Show me yours I'll show you mine.

Ludicrosity · 2013-07-19 19:36:13

dalleck wrote:

Ludicrosity wrote:
Does this only happen if you lose your connection to the server while testing/robbing a house? My wireless router is really spotty and I think it has cut off for a few minutes while I've been building my house or browsing houses on the list, but it didn't kill me. I would expect it to kill me if I were robbing a house though because otherwise you could simply exit the game if you were about to die.
No, as my death happened while I was building, in-between tests.

Well that is terrifying.

Blip · 2013-07-21 07:27:08

I'm surprised that you died while fixing your house, dalleck, as I've had my internet drop out entirely while in build mode and still not died. However, that may have been in the initial build mode, before I had a house. Could that make a difference?

Returning to the original purpose of this thread: The design I'm about to show was by far my most successful since v9. I had over $10,000 and many paintings before I was robbed the first time (not including the guy who killed my wife ), days after I first built the house. It evolved from a simple design I made quite cheaply, but then I added more and more, trying to make a more difficult trap. This is what ultimately killed me; I died while trying to add a cat-based magic dance to the later part of the house, which already had a cat. However, I took one too many steps in a certain direction, killing the cat and trapping me in my own house: a childless widower, dying alone in the midst of his own traps.

Here's the staring design: http://castlefortify.com/c/6a84121
And here's what I ended up with: http://castlefortify.com/c/e4c1653

dalleck · 2013-07-22 02:46:03

Blip wrote:

I'm surprised that you died while fixing your house, dalleck, as I've had my internet drop out entirely while in build mode and still not died. However, that may have been in the initial build mode, before I had a house. Could that make a difference?

Yep, I was fixing my house and between tests, so the game demanded I produce something or die.

Blip wrote:

Here's the staring design: http://castlefortify.com/c/6a84121
And here's what I ended up with: http://castlefortify.com/c/e4c1653

Ahh! I liked your design, it was a fun and simple one to puzzle through.

I have found in the last week that I have become an evil master-thief, no longer building a house. Simply robbing to make money to rob some more! It is a thankless task going around and busting houses, but I appreciate all the lovely designs I can break!

Last edited by dalleck (2013-07-22 02:47:25)

jere · 2013-07-22 05:43:12

Assuming I still have access to the prize money, I'm going to announce a small contest on this forum in 2.5 days (Wednesday night around 9pm EST).

I hope I'm not jinxing myself here.

Ludicrosity · 2013-07-22 08:57:55

Cool, I wonder if that means you're the current rich guy who has been at the top of the list for a while? I forget his name...

Last edited by Ludicrosity (2013-07-22 08:58:11)

jere · 2013-07-22 09:02:50

I don't know his name either!

Ludicrosity · 2013-07-22 14:40:59

Well it looks like he was robbed at some point today.

jere · 2013-07-22 14:43:19

Bummer.

Ludicrosity · 2013-07-22 14:53:03

I wonder who did it? I don't see anyone who has suddenly emerged with a huge fortune...

jere · 2013-07-23 05:05:23

Yup, I was taken out. If that hadn't happened, I was planning on posting a blueprint to my house when I got to $100k. Oh well.

What's really weird is my house seems to have been beaten through deep scouting missions by half a dozen different player characters. Look at what happened yesterday in the span of a few hours:

Jason Richard Salcido came in with 10 ladders, 10 crowbars etc.
Robert Richard Liang came in with 13 ladders, 10 torches, etc.
Charles R. Rodriguez came in with 10 ladders, 10 torches, 10 explosives, etc.
Nicholas Joseph Valdez came in with 8 ladders, 20 torches, 20 explosives, etc.
Aaron Jesse Waters came in with 61 ladders, 5 torches, etc.
Joseph Douglas Miller came in with 7 ladders, 46 torches, etc.
All the above were scouting missions. None died. No money taken. James Samuel Davis then came in, apparently knowing how things worked, and took $78k.

I have to say, that is really strange. First, that isn't a typical day on my house. I only had 3 semi-serious attacks in the past couple weeks. This is clearly one (real life) person or a group working together. And between them, they dumped over $110k to get to me. Very odd. I didn't see nearly that kind of money in the list either. I'd guess it's just one person with 2 accounts generating/dumping money back and forth.

Anyway, I want to post my blueprint, but first I'd like to see how much money my broken house can accumulate.

