MF Bug?

[Obi2Kenobi]

True, it's possible, but one must never forget the different between possible and plausible.

[Guest]

Just making sure you get I'm talking about the source engine here, like the diablo2.exe (is that what it is) and not a serverside patch.

[lfd]

Just making sure you get I'm talking about the source engine here, like the diablo2.exe (is that what it is) and not a serverside patch.

An executable file is not "source"; it's the binary compiled _from_ source code. There are many clever people who can disassemble the binary and read what the code is doing, but they don't end up with source code - they get assembler.

With that in mind, could you clarify what you're asking?

[Raven Vale]

Hiya Fragbait ,

Like I said in my post , I was doing these runs for myself and never knew about the durability , that was my big mistake . Also I was doing Pindle and his minions , so again that was wrong , I should have been counting only pindle , but his minions sometimes drop so much stuff I would have to have a photographic memory to do it that way . I also need to find Durability tables for my next 2000 runs , if someone can tell me where I can get info on durability on every item in the game that would be nice . If Pindle is out of the question I need another boss to run , I find meph a bit slow and I die way more than I should , it would take me months to run him , any other feasible boss I could run ?
Any advice would be appreciated .

Take care

Edit : to include who the post was intended for .

[lfd]

any other feasible boss I could run ?

Bone Ash, Fire Eye, Stormtree[1], Shenk and Eldritch are all within a few seconds of a waypoint in virtually the same place each time. There's also the Travincal council, although there's three of them and a lot of minions and potentially horrible mods.

[1] well, he's not at the lower kurast waypoint, but it's easy to walk down round the outside of the town to the kurast entrance where he spawns.

[Fragbait]

Hi Raven Vale,

Yeah, Eldritch is probably the easiest to run. But he, too, has minions. Boneash is about the only boss I can think of that doesn't have any (wait: Izual).
On the other hand though, if Blizz really made a server side patch to nerf boss running, why should they have introduced it for every unique monster in the game? It seems more reasonable to me that they would have done this for the bosses that suffer the worst rushing / bot running, perhaps all act bosses included. That would make it Andy, Duriel, Meph, Diablo, Baal and Pindle. I mean - there's no reason to penalize players who like to take out unique bosses after all. I mean, if it's really server-sided, they still could react if the next botting wave targets for example the countess, or Izual or whatnot.

As to what concerns the durability tables: It's probably the easiest way to simply create an Excel spreadsheet and make a column for durability. Since you are going to note the type of items (magical, rare, unique, set, white or other-like potions and scrolls) as well as the number of them for every drop, why not note the durability, too?
like:
|Run Nr.|Nr. of Items|White I.|Magic. I.|Magic. I. Dur.|Rare I.|Rare i. Dur.|Set I.|Unique I.|Other I.|

And make the lines big enough to enable an entry of three or four items in one column (for example magical items).
Good luck.

Greetings Fragbait

[Raven Vale]

Cheers

You mention Andy , I find Andy one of the most unique dropping encounters I have ever come across , I seem to get uniques more often than not , unlike pindle , so I would rather veer away from her . Boneash sounds promising , again I would like to hit pindle/eldritch but for all those minions . Would the chance for elite drops be way off if I ran Andy or would that not matter ? she is also pretty easy to get alone . Once I set up my table I will give this a go , thanks for the tips .

Take care

[adeyke]

The reason Andy drops so well is the quest drop bug. You'll always get the quest drop from her, so it'll always be rare or better (excepting failed set items and items where no rare version is possible).

[Guest]

OK I guess it's not the *.exe (told you I didn't know much about this stuff -_-). Every game has a source code doesn't it? Diablo 2, being a non-open source program has code that cannot be easily read, and the company does not provide it. Is it possible to put an mf counter bugger dealie thingie inside some code that modders cannot read?

