07-15-2003, 07:24 PM
According to Jarulf's Guide:
"There exist a bug that will cause any shrine with a random effect to at times not be random and instead have a specific result. This bug is most noticeable in the first games you play without exiting Diablo completely (decreasing in probability for each dungeon level you enter, including reentering of a level). For the most time, the shrines will be random however. The end effect of
the bug is that the randomness of those shrines favor a certain result. The favored results are summarized in the table below."
And as far as the Hidden Shrine is concerned:
"Hidden Shrine--Shield(left hand slot) losing durability"
Now, also according to Jarulf (this from the DSFCommunity site):
"When you start a program all of its memory space will typically be set to all 0, when you enter the first level, and create a shrine but forgot to write a specific value to its seed, it will thus get a value 0 for the seed. Now, when you leave the level, it and the shrine will be stored away. The next level be be
generated overwriting whatever data existed from the first level. Since the shrine code does not write ANY value to the seed, it will remain whatever it was on the previous level. However, the slot occupied by a shrine on level 2, might have been some other object on level 1, like a chest, if so, the value would no longer be the 0, but a true random seed that was correctly assigned to the chest and we will have a random shrine. If we are "unlucky" (depending on how we look at it), the shrine might occupy a slot that was alos a shrine on the previous level, or perhaps some object with no random effect and thus does not need a seed, we can then end up with a 0 again.
The more levels we enter, the higher are the chances that the slot we will put a shrine in will have had some object that has had a seed initialized correctly.
By the way, I don't think the game store away the actual seeds for each shrine, thus entering level 1, then 2, then 3 and then comming back to level 1 might actually have randomized the shrine there which was not randomized the first time. note that by 1, 2 and 3 I don't mean the 3 first levels of church but rather the 3 dungeon levels you first visit."
Now it seems to me that this theory should be able to be tested; the idea that âThe more levels we enter, the higher are the chances that the slot we will put a shrine in will have had some object that has had a seed initialized correctly.â
To this end, to test to see if entering further levels changed the Hidden Shrine seed, I created a Single Player mage, levelled him to a point where he could purchase the Teleport spell, then created new games, over and over, until a Hidden Shrine was located on dlevel One. Then the game would be saved, loaded, and the mage wearing a weapon, shield, hat, and armor,
would touch the shrine. The affected item would be noted. The game would be reloaded to the point just before the mage touched the shrine, and the item that _was_ hit the previous time was removed. Then the shrine was touched again, and the item affected noted. Then the game was reloaded and BOTH the prior items that were affected by the Hidden Shrine were removed, and then the Shrine was touched one final time, and the item affected noted, and the entire order of items affected noted.
By doing this I discovered that this Hidden Shrine on dlevel one was hitting items in the following order:
Left slot(shield), Hat, Right slot, Armor.
Interesting. So this Shrine must somehow have been properly randomly "initialized" in that it didnât use the L-A-R-H standard.
Now reload the game to the time prior to the Hidden Shrine being touched at all.
Went and found the stairs to dlevel two and entered dlevel two.
Returned to level one. Saved game just before testing the Shrine again.
Ran through the shrine test again.
Afterwards, reloaded the game and go from dlevel two to dlevel three and then returned to level one. Ran through the shrine test again.
Repeated until all 16 levels had been entered, and the Hidden Shrine revisited after each level was entered.
Results:
Dlevel Shrine effect
1 L-H-R-A
2 L-H-R-A
3 L-H-R-A
4 L-H-R-A
5 L-H-R-A
6 L-H-R-A
7 L-H-R-A
8 L-H-R-A
9 L-H-R-A
10 L-H-R-A
11 L-H-R-A
12 L-H-R-A
13 L-H-R-A
14 L-H-R-A
15 L-H-R-A
LAZ RM L-H-R-A
16 L-H-R-A
For every single dungeon level I entered, there seemed to be no effect on the order in which the Hidden Shrine affected items. Remember too that I visited each dlevel deeper than dlevel two TWICE before hitting the shrine: i.e., went to 2, exited 2, tested the shrine, went BACK to 2 a SECOND time, then went to 3, exited 3, tested the shrine, went BACK to 3 a SECOND time, etc.
