It started like a regular morning for me, awake in unearthly hours while the rest of the city lay in deep slumber.
The credits had finished and I was dragging myself out of bed to check my PC's MSN before joining the legion of Zs.
Be it fate or chance, I accidentally opened the "Samsung Mission Possible G810" spam that you would see at the bottom of your MSN window.
It looked rather cool, and managed to grasp what was left of my little attention span. After poking around abit, I found that it was like any typical online flash game which had prizes.
Then it struck me. If you recall my blogpost sometime back about a little small golden coin....
I wasted no time at all and fired up my usual toolz. It took me like 40 minutes to cheat the score system. Well, its a considerable improvement compared to the 8 hours I took last time.
Anyway, there was no scoreboard in the game, and phases 2 and 3 of the game havent even been developed. The closing date was quite distant, so I lost interest again. Virgin rays of the sun carressed my skin as I realised it was dawn.
Similarly, it dawned upon me what can be applied here, can be applied to any other online game nonsense....
It took me less then five minutes to find my next target, Tangs Beauty Bag Hunt. For the interested, heres the link: http://www.spoon.com.sg/clients/tangs/main.html
For the disinterested, the game is about scrolling across a map and finding 62 bags hidden in a picture of a mall. So I checked the scoreboards and saw something... 4.8 seconds, for finding 62 bags, looks like I wasnt here first.
Nevertheless, the prizes looked decent, so I got to work, this time breaking the sound barrier... 5 minutes.
Submitting a score of 1.2 seconds, I reassured myself it was a winning bid and scurried off into the darkness of my bed, like a dreadlord, before the sun would cook me.
I awoke at 1pm... Breakfast was clearly not one of my daily meals these days. I fired up the computer and checked the score... Hmm, my score got removed?
Realising I may have been a little to absurd, 1.2 seconds. I submitted another score, this time 3.7 seconds.. Checking to see it didnt get removed, I resumed my daily activities.
It was late afternoon my phone started "de de de de de de!!!! ohhhhhhh *PAK*" (inside joke)
Picked it up... seemed to be from some angmoh..
"Hello, is this hl?"
"yes?"
"This is david calling, its about the online game you've been playing.."
LOL. They actually called me! HAHAHAHAHAHA
David began the talk by telling me the game had a certain timing bug, and my score was not fairly recorded, hence it had to be removed... however, he did offer me something, which I will quote from his email:
"Thank you for playing the Tang's Beauty Bag search game.
As you may be aware, there was a time error in the game you played.
In the spirit of fair play to all others who have played the game without
error and according to its full gameplay time and rules, your time score
recorded during this error will be removed.
We apologize for any inconvenience you may receive. We value the time you
spent taking part in our game, and offer you a $100 Tangs voucher
as a token of our appreciation. We invite you to play again to achieve a
valid score to win the prizes up for grabs. "I was like WTF? LOL, 100 Tangs voucher? I was like doing only for the fun of it...
However, the story gets better.
David starts getting his developers to call me, and they ask me all sorts of questions, and I seemed to be speaking alien because none of them seemed to understand how I was cheating the game.
After like 4 calls, someone sensible managed to scribble a quick patch and updated the game.
My phone rang again, this time they told me the bug was fixed, and wanted me to go test it...
OZY was actually feeding in dota so I was quite ready to alt-tab to test it out for them, but before I could finish, they upped the offer to $300... LOL!
Ran a few tests on it, seems like the basic flaw was fixed..
It took me about 2 hours to get a workaround, the workaround succeed, but the score would not register. I suddenly had a little faith in local programmers....
4 Hours into the patch, I have my 3rd workaround.. however, score still would not be submitted. I did not feel a sense of defeat, but rather it was queer. The game isnt behaving normally, and I suspected the scoring sheet had a problem..either that or they have fully patched it, with minimal disclosure from me.
I rang up the developer again.. really nice people, didnt use private numbers.. this is one thing you must note, dont use private numbers to call people, it irritates others and makes people not want to help you.
She tells me in 10 years of her experience she has never seen anything like this. Come on lah, this is like.... history book material can? -_-
Nevertheless, when I declared my failure, she was elated and went "OH REALLY?! THANK YOU SO MUCH" like I've donated my kidneys to her.
I might have ruined their weekend, by submitting a 1.2 second score... I think they were called to do OT, and my call finally let them go home. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA. I feel evil.
When I asked her about the new patch, how it was able to tell fake scores.. she simply replied they were using a filter, to trash scores under 30 seconds.
I was like WTF, how can you do that? What if people really get under 30 seconds? She just simply said it was impossible...
Well, idk. Personally, I think she hasnt met a korean yet. They can use a grunt to wipe your tier 3 army.
Nevertheless, 300 tangs voucher is like LOL.
David just send another email,
"I am impressed with your hacking abilities. I might have some work for you in the future."With all due honesty, I find this nonsense. Any kid with a brain and 15 minutes can run himself through a tutorial to learn to crack online games. Oh well, tangs anyone?
*Poof*
