Trenches comic: Thursday Oct. 13, 2011

Bogey · October 2011

Yes, the NDA applies to that too, you idiot.

10/13/2011 - Anonymous

Cheat Codes… not!

Most games will have developer codes to make the development and QA process more efficient. The cheat codes will, for example, let testers skip twenty-three levels or buff up when they need to. It’s the only way you’re gonna be able to test deeper into the game, and they’re usually removed prior to the final version.

One tester did not know this.

He was being something of a dick, and was cheerfully posting the developer codes to every cheat code website he could find, months before the game was ever released, despite the epic-level NDA he’d signed.

When the codes were stripped out, he got VERY upset, and even sent the Dev team a long rant disguised as a bug report. He went into detail on why the cheat codes were necessary and that his reputation online was being ruined.

Needless to say, his employment did not last long.

RMS Oceanic · October 2011

There should be more cheat codes in the world. But yeah, that was dumb.

Inkyblots · October 2011

If it weren't for cheat codes I would of never gotten to the robot trex in the first Turok.

Enc · October 2011

Ever since someone pointed out the bean noses... what has been seen cannot be unseen.

kingworks · October 2011

I make it a point to avoid using cheat codes.

I don't complete many games these days or do it very quickly, but I feel good about the ones I do best on my own.

I'm not above looking up clues for help on difficult puzzles or obscure quest requirements, though.

Henroid · October 2011

That's a story I can believe. No doubts about any part of it.

As for the comic, that exchanged happened at least twice for me when I was in school.

Syphyre · October 2011

His poor online reputation

I totally laughed my rear off at this newspost.

The Geek · October 2011

B A B A up down B A left right B A start

is the code for lots of lives and level select on the old TMNT II: The Arcade Game on the NES

It is burned into my brain.

And of course every one knows the Konami code (which also worked on TMNT II, as it was a Konami game. Only gave you lives, not the level select, if I recall correctly).

wonderpug · October 2011

down up left left a right down

Jam Warrior · October 2011

Down Up Left Left A Right Down

DULLARD

HeadCreeps · October 2011

Syphyre wrote:

His poor online reputation I totally laughed my rear off at this newspost.

His online street cred has been forever tarnished

PMAvers · October 2011

Developer codes!

Always liked the ones in the old YDKJ games when we were testing them in the Berkeley System days. All questions were assigned a three-letter code that showed up in the upper-right corner of the screen (I'd like to say that's the right corner, been a while). One of the F-keys would bring up a dialog box that'd let you enter one of the codes and go directly to a question, in case you needed to test a specific chain of question/events.

jackal · October 2011

Did he post the cheat code to set up an unassisted triple play? Because I know of someone that could use it.

jwalk · October 2011

would have really been funny if it was a MMO type game..

Undead Scottsman · October 2011

I love cheats codes, as they add replay value for me. After I beat a game, it's always fun to run through it again while being overpowered. One of the reasons I was sad that Dead Rising 2 didn't have a megabuster-level weapon like the first game did.

zepherin · October 2011

Companies treat their NDCAs seriously. Why does everyone forget that. They went through a lot of cost and bother having those drawn up because generic NDCAs are not very useful. They didn't do it for the fun and joy of legal work.

kaliyama · October 2011

zepherin wrote:

Companies treat their NDCAs seriously. Why does everyone forget that. They went through a lot of cost and bother having those drawn up because generic NDCAs are not very useful. They didn't do it for the fun and joy of legal work.

Doing the find & replace to draft a "new" NDA from a template and ensuring it covers all the relevant bases shouldn't cost more than $5,000, and more likely it's done in-house.

Maigaard · October 2011

IDDQD and IDKFA.
And of course all the console commands you can use in the new Fallout's. Does the safe require 75 lockpick, but you're only at 43? No prob.

GreasyKidsStuff · October 2011

I remember reading Nintendo Power every month and just scouring the cheat code section and trying to find stuff for games I owned/rented. So much awesome stuff.

HALIFAX? and !YNGWIE! unlocking the Naboo Starfighter in Rogue Squadron blew my fragile young mind to smithereens.

zepherin · October 2011

kaliyama wrote:

zepherin wrote:

Companies treat their NDCAs seriously. Why does everyone forget that. They went through a lot of cost and bother having those drawn up because generic NDCAs are not very useful. They didn't do it for the fun and joy of legal work.

Doing the find & replace to draft a "new" NDA from a template and ensuring it covers all the relevant bases shouldn't cost more than $5,000, and more likely it's done in-house.

