It is time to crush, smash and bomb your opponents: Join the action at the Intel Xeon Robo Brawl.

By Ajay Mungara (Intel) (92 posts) on February 27, 2008 at 11:30 am

Build your own robot and then boost it with enough protection, speed and arsenal to fight in the battle ring. Oh man … it is ruthless out there – kill or get killed. In spite of my best efforts, which lasted about 30 mins, my robot "smtbot" managed to rank only at 1293. Please note that the top 3 ranked players win a HP workstation. Game on! Play RoboBrawl!

"Robo Brawl" was built by Intel and "oh yeah" you guessed it right, there definitely is some higher level technical purpose to this game. It was designed to be an entertaining way to learn how to configure & optimize servers. "Robo Brawl" is a fun game where you earn points to unlock Intel Xeon features that boost performance, incorporate virtualization or improve energy efficiency of your robot.

You can play with some key server characteristics/configurations like the more "energy efficient" your Server .aka. Robot is the longer it will last in the battle field. I think Virtualization relates to the robot being more adaptable to the different challenges your opponent throws at you and higher agility/speed obviously relates to performance.

My first impression -- Not too bad for a flash based game and it helps to kill time when forced to attend some boring meeting. And please don't ask me why a "ladies hand bag" (or that is what I think it is) happens to be a lethal weapon, or maybe I don't know because my wife has not used it on me yet.

Do let me know if you are interested to try out the multi-player game option with me.

Categories: Manageability, Virtualization

Comments (84)

By Ray Zed Blog on February 27th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Ankit Saxena: "Robo Brawl" is built by Intel and "oh yeah" you guessed it right that there definitely is some higher level technical purpose to the game. It is designed to be an entertaining way to learn how to configure

By Intel® Software Network on February 28th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Get an overview of Ultra Mobile market segment and platforms McCaslin Platform Development Resource Kit It is time to crush, smash and bomb your opponents: Join the action at the Intel Xeon Robo Brawl.Read the Manageability Community Manager - Ajay Mungara's thoughts and join the conversation

By Ashley on March 7th, 2008 at 10:12 am
So Robo Brawl is a pretty awesome game, and I myself am not very talented at the game. But I do keep my eye on the leader board and was doing some math.

It appears to me that #1 Roboneo and #4 Carrotos are the same player. They both have an average of 4.7 kills per game, and are averaging 25,000 points per game. This is awfully close to a perfect score on their games, and they both appear to be playing games at an ungodly speed. I'm just wondering what the checks and balances are to ensure that cheating is not going on.
Other players seem to have an average of 3.5 kills per game and about 19,000 points. With the exception of Decepticon who seemingly has 4.99 kills per game, which is pretty much impossible. Just wondering if people are following the rules or have somehow found a way to break them making it unfair for the rest of the players.

By Ajay Mungara (Intel) on March 7th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Ashley,
Thanks for pointing out a potential game cheater. I will make sure this is communicated to the game moderators. Cheaters always find a way, and I guess the users like you play a very important role in bringing in the "checks & balances". thank you.

By Pam Didner (Intel) on March 7th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Ashley,
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I am the program manager for the RoboBrawl game. Like you, I have been following the top leaders for sometime. We take fair play very seriously and are currently reviewing the game results. Should we uncover any rule breakers we will terminate their accounts and they will be disqualified from the contest. We will keep you posted.

Regards-

Pam Didner

Robo Brawl Program Manager

Intel Corp.

By Pam Didner (Intel) on March 12th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Ashely-

Following up on your blog comment, our game developers discovered some improper activities by a handful of individuals. Our developers created a patch that essentially flags any suspicious activity. We will be notifying the owners of accounts with suspicious activity of termination of their account. Additionally we will audit the accounts of the top ranked players before prizes are awarded. You can see more details at the Server Room

Thousands users registered and played the game in the past three weeks. It's very important that we reinforce "fair play" of the game. Again, thanks so much for bringing this to our attention.

By Pam Didner (Intel) on March 12th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Ashely-

Thousands of users registered and played the game in the past three weeks. It’s very important that we reinforce “fair play” of the game. Again, thanks so much for bringing this to our attention.

By Intel Open Port: The Server Room Blog on March 12th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Robo Brawl Game on 2/20. In just three weeks, thousands of users registered and played the game. I have been received a lot of positive comments about the game, including the following feedback from Ashley on the Intel'sSoftware Blog.