Also, I thought that inventory setup might somehow affect the seed of the Shrine, so every time I tested it I re-arranged items in my inventory so that nothing was ever exactly the same twice. I moved items from place to place, or simply dropped items out of the inventory altogether. Or BOTH.
On all the other dungeon levels I was having to fight my way to find the stairs down, so monsters were being encountered and chests were being opened on every level -- to see if this was to have any effect on the seed initialization/randomization of the Hidden Shrine on dlvl one.
I also used Shrines such as Quiet and Abandoned Shrines that were encountered in deeper levels of the dungeon.
SUMMARY OF THE TEST
Data suggests that the Shrine is seeded/initialized ONCE and ONE TIME ONLY in Single Player Diablo.
Data suggests that this initialization is done at the GAME START.
Data also indicates that in Single Player Diablo visiting other dungeon levels, opening chests, battling monsters, re-arranging inventory, touching other Shrines, NONE of these things can CHANGE the order in which a Hidden Shrine affects your items.
This would suggest that for those persons trying to avoid bug exploitation and "randomize" the Hidden Shrine effect by entering further dungeon levels before touching the shrine, this doesn't work for Single Player Diablo. By extension, perhaps then not in Multiplayer either.
The question on whether it also does not work for Multiplayer Diablo could be tested by doing this exact same test but using a clockfreeze program and locating a Hidden Shrine on dlvl One.
A clockfreeze program would also be able to check on whether the INITIAL seed and FURTHER seeds are affected by entering multiple dungeon levels.
Now I'm not exactly sure WHAT sets the initial Hidden Shrine seed, but whatever it is, it seems that in Single Player (and thus, perhaps Multiplayer also), once a Shrine is seeded/initialized a single time at the game start THAT'S IT! Entering further dungeon levels (and opening chests and breaking barrels and using Shrines) seems to have NO EFFECT on the order of items that the Hidden Shrine hits.
Attika
PS I have this Single player game saved, and all levels still have active monsters, barrels, and chests (except for the Lair of the Vile Betrayer[cleared] and of course no barrels/chests on sixteen). If you have suggestions for further testing trying to affect the results of the Hidden Shrine, I'd be willing to try them.
"There exist a bug that will cause any shrine with a random effect to at times not be random and instead have a specific result. This bug is most noticeable in the first games you play without exiting Diablo completely (decreasing in probability for each dungeon level you enter, including reentering of a level). For the most time, the shrines will be random however. The end effect of
the bug is that the randomness of those shrines favor a certain result. The favored results are summarized in the table below."
And as far as the Hidden Shrine is concerned:
"Hidden Shrine--Shield(left hand slot) losing durability"
Now, also according to Jarulf (this from the DSFCommunity site):
"When you start a program all of its memory space will typically be set to all 0, when you enter the first level, and create a shrine but forgot to write a specific value to its seed, it will thus get a value 0 for the seed. Now, when you leave the level, it and the shrine will be stored away. The next level be be
generated overwriting whatever data existed from the first level. Since the shrine code does not write ANY value to the seed, it will remain whatever it was on the previous level. However, the slot occupied by a shrine on level 2, might have been some other object on level 1, like a chest, if so, the value would no longer be the 0, but a true random seed that was correctly assigned to the chest and we will have a random shrine. If we are "unlucky" (depending on how we look at it), the shrine might occupy a slot that was alos a shrine on the previous level, or perhaps some object with no random effect and thus does not need a seed, we can then end up with a 0 again.
The more levels we enter, the higher are the chances that the slot we will put a shrine in will have had some object that has had a seed initialized correctly.
By the way, I don't think the game store away the actual seeds for each shrine, thus entering level 1, then 2, then 3 and then comming back to level 1 might actually have randomized the shrine there which was not randomized the first time. note that by 1, 2 and 3 I don't mean the 3 first levels of church but rather the 3 dungeon levels you first visit."
