New Glitch - Hax Mode

[Sage]

First I said it would ruin stock, you guys didn't agree. Okay, fine, it won't ruin stock. Thus the secondary argument that it's unfair to us that it be banned just because you guys don't know how to do it. It's not a cheaty way of building. It's done completely in-game, just like any other glitch. Go back 5 years and show someone snapper loading, they'll think you're a witch and burn you at the stake.

Also, that's not the only reason we haven't released it yet, nor is it really even the main one. It's Scrap's to release. Why the should he have to divulge his secrets?

Well alright, as long as you don't hold by the "ruining stock" argument. However, I don't think people here are saying it should be banned because no one knows how to do it, they are saying it should be banned because it allows you to stack practically anything. This is the exact same reason that BFE and AAM are banned, because the allow for building bots that do not fit the communities expectations. We could allow these bots, like the community probably first did when deciding whether stacking should be allowed, or we could forbid them. Either way, I don't think it is secrecy that makes people want the glitch banned.

Uhhhhhh BFE and AAM aren't banned because of what they do, they are banned because they are done outside of the game.

[R1885]

I'm going to brake the discussion here because this has REALLY gotten out of hand. I'm going out on a limb to say that this thread had bad idea written all over it from the start. This thread has been nothing but arguments that get nowhere, ridiculous reasoning, and some sane comments from guys who know what their talking about.  I could sum up this entire thread with a quote from ATFW:


"Should we do something?"


"Should we do something?"


"We should do something!"



"Should we do something?"


"Should we do something?"


"We should do something!"



"Should we do something?"


"Should we do something?"


"We should do something!"


And continue to infinity and beyond.

[Urjak]

Uhhhhhh BFE and AAM aren't banned because of what they do, they are banned because they are done outside of the game.

That's news to me. But regardless, the primary reason people want this glitch banned is because of its effects, not its secrecy.

[System32]

Why the should he have to divulge his secrets?

Don't you dare try to pin the burden on us.

[Sage]

Why the should he have to divulge his secrets?

Don't you dare try to pin the burden on us.

There's no burden on anyone to do anything.

[Urjak]

Why the should he have to divulge his secrets?

Of course he doesn't have to, but in a community devoted to a dying game, new discoveries should be shared and added to our knowledge banks, not kept shrouded in secrecy because we are afraid of possible change. The RA2 community has evolved considerably since it began; we should never attempt to slow this process by keeping secret a glitch that could very easily never be seen again.


As has been said, Scrap is under no obligation to tell anyone, though in my opinion there is an unwritten responsibility for us all to build up the knowledge and skill of our community through showcasing, advice giving, and new discoveries regarding the function of this game (this glitch for example). The fact that this glitch has also been shared with a few other members (Click and Kill if I recall correctly) also worries me, because it creates a division within our community between an "elite" whom share discoveries and the rest of the community who are kept in the dark save for a tantalizing and sort of cruel demonstration that seems to be saying nothing more than "We found this awesome glitch, but we don't think you newbie guys can handle it so we won't share." This is not how a community should function, especially one devoted to a game that has so few followers.


And with that my "rant" concludes.

[ACAMS]

Scrap found it. There's no law saying he has to share his secrets. In fact he should be able to use this in building every bot he makes

If he wants to use it (in tournaments and such) he will have to prove it is not BFE, then it could get disallowed in some tournaments for what it does.

[Sage]

I understand your concern about the community function thing. Good point.

[R0B0SH4RK]

You are right, but as someone pointed out, Scrap discovered it. Not only that, Click, JoeBlo and Trov have a possibility of being included, making it a "social pentagon". Finally, you are asking for info on how to do it to curb your skepticism, making it a "social hexagon".

Did Sage tell me how to do it? No. Do Click and Trov and Joe know? I doubt it. Kill has confirmed his knowledge, so that makes three members. Three. I don't know about you, but that's so far from a circle that I'm not concerned about an "elite class" posessing privileged knowledge emerging. And if asking for info in order to curb skepticism admits you to this group, then you're just as much of a member as I am, and so is everybody else who has posted in this thread.
 

If preventing newer members and other members from utilizing a glitch that allows them to be as good as (and later, possibly better) themselves isn't spiteful, It's at least hypocritical considering all the advice they've given with other glitches and building techniques.

If they keep their word and abstain from using their knowledge on a regular basis, than I don't see any hypocracy as their discovery hasn't altered the building landscape at all. If they do exploit their knowledge, however, it's not just hypocritical but also grossly unfair to the rest of us. I believe we can agree on this.
 
