Reply to Re: D-Mod Security
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September 25th 2007, 01:39 PM
Merk
I'm not against a cheat or a nudge when stuck -- there are games in general I'd never have finished playing otherwise, and I have a big collection waiting to play next. It's not so much that I want to be sure people can never cheat -- there are just times where it's better if you can't.
Take a competition, for instance. If I recall correctly, we actually cancelled the Dinkanoid competition when we found out one or more people had cheated. The prize (or prizes -- I don't recall) was money. It was probably the wrong environment, since somehow, some way there would probably have been cheating even if it didn't involve the Dink engine at all.
In video games, the cheats are part of the game (unless, I guess, you're using something like a Game Genie). The developers leave stuff in there for testing purposes, and as easter eggs, and to give some exclusive content to magazines in exchange for coverage -- that type of thing. But you *ordinarily* wouldn't see somebody copy the game from the DVD, hack it, create a new DVD, and load it up again on their PlayStation or X-Box. The different with a D-Mod is that the developer tools are there and they're already familiar to the people who'd actually *play* the D-Mod. There's no hurdle, really, in cheating.
Which brings me around to my original reason for asking. I've been into Interactive Fiction for the last few years (Text Adventures, if you prefer -- my stuff's at http://www.sidneymerk.com). I've been looking at graphic adventures -- both the point-and-click kind, and things like Sierra or LucasArts/SCUMM games -- too. It occurrs to me that it's probably possible to make a traditional "adventure game" (no combat) using the Dink engine. In fact, maybe somebody has already done this? I don't know.
I'm really rusty on the D-Mod format, though. You can't create clickable hot-spots except on a title screen, right? I mean, could you have clickable buttons (i.e., change between "look" and "use" and so forth) while still allowing Dink (or the main character) to be controlled via the keyboard? My thinking is no, you can't, but I don't remember exactly.
Security, in this regard, is mainly to help curb people's natural urge to cheat. Granted, somebody would write a walkthrough and it's the same difference, but it's just kind of the principal of it. If there were secret areas and easter eggs and so forth, it'd be really easy to discover on Day 1 without some kind of security.
Anyway, I'm just brainstorming here. Just wondering if any of that had been addressed in 1.08, but it doesn't sound like it has. 1.08 can do more than 256-color graphics though, right?
Take a competition, for instance. If I recall correctly, we actually cancelled the Dinkanoid competition when we found out one or more people had cheated. The prize (or prizes -- I don't recall) was money. It was probably the wrong environment, since somehow, some way there would probably have been cheating even if it didn't involve the Dink engine at all.
In video games, the cheats are part of the game (unless, I guess, you're using something like a Game Genie). The developers leave stuff in there for testing purposes, and as easter eggs, and to give some exclusive content to magazines in exchange for coverage -- that type of thing. But you *ordinarily* wouldn't see somebody copy the game from the DVD, hack it, create a new DVD, and load it up again on their PlayStation or X-Box. The different with a D-Mod is that the developer tools are there and they're already familiar to the people who'd actually *play* the D-Mod. There's no hurdle, really, in cheating.
Which brings me around to my original reason for asking. I've been into Interactive Fiction for the last few years (Text Adventures, if you prefer -- my stuff's at http://www.sidneymerk.com). I've been looking at graphic adventures -- both the point-and-click kind, and things like Sierra or LucasArts/SCUMM games -- too. It occurrs to me that it's probably possible to make a traditional "adventure game" (no combat) using the Dink engine. In fact, maybe somebody has already done this? I don't know.
I'm really rusty on the D-Mod format, though. You can't create clickable hot-spots except on a title screen, right? I mean, could you have clickable buttons (i.e., change between "look" and "use" and so forth) while still allowing Dink (or the main character) to be controlled via the keyboard? My thinking is no, you can't, but I don't remember exactly.
Security, in this regard, is mainly to help curb people's natural urge to cheat. Granted, somebody would write a walkthrough and it's the same difference, but it's just kind of the principal of it. If there were secret areas and easter eggs and so forth, it'd be really easy to discover on Day 1 without some kind of security.
Anyway, I'm just brainstorming here. Just wondering if any of that had been addressed in 1.08, but it doesn't sound like it has. 1.08 can do more than 256-color graphics though, right?