By Derek on March 16th, 2008 at 5:06 am
Hello my name is Derek and my user name is CARROTos. I would like to openly admit to my cheating and will gladly take my punishment. But is your going to catch one cheater you need to catch them all. ROBO BRAWL player Decepticon is also a cheater. He has averaged 4.1 kills a game and averaged 19510 points per game. These numbers weren't as bad as mine because he chheated at a lower level than me and my friend Roboneo. Another way i know he is using the cheat is how on wedensday the 5th of March, he went from about 200 wins to 700 wins in one day. this would take days to do unless your damage was jacked up like his is.

By Derek on March 16th, 2008 at 5:07 am
just though i'd let you know about yet another cheater -derek (CARROTos)

By Ajay Mungara (Intel) on March 16th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Hi Derek,
Thanks for openly admitting that you managed to hack into the game. Sometimes it does take a "game cheat to identify an another one". I will make sure that this information about "Deception" as a potential cheat is communicated to the game moderators. Thanks for pointing this out and helping us keep the game fair & honest. Appreciate it.

By Ashley on March 18th, 2008 at 8:26 am
I appreciate all the responses. I didn't mean to be a "tattle-tale" though it definitely looks that way. :/

I just was thinking with all the smart computer guys out there, there had to have been some sort of loop hole that people were finding their way around. And Carrotos- way to be honest. That is honorable.

Thanks Intel for making this game fair and fun!
Ashley

By Ajay Mungara (Intel) on March 18th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Ashley,
You did really well. Thank you.

Your comment definitely helped Intel keep the game "fair & fun". Your comment combined with Derek's comment probably helped some Intel managers realize the benefits of Blogs & User participation. Keep them coming. :)

By Taylor on March 20th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Hi my name is taylor and I am username Roboneo. I would just like to let you know how insecure your game is. I'm 15-years old and i was easily able to change my performance to 200 using a free program I dowloaded from the internet. Just thought you would like to know...

By Ajay Mungara (Intel) on March 21st, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Thanks Taylor for coming forward. Appreciate it.

By Decepticon on March 21st, 2008 at 10:58 pm
I am Decepticon and outing me as a cheater because im at the top is ridiculous.

I don't get 4.99 kills per game.. I average anywhere from 2-5 kills, a lot of the time
i get groups of 5 kills per play or groups of 3 but mostly average 2 or 3.

two days in early march i played 8 hours a day averaging 1 minute per battle
8 * 60 = 480 battles in 8 hours

Anymore questions?

By Derek on March 24th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Yes i have a question, do you really need a new computer if yours can run 1 game per minute? why dont you let the people with 7 year old computers (like me) have it. i mean its not like it takes about 5 minutes per game for us...

By Decepticon on March 24th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Its not so much the speed on ones comp but your internet speed / latency & distance to their servers..

By Taylor on March 25th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Decepticon. You're a dumbass.

By Pam Didner (Intel) on March 25th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Thanks for engaging discussion. Our game developers review each account and flag any suspicious configuration or activity. We will continue to reinforce the contest rules and the spirit of fair play.

By Derek on March 26th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Hey Decepticon, i was wondering why you havn't played one game since me and roboneo have been kicked off. Is the game just too hard when you are not cheating?

By Derek on March 31st, 2008 at 11:14 am
Damn, i guess he is just wordless. If he wins that computer i am going to be so pissed.

By Brady on April 3rd, 2008 at 10:41 am
I like to look at the numbers too. A few weeks ago, back when Decepticon had around 500 wins, I also noticed his kills per game ratio was around 4.99. Which is basically a perfect game every time; a very difficult feat to accomplish. Since Ashley posted, I noticed his ratio has dropped down to a more reasonable 4.13 kills per game. If there is a way to check the records from a few weeks ago, it should be possible to see this also. Just a thought...

By Ajay Mungara (Intel) on April 3rd, 2008 at 11:44 am
Brady,
Thanks for your comment. Yes, I believe the team has the ability to look into past history as well.

