Cheating on Borderlands?
Okay, so it appears that someone decided this was off-topic when, in reality, it actually wasn't. So they decided to move this into its own topic whose title infers that I'm asking a question or trying to provide new information that isn't already known or something... While also implying that I can't capitalize my sentences properly (or don't realize that Borderlands has an S on the end). Feel free to just ignore this as a separate topic, since it really doesn't have any reason to be one.
People found a way to take their 360's hard drive and connect it to their PCs, then hex-edit their game saves.Originally Posted by BWS-1
The end result, is that people abused the nature of the game's item-generation system to make things like... shotguns that rapidly-fire a spread of several dozen rockets that each constantly shoot out more rockets as they're flying through the air. Or people who have several million points of shield strength (in a game where 3000 shield is considered really high).
There was even a point where someone managed to make a "shield" that was handled as "money" for being picked up (meaning it goes into every player's inventory, since everyone gets a copy of any money picked up), allowing for an item that essentially acted like a virus and spread itself into other players' inventories.
Almost all of such items have been patched out of the game, but it's still possible for people to hack "ideal" versions of items into their save files, giving them the best possible combinations of parts and materials that a given item can legitimately have. It's kind of a problem if you play in open games with other people.
There are some theoretical ways around problems like this that haven't really been tried before. One such deterrent could be the Pokemon approach to item data, where there's just so much data stored about any particular entry, that an amateurish hack-in could make the thing easily-detectable as a fake - a game could, for instance, create a log file containing exact drop data every time an item is generated into the game, and only save out those for the player's inventory when they save and exit the game. As soon as the player goes online, their characters' inventories are subject to checking the log file for any changes since the last time they logged on, and any items found to have an unsubstantial log file (could be insane things in there, like the exact number the loot-generation methods used to make that item spawn, which room it was spawned in, which layout in which the room appeared, which enemy dropped it, etc.) are promptly deleted, and the player is warned of having acquired an illegitimate item (as well as, of course, alerting the GM team with all of the relevant information).
Of course, no system is ever perfect, and it could be cracked eventually. A solid amount of security goes a long way though, especially when it comes to keeping out the amateur attempts.
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