:49AM (#4444902)
    After all Diablo really is just a slick commercial version of rogue/nethack
    • more like slick commercial remix version of those old textmode(apogee??) shareware dungeon exploring action games.

      if they port nethack along with rogue i might want to get into d2 :).

      nethack with diablo graphics could get some serious attention..

  • Progress Quest (Score:5, Informative)

    by BabyDave ( 575083 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:51AM (#4444912)
    ... 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."
    Sounds like Progress Quest [progressquest.com]
    • The sad thing about Progress Quest is that it can be almost as addictive as Diablo (or similar games based on leveling up). But at the same time, it's funny as hell! "Oh look, I just got a +25 vicious biting poleaxe of destruction!!"
      • yeah, someone actually told me that a lot of the items in Progress Quest are from the Diablo series. maybe that subconsciously makes it more addicting for Diablo fans.

        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)
  • You end up playing a classic addictive game while (supposedly) playing a (not so) new online multiplayer game...

    Right... /me plays bsd-tetris

  • Progressquest (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Frank of Earth ( 126705 ) <<moc.snikrepf> <ta> <knarf>> on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:52AM (#4444916) Homepage Journal
    thus freeing the user from the tedium of playing with ... er ... for ... himself

    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)

    by e8johan ( 605347 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:55AM (#4444925) Homepage Journal
    Get this guy to work with your applications, and suddenly your word processor turns into an adventure game, you surface plots fill with small creatures fighting and, well, your internet browser turns into a pacman clone.

    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...

  • "Gem Game" (Score:5, Funny)

    by c.emmertfoster ( 577356 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:55AM (#4444927)
    In EverQuest, there's a built-in feature similar to this called the "gem game," which is what one plays while EQ itself becomes tedious. I would assume that this feature is used a great deal.
    • DAoC had a card game of some sort added a few patches ago. Don't remember exactly what card game it implements though. I never play it, too busy crafting. (Hitting a single key multiple times while watching TV...)
    • Asheron's Call used to have a hidden Pong game. I haven't played in a long while though, so I couldn't say if it's still in there.

      And if someone gets Diablo II to run Diablo I, I'm sold.

  • Disappointment (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Per Abrahamsen ( 1397 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:57AM (#4444932) Homepage
    I hoped it was classic rogue implement as an ordinary Diablo II quest.
    • Agreed - using Diablo II as a 3d frontend for Nethack or Rogue would be nice, right down to the 3d textured pound signs for walls and a view of your character as a giant ray-shaded "@" symbol.

      Pehaps another 3d fps would be more up to that level of customization.
      • Except that Diablo II's engine is entirely 2d. It uses a few translucency effects that 3d cards provide, but everything in the game is some 2d graphics that are strung together to seem animated. That's why the install for D2 is so big - you need to have space for all those non-realtime rendered graphics.
        Same goes with something like Fallout Tactics - another 2d only game with a gigantic install because of it.

  • Sounds like... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jubii ( 315611 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:58AM (#4444937) Homepage
    It's for people with really short attention spans who don't like to swap CD's. "Well I'm bored with Diablo... hey how 'bout Tetris" and then, "Stupid Tetris, I'll just play some Diablo."

    Now Doctor Mario! There's a game to port!

  • Trivial.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jukal ( 523582 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:58AM (#4444938) Journal
    Now, a real challenge would be to port Diablo II to run inside .... The original tetris. Or even better: port tetris to run inside the bricks - ohh, but that's already done [cnn.com].

    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

    • I find it both amusing and disturbing that as I read that article about a man playing with his phone, CNN.com put up a giant banner ad telling me how cool it would be to pay to get CNN headlines on my mobile device and essentially...play with my phone.

    • Yet more proof (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by Inoshiro ( 71693 )
      That rather than design aircraft to be resistant to things (interference, via proper shielding; terrorism, via a separate cockpit cabin), people feel the need to legislate problems away.

      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).
      • ...rather than design aircraft to be resistant to things (interference, via proper shielding; terrorism, via a separate cockpit cabin), people feel the need to legislate problems away.

        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.

        • If it's really so dangerous, what's to stop a terrorist from walking through customs with a normal cellphone, demonstrate that it is fact NOT a bomb, then leave it on when they get on the plane!

          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)

    by yerricde ( 125198 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:59AM (#4444939) Homepage Journal

    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.