By ashcore on April 3rd, 2008 at 2:33 pm
rofl your game is broken..
for every win it counts it as a loss as well along with this error

Incorrect key file for table './intadmin_robo/BATTLES_SP.MYI'; try to repair it

By flubby on April 3rd, 2008 at 2:56 pm
lol

http://robobrawl.com/php/setHaxxor.php

By flubby on April 3rd, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Rofl...

if (isHaxxor(data))
{
trace("DAMN YOU HAXOR!");
_loc_4 = new URLLoader();
_loc_5 = new URLRequest(Global.PHP + "setHaxxor.php");
_loc_6 = new URLVariables();
_loc_6.user = param2;
_loc_6.pass = param3;
_loc_5.data = _loc_6;
_loc_4.load(_loc_5);
}
else
{
trace("THANK YOU FOR NOT HACKING");
}// end else if

you know theres a much easier way around all these without having to re-code all your files...{{yawn}}

By David Calzarette on April 4th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I was just playing robobrawl and I accidentally pressed the alt button next to my space bar which kicked me out of the game. Ever since that moment it does not record the games I play and actually places me back at 101 games played each and every time I play and logout games played after 101 I remember at lease 120 games played. Can you check that out.
Thank You
David

By Derek on April 4th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Only 12 days left kiddies!!! just a secret for all you noobs out there, if you are about to die just close your window and it will not count as a death or a game played!!!

By flubby on April 4th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
yup..the game is screwed...try making a new robot and see how messed up the scoring is.

instead of closing the window just press f5 to refresh or click the robotbrawl graphic and bottom to exit a losing battle.

By Henry on April 5th, 2008 at 7:05 am
Is the game messed up my score doesn't change after a few games. Is a hacker messing the game up.
Are you listening Intel?
You would think after spending 3 billion they could get this game stable so hackers can't change the game play.

By Henry on April 5th, 2008 at 7:05 am
On a new processor Plant.

By Henry on April 5th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I guess I'll have to fork over the money for a new $2000.00 card playing machine.
HeHe!

By Ajay Mungara (Intel) on April 6th, 2008 at 5:45 am
All,
We are definitely listening to all your comments/concerns. I have passed this information to the game organizers and they are looking into it. I will keep you posted. Thanks.

By radiohalo on April 9th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
About a week ago I sent an email to Intel because the Robobrawl game did some serious switching on my scores. My score that afternoon was about 355-72 (120th place) and in about 30 minutes I was over 6 mil. in points. Later that evening when I logged in I only had 5.6 mil. I shrugged it off and played 75 games straight, winning almost all of them. The strange thing that I noticed was my losses side started subtracting so that after the 75 games my new record was 430 to -3 I was excited, but did not understand why I was still in 120th place all day. I logged off, then on again, and Robobrawl completely forgot everything I had done...I am now still at 355-72 and I haven't played since. Also, I don't believe I've been contacted yet about this from Intel. What gives?

By Henry on April 9th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
I believe Intel wants some serious media attention, maybe we should contact them I sure they would be interested in this saga. The hackers of the word need to be spanked for messing up this game they should be sued (if caught) and there parents if they are minors for not policing there kids. Intel should press charges.
I'm still waiting for a response from my first email this is my fourth.
Yea really what gives?

By Henry on April 9th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
You will keep us posted when! ----------------------- When the game is over!
Yea pass it on to deaf ears, we are waiting, say something any thing

By Sandra Lopez on April 10th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
I am working with Pam on the RoboBrawl program. And I would like to acknowledge and respond to some recent concerns that have been posted regarding the RoboBrawl scoring system.

Specifically, some RoboBrawl players have identified what appears to be a discrepancy between the scoring accrued from a series of games played in a single session and the corresponding scoring update to the RoboBrawl Leaderboard.

We have identified one primary event responsible for these scoring discrepancies.

Recently, a patch was created to better detect a small number of RoboBrawl users that were attempting to hack the game to gain an unfair advantage in the Leaderboard standings. An early version of this patch is responsible for the scoring discrepancy. The patch affected one of the point scoring characteristics so that the point score displayed in the game (in a single session) for all players was inaccurate and higher than the actual points earned and subsequently posted to the Leaderboard. This affected all players evenly and across the board so no players gained an advantage over others during this time and no players lost their relative position on the Leaderboard.

It's worth taking a minute to address why no player's standing on the Leaderboard was affected positively or negatively by this scoring discrepancy. Points do not directly affect a player's overall position on the RoboBrawl Leaderboard. Leaderboard standings are determined by WINS divided by LOSSES multiplied by the number of battles played. In the event of a tie, rank is determined by the highest number of kills.(see Complete Official Rules at http://www.robobrawl.com/contestrules.html – "4. How to Win"). The scoring tabulation of the game was designed this way to ensure fair play and fair scoring.