 

Yes it is, by proxy. Apart from ACAMS, (Who is just adding random info for people to think about) and some other guy who is derping, all of the people telling scrap and Sage to keep Hax Mode locked away from the public are using variants of this sentence: "Good job Sage and scrap! Keep it away from the newbs!"

I'm not sure you can spite someone "by proxy," but I don't really want to get into semantics. And no, they're not all variants of that sentence. I've read your post outlining arguments that are anti-release, and they read to me like some members have legitimate concerns over the future of the stock game in the event of the release of Hax Mode. Whether or not those concerns are valid is another matter. I, for one, think that some of them are. However, they all operate under the assumption that Hax Mode will be deemed legal, which is a huge oversight, IMO. I think that LiNcK made a lot of sense when he suggested that Scrap and Sage reveal it, but make it illegal.
 
 

Do you know how insane this sounds to me? If we weren't talking about elitism I'd think we were having an argument over anti-intellectualism.

Actually, no I don't.
 
 

21 pages in two days say something else.

It says people care, regardless of whether or not it affects them. I guess it's like pro sports in this sense, where no matter what the outcome, it really should have no effect on anyone.
 
 
 
 
I think that most of the community can agree on this: I think that Scrap and Sage should divulge the secrets of Hax Mode to the greater community, where we can experiment with it ourselves and draw our own conclusions. At this point, we can argue all we like about whether to keep it legal or illegalize it.
 
So, if you don't mind S32, I've humoured you now and I don't really feel the need to argue and debate any longer. We both want the info that Scrap and Sage posess, and we both think the best way to spread this information is by releasing it to the community. Fundamentally, this is all that really matters. Perhaps by taking issue with some of your arguments, I didn't make this viewpoint clear. Go ahead and have the final word in this if you like, but I'd prefer that this be the end of our little exchange. Let's just see where things go from here.

[Somebody]

Y'know guys, this could be a reeeeally good way to draw back some old members if there is any interest to.

AND I'M NOT SAYING GO TRACK THEM DOWN, STALK THEM, AND BUG THEM. But its just an idea if you were talking with them anyways (like you stayed friends, RA2 is mentioned, and then you explain.)

[System32]

You are right, but as someone pointed out, Scrap discovered it. Not only that, Click, JoeBlo and Trov have a possibility of being included, making it a "social pentagon". Finally, you are asking for info on how to do it to curb your skepticism, making it a "social hexagon".

Did Sage tell me how to do it? No. Do Click and Trov and Joe know? I doubt it. Kill has confirmed his knowledge, so that makes three members. Three. I don't know about you, but that's so far from a circle that I'm not concerned about an "elite class" posessing privileged knowledge emerging. And if asking for info in order to curb skepticism admits you to this group, then you're just as much of a member as I am, and so is everybody else who has posted in this thread.

All of your refutations I mostly agree on exept for this. I urj, you (As you have told me, rendering this argument mostly invalid) and many others demand an open release to the public. You may not be concerned about an "Elite class" forming, but to be honest is one ever did form you'd be invited, being one of the older members here who is well established in GTM.

As for "spiting by proxy", I would like to say BURN VANCOUVER BURN and by proxy spite those who were horrified at the Vancouver riots.

GO TRACK THEM DOWN, STALK THEM, AND BUG THEM.

I'll get sparky on this, pronto!

[Trovaner]

Uhhhhhh BFE and AAM aren't banned because of what they do, they are banned because they are done outside of the game.

Nope, they were banned because they made the game extremely unbalanced and unfair to those who didn't know how to do them (invincible components, components stuck inside of the opponent, landmines, controllable parts that aren't attached to the bot, etc.). That's why most hosts allow their participants to edit the preview pic, chassis appearance/reflective properties, and attach SZs to components.

Also, your chess analogy seems extremely faulty. IMO, it would be more along the lines of having one competitor following more restrictive rules than his opponent.