Now it seems to me that this theory should be able to be tested; the idea that âThe more levels we enter, the higher are the chances that the slot we will put a shrine in will have had some object that has had a seed initialized correctly.â
To this end, to test to see if entering further levels changed the Hidden Shrine seed, I created a Single Player mage, levelled him to a point where he could purchase the Teleport spell, then created new games, over and over, until a Hidden Shrine was located on dlevel One. Then the game would be saved, loaded, and the mage wearing a weapon, shield, hat, and armor,
would touch the shrine. The affected item would be noted. The game would be reloaded to the point just before the mage touched the shrine, and the item that _was_ hit the previous time was removed. Then the shrine was touched again, and the item affected noted. Then the game was reloaded and BOTH the prior items that were affected by the Hidden Shrine were removed, and then the Shrine was touched one final time, and the item affected noted, and the entire order of items affected noted.
By doing this I discovered that this Hidden Shrine on dlevel one was hitting items in the following order:
Left slot(shield), Hat, Right slot, Armor.
Interesting. So this Shrine must somehow have been properly randomly "initialized" in that it didnât use the L-A-R-H standard.
Now reload the game to the time prior to the Hidden Shrine being touched at all.
Went and found the stairs to dlevel two and entered dlevel two.
Returned to level one. Saved game just before testing the Shrine again.
Ran through the shrine test again.
Afterwards, reloaded the game and go from dlevel two to dlevel three and then returned to level one. Ran through the shrine test again.
Repeated until all 16 levels had been entered, and the Hidden Shrine revisited after each level was entered.
Results:
Dlevel Shrine effect
1 L-H-R-A
2 L-H-R-A
3 L-H-R-A
4 L-H-R-A
5 L-H-R-A
6 L-H-R-A
7 L-H-R-A
8 L-H-R-A
9 L-H-R-A
10 L-H-R-A
11 L-H-R-A
12 L-H-R-A
13 L-H-R-A
14 L-H-R-A
15 L-H-R-A
LAZ RM L-H-R-A
16 L-H-R-A
For every single dungeon level I entered, there seemed to be no effect on the order in which the Hidden Shrine affected items. Remember too that I visited each dlevel deeper than dlevel two TWICE before hitting the shrine: i.e., went to 2, exited 2, tested the shrine, went BACK to 2 a SECOND time, then went to 3, exited 3, tested the shrine, went BACK to 3 a SECOND time, etc.
Also, I thought that inventory setup might somehow affect the seed of the Shrine, so every time I tested it I re-arranged items in my inventory so that nothing was ever exactly the same twice. I moved items from place to place, or simply dropped items out of the inventory altogether. Or BOTH.
On all the other dungeon levels I was having to fight my way to find the stairs down, so monsters were being encountered and chests were being opened on every level -- to see if this was to have any effect on the seed initialization/randomization of the Hidden Shrine on dlvl one.
I also used Shrines such as Quiet and Abandoned Shrines that were encountered in deeper levels of the dungeon.
SUMMARY OF THE TEST
Data suggests that the Shrine is seeded/initialized ONCE and ONE TIME ONLY in Single Player Diablo.
Data suggests that this initialization is done at the GAME START.
Data also indicates that in Single Player Diablo visiting other dungeon levels, opening chests, battling monsters, re-arranging inventory, touching other Shrines, NONE of these things can CHANGE the order in which a Hidden Shrine affects your items.
This would suggest that for those persons trying to avoid bug exploitation and "randomize" the Hidden Shrine effect by entering further dungeon levels before touching the shrine, this doesn't work for Single Player Diablo. By extension, perhaps then not in Multiplayer either.
The question on whether it also does not work for Multiplayer Diablo could be tested by doing this exact same test but using a clockfreeze program and locating a Hidden Shrine on dlvl One.
A clockfreeze program would also be able to check on whether the INITIAL seed and FURTHER seeds are affected by entering multiple dungeon levels.
Now I'm not exactly sure WHAT sets the initial Hidden Shrine seed, but whatever it is, it seems that in Single Player (and thus, perhaps Multiplayer also), once a Shrine is seeded/initialized a single time at the game start THAT'S IT! Entering further dungeon levels (and opening chests and breaking barrels and using Shrines) seems to have NO EFFECT on the order of items that the Hidden Shrine hits.
Attika
PS I have this Single player game saved, and all levels still have active monsters, barrels, and chests (except for the Lair of the Vile Betrayer[cleared] and of course no barrels/chests on sixteen). If you have suggestions for further testing trying to affect the results of the Hidden Shrine, I'd be willing to try them.