Based on your feedback, we have updated the security patch in question to ensure that the local scoring of games played in a single session are consistent with the scores that are then written to the database and that ultimately update the point scores on the RoboBrawl Leaderboard.

Because of this update, please clear your cache so that the score display in the game is consistent with scores recorded on the Leaderboard.

Thank you for your feedback and patience and also thank you for your ongoing support of RoboBrawl.

Sandra Lopez

By radiohalo on April 15th, 2008 at 6:20 am
I for one, do not trust that this contest can rightfully be concluded. It is not Intel's fault. The blame should be placed on cheaters that provide the need for the patches and changes in the system. I do not trust the leader board that displays the records that are there. Especially after I experienced the drastic improvement in my own record which I believed to be due to error. I wondered how someone could be 1100 and 0, then my own record went from 355-72 to 430-(-3). If I played so well that night, why am I not on the leader board? I'll tell you, I don't belong there, but how do you tell me who does belong there?

By flubby on April 15th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Well admitted cheater roboneo is back to cheating under the name WarriorNeos
and
seeno is a obvious cheater getting number 1 spot in 2 days flat?

By flubby on April 15th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
PsSst Intel...Look at WarriorNeos stats configuration
http://www.robobrawl.com/php/getLeaderBoard.php

2.4.0.3.5.4.4 that zero means no weapon at all..rofl

screenshot for laughable obvious cheating
http://i31.tinypic.com/2ng4vo3.jpg

By Pam Didner (Intel) on April 15th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Radiohalo -

Thank you for your feedback and your overall support of the RoboBrawl game. We not only are committed to provide an engaging and entertaining game with RoboBrawl, but also want to crete a situation where everyone has an overall positive experience, which includes ensuring the scoring on the Leaderboard is accurate and that the RoboBrawl contest is fair.

As you reference in your note, a patch was created to better detect any RoboBrawl users attempting to hack the game to gain an unfair advantage in the Leaderboard standings. An early version of that patch created a scoring discrepancy. The patch affected all players evenly and across the board so no players gained an advantage over others during this time and no players lost their relative position on the Leaderboard.

As mentioned in a previous posting, Leaderboard standings are determined by WINS divided by LOSSES multiplied by the total number of battles played.

Example:

Current leader: Seeno is ranked #1 with 1112 wins and 0 losses (as of 10:43 am on 4.15.08): (1112) x 1112 = 1,236,544

Current #2: Zilog 1025 wins and 1 loss (as of 10:43 am on 4.15.08): (1025/1) x 1026 = 1,051,650

Current #3: XeonPowered 1060 wins and 2 losses (as of 10:43 am on 4.15.08): (1060/2) x 1062 = 562,860

Current #4: swannbot 713 wins and 0 losses ((as of 10:43 am on 4.15.08): (713/0) x 713 = 508,369

NOTE: These scores were captured at 10:43am PST today. From Flubby's last posting(http://www.robobrawl.com/php/getLeaderBoard.php), XeonPowered and swannbot have completed another 140 games and 95 games respectively which affect their record and standing on the Leaderboard. This amount of game play is within an acceptable range of 1-2 minutes per game. Worth noting at this point, as the content nears a close, we anticipate players spending more time with RoboBrawl, playing more games.

The above scores DO NOT reflect the scores on the Leaderboard. They are basis of how players are ranked on the Leaderboard. The scoring tabulation of the game was designed this way to ensure fair play, fair scoring and to reward those who played more games. (see Complete Official Rules at http://www.robobrawl.com/contestrules.html – "4. How to Win").

We will be contacting you directly to trouble-shoot the discrepancy you describe.

Thank you again for your patience and ongoing support of the RoboBrawl game.

Pam Didner, Robobrawl Program Manager

By Pam Didner (Intel) on April 15th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Flubby-

Thank you for bringing potential irregularities to our attention. Upon investigation, we do not see any suspicious activity from either player you mention. They are both completing games within an acceptable time, frame 1-2 minutes, and have not demonstrated any other characteristics that would at this point suggest they are cheating.

You note that the "0" (zero) in the configuration does not indicate a weapon. In fact, it indicates the drill. So the configuration at this time is within the realm of game play and legitimate.