Looking at the past: (by my understanding)
-Almost since the beginning, .bot file editing wasn't considered fair. It has only been in recent years that we have started making minor distinctions between different sections (SZs and appearance are fair to edit now). It is also somewhat traceable if you know what your looking for (unfortunately, it isn't completely possible to trace). It isn't openly used because most people don't know how to do it and those that do haven't gone overboard (only what is possible with stacking). Shows that some people are capable of showing some restraint.
-AAM wasn't publicly released because the person person who knew how to do it didn't want n00bs to act like they were all that. Instead, he decided to release it to a chosen few. Later, HackerX secretly made a tutorial describing how to do it (everyone had access to the tutorial even if they didn't know it themselves (in fact, its still available to all of you)). Over the course of a few years, people gradually started publicly explaining how to do AAM. There weren't very many ramifications of releasing AAM due to the fact that we had already banned it from tournaments and deemed it as an unfair advantage by that time. Although extremely hard to trace, the difficulty in doing AAM has limited the number of people that use it. Another case of members showing restraint.
-Clickbeetle once asked whether he should make an EZ-AAM program but quickly pulled that offer after deciding that it would make cheating too easy for the general masses. Thereby showing that you don't need to release something this powerful if you don't want to.
-Custom components that inhibit glitches have also been deemed unfair even after being removed. Burst motors that rotate the chassis, weights that cause axles to fall off, and motors that would make snapper loading easier have all been made but haven't been made available to the public (the burst motor was made available but was removed due to having an untraceable advantage).
-After the release of Starcore V1, glitches have been accepted as fair game in stock. Before that, realism was the de facto standard. If we made something that were to break our current standards, we would need to have an AI pack or tournaments that followed the same rule set (to be fair).
-There have been a couple glitches that have been deemed unfair over the years (namely the Trinity and nasty pickle glitches). After a bit of experimentation, they were found to give too big of an advantage (in tournaments). These could be considered precedents of an in game glitch being called unfair in stock.
-Stacking has always been unregulated but whenever someone did anything out of the norm, they were accused of doing AAM or .bot file editing. So there has always been a form of regulation for what would be fair in stacking (although having some written rules would be nice).
-Zero Absolute found a glitch but refused to release it to the public for the same reasons as you. By not releasing it however, his name got attributed to 3 different glitches/hacks (since he never did tell us how to do it). So if you want your name attributed to this, you would need to release how to do it. That's also why we haven't changed the name of the Trinity glitch or AAM (even though there have been numerous claims about discovering it earlier).
-A while back, I found another glitch that could be inhibited using python and the FPS window. Although it can be done completely in game, I chose not to release my findings because it would make stacking externals much easier and more effective than doing the eFFe or snapper/axle loading glitches. Since the end result could potentially look like AAM or .bot file editing, I knew that it would remain regulated even among those that didn't know how to do it. This just shows that we could still regulate a glitch by the standards of some other concept.


In other words, it is completely up to you whether to release it or not but you can't expect anyone who knows to have special privileges in tournaments.

[LiNcK]

Guys, Im not trying to insult anyone by saying this but IDK how you guys cant agree on making it illegal or not.
Its just OBVIOUS for mme that if you make it legal bots will be just cubes with 39034926 weapons outside of em, If made illegal bots will be EXACTLY as they are right now, Just that the components will be tighter together (Wich will cause the chassis(es..?) to shirk just a bit).

Also, For the fun builders this will be an awesome glitch to try :P
Soyeah, I vote to just release it & make it illegal, RA2 wont be destroyed then.


My old post to explain to the peeps that havent read:

Honestly I think they should release it & THen get it banned from Tournaments.
That way you KNOW that everybody knows the glitch & That nobody is allowed to use it, If someone else discovers it & Uses it discreetly (Not stacking the things THAT much) they will have an advantage over other people.

If its release, Everybody knows it & Knows that its banned, You can also identify it correctly... Because honestly, If UDK how to do the glitch & You see something stacked just a bit more than usual you wont be like: OH! ITS SAGE & SCRAPS GLITCH!!! :OOO


Im just saying that it doesnt necessarily have to ruin RA2, Its like not doing Atomic Research because making Atomic Bombs is bad... Youre not only making Atomic bombs, What about the Power Plants & Other useful things? A law on prohibing atomic bomb use is enough to contain the problem.

-
Note that Im only taking DSL into consideration, I dont have stock & I dont use stock since I HATE Stacking unless its realisticly stacking (Just a TINY bit that you could normally cut off, Not batts & Stuff though.)
I know it would be harder to regulate in Stock, But still... If someone has everything pasted together its just damn obvious.

EDIT: For some reason the size & font changed...? o.O

[Sparkey98]

Lets ban all glitches so RFS comes back because only he matters.

[Ben Purse]

Shut up Sparkey

[JoeBlo]

Many of you are looking at the wrong side of the "Stock Apocalypse"..

As I explained to Sage its this half baked messy situation we have now that could drive players away..

Once you have a clean simple cut rules we can go on peacefully with our lives again.. we basically have to come together as a community and make a simple agreement about it.

