Alrighty folks, it's time for me to reveal the secret. Some of you will be happy, some of you won't, and some of you won't give a flying purple hippo. Here it goes...
These are the steps I followed for making this work:
Step #1: Download the new editor for The Titans expansion pack. You will need this for the third step.
Step #2: Go into single player mode on any map with water and make the AI hard or titan so that the AI builds fast enough to gain an amount of points similar to yours. (This is actually optional, but if you want to make it believable, you should turn on the score so that people can see that there are two players, who look human. See step four.)
Step #3: Play against the AI until you have accessed the Secrets of the Titans. After you have released your titan, select the Menu and get into the Editor.
Step #4: Rename the computer player to anything you want, but have it resemble a name that a Human player would make up. (I chose UlfKarl_r0x.) This is necessary for the score display. If you want people to believe you, you'll need to make the screenshots look as authentic as possible.
Step #5: Place units near your titan, including naval vessels, for both you and the AI. Be sure you set the triggers to automatically research Champion All for both players (otherwise your units will appear to be unupgraded--this is for authenticity). Also be sure to research the Secret of the Titans, otherwise you'll make the mistake that I did--it says Mythic Age, yet I have a titan.
Step #6: Move the titan around the water each time before you playtest the scenario. A good idea would be to cut your timer off, otherwise viewers will see the screenshot was taken 10 seconds into the game. Also, try not to select your titan during the screenshots because his hitpoints regenerate every time you playtest the scenario.
Step #7: Take as many screenshots as you can and make them go in order as if the titan had moved from one part of the land, through the water, to another part of the land.
Step #8: For any mistakes that you make during the taking of screenshots, you'll need to either edit them out or provide BS explanations for them like I did for the population and age.
Here are a list of mistakes that I made:
Mistake #1: Failure to turn off the timer in the first three screenshots. (In order to fix this I used the bandaid tool in Adobe Photoshop 7.)
Mistake #2: Failure to set tech status to Titan Age. (In order to fix this I provided a BS explanation on how I made the Wonders turn into Titan Gates. This is also my explanation for why the enemy Titan Gate icon didn't appear on the map.)
Mistake #3: In the last screenshot the Titan Gate percentage for the enemy player was 0% (because I had playtested again). (In order to fix this I took the 6% from the previous screenshot and turned the 6 upsidedown to make a 9 to show 9%.
Mistake #4: The population was WAY past the limit. (In order to fix this I provided a BS explanation saying that there was a trigger that allowed "my friend" and I to duplicate our units. Another explanation was the fact that towers cost +2 population and that 10 more could be built making a possible 60 population slots taken.
Mistake #5: I selected the titan a few times during screenshots. The damage shown was always higher than 6k. (In order to fix this I used Adobe Photoshop 7 to cut away some of the hitpoints from the hitpoint bar and decrease the number of hitpoints. In order to make it so that you couldn't see the number of hitpoints, I decreased the size of the image to distort the hitpoints' numbers.)
Mistake #6: The mini-map is black in a lot of places that it shouldn't be. You can see parts where I had set an obelisk with a priest during the actual game versus the AI, but there is a small trail of black fog dividing the obelisk from the rest of my LOS. (This was the only thing that I left unexplained in hopes that someone would figure out the trick.)
Here are the things that naturally made this thread believable:
Praisel #1 Screenshot #3 is the most authentic because the titan appears to be actually wading through the water. Actually, the titan had just finished a stomping attack and was beginning to lift his leg again.
Praisel #2 Providing the score to show that a possible human player was playing with me helped make this thread more plausable.
Praisel #3 Using a "timeline" of screenshots also helped make this thread more plausable. If I had provided only one, many people may have said that this thread was BS (and they would have been correct.)
Praisel #4 I set a trigger for the enemy player to make the comment, "Holy shit dude!!!! Awesome!!!!!!!" Sounds quite human, eh?
Praisel #5 This is probably the reason people found this so plausable: I provided a BS explanation for how this worked. I tried to explain that you could make this possible by using the data2.bar file and editing a few lines. Talking about the "Z" coordinates made it seem like I knew what I was talking about because I went through five paragraphs explaining how it worked. People, "Z" coordinates probably don't even exist, I made it up. Also, I know nothing about editing BAR files, I just picked that one because I knew that BAR files contain a series of files within it. If I didn't tell you which file to edit, then you wouldn't be able to find it, thus making this thread last as long as it did because many of you began asking which file you were supposed to edit.
Praisel #6 I added a disclaimer. Adding a disclaimer to a hoax is a VERY smart way to get people to believe you, especially if you mention Out of Sync errors and ESO.
Praisel #7: Thanks to Kumar Shah's response, this thread attracted many believers. Since Kumar Shah believed that this hoax was true, he edited my thread and added a second disclaimer and a side note for players to make back-up copies of existing files. Kumar Shah brought the life and belief into this thread because he is a Mod. If he had not replied, I don't know how long this thread would have lasted. Probably not even a day.
Well guys, sorry for bringing up such a clammer, but you have to admit that this is the best hoax you've ever seen. I had been planning on this for quite some time and I didn't think it would work out as well as it did. Especially with all the mistakes that I made.
The point of this thread was to try to get people to open up to the possibilities of having amphibious titans. The results are clear: it WOULD make water maps better. Honestly, you don't need this thread to tell you that.
I seriously hope that Kumar Shah does not close this thread as a result to the true explanation of this thread. After all, it IS on topic and it has provided much speculation for the betterment of games by having amphibious titans.
I'm sorry if I've offended anyone. I have never written up such an elaborate hoax before and I'm surprised with how successful this one was. I also apologize if this wasn't the explanation for the "secret" as you all had hoped.
It's been fun. -Halo
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[This message has been edited by Halo (edited 10-28-2003 @ 01:20 PM).]