That said, we will continue to monitor the game and scoring activity and as well as the RoboBrawl Leaderboard.

Pam Didner, Robobrawl Program Manager

By Pam Didner (Intel) on April 15th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Hi-

As you may know, the RoboBrawl.com contest is coming to a close at 11:59pmPST on Wednesday, April 16th 2008.

Per the contest rules Contest Details , rank is determined by the following formula: WINS / LOSSES (wins divided by losses) multiplied by total number of games played. The top three ranked players at the close of the contest will be eligible to win one of the HP workstations powered by Intel Xeon processor.

In the interest of Fair Play, we want to make clear that we will be scrutinizing and verifying the Battle Records and Battle Histories of all of the top players on the Leaderboard, and in particular, the top three eligible to win a workstation to ensure to the best of our ability that no cheating or hacking of the game took place that could have created an unfair advantage or an inaccurate score.

Once the winners' records pass this verification process, their names will be announced on robobrawl.com. Since this verification process may take a few days, we expect to announce final results and the recipients of the workstations on Tuesday, April 22, 2008. Please check for details and updates.

Thanks again for your support of RoboBrawl.

Best,

Pam Didner, Robobrawl Program Manager

By XeonPowered on April 16th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Woohoo! Decepticon is gone.

By XeonPowered on April 16th, 2008 at 12:24 am
By the way, that's a cool trick to see the configuration used by people in the top 10. I'd always wondered what other people were using. It wasn't what I had expected at all. Although, to correct Pam, I think the "0" (zero) configuration in the weapon spot actually indicates the Spin Mace. Although I can't figure out what the "3" in the fourth spot indicates.

By flubby on April 16th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Doh..my bad, wont happen again, was unaware of the mace..
but how likely can the mace be effective when your in the 800's win ratio range.

XP -
never seen you play so much till now..slow down and just hold on to 3rd place.

Intel -
A simple fix that would have eliminated 90% of the kiddie cheaters is to use the POST protocol
instead of the GET when the data string is being sent to the server..that way the data string used from the cheaters couldn't be used within the clients browsers.
And if your going to use an open source encryption algorithm change some of the code so only you have the key on the backend.

Anyways dont really see a need to cheat on this game its easy enough as it is.

By XeonPowered on April 16th, 2008 at 11:40 am
I don't really understand the "total" config column still. It looks like it's "3" for everyone.

I've been playing a lot since Decepticon left, as that put me back in 3rd place. So I'm just fighting to stay in it now.

By flubby on April 16th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
XD - looks like you enjoy the "click on the robobrawl" banner to escape a loss trick :))
Suppose theres nothing illegal about that..in-game strategy. Otherwise intel would have said something by now yes?

Wonder if theres anyone else playing beside you three...10 more hours to go lol

By XeonPowered on April 16th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
CTRL+W worked for me

By Pam on April 16th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Xeonpowered-
Sorry about this. You are correct! "0" indicates spinning mace.

Pam

By XeonPowered on April 16th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Thanks, Pam. Question for you: So...will the game just stop working at midnight?

By Pam on April 16th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Xeonpowered:
The answer is no, the game will not stop working at midnight. The game will continue to work and record scores. What will happen is that at 11:59 pm PST, there will be a snapshot of the database and Leaderboard to formally record and document the final scores eligible to be considered for winning one of the three workstations.

Again, the RoboBrawl game will continue to work and scores will continue to be recorded, including the scores on the Leaderboard. BUT, we will take a snapshot of the database and the Leaderboard to formally document standings at 11:59pm PST and to be used to determine the top three winners of the RoboBrawl contest.

thanks-
Pam

By XeonPowered on April 16th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Thanks Pam, good to know.

By XeonPowered on April 16th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Wow, WarriorNeos snatched third place from Seeno with less than 10 min to spare. What a great finish! I think that was his first time in the top three to that point too. That was a pretty serious grind to the finish for everyone. Woohoo, it's finally over!