As it stands now Sage and Scrap can technically use it in existing rule sets as its not listed as an outlawed glitch and fits within the "All building to be done in the botlab"

Now obviously tournaments can make up their own personal rulesets around it but general building standards/ rules and the case if nothing is specified (or forgotten to add) its all up in the air.. Same with the 140cm extender.. tournaments make specific comments about it (becasue we never came to a yes or no agreement)

Why I mention this is remember Sage and I slipped in the 140cm extender in our winning BOTM? no rules prevented it as it fitted within the ruleset of AI / Hidden parts unless specified otherwise.. now its not a big deal but something like limitless stacking is.

We need to just come straight down to it and vote yes or no.. to many opinions and being changed and flying all over the place we really at not quite at the original point.

So lets just keep "ruin" "death" and "the end" out of this thread from no on and look at how we can structure this

1) Release and Allow- The Glitch is shown, Scrap is awarded it as an official glitch (at the moment it cannot be considered such since it cannot be confirmed 100% doable) and we let it loose in stock

2) Hide and Ban - Obviously the opposite, we pretend it didnt happen and use the "common sense approach" to stacks

3) Middle road - The Glitch is shown, Scrap is awarded it as an official glitch and baseplate stacking is banned.

Now I got some rage pm's from someone whom I wont mention about the stacking ban situation... but its basically to balance things out again. I foresee to many conflicts of people using Hax mode and claiming it legit (then we wind up with a tournament thread that turns into this one)... I mean if you dont go overboard with it you could easily pass boundaries without being detected

There is nothing to say this couldnt happen with AAM or BFE yes but I could see such an more accessible thing dramatically increasing the amount of Cheat vs Legit stacking..

[Mr. AS]

There is nothing to say this couldnt happen with AAM or BFE yes but I could see such an more accessible thing dramatically increasing the amount of Cheat vs Legit stacking..
[/quote]

Lets ban all glitches so RFS comes back because only he matters.

You just basically said that 30-70% of the community doesn't matter.

Many of you are looking at the wrong side of the "Stock Apocalypse"..

As I explained to Sage its this half baked messy situation we have now that could drive players away..

Once you have a clean simple cut rules we can go on peacefully with our lives again.. we basically have to come together as a community and make a simple agreement about it.

As it stands now Sage and Scrap can technically use it in existing rule sets as its not listed as an outlawed glitch and fits within the "All building to be done in the botlab"

Now obviously tournaments can make up their own personal rulesets around it but general building standards/ rules and the case if nothing is specified (or forgotten to add) its all up in the air.. Same with the 140cm extender.. tournaments make specific comments about it (becasue we never came to a yes or no agreement)

Why I mention this is remember Sage and I slipped in the 140cm extender in our winning BOTM? no rules prevented it as it fitted within the ruleset of AI / Hidden parts unless specified otherwise.. now its not a big deal but something like limitless stacking is.

We need to just come straight down to it and vote yes or no.. to many opinions and being changed and flying all over the place we really at not quite at the original point.

So lets just keep "ruin" "death" and "the end" out of this thread from no on and look at how we can structure this

1) Release and Allow- The Glitch is shown, Scrap is awarded it as an official glitch (at the moment it cannot be considered such since it cannot be confirmed 100% doable) and we let it loose in stock

2) Hide and Ban - Obviously the opposite, we pretend it didnt happen and use the "common sense approach" to stacks

3) Middle road - The Glitch is shown, Scrap is awarded it as an official glitch and baseplate stacking is banned.

Now I got some rage pm's from someone whom I wont mention about the stacking ban situation... but its basically to balance things out again. I foresee to many conflicts of people using Hax mode and claiming it legit (then we wind up with a tournament thread that turns into this one)... I mean if you dont go overboard with it you could easily pass boundaries without being detected

There is nothing to say this couldnt happen with AAM or BFE yes but I could see such an more accessible thing dramatically increasing the amount of Cheat vs Legit stacking..

I vote for 2.

[System32]

Lets ban all glitches so RFS comes back because only he matters.

You just basically said that 30-70% of the community doesn't matter.

So is RFS a majority or minority?
 

[Mr. AS]

Lets ban all glitches so RFS comes back because only he matters.

You just basically said that 30-70% of the community doesn't matter.

So is RFS a majority or minority?

I meant that the stock people are 30-70% of the community. I don't think that RFS played DSL.

[Sparkey98]

Lets ban all glitches so RFS comes back because only he matters.

You just basically said that 30-70% of the community doesn't matter.

So is RFS a majority or minority?

I meant that the stock people are 30-70% of the community. I don't think that RFS played DSL.

how do sarcasm