Greetings.
I am not sure how the actual cheating was accomplished. As for game-engine effects, from spending a lot of time analyzing Norfeet's file, it seems to me that the main focus of his cheating was to keep adding about 200 gems to any magic schools when he needed it. Or maybe reseting all magic schools gems to 200. Than he could just used and convert these gems in whatever he wanted to. He must have did it many times thoughout the game, based upon final gem count. Most of his magic gems in the treasury very quite close to 200, except those that he had been using heavely (like fire and death gems). He even had 200 bloodslaves
(for whom he had no use though and of course being Ermor he didn't really hunt these slave)
Other game mechanisms appeared to be intact, meaning spells were working the way they supposed to work, items were forged according to the specifications, etc. Whenever Norfleet needed something specific he just used his unlimited amount of gems to empower some of his Elders to do the job, like empowering and boosting 1 elder to Air 5 from air 1, to geting him one of 2 AQ that he summoned during the current turn. Or empowering Elders in Earth to forge him his 19 Dwarven Hammers, etc.
Basicly it seems that it all comes to being able to modify ammount of gems in the treasury on whimp. Or at least this is the feeling feeling I got from studing his file.
As for actual technical details of how the hack was accomplished - I simply don't know. I can make several guesses, but they would be just that - guesses.
I have some slight suspicions, however. You see, I remember hearing some time ago (from Norfleet himself) that he got access to scripts writen and used by Mose to run his server. If I remember correctly, he said that Mose gave them himself to Norfleet after Norf asked him to, claiming he, Norfleet, is going to create another public server similar to Mose's for Dom2 players, and run it together with his "clan" (most likely he was reffering to his other alter-egos
).
Norfleet also said he and his clan was going to modify these scripts to make them "better". He didn't give anymore details, at least I don't remeber it. It all was pretty long time ago, about 4 monthes ago I think.
If Norfleet was telling the truth, that he got access to these scripts that Mose wrote for his server, than maybe it is possible that Norfleet was able to use Moses' scripts, directly or indirectly, against Mose's server itself to compromise its security.
He would still need to be able to do certain things with Illwinter files as well, that you can not normally do, but the above process could be part of the global picture, assuming Norf was telling the truth about having accsess to these files. He (or somebody else who was doing the actula hacking for him) was likely to be messing with their files encription, because, according to Sheap, he set off cheat alarm in some other game of his, from which he immideatly withdrew.
As I said, it is just a suspicios however, I don't have any prood on this matter. I've writen this all to KristofferO, in case if there is a chance that it may be able to help them to track and close whatever loophole Norf was using.
Just my two cents.
Regards,
Stormbinder