By Henry on April 17th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Just to make a point, good thing a snapshot was made at 11:59pm as when I logged off it was about 12:01 pm April 17 and I remember playing just one more game and my score went from 1318 to 1319 I thought it would have closed the game. So today Thursday I see that I was bumped from first to fourth funny (not really) I know as many of my family member I have taken first playing by the time line. Nice try WarriorNeos must have taken you about an hour as I remember you having a least 60 games behind so you and the other 1st and second place players still played. You should have stopped at 12:00

By Henry on April 17th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Am I worn but the post I just sent the time on my computer here is 2:07 pm and when I post look at the time

By Henry on April 17th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Just another comment Here in philadelphia the time clock on the playing timer counted down and at 12:00 midnight the time went to all 1 -1 -1 -1 and started counting upwards can you look into that.

By flubby on April 17th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Wow good job to the top three! they all deserve the prize, serious two day marathon, XP hows your body after sitting there for hours on end?

Thanks Intel for a fun contest, perhaps you'll have Robo Brawl 2? I'd be happy to beta test it for you :)

WarriorNeos placement just under the wire, XP & swann jocking for first and second.
GG!

I took screenshots at 11:59PM of the leaderboard for those interested.

Snapshot - 11:59PM - Leaderboard
http://i30.tinypic.com/vhrghv.jpg

Snapshot - 11:59PM - Leaderboard code version
http://i25.tinypic.com/bg7b69.jpg

Cheers!

By pam on April 17th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Henry-
I am looking into your question and will get back to you soon.

Pam

By pam on April 17th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Flubby-
Thanks for volunteering yourself for Robobrawl 2. I am so worn out by Robobrawl 1, I am not sure if I am up for Robobrawl 2. :-)

Appreciate that you took a strong interest and made an effort to take the snapshot at 11:59 pm. When did you go to bed? We will certainly conduct on an audit before the final results are announced.

Again, thanks for your support.

Pam Didner, the Robobrawl Program Manager

By Henry on April 18th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Pam,
While playing the game, my computer on the Intel site started to count down the days, hours, minutes & seconds all the way to "0" which was a false advertisement that the game was ended. It was not fair that the site itself told me that the game was over @12 midnight in Philadelphia & I walked away from my computer not realizing that the game had not ended. I was in 1st place & rightfully should have maintained that position if I had continued playing until the game really ended. Throughout this entire challenge, we have had people cheating & hacking into the site to change scores, etc. I never cheated & feel that your site misinterpreted the end of the game to me in Philadelphia at 12 midnight when the clock went to "0" on YOUR SITE........why did your site tell me the game was over by counting down to "0"....Henry or "seeno"

Check my statistics & I am sure that you can evaluate the game in multiple aspects according to the skill of each person.
This is totally UNFAIR & I spent many hours & days working on maintaining my status. CHEATED, CHEATED, CHEATED.....that is how I feel about Intel & the error which cost me a loss which I rightfully should have won without contest!!!

By taylor (aka-roboneo) on April 19th, 2008 at 11:20 am
btw flubby, i havent started playing agian by the name warrior neos, i gave up on the game making about 25 profiles. and i havent played since

By Pam on April 21st, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Hi-
On my 4/15 post, I indicated that we will announce the winners on 4/22. We are still in the process of conducting a full audit and it is taking us a little longer to finalize the results. We anticipate announcing the results shortly.

Pam

By flubby on April 21st, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Henry -
Since you are on the east coast and the games server is located on the west
coast with the timer set for pacific coast time, you should have known to do the basic math of playing till 3am.

Intel & Others -
The whole cheat process which has been released on other sites is semi-complicated and time consuming (which i will show below) Only audit process worth looking at is speed time between battles for data submission. Any discrepences during the 4-5 days the game was unplayable due to database *fixes* should be ignored as all players scores were reset to the score before the fix. (there are no server hacks/attacks)

-How the hack is made-
As i mentioned before the GET protocol was used to post the battle data string to the server which enabled cheaters to design their own data string and send that via ones browser.

The string used at first was h**p://www.robobrawl.com/php/editRobotStats.php?stats=ZwA8ZKjksQRlAGNjsQO8ZD==&time=12 00227157531&pass=ROBOTPASSWORD&user=ROBOTUSERNAME

the stats= is the encrypted game data which after you decrypt it from ROT13 is MjN8MXwxfDEyNTAwfDB8MQ== then decrypt that string from BASE64 shows this 23|1|1|12500|0|1 this shows battle 23 then if you won = 1 (2 if you lost) the next 1 means how many robots you killed in that battle followed by points earned for that battle followed by 0 which is xeon_pts and the end number being power pts.

Without having to play the game is a time consuming process which would not serve to help anyone during those last few days as its much easier and faster to play legitimately as shown below..