Last edited by jere (2013-07-23 05:17:59)

bey bey · 2013-07-23 09:02:14

Looks like something one can do with two accounts: Have a somewhat safe house and then rob your other house's starting cash lots of times over. Since there's no harm done if somebody snatches up the starting cash before the other account (just start over) there's nothing to stop this. Sad if it's only to take down somebody.

jere · 2013-07-23 09:10:43

Yea, it's an exploit that has been known about since the beginning. I don't see it ever going away because, as you said, the risk is just too low. I mean, it might be slight more painful to pull off if there were 5+ pages of houses with more than the starting money.

Heh, I just read this article and momentarily thought it might be appropriate advice for TCD (give away 2 copies with each game, adjust price if need be). Then I realized how exceedingly stupid that would be because then you'd be giving every customer that exploit right out of the box.

Ludicrosity · 2013-07-23 10:10:52

Yeah, definitely sounds like someone with two accounts playing the system. I will say however, that a few days ago I ventured into your house with a bunch of tools hoping to snatch up your pile of cash. Unfortunately (for me) I slipped up and accidentally walked right into a trap door at the very beginning of your house...

You mentioned that none of those people died, so I guess none of them could have been me (also, this was a couple days before you were burglarized). I obviously lost my own house in the process, which was pretty disappointing considering it cost over 100k to build...

Last edited by Ludicrosity (2013-07-23 10:11:50)

jere · 2013-07-23 10:32:30

Ouch. I think I recall seeing that tape and being confused why someone did walked right into the trapdoor. Can't say I haven't done the same myself though.

You mentioned that none of those people died, so I guess none of them could have been me

Oh, that's not to say no one is dying in there! The most common is the 2 stepper. If I see that someone took 3 moves, I know they walked in and right out. If they took 2, I know they walked in and suicided right onto the first electric floor. This has happened at least a dozen times.

The more satisfying tapes involved robbers (who had brought plenty of ladders) plummet to their deaths because they put too much faith in a trapdoor hallway that was powered on by default. That reliably defeated all the well funded scouting before yesterday.

jasonrohrer · 2013-07-23 11:32:22

Well, 1-6 in that list are all the same account.

7 is a different account, but I don't see signs that these accounts are related.

jere · 2013-07-23 12:29:41

The thing is it's highly unlikely that 1 kills himself, starts over as 2 with $2k and then is able to get 10s of thousands of dollars within minutes. Maybe once, but probably not five times within a few hours. He had to be getting outside funding. Also, 7 figuring out the house within, at most, hours or more likely minutes of 1-6 is unlikely a coincidence, considering that the house had gone untouched for many days.

Anyway, it's not a huge deal. Just a curious happening. It's not like two accounts is cheating or anything.

colorfusion · 2013-07-23 12:44:58

jere wrote:

The thing is it's highly unlikely that 1 kills himself, starts over as 2 with $2k and then is able to get 10s of thousands of dollars within minutes. Maybe once, but probably not five times within a few hours. He had to be getting outside funding. Also, 7 figuring out the house within, at most, hours or more likely minutes of 1-6 is unlikely a coincidence, considering that the house had gone untouched for many days.
Anyway, it's not a huge deal. Just a curious happening. It's not like two accounts is cheating or anything.

My guess would be that the person is using his main account to get his secondary account money through the starting money. He scouts out your house in 1-6 with his secondary account which likely has no proper house and then, once he has found the solution, goes in with his first account to claim the money without the risk of dying and losing his home.

Could also be two friends helping eachother, or just a completely unrelated coincidence still.

Ludicrosity · 2013-07-23 19:26:35

Yeah, it could be two different people helping each other and/or working together. There is really no way to protect your house against that.

dalleck · 2013-07-27 23:57:55

Sadly I have been broken into and had my wife killed It was once again some random guy with far too much money to be sensibly acquired through regular means...

Came in at first with over $20,000 in tools and laddered me, and stole under $10,000.

Then he came back later with $8,000 worth of tools to kill my wife for $4,000.

Anyway, here is the design, as I won't be building it again and I think people were curious about it (hence the great desire to break the damn thing!)

http://castlefortify.com/c/dd4de83

It is crazy simple in its concept. Chase the cat in the right order to turn the button off one step. The first twist I placed is that the final step has to be onto the powered electric floor, and the second is that the path is created out of animals, thus going backstage to see how the wizard works, just nets you a bunch of cats.

I also liked the macguffin I placed with the dog at the switches. Always good to have a solid distraction.

