Ambrosia Software Web Board: To boldly go... - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Well, how'd I do it? As you can see, My party is outside the Costal temple with the Hydra, but in a "unaccessable" area. The screenshot is not fake, and no "Ace!" or "Pandora's box" was used. Your comments, please. If you are in doubt as to it's authenticity, I could post the saved game.


------------------
It needs more detail.
(Famous Last Words #175)


[This message has been edited by Bryce (edited 10-23-2001).]

Um, how did you get in the "unaccessable"area? Bug?

------------------
Your problem,idiotSavant, is that you go through life thinking everyone likes potatoes. Well,they don't. They like asparagus.
-friend

[This message has been edited by idiotSavant (edited 10-23-2001).]

IdiotSavant, I'm going to hold off on an answer until I get a few more replies. Nothing personal. I'll tell you one thing, though - The people that think they see a secret room in Landking hall with a globe and a dresser are right... *Cryptic Grin*

-Bryce

------------------
It needs more detail.
(Famous Last Words #175)

Quote

It's a secret room, how do you get in?


------------------
Ring Of Recharge
My Site [url="http://"http://evilzz.net/mrbrian/"]http://evilzz.net/mrbrian/[/url]
Sign up for the Cythera Webring at:Yahoo Webring

Even if this were done by hacking, it would be a pretty big accomplishment. You've got me pretty curious.

------------------
Slayer's guide to Cythera:
[url="http://"http://www.macclassics.com/cythera/cythera.htm"]http://www.macclassi...era/cythera.htm[/url]

Slayer, Your on the right track... I'm still perfecting the art, though. I'll keep practicing, by tomarrow I ought to have the techniuqe down - right now I somtimes end up inside walls or transport poor Hector instead. Here, have a screenshot of the "white room":



The reason there is no ball is because I alredy took it. Sorry, I should have taken the picture sooner.
- Tomarrow: The low-down on the black area behind the Two-Tailed Rat! (Don't get your hopes up...)

------------------
It needs more detail.
(Famous Last Words #175)

[This message has been edited by Bryce (edited 10-23-2001).]

Okay... I won't explain the exact procedure (Beyond my communications skills. Maybe later...), but the transportation is accomplished through "Hacking". I'm using two major programs - HexEdit, for editing the saved games, and ResCompare, for tracking down the ever-moving bytes's of data that control the player's (and his/her party's) position.

At first, I began hacking Cythera saved games for the fun of it. I gave myself enough obsidian to enhance Hector's sword, tons of ungent, that sort of thing. But I got bored with this, after all, if you have 255 of everything, where's the fun? I would have probobly lost intrest had it not occured to me that perhaps it was possable to move the player. Early efforts were frustrated by my stupid thinking that just one byte (representing a variable) would be used for each axis, (X or Y, horizontal or Vertical). This resulted in the player appearing to be somwhere, but when you moved you would return to near your origanal position. Furtermore, for the task of using an item, the player was considered to be in the old position. After coming SO close to geting into the tyrant's tomb, but then being told that I was to far away to use the lever I thought I was standing next to, I almost gave up. However, decided to give it one more shot. Outside Phyx, my first 100% sucsessful transport occured, across the river Tiyrnth. Fresh with renewed morale, I practiced several more times. Not all sucsessful, though. Once, I was trying to get inside the eight degree hall in the Magisterium, and I ended up in one of the vineyards, 'miles' away, with no armor , wepions, or any kind of items. Ouch. Mostly I just got stuck in walls. I went to the Scyia temple to see what was on the other side of the water. I got there and saw the 'dimmed' area, denoteing the end of the biulding, and didn't try. On my way out, I made an attempt at transporting horizontaly. That's the first screen shot. Anyway, I'm probobly boring you, so I'll get to the point:
Last night and early today I practiced teleporting. I only rarly get stuck in walls. I'm getting more experiance in guessing which bytes are the coordanates, ect. Mind you, I don't have it mastered yet, and I don't claim to understand why the Player graphic and his/her position need two varibles, but I won't complain. (Much)

Since a quick review of the board's history shows that Cythera is ripe with inaccesable areas, I make the following proposal:

Ahem...

Honorable members of the board, Moderators, distingushed guests,
I propose a grand mission of exploration. To travel to every corner of Cythera, every hidden place. To unlock the secrets of the ages, and to BOLDLY GO WERE NO CYTHERIANS HAVE GONE BEFORE!


Would anyone like to second that motion?
I await your replies.
-Bryce

------------------
It needs more detail.
(Famous Last Words #175)

[This message has been edited by Bryce (edited 10-24-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Bryce (edited 10-24-2001).]

maybe if you give the info on the bytes of powsition to a programmer, they could produce a program that does the hack for you,

------------------
How to use a tooth pick: Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, bkunt end next to gun. use gentle in-out motion.
This message brought to you by the Campaign to Save the Humans. We bid you farewell

I have a question: when you got into any of these previously inaccesable places, have you been able to backtrack and figure out how to get there without cheating?

------------------
I am no one, and I am everyone. But most importantly, I am
The One And Only:
~Theo Nean Donly~

Theo, the only time I was able to get back in without 'cheating' was in the tyrant's tomb, only because a lever on the other side opened the door. When I got there I just pulled the lever and allowed the rest of my party to enter.

