A certain game.

[Aprilia]

Hi all, i'm new so not sure if this is the right place or not. But none the less i'm hoping someone can put me somewhere in the right direction!
Basically i'm wanting to know is it possible to open ax existing exe? to create further add-ons to its existing file?
I'm playing on a certain computer game, i currently open its exe, then later on afterwards open another exe, obviously to click on the software to make me do things on the game which isn't suppose to be allowed. (Basically a program to make me get through the game alot easier, a cheat.)
Now i'm not sure which software can do this? as i'm looking at Visual C to get in to this swing of things? i've entirely no idea which way to go about this route, but wanting to learn how to desperately. So if i can open the exe and add possible add-ons to it, which software could do that? with later on which software do i use to actually place the add ons to the exe?

I know its a broad question, or atleast it is to me! any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks :)

[jbennet]

they do exist, they are called Trainers and exploit memory hacks

[Ezzaral]

Hi all, i'm new so not sure if this is the right place or not.

No, it's not. Look somewhere else to learn how to program cheats and exploits. I won't say good luck - I hope you fail miserably.

[Nick Evan]

Basically i'm wanting to know is it possible to open ax existing exe? to create further add-ons to its existing file?

Well, it's not imposssible, but that's it. You'll have to look or a decompiler and if your lucky you'll get some usefull assembly-code. But to understand this code you would have to be an expert-assembly-programmer.
My advice is: learn to play without cheating :)

Niek

[jwenting]

you're also going to get into loads of trouble if you're caught.
Especially with online games it is NOT considered nice to cheat. And in many cases you can end up in court over breaching the license of the game as well (as they pretty much always tell you that decompiling is NOT allowed).

[dirt14]

may be. online games are always popular, no cheat

[mohanrobin]

I'm playing on a certain computer game, i currently open its exe, then later on afterwards open another exe, obviously to click on the software to make me do things on the game which isn't suppose to be allowed. (Basically a program to make me get through the game alot easier, a cheat.)

[mohanrobin]

Especially with online games it is NOT considered nice to cheat. And in many cases you can end up in court over breaching the license of the game as well (as they pretty much always tell you that decompiling is NOT allowed

[jbennet]

yeah but game makers dont care if they are

moist companies dont care about modding, as it prolongs the life of thier games

[TheNNS]

yeah but game makers dont care if they are

moist companies dont care about modding, as it prolongs the life of thier games

They do care if it gets to be a problem online. When players cheat online to win, then it becomes a huge problem.

[jwenting]

correct. Cheaters drive legitimate players away, which costs money.
Just look at the early days of Battle.NET, where cheating and PK'ing was extremely rampant.
As a result very few legitimate players remained, and those that did often organised themselves into guilds and set out to kill the cheaters out of the game as a way of self policing the servers.

Blizzard caught on with Diablo 2 and made it a lot harder to cheat and PK, which made the environment a lot more pleasant.

And Blizzard wasn't at the time charging for access...

[addy999]

Yes i think they exist .. i think they are called Trainers and exploit memory hacks....

[Nick Evan]

Post no2 in this very topic:

they do exist, they are called Trainers and exploit memory hacks

Then you come with:

Yes i think they exist .. i think they are called Trainers and exploit memory hacks....

You obviously copied J's reply, but why?

off-topic: What's going on with the game-dev forum lately? Is it just me or is it becoming a horrible mess of useless posts?

Niek

[jwenting]

There are some "members" popping up all over the site who do nothing but copy entire posts from elsewhere.
In this case it was a message from the same thread, making it blatantly obvious, but more often it's something completely unrelated from somewhere else entirely.

I don't know whether these are bots or not, but they sure behave like bots.

[MattEvans]

<off-topic>

off-topic: What's going on with the game-dev forum lately? Is it just me or is it becoming a horrible mess of useless posts?

Agreed.. there's alot of "how do i make a game?" which is an unanswerable question without more detail; a bit of "how do i do [some thing] in [some commercial game]", which is nothing to do with games development; a load of other questions that either aren't worth answering or are too general to answer in less than an essay; and very few real support questions. But; the games forum's always been a bit like that; I guess that one 'games development board' in a big general IT site isn't gonna get the best conversation. Perhaps stricter and more visible rules could help; although, a sticky post is quite likely to get ignored; since the thread "Game Development FAQ's, Books and Resources" should give anyone asking "how do i make a game?" something to be reading.

The weekly spammer isn't much help either :| I don't think 'addy999' could be a bot; some of the stuff he's said in other posts is too stupid to have come outta a machine.

</off-topic>

<on-topic>

There's not really a moral question involved if you're modifying your own copy of a single player game.. maybe it breaches the software's licensing agreement, but those things are honestly too strict anyway. If I'm allowed to 'delete' the game, I'm allowed to modify the binary of the game, they can't restrict that because it's (rightfully) beyond the realm of protection afforded by a licence. If the game is multiplayer.. it's a different matter.

Anyway; if all you have is the game in binary, learning to modify it in any useful way will likely be harder than playing it through on hard-mode. If you wanna go ahead anyway; find out what executable format the game is in, and try compiling some small programs in that format, dissasembling them, and then making changes to the small program's functionality. The least you'll learn from that is a little about the executable format.. Also look for data/resource repositaries in the games folders or perhaps compressed into the executable; if you want to change configuration ( i.e. player/enemy health etc ), there's a good chance that it's stored as data rather than instructions. Not necessarily though, and the code and data might be protected/obfuscated; it'd be a hell of a task even if they weren't.

</on-topic>

[darkagn]

Why do game developers put the option to cheat in their games anyway? To me it seems like a pointless exercise to play a game and cheat while doing it but maybe that's just me...???

[TheNNS]

because it's fun. You have to admit, some times it's cool to have unlimited ammo, or be invincible, or whatever. But these games don't allow cheats in online modes, however.

[jwenting]

no. The options are put in to make testing easier (and in some cases possible).
It allows testers to take shortcuts through the game in order to reach spots that need to be tested more quickly.

They're usually left in because changing the code to take them out after testing is complete can introduce new bugs.

[darkagn]

Ah good point jwentig

[jbennet]

it expands the replayability

[MattEvans]

no. The options are put in to make testing easier (and in some cases possible).
It allows testers to take shortcuts through the game in order to reach spots that need to be tested more quickly.

They're usually left in because changing the code to take them out after testing is complete can introduce new bugs.

Not always the case, and certainly not a 'no' to cheats being fun sometimes. Some cheats in games are purely for fun. You've never run around as a buring wireframe biped bat in shadowman 64 or flown a chevy through the star wars universe, I guess? =P

If developers accept leaving in their shortcuts and don't have a policy for removing them from release versions - then those that are left in are left in deliberately by someone. If you see those cheats I mentioned earlier as 'unlockable extras'; having to dig around in binary to reinstate closed code paths is just a more convoluted way of unlocking extras. But, that's usually unnecessary because many developers deliberately leave cheats available without having to resort to such means.

In single player; a n00b is happy to find an invincibility cheat or a shortcut, a pro is happy to find an utra-hard mode cheat, I'm happy to find an amusing character skin or a secret room. In multiplayer or 'serious games'; cheats are either non-present or bannable offences. I think; if you find cheating immoral, you miss the whole ethos of 'games as entertainment' by a long shot.