So in order to create your own game data string you first need to create a large text list of a numbering sequence..say you played the game legitimately for the first 25 battles you start with a numbered sequence starting with
25
26
so on till say 500..so after making a text list with 25-500 then you would need to add
|1|1|12500|0|0 to the end of all those numbers..note* this method was changed during the last week of play as they randomized the string order and added total points to the encrypted string so adding 12500 to the string added tons more time to create a valid string of which you needed to add 12500 to the TOTAL points and so on and so forth..also eliminating the use of cheating.

So.. once the cheaters had their text list then you need to double encrypt it before sending it to the server which in this case is taking the home made string 23|1|1|12500|0|1 encrypt that to base64 which is MjN8MXwxfDEyNTAwfDB8MQ== then encrypt that again to ROT13 which is ZwA8ZKjksQRlAGNjsQO8ZD== then add that string to the url string h**p://www.robobrawl.com/php/editRobotStats.php?stats=ZwA8ZKjksQRlAGNjsQO8ZD==&time=12 00227157531&pass=ROBOTPASSWORD&user=ROBOTUSERNAME
Then add that to the browsers url field and send it.

The amount of time to create a certain game play data on the fly takes twice as long as it would to play officially. Which shows that the cheating method although works its just not worth scrutinizing toward game play during the last week of play as the method takes too much time & probably most kiddie cheaters may have been thrown off by the randomizing and total points trick.

Pam -
Call it a day and give the three top players there prize they earned it. watched them all week..Henry (seeno) blew it by stopping his play early.

- Prometheus :) :)

By flubby on April 24th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
8 DAYS already and still no official release of the winners?

I've seen campaigns giving away 50k, cars, even million dollars and announce the winners under 5 days.

looks kinda silly for the amount of time your taking

By Pam on April 25th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Hi-
Thanks for participating the game. We are in the process of notifying the winners. The winners will have 7 days to respond. If they do not respond within the 7 days, we will pick the next winner. Once we’ve completed verification, a list of winners will be posted at http://www.robobrawl.com.

By XeonPowered on April 25th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
I haven't been notified yet :-(

By XeonPowered on April 25th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Nevermind :-)

By DrFear on April 27th, 2008 at 10:34 am
i think the whole "avoiding a loss" thing is really lame, and totally cheating. if everybody wins every game, then it just becomes about who has more time to sit in front of their computer, and not about who is actually better at the game. that's not fun, it's stupid.
i have a really crappy computer, and the game crashed it so many times, but i kept going back, and now to find out that i never had a chance because all you jerkoffs were cheating anyway....it's just sad. you're pathetic people, and you should be ashamed.

By Pam on April 30th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
We are happy to announce the following winners of our RoboBrawl Championship contest. The records of each of these winners have been verified to be legitimate to our best knowledge and each winner will be awarded an HP Workstation powered by Intel:

XeonPowered
Swannbot
WarriorNeos

Thank you all again for your ongoing support for the RoboBrawl game and contest. Your participation, along with many others, truly made the overall game and contest an enjoyable and rewarding experience for all.

By Ajay Mungara (Intel) on April 30th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Congratulations to the winners! Well deserved!!

By flubby on April 30th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Congrats XP and everyone, They tell you when your going to get your prize?

Other day found out Red Interactive created the game, Always liked their work..top notch stuff :)
Hope intel decides to do RoboBrawl 2, maybe some television promotion spots would bring in large numbers of players.

Still open to beta test it for ya :)

By XeonPowered on April 30th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Hey Flubby,
We were notified and asked for our info, but no word yet on a "when". We'll see what happens...

By Pam on May 1st, 2008 at 8:15 am
flubby-
Thanks for volunteering to pilot RoboBrawl 2. At this point, we do not have a plan to do RoboBrawl 2. :-(

If we decide to do it , I will certainly tap you to beta test the game.

By Pam on May 1st, 2008 at 8:18 am
XeonPowered-
We are in the process of shipping the workstations. You should get the prize in a week or two. Our fulfilment specailist should be in touch with you shortly.

By Warriorneos on May 1st, 2008 at 11:57 pm
WTF I am not roboneo and it took me a really long time to see this blog, but now that I found it I'm going to talk. First of all I work my but off playing this game and swannbot nearly kicked me off the top 3. He had an edge on me leading me by like 40 games with 30 minutes left, but i battled back. And thanks Xeonpowered you did good bro i was surprised to see you be number 1 considering I thought swannbot beat you for that position. You just couldnt stant being second could you buddy.