  • Ultima Online (Score:2, Informative)

    by Alpha_Nerd ( 565637 )
    This stuff is nothing new... I use a program called easy uo to work my Ultima Online chars all the time. I can be working up magery and coding or working in Maya at the same time, in fact, I'm at school right now and I'm playing UO at home^^

    • Re:Ultima Online (Score:5, Funny)

      by jukal ( 523582 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @08:08AM (#4444973) Journal
      > I'm at school right now and I'm playing UO at home^^

      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). ;) ?

      • lol I've only gotten in trouble for unattended macroing, and it wasn't even a ban. But in case they are reading, I better not tell them that the char is on Atlantic shardm his name is Subterfuge and he is sitting on a boat in the middle of the ocean east of Moonglow... Wait, I shouldn't of said that =/

  • Golf Hack (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Perdo ( 151843 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @08:04AM (#4444960) Homepage Journal
    There was a flash based golf game that was the rage several years ago. I got tired of playing so I wrote a macro to play for me. After some script tweaking and 2 days of run time I had the top 10 scores sewn up out of over 3 million users.

    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.

    • 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)

        by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @09:52AM (#4445570) Homepage
        What if you really have to use the restroom?

        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.

        • 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.

        • "Using a bot written by someone else to play is even lamer. That just shows you have no skill in any manner."

          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. :)

          • Instagib with 5 or more nightmare bots on a locally hosted game. You'll be pretty slick with a rail in no time.
          • "Using a bot written by someone else to play is even lamer. That just shows you have no skill in any manner."

            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?
            • "So.. why is it OK to use a bot again?"

              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.

        • Much of the fun from playing games come from being able to trick your reptile brain into believing winning actually matters. If you are unable to do that, much of the fun from playing is beyond you.
          • Like wise, if you feel that winning actually matters, than much of some other fun of playing games is beyond you.
            • Perhaps there are two kinds of games: roleplaying games, and competitive games. Playing either kind of game as if it was the other kind will probably take the fun out of it for both you and your fellow gamers.

              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.
        • 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.

          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.
      • What if you really have to use the restroom? /group brb bio
      • 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...

        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.

    • Just curious. What macro system were you using to play the flash game? It seems like it'd take a good deal of effort, well probably more than an hour, to automate any reasonably complex application.

      • Re:Golf Hack (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Perdo ( 151843 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @09:09AM (#4445246) Homepage Journal
        Actually it took only a few seconds. I used key express to record mouse movements and button presses. I tweaked the timing by hand later. There is no point letting a bot play that is not perfect. Perfect timing is one of the few things that computers have when it comes to games. Well, they can also play perfectly for two days straight to compensate for the randomness inherent to the game.... without getting bored.

        The golf game was not even reasonably complex. It was just a driver distance game. Five commands: Begin the swing, Wait .975 seconds timed for cut/slice then click again, wait a second and "try again". A high score would inturrupt the macro with a fault, because an "enter you name" dialog box would appear instead of a "try again" button.

        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)

      by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:36AM (#4445854) Homepage
      • Using a bot to play a game is pretty lame.

      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)

    by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Monday October 14, 2002 @08:06AM (#4444969)
    Dark Reign II has an official add-on that lets you play a Tetris Clone called "Dark Rain" when you're in a warroom waiting for a match.
    *That* is cool.

  • Next in Game Hacking... (Score:5, Funny)

    by DragonMagic ( 170846 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @08:19AM (#4444999) Homepage
    Hacking the game hack in the game hack in the game!

    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)

    by CTRamsden ( 461135 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @08:26AM (#4445021)
    What we need next is a Pong hack.

    You can't beat Pong.
    • Try Possible Worlds [cjb.net].

      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!
  • I won't even try to find the point of all this (I'm still looking forward to Space Invaders in Morrowind though), but maybe should we stop taking everything that is OpenSource and stupid for great ideas ? :)

    Not trolling, just crawling in meaningless features to get something worth reading/playing ...
  • It's about time. Don't get me wrong, Diablo II is a great game, but as we all know, it gets a bit s l o w in places. Now I can entertain myself playing rogue while waiting for my character to get to the other side of the screen.

  • so, what language are these things in? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kisrael ( 134664 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @08:52AM (#4445155) Homepage
    So are these written in some clever macrolanguage, or are they external modules using some kind of plugin, or what? Obviously the games don't look very Diablo-y (save for the font), and it seems the programs are just using some kind of console feature as a text display.