Last edited by dalleck (2013-07-28 13:43:20)

bey bey · 2013-07-28 04:49:28

Oh man, that's annoying (and pobably one of the disadvantages or the pure ladder-house still: looks solvable with no risk with cash). So the name wasn't one of the currently existing people?

Either way: nice house! The cat thingee is a VERY nasty twist.

dalleck · 2013-07-28 05:15:32

bey bey wrote:

Oh man, that's annoying (and pobably one of the disadvantages or the pure ladder-house still: looks solvable with no risk with cash). So the name wasn't one of the currently existing people?
Either way: nice house! The cat thingee is a VERY nasty twist.

Nah he was just another name. I assume a double-account, friend-assist or just lucky to have someone pumping out free houses. I recall doing something similar way back in the house crash of v.13 or so, so I can't really complain.

bey bey · 2013-07-28 05:21:52

Well, idk. We're back to one page of houses as of now.

Just playing as a robber is fine, if done fairly. With a lot of skill, one robber can take down lots of easier houses without contributing anything, just taking cash and content out of the game, but that has to be accepted I guess. But add pumping to the game and this might be what keeps destroying it. It looks like ALL the beginner houses disappeared again, and we're all on borrowed time. That's quite a shame.

dalleck · 2013-07-28 05:23:02

bey bey wrote:

Well, idk. We're back to one page of houses as of now.
Just playing as a robber is fine, if done fairly. With a lot of skill, one robber can take down lots of easier houses without contributing anything, just taking cash and content out of the game, but that has to be accepted I guess. But add pumping to the game and this might be what keeps destroying it. It looks like ALL the beginner houses disappeared again, and we're all on borrowed time. That's quite a shame.

Yeah I wish something could be done about pumping, but I am not sure there is an easy solution.

It needs to be recognised as quite damaging to the game.

Last edited by dalleck (2013-07-28 05:23:36)

Ludicrosity · 2013-07-28 12:56:18

dalleck wrote:

Sadly I have been broken into and had my wife killed It was once again some random guy with far too much money to be sensibly acquired through regular means...
Came in at first with over $20,000 in tools and laddered me, and stole under $10,000.
Then he came back later with $8,000 worth of tools to kill my wife for $4,000.
Anyway, here is the design, as I won't be building it again and I think people were curious about it (hence the great desire to break the damn thing!)
http://castlefortify.com/c/c63d6f1
It is crazy simple in its concept. Chase the cat in the right order to turn the button off one step. The first twist I placed is that the final step has to be onto the powered electric floor, and the second is that the path is created out of animals, thus going backstage to see how the wizard works, just nets you a bunch of cats.
I also liked the macguffin I placed with the dog at the switches. Always good to have a solid distraction.

Yeah, as you certainly saw in another thread the second robber was me, but the first was not. The money I used to get your wife was acquired by robbing Mr. Smith's house, which I robbed on starting funds. So this wasn't a case of pumping or double accounts or friends teaming up. I had planned to try and kill your wife before the mystery guy came in with ladders (that was a complete surprise to me).

Also, I've been trying to avoid robbing poorer houses ($2k - 3k) and have been focused mostly on the middle to rich houses. Robbing poor houses is not really fun, but is often necessary when building your own house (to expedite your accumulation of funds).

Last edited by Ludicrosity (2013-07-28 12:59:18)

bey bey · 2013-07-28 16:54:01

Well, I hope you'll be the one to rob me then, sounds like it would be preferable to what happens to others out there...

Also, poor Mr Mcdaniel seems to be facing a few destructive romps at the moment - poor guy. I dare say I'm glad my family is dead so the damage should be containable...

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#51 2013-07-19 19:36:13

Re: Show me yours I'll show you mine.

#52 2013-07-21 07:27:08

Re: Show me yours I'll show you mine.

#53 2013-07-22 02:46:03

Re: Show me yours I'll show you mine.

#54 2013-07-22 05:43:12

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#55 2013-07-22 08:57:55

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#56 2013-07-22 09:02:50

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#57 2013-07-22 14:40:59

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#58 2013-07-22 14:43:19

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#59 2013-07-22 14:53:03

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#60 2013-07-23 05:05:23

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#61 2013-07-23 09:02:14

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#62 2013-07-23 09:10:43

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#63 2013-07-23 10:10:52

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#64 2013-07-23 10:32:30

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#66 2013-07-23 12:29:41

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#69 2013-07-27 23:57:55

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#70 2013-07-28 04:49:28

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#72 2013-07-28 05:21:52

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