wut can u wish for with wish?

[Gandalf Parker]

Evil Dave said:

On a Unix variant (Linux, Mac O/S, Solaris),

strings <name of file>

will dump all the printable strings in the file to the screen. The output can be redirected as normal, which is good, since there's a lot of text in the executable.

Sorry, I don't know if Windows has a similar command/function.

Well I disagree back.
There is no way to encrypt the strings that will hide it from absolutely everyone. And any extreme effort would slow the game down more than its worth. But even something as weak as Rot13 (yes I purposely chose the weakest in the world) would work for a much larger chunk. For one thing you couldnt do a simple strings on it and jump right to the answer by knowing just one of the possibilities.

And even if people dont like not knowing things in the game, oh well. The game does do that on purpose. People can try to undo that, or they can shift to games where all the rules are known (I hear chess is good), but this one isnt like that.

My only comment was that in the next one maybe they will do better. Of course it will fail but all security does. Its always only an effort to block "as many as possible, as much as possible, for as long as possible" within reason (in this case without making the game too slow)

And, no, obviously Im NOT going to provide a whole list.

[Agrajag]

May I ask what is the point?
I mean, if someone doesn't want to know those things, he can just (gasp) not try to find them out.
And if someone wants to know those things, what's the harm in him knowing?
Its not like hours of testing can't give him the answer.

[Gandalf Parker]

Agrajag said:
May I ask what is the point?
I mean, if someone doesn't want to know those things, he can just (gasp) not try to find them out.

Since the players are human (well most of us are) that concept doesnt work. And even if they can avoid the temptation, they will convince themselves that their enemies did not so.. obviously I must have all of the cheat codes also and practice them. Just in case. (its kindof a game/virtual version of the old "cold war" concept). Wow, deep thinking. Too early. Headache starting.

And if someone wants to know those things, what's the harm in him knowing?
Its not like hours of testing can't give him the answer.

Again, nothing stops anything. It can only be as hard as possible for as long as possible for as many as possible. Otherwise our society would fall apart.
Ouch OUCH theres that headache again

Gandalf Parker

[Chazar]

Thas the problem with wish & co and multiplayer:

Either waste hours by
a) analysing binaries
b) reading huge forums on the web
c) stupid hotseat games against oneself
or
d) live with the unknown while knowing that your enemies will know.

Knowledge is victory, victory is life, err, or something like that...

...I think that DomIII should come with a switch which disables all these surprise thingys like "wish" for multiplayer. I think this would make threads like this one here obsolete and thus help to preserve the fun of exploration for those who enjoy singleplayer-mode.

[Gandalf Parker]

The desire to make Dom2 more "strategy" pops up in many ways. Desires to disable features, or make maps more fair and balanced, or take the extra random dice out of many of the rolls, balance the playing pieces between the races, take out the random events. Mostly from the multiplayer tournament folks who want winning the game to be based purely on the players skill and no luck rolls.

On the other hand, there are people who would like all of the above to be increased. Mostly from the solo players. (myself included)

It was suggested that it would be nice to have a switch that could set all of the randoms to a level from 0-9 but they are scattered thru the whole game so apparently it went to the wishlist for Dom3. I have no idea if it will be part of Dom3 or not.

Gandalf Parker

[Evil Dave]

I'd be in favor of switches like that as well.

I'm a bit surprised people object to 2d6OE. It seems to simulate "the fortunes of war" w/o going overboard. Do you happen to know why people wanna reduce its effects? I can think of some, but they're not good.

[Gandalf Parker]

In a strategy game you are always having to scale things between extremes. And no matter what choice is made, some will complain. Hmmm ok, not just games, thats true of everything. But in this case the extremists at one end of the scale consider a strategy wargame to be best when it has no balance-affecting surprises. They want the "winner" to be decided purely by who has the best plans and strategy. They think alot before the game and they dont like their battle plans knocked out by a random. The extreme example of such a game would be Chess. Perfectly fair map, perfectly matched units, no randoms, no surprises.

The other extreme likes a game which has a ton of randoms. They love it when one of the "opponents" in a game is "chaos". Even if if has a map generator which is so EXTREMELY crazy that you have to throw out 4 or 5 maps to get one that you MIGHT be able to win. For them its the joy of tactics and making best use of whats thrown to you.

Of course MOST players are not at one end or the other of the scale. They are somewhere along it. But we see the push/pull in this forum often. Efforts to "balance" pieces when it would destroy the rock-paper-scissors at national level. Or efforts for more favorable random events where it could shift the positions on the scoreboard, especially with fast games on a small map.

As a "chaos" person myself I have created some game scenarios which can be found at my site www.dom2minions.com which you wont see mentioned much. They arent good to recommend unless someone (A) prefers solo play or (B) is bored with the game having tried all of the combinations

Gandalf Parker