    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)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14, 2002 @04:49PM (#4448976)
      Here's how it works. There is a clever hack called d2hackit. The way it works is very complicated but to put it short...

      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 /. computer geeks... you should take a look at some of the source code for d2hackit. Pure genious... definitely the route to take when you want to write some insanely cool hacks for your favorite games. However, it's not for the faint of heart!

  • What's the point!!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by nexusone ( 470558 ) <nexusone@bellsouth.net> on Monday October 14, 2002 @08:54AM (#4445168) Homepage
    What's the point of having a AI play your game for you.

    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...... :-)
    • well, my bot plays my chars while i'm at work, i suppose the same goes.... wait a minute....
      • No see, you obviously don't understand what's going on here. You work for the electricity and a nice computer, and the bot stays home and raises the characters. You are being used, and you don't even know it!

        I say break out of this abusive relationship before it gets nasty and goes to divorce.
    • Two words: Item hunt.

      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.

      • I dunno, my characters do just fine all the way through Hell without item runs. Sure, I usually have to party with a couple other characters to survive, but that's what makes the game fun anyway. Where item runs really become important is obtaining good Magic Find gear (like Gull) and good gear for Player vs Player (Twitchroe, big damage Lances/Swords, etc) Now, I only play D2 classic, so perhaps things are a bit different on X-Pac, but as it stands many of the Player Vs. Monster aspects of D2 are far too easy.
        • Since you only play classic (are there any players left ?) this doesnt apply. I referred to LoD - the X-Pack - and Blizzard made Hell much harder there. Multiply Immune Monsters, nerfed spells and skills, general 50% physical immunity of all Monsters, loads of physical immunes, you name it. This can only be compensated via the special Ueber-Items. A sorc, e.g., who hasn't at least +10 to all skills from items is mostly considered weak.
    • It'd be like watching an animatronic Real Doll make love to my girlfriend, and that doesn't strike me as such a bad thing.
  • Check out Freefall [ifarchive.org] here [ifarchive.org]. You'll also need an interpreter [ifarchive.org].

  • Speaking of Rogue... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by saddino ( 183491 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @12:01PM (#4446441)
    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."


    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... ;-)

  • We once turned Quake into a side-scrolling spaceship shooter (called Gunship). We got sick of dealing with it near the end of the project, but it was proof that given a sufficiently complex mod system, you can do just about anything with a game engine. It was never quite finished, as there were a few intractable bugs with the level files, unfortunately.

    We were the same guys who did Quake Superheroes and Quake Superheroes II, in case that means anything to any of you.
  • Then I would have something to do while I wait around for my peons to build my base...
    • Actually, if you play some custom games on battle.net, you'll find all sorts of weird hacks....all done with the supplied tools from Blizzard.

      Everything from RPGs to Monopoly..including many, many arenas, commando wars, tower defence..even capture the flag
  • Can WineX run Diablo II running Tetris and Nethack?

    You know, for when the Everquest servers go down.
  • Is there some way I can play Diablo inside of Tetris? Sometimes waiting on those blocks to drop can be a real bore.
  • Terrific! Will they be porting the Warrior and Sorcerer classes from the original game as well?

    And what will be the preferred 'unique' item for this 'Tetris' class?
  • Heh. the whole point of playing DII beyond a certain point is to get certain impossible to get items. As long as you could get your bot to pick them up, that sounds like a GREAT solution.

    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.
    • And since certain drop probabilites have changed since the game has been patched, those computations would probably be a little bit inaccurate too : /

    • 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.

  • One of the scripters for TRIBES built a hud that allowed you to play tetris during slow moments of the game. You can download it here [cowboyscripts.org] . I don't think it was actually used much, but if your team was seriously destroying the opponents, then your defense might not see much action. There were also p0rn huds (called "swim-suit huds") [cowboyscripts.org] which basically allowed you to setup a slide show in your hud area.
    • After I released my scripting pack for Tribes I started going a little nuts with the scripts to show what it could do (this was before most people were running it.) So I wrote a version of "Pong"; it's still available somewhere on my site at http://www.planetstarsiege.com/presto. Then Cowboy saw that, and outdid me with his awesome Tetris clone.

      At some point we were having more fun writing dumb little gadgets for Tribes than actually playing the game! :)
  • Unfortunately, most programmers like to play with new toys. I have many
    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...

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