[Munkay]

What are you asking exactly? Are you looking for clearification on how the game works, or looking for a conspiracy theory? Heh :P

A server side patch will not change a games source code, and if it did it would function the same in single player as in multiplayer. I do not have any real knowledge of actual code, but as far as I know diablo 2 has the program (which contains the source code) this is a list of commands it follows. It then looks in the mpq for the information for the commands, and puts it together into a happy little game. And if something is server side, then it looks for a file on blizz's server, rather than one on your computer (for whatever change needs to be made). So server side patches for MF are possible.

I beleive the general consensus is if there is a magic find difference online, it would have to be through a server side patch.

As complex as it may seem to us 'normal folk', implimenting a 'mf counter bugger dealie' is not very hard to do (but this does NOT mean it must exist . . . until there is proof this is all ridiculous hearsay).

If you are in search of answers, sorry to say that the only real way to find out is one heck of a lot of runs, under strict observation and notation.

-Munk

[brianc84]

Source code by itself doesn't do anything. It has to be compiled into some form of executable (exe, dll and others) to be of any real use. If something's in the source code, it's going to be in the executable.

In any case, we can't read the code and data being used on the realms. If there's a discrepancy between the realm and single player code, we're gonna have a tough time figuring what it is exactly, especially when the mechanic being examined is probability-based.

[Guest]

I'm no longer asking about server side patches. I'm asking if there is something in the *.exe (brianc84 said, see I was right) could have been put in as part of the game (from version 1.00) that has a mf bugger.

I'm not asking for opinion, i'm asking if it's POSSIBLE.

[devzero]

It is possible to put it in the .exe file, this file is however available to the public. Some of the hackers that has been disasembling the .exe from day one would have found it. (ruvunal, jarulf ..... )

[Guest]

Is there any other file that could hold a mf counter thing that ISN'T server side? What files are there that modders/hax0rz cannot read?

[Caaroid]

Theoretically avarything that's client side can be read.

[Guest]

Theoretically avarything that's client side can be read.

:-\ I find this hard to believe. Why did Valve make such a big deal about getting their games' source code jacked, if everybody will be able to read it eventually? Why isn't pirating games a matter of compiling a bunch of code into different kinds of files? There has to be SOME thing that can't be read, otherwise, what is the difference between open source programs, and non?

[Ruvanal]

Being able to read what the executables and DLL files are doing is a lot different than having the source codes. There are some severe limits to what can be done to modify an executable and still have it run properly compared to making changes to a source code and recompiling a new version of the program from that. Also the source codes will typically have in line comments about some of the functionality of the sections. These comments are not included when a compiler reworks the source code into an executable form. The process of converting a sorce code into an executable is almost a one way street; reversing the process is a lot of guess work that can easily miss subtle points that were actually in the orginal code.

[Yogi_Baar]

This is all IMHO and IIRC and simplified.

Executables can be easily disassembled. This process reverts them from machine code (not very readable) to assembler code listings (slightly more readable, but not that much when it comes to such big executables).

Source code can be easily "put together" into an executable. It depends on the compiler, but I think most two-pass compilers first parse the source code into an intermediate representation, and then generate the machine code for that. I said simplified, in reality lots of stuff goes on (symbol tables, linking, syntax trees...) but I don't think you want to know all that.

Executables CANNOT be easily decompiled. This process should turn the machine code back to the native high-level language (in this case probably C++). At least, I don't know of a good Win32 C++ decompiler. And there most likely isn't one, because if there was, software pirates would be having a field day.

[Guest]

Hmm ok, becoming clearer, yet more I'm getting more confused. When Valve says that their source code got stolen, are we talking an executable here?

[devzero]

Source code would be the c/c++ high level code. The main diffrence between high level code and low level (assembler / machine code) is the readability. Most code noobs (like me) can sit down and read the c/c++ code and actually understand whats going on. Its even easy to modify it to suit your own purposes and then compile it to low level(executable).

Reading and modifying a low level assembler file is much more difficult. You need to have a huge knowledge of assembler and a lot of patience (like for example Jarulf). Diablo2 is one of the few programs i know of that has enough knowledgable followers to actually be more or less completely disassembled.

So:
Source code : high level human readable code
is compiled into ->
Executable : low level machine readable code