^Mo^ wrote:I really don't see the difference between editing your stats to 200 through a hex edit, or by spending 15 mins in the game holding down the enter key and getting that same stat to 200.
One difference is that you can edit your stats any time you want, whereas you cannot, say, always throw rocks around. Say you enter an area where stat-practice is not really possible, then edit your stats while in that area, and something weird happens (such as a crash, a dead-end, or just something very odd); you say, "hey, this is a bug, I found a bug!" But when you entered that area, the game set up a bunch of variables related to that area according to what your stats were
when you entered that area, and you've confused the programming because now your stats and the variables don't match up any more. In other words, it's a bug that never would have happened if you hadn't magicked around with your stats.
Of course you can always just avoid playing around with your stats after passing through and being under the influence one of these stat "gateways". You just need to know exactly where and when all these "gateways" are, and where and what they apply to. But if you aren't the programmer, you won't know this. If you ARE the programmer, you may not remember it all.
Another consideration is that the game may be executing a "tracking" script of some sort every time you perform some action that can alter your stats. It might simply be checking your stats to see if they've reached a certain level, perhaps in order to change some other variable, or it might be incrementing some other sort of counter. If you just hex-edit your stats, you bypass this script, pulling the rugs around under the programming. Computer programs really don't like having the rugs pulled around under them. They're kind of like idiot savants with epilepsy.
You could also design the game so that it responds gracefully and beautifully to every combination of stats and/or variables in every situation, regardless of possibility or sense. I am not one of the QFG2VGA devs, but I think that, depending on whether we're talking only about stats or not, and on other factors, such a project would probably be doable in another 2-to-28 years.