Tycho, that's a great idea, but there is a problem. The addresses are not static. They are contained about the middle of the file, and whenever the player writes in his/her journal, gets an item, or gains a party member, among other things, the lenghth of the file changes. While the adresses normaly stay in roughly the same place, roughly isn't good enough for a computer. The program would have to look at all the changed variables, and look for a pattern, like I do. (Or it could read and understand the saved game file, but that only relly works if you're Glenn Andreas.)

However, I've tracked down one static address, that is early enough in the file that it dosn't seem to move.
000008EC - this and nearby adresses control the time of day.

Thanks for your input.
-Bryce


------------------
It needs more detail.
(Famous Last Words #175)

That's pretty darn cool.

About the addresses not being static -- wouldn't the addresses always be the same if you always worked off the same saved game file? In other words, couldn't you make a backup of your current file, then always go back to the backup since you would know where the location addresses would be?

Great work...now I'm thinking of all the different places you can go -- on the other side of barricades (like the portcullis in the sewers of Cademia where there's a river on the other side), the tops of the mountains, inaccessible islands...There's got to be some easter egg place somewhere in there...

------------------
Mike Lee (Firebird)

Quote

One other thing...is there a way to get to this particular secret room without the hack? There's got to be something with the ethereal void and those things you light up in the magically locked door behind Alaric's lab (with the walk-thru wall in the corner).

------------------
Mike Lee (Firebird)

I think the hack is the only way to get into the Landking hall area. I walked around there quite a ways, as you can see on the map, and found a whole 'backstage' area. There was a dead guy, some carpet, and other, useless stuff. The only interesting thing I found was the Blue Crystal Globe, Which, by the way, behaves just like the regular Blue Crystal Globe. I'm inclined to belive that the 'Secret room' is more error than easter egg. The dresser was empty, as well

A while ago the possibilty that the brazers are connected to the room was disscused, and no connection was found. Still, sometime I'm going to have to teleport into the Etheral Void and see what happens.
Oh, yeah, before I forget : The black area behind the Two-Tailed Rat in Cadmia is empty, with no secret passages.

------------------
It needs more detail.
(Famous Last Words #175)

[This message has been edited by Bryce (edited 10-24-2001).]

THIS JUST IN...
(Sorry for the caps, I couldn't resist)

The Cadmia Sewer river exploration, sugjested by Firebird.
Sadly, the map of the area termainates just about 10 tiles away from the portcullis. I went out there, and found only water. Oh, well. I'm going to explore more in the sewers. I wonder why there are no... 'debris' floating in it... Maybe that's a good thing. :-)


UPDATE - Nothing in the sewers. I'm disapointed.

------------------
It needs more detail.
(Famous Last Words #175)

[This message has been edited by Bryce (edited 10-24-2001).]

Clever. Very Clever.

I suggest you put something like this on your site Slayer, with a step by step guide dictated to you by Bryce, and a link to download HexEdit.

------------------
-TheDarkDragon
Visit #cythera on IRC for all you Cythera/IRC fans. (You probably should be able to figure that out.)

DarkDragon, this is in the works. I'm writing the guide now, and Slayer has agreed to post it on his page. I found links to HexEdit and ResCompare and will include them. The Guide should be finished by Wensday, perhaps sooner.
-Bryce

------------------
I'll just put a random number at 0008EC and see what happens.
(Famous Last Words #-32767)

Hehe, sweet work, Bryce.

------------------
Check out Aviary Productions' news and info.
You can find the latest version of Fortress of Die Nacht at:
[url="http://"http://www.aviaryproductions.f2s.com/downloads.html"]www.aviaryproductions.f2s.com/downloads.html[/url]

is the posistion bytes, shorts, longs, and what keep tack of what "town" your in?

------------------
How to use a tooth pick: Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, bkunt end next to gun. use gentle in-out motion.
This message brought to you by the Campaign to Save the Humans. We bid you farewell

Sorry for the delayed response, I've been busy.
Tycho, I'm not sure how it keeps track of what area you are in, I do know that the file changes length when you change zones, which makes things hard.
However, the posibiltys of all kinds of amazing things should be opening up when the hacking guide is realeased Thursday on Slayer's site. Maybe someone will discover how to transport between zones - Kosha to Cadmia in .3 seconds!
-Bryce

------------------
I'll just put a random number at 0008EC and see what happens.
(Famous Last Words #-32767)

if the position of the location keeps changing, the program must have a way to keep trck of it. It must have like an Identifer or something to mark the positions of your position (that sound cool ) try to find something like that if you haven;t already

------------------
How to use a tooth pick: Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, bkunt end next to gun. use gentle in-out motion.
This message brought to you by the Campaign to Save the Humans. We bid you farewell

[This message has been edited by Tycho Maudd (edited 11-01-2001).]

Tycho, that's probobly what Cythera does. As for the prospect of us doing it, it seems slim unless Glenn Andreas explains what to look for. I'll try to look into the matter, though.

------------------
I'll just put a random number at 0008EC and see what happens.
(Famous Last Words #-32767)

hi thats an awsome thing there i think you should try to go 100 spaces out to sea and see what happens. mabte youll go around the cytherian world and back

------------------
CATHY
JASON
ANDREW BAY
and for those who dont know about that dont ask

Sorry, Sephiroth, but all my reaserch so far points to the concept that the cythera world dosn't wrap around If you wan't to try it, though, go to Slayer's site. Click the little green book with an apple on it.

------------------
I'll just put a random number at 0008EC and see what happens.
(Famous Last Words #-32767)
 
Where do you want to teleport today?