By Warriorneos on May 1st, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Thanks for the compliment xeonpowered my saying has always been to start off strong and to have a big finish and I think I did that during the end.

By Warriorneos on May 2nd, 2008 at 12:05 am
But damn xeonpowered your current computer must be insane. I mean when me you and swannbot were fighting for our positions i remember in an hour i would get like 30 wins and you would get like 70 how fast is your current pc jeez. And you think you need another one.

By Warriorneos on May 2nd, 2008 at 12:10 am
As for the people that were asking how we felt after the contest was over. Well I can only speak for myself, but playing all those hours everyday really took its toll on me. Most peps think that just sitting there on the computer for hours would be a joy, but let me tell you something it is not fun. I was exhausted and dont think that it was easy. I mean during the last few days of the game I would sign on late to see if the rankings had changed and I have to tell no matter what happens i would still go to sleep at night, but it seemed to me like xeonpowered and swannbot dont sleep somedays.

By Warriorneos on May 2nd, 2008 at 12:18 am
And as for this flubby person I knew that everyone could see my score, points kills etc, but how did you look at my configuration. Did you hack me or something I mean seriously how could you find that out.

By Warriorneos on May 2nd, 2008 at 1:24 am
Oh and I also notice what your point is flubby. Very perceptive I mean the way seeno went from not even being on the leaderboard to jumping on the board in 2 days thats insane. I mean there is no way that I can do that. I mean I dont see how anybody can play this game for hours at a time without taking a break. I mean I need to do other things like eat and school etc. I think its insane to skip sleep and meals. And i just realized that alot of people were watching my scores very closely which i find funny. I thought that people would be more concerned with their own scores rather than mine. But good sportmanship is a big thing with any game and I would just like to say congratulations to xeonpowered and and swannbot. You guys were insane and haha you almost made me want to quit a few times. I mean you guys were ahead of me by hundreds of wins before I really started to work hard. And even then it was hard. Like many of you here have pointed out I didnt win until near the end so it was quite intense there. I wasnt the only one fighting till the end though swannbot and xeonpowered were right there with me. You guys are quite the competitors and maybe when a new game like this comes out I would like to see how well the three of us would do if we had to play eachother. So let me wrap this up by saying congrats to the other 2 players that won. Im happy for you guys. And you guys should give Pam some credit as well. Throughout this game there has been alot of crap going on such as hacking, cheating and other junk. But it was Pam that fixed each and every problem and removed the hackers so you should give credit where credit is due. Thanks Pam for making this an enjoyable game for everyone and for taking care of all the problems that arise. And if you ever get a robobrawl 2 up and running just let me know and ill be there. And if we meet again Xeonpowered just know that im competitive also and I will go for the top guy which is you.
Anyways later Pam keep up the good work at intel

By XeonPowered on May 3rd, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Hey WarriorNeos, you're right, it wasn't very fun at the end with how much playing we had to do. It was a real test of endurance that last day. And because of how the ranking is determined ([Wins/Losses]*Total) and that I had two losses, I had to play ~30% more games to keep up with Swannbot who had no losses. Fortunately I discovered a pretty good configuration for my robot. I found the buzzsaw to be the fastest way to take down another robot, so once I got into a groove, I could clean up the arena pretty fast. It looks like you were using the spin mace, which I always found to be particularly slow at taking down other robots, even with it's advantage when surrounded. But it definitely worked for you. Congrats again on snaring third at the buzzer. And you're right about snagging first. With two minutes left, I did the math and realized I was only one win behind Swannbot and couldn't resist playing one more game in the last minute to take the lead.

And you're absolutely right about Pam. Many thanks to her and her hard work to keep the game running smoothly and for being responsive to feedback from everyone.

By Pam on May 6th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Warriorneos and XeonPowered:
Thanks for the kind words. Oh, boy, it was a lot of work! Hopefully, it was a pleasant experience for everyone.

Intel® Software Network

It is time to crush, smash and bomb your opponents: Join the action at the Intel Xeon Robo Brawl.

By Ajay Mungara (Intel) (92 posts) on February 27, 2008 at 11:30 am

Categories: Manageability, Virtualization

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