Probably done in house, but that is a cost. Whatever the in house councils billing rate, but the NDA that you are given when you sign up for a beta test is worlds different than an employment NDA. The ones I have signed were all project targeted and changed with each project. Maybe for testers it is different than what I am doing now, but NDAs are binding both ways. An indefinite NDA will just get thrown out, and they usually are a part of a no compete no solicitation agreement which if written incorrectly will also get thrown out. Now on the other hand if the company just has an NDA policy and simply fires anyone who violates it then yeah boilerplate stuff.

EgoTerrorist · October 2011

My favorite cheat code of all time? Justin Bailey

Athenor · October 2011

GreasyKidsStuff wrote:

I remember reading Nintendo Power every month and just scouring the cheat code section and trying to find stuff for games I owned/rented. So much awesome stuff.

HALIFAX? and !YNGWIE! unlocking the Naboo Starfighter in Rogue Squadron blew my fragile young mind to smithereens.

The best part about that was that Episode 1 was released around a year after Rogue Squadron came out, and no one found that code... OR the art assets. They had hid everything extremely well in the code. Don't ask me how, especially with the wireframe, but they did it! The PC version required a download to get that going.

Oh, and Justin Bailey is completely random happenstance; other codes will yeild similar results.

Echo · October 2011

Maigaard wrote:

IDDQD and IDKFA.
And of course all the console commands you can use in the new Fallout's. Does the safe require 75 lockpick, but you're only at 43? No prob.

IDSPISPOPD.

Which, by the way, means "smashing pumpkins into small piles of putrid debris".

DrZiplock · October 2011

The "wc3-mitchell" code from Wing Commander 3 was a pretty good one.

Though, it still wouldn't help with getting left behind by the fleet because you failed to make it back to the carrier on time.

Fuckers.

Delzhand · October 2011

down r up l y b x a

My brother and I used to fight over who got to play as "evil" ryu. It was like a game of chicken to see who got stuck with the white gi.

JustinSane07 · October 2011

power overwhelming

show me the money

black sheep wall

Old Blizzard RTS codes.

Dark Raven X · October 2011

19, 65, 09, 17.

Then, 04, 01, 02, 06.

These numbers, man. I will never forget them.

Also, pretty sure muscle memory will allow me to pick up a Dualshock and fire off the "spawn a Hydra" code for GTA: San Andreas in less than a second.

Munkus Beaver · October 2011

The code in Golden Sun 2 to get your save data from Golden Sun 1 was engenius.

Dark Raven X · October 2011

Munkus, I wrote that code out.

Gold level.

All my info.

So many characters.

And I made a mistake somewhere in the transcribing process.

Must've spent an hour rechecking that motherfucker.

Delta Assault · October 2011

Ohhhhhhh, Trenches comic. I thought this was gonna be a comic about Trenched.

Tube · October 2011

I remember thereisnotry from jedi knight. mainly because I hadn't seen the original movies and had no idea what it was referring to.

Hewn · October 2011

jackal wrote:

Did he post the cheat code to set up an unassisted triple play? Because I know of someone that could use it.

Nice.

My favorite cheat codes, as a kid, were the level skip codes. Normally in those old NES games there was a platforming level I had no hope of completing. And with limited save function, skipping back to the problem level (or over it!) was truly a glorious event.

Opty · October 2011

I think the last time I used cheat codes was Goldeneye when they revealed the All Multiplayer Characters code a few years after it was out and it blew everyone's minds.

Langly · October 2011

I love having developer codes in games, just in case the game bugs out and I either lose save information or need to noclip through a bugged area or something. I rarely ever use them to actually play through the game, they're just useful tools to have when bullshit arises.

especially in the new fallout games. Open world games usually get the most use of them.

Ivar · October 2011

jackal wrote:

Did he post the cheat code to set up an unassisted triple play? Because I know of someone that could use it.

Does this count as a comic edit?

Fireflash · October 2011

Hah! I remember when I first started working as a tester. One of the new employee was a 16 yrs old kid. It was rumored that he had a connection for this job because rarely do ppl this young get hired for the job. The very first weekend after he got hired he posted some of the game's combos and moves on a forum. The next monday right after lunch a boss came to his desk and took him away to his office. A few minutes later he came back, escorted by the boss, picked up his things and left the building. So silly what some ppl would do for a bit of online cred.

Darric · October 2011

smashthestate

Penny Arcade

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Trenches comic: Thursday Oct. 13, 2011

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