Saturday, June 20, 2009

About my time in World of Warcraft

I was playing WoW very active from release to 2006 and was in a preety good raiding guild too. It was called Dagordacil and was one of the best guilds in Germany and the World at that time until the most people went inactive because of the udpdating policy of Blizzard at that time to make things unbeatable until they had developed the next content.

But anyway the reason i m writing this here is because i got a lot of questions recently on how i learned to read the demo format. And i m going to tell the whole story here now.

When i was playing WoW there was a guy around called Dopefish and he released movies about exploring areas noone else showed before him. This movie was mostly made on private servers but nontheless inspired me to start exploring WoW myself. Those vids are still around on youtube:

I started to learn how to wallwalk and that stuff, but still we were going on the ground ;)

Some time later Dopefish released his next movieNogg-aholic. And this movie blew everyone away at that time! It was recorded on live servers only and introduced the model changing to WoW: (And yes i m posting all 5 parts of the movie here. If you haven t watched it yet do it now! ;) )

Well contrary to his comment in the end of the movie this wasn t goodbye for him in WoW and when he came back he founded the community Nogg-aholic. The best people in editing WoW were together there and when i found that site there were secret groups inside that community and one group in which only the best of the best people were recruited in (not more than 15). I had already written a tool to move adt files around (those are the files that make the outside world of WoW) so they invited me to talk with them in the channel called #secret-meeting. I even met someone there i already knew from kreedz and had caught cheating: akg. But at that time i wasn t good enough to get in directly so i had to go it the normal way.

For every step (i think it were 4) there were quests you had to solve. The first three were really easy and with some time, luck and google you could beat them. But the last one was so hard that either you know what you have to do and solve it in 1 day or you re smart enough to learn it in 2 weeks or you ll never solve it. There were people there in the step below this who where trying to solve it for months but could never do it. Anyway it took me like 3 hours and i found myself in the last group before the secret-meeting group.

We were only 3 people there and got access to sites and help from the people above us to learn new things. And what we started to do there were things i thought would be impossible to do before that time. One of those sites was wow-dev and in that time i learned how to reverse engineer nearly every file format.

After some time we decided to make a movie to showoff our skills. It is called lowcost-flightpath (recorded on official servers only) because we managed to hack the ships so we could fly around with them. They liked it so much that they decided to invite us to the #secret-meeting group. And that was when we started to learn the real things. And we could do anything we want in WoW at that time. Like fly around spawn objects, move objects build paths in the world and i even wrote an anti aggro hack so you could run through dungeons with level 1 and no monster attacked you.

At that time the first version of Naxxramas came out so i hacked my way through it on the testserver and made the first video ever on spawning saphiron:

This movie was made for a WoW radio show called "WoW - Nacht" we had in Germany by wow-szene at that time and i was invited there to chat about the unreleased Naxxramas and about 50k people were listening :D

Well after all that i needed a break from WoW i stopped playing the real game and only continued to hack around a bit. I was invited in the radio show again to talk about Nogg-aholic but we were already going different ways. There was nothing left in WoW we could do and so Nogg-aholic went inactive.

From time to time when there are new things released we still gather again in #secret-meeting and the last big thing we did was hacking ourselfes on the private Blizzard server where they tested the addon Wrath of the Lichking. So i was already playing a Death Knight in April 2008.

Half the people of our group went in the gaming industry and are working there today in companies like Starbreeze (The Chronicles of Riddick, The Darkness) and  CCP Games (Eve Online). Malu05 is still coding on a Machinima tool so i ll just link his youtube channel here there are some amazing movies he posted.

I want to finish this post with a clip that was made by Dopefish for a project called NAC by nogg-aholics #secret-meeting and never got finished:

2 comments:

Trinitron said...

Hi eDark. Probably you will not understand my English and that I speak, but I will try.

That you here have written also how you have written it how you it has issued is is really more tremendous. I judge not therefore what here new rollers on youtube, not on what good this game - I judge it because I the last year, ones and a half am engaged in that look deep into games. If you allow me, I will tell small story and I will try to express here the opinion on your way.

...7 years ago I have got game Blade of Darkness. Then it was for me only game. After some time I have absolutely casually found community on this game, in which was discussed not only how to pass game, but also how most to do new fashions for game and as her to change. Thus later 3 years I was engaged in studying of this game. That is I have located on that community, later - on unique live foreign community. Has started to study game, tried to make something itself, to change game. To me it began it is pleasant more and more. I started to download fashions of people which did them for game and to assort them on particles - to look algorithm of their actions.

Then, I have learnt that there are at one forum people who have lighted this game of 9 years of the life. It was then (1999) 45-50 years. Now to each of them 50 and above. One of them helps till now people who wish to make for game something the. To make mods. For this purpose that them the small amount of special programs - for map development would be necessary to make, its compilations and addition of objects on a card. Thus this 55 summer man is the unique person in the world which all can answer on this game. He, does 6 years fashions which on a head surpass original game. As a whole, - this person has brought those elements which transform game to almost new game in game.

If who knows - this games only slah-game. Here there are only four characters. At everyone them them is the weapon only for them. This game is considered the best game slash-game. It, it have not noticed those years, therefore all about it have forgotten and have thrown. That is in this games the magic is some opponents who start up in you magic spheres, a magic disk, a fiery sphere. It is all. Characters are not able to conjure, are not able to trade. In game there is no gold, there is no conversation system. There is nothing except fight. This game the most atmospheric which I knew on the to a century.

Trinitron said...

All was not located..

There were years, thus for 10 years (from the moment of creation of game) in game happens very many. There is only 1 person who for game has written own program for 3dsmax which allows to do to itself the new character for game. It is impossible at first sight. All formats of models and cards in game are ciphered that them it is necessary to decipher not one year of work. But it has found an artful way - took characters from game Neverwinter Nigths and the beginnings them to thrust in Blade of Darkness. Thus now in this game there are all characters and almost all new objects from Neverwinter Nigths. And it later 10 years.

That I have written is not for this purpose what to ennoble game over others, and what you to try to prepare (and probably to interest) to some video-material on this games. It is usual passage of game, without any changes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbKEMjSIudI&feature=PlayList&p=89CBE7355827FAB4&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=5

It - already mods from prospero, that person, to which 55 years for today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPLmKKuhVmo

Here - the new map, new the character. Here the system of allies is used. It is a city which opponents attack, and you should protect it. It is a demonstration example of that it is possible to create with game if strong it to want. By the way here the unique foreign community on this game, is possible it you will interest:

http://arokhslair.net/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=11

I will not write further as I do not know, will read it somebody or not, but if to write - I can write very many. On your material, I really liked how changed the world of game. How built up the world with the objects. Did it under itself. To crack files are one. But what then to change them under itself it is already worthy respect. Now I have understood you that you had in view of. It is a pity that I in WoW played only 1 month on not official a server. I can not long and persistently talk about this game though much my friends in it very much and very for a long time play. And LineageII, but it already another story altogether.

You that person who does much for games. I compare you with prospero. You are adjusted what to do something the both for yourselves, and for the help of people. It is very good position. I besides have many words. It is impossible to me to speak short. I do not like to communicate small phrases as them a little that it is possible to learn about the person who really tries in difference from others. On it my post comes to an end, probably, we will continue further, if continuation is final.