The Cosmos Element, by Phayyde

Gentlemen, glad you could make it.

Let's get right down to business. If you play Hexen II deathmatch, you can access all cheat codes as if you were in a single player game. This includes:

impulse 9 -- give all weapons/mana
impulse 25 - Activate Tome (even if you don't have one)
impulse 39 - Fly
impulse 40 - Level up
impulse 41 - Experience Cheat
impulse 43 - Give all artifacts

Also, during my tests I'm pretty sure I was unkillable. Upon death, my hit points would wrap around back to whatever my current maximum was. I couldn't test this part thoroughly. Because I had no opponents, I had to limit my testing to the ToP'd grenades and the crusher doors. I assume the results are the same against most other means.

How?

Of course I'll tell you how. The cheat is a name-based backdoor which allows access to all those neat, silly single player cheats. That's right. Raven coded a backdoor cheat into MULTIPLAYER deathmatch. Here is just one example of the backdoor code:

void  ()player_everything_cheat = {
    if ( ((deathmatch || coop) && (self.netname != "Cosmos")) ) {
            return ;
    }
    CheatCommand ( );
    Artifact_Cheat ( );
    self.puzzles_cheat = 1.00000;
};

That second line up there. See it? What that basically says is this. You cannot perform this cheat in DM or coop, but if your name is Cosmos, you can always perform this cheat no matter what. Of course, the code doesn't read that way. I paraphrased it. But that's the net result. Go see for yourself.

It's all over the code. What it means, basically, is that ALL CHEATS WORK in deathmatch if your name is Cosmos. You can even fly while invisible, invincible with an active tome and your super weapon. After just being in the game for 5 seconds. You can easily crash any server by tossing out a Stone of Summoning. Be the flying sheep of death, turning others into sheep from the sky, before you gib them with your glyph. I can't wait to see someone attempt that one. I'm certain there are many other insidious tricks one can perform.

Why would Raven do this?

I asked Mike Gummelt, one of the Hexen II programmers, this question among others. He was cool enough to get back to me in time for this article.

Phayyde:
Why was it included in the Demo?

Cosmos:
Actually, it wasn't supposed to be but the demo went out before we noticed so we just kept quiet for a while and hoped no-one found out. And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you pesky kids! Seriously, though, no-one would have known if that guy (?) hadn't hacked into the code (which we forbade for the demo) and seen it. Now that everyone knows, it's a problem. Anyway, it was just a development tool I used to quickly and easily test the weapons, etc. in DM since I was responsible for the majority of the DM coding and bug squashing.
* As I stated in my post to the HexenWorld MessageBoard, I ONLY used it for development, I NEVER used it to cheat in a DM - that's a cowardly, dishonorable last resort of an unskilled player.

Phayyde:
Why Cosmos?

Cosmos:
My "handle" used to be "Talon" or "Chang Khan" before I came here, but when I first moved here, I rented the entire "Cosmos" series by Carl Sagan and it is the most profound, inspiring and uplifting things I have ever EVER seen. If you only see one thing on TV, it should be the "Cosmos" miniseries. It can change your entire outlook on life, seriously. Carl Sagan is one of my true heroes. One extra benefit was that there's a "Chaos" here - Mike Werckle, so "Cosmos" keeps the cosmic balance here at Raven.

Phayyde:
Will it be in regged version?

Cosmos:
Absolutely most positively NO.

So there you have it. It was an accident. As a software engineer, I can appreciate the enormous effort and attention to detail these guys must maintain around release time. This bug ain't that bad - as far as bugs go. So glad they fixed it in the registered version. As I heave a big sigh of relief, it occurs to me that I need to go rent that Sagan series again. I've seen it at Blockbuster video I think.

Beware!

People can bind name commands along with the cheat impulse so that you'll never be able to tell that they are cheating. In other words, they could cheat and you wouldn't even see the name Cosmos. Here's how:

bind -key- "name Cosmos; impulse 9; name WhateverItWasBefore"

This works, except for one little detail that must be added to the command to make it work. I'll keep that to myself until the regged version is released. Guess you'll just have to wait and see. The Hexen II servers are safe no more. Until a cheat-free registered version is released, expect lots of silly antics on the Hexen II servers. Hey, at least we can get some practice flying around in DM, eh? Baaaaaaa!

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