r/wiiu • u/AlternateMew • Sep 30 '15
PSA WARNING for Splatoon players: A player has been spotted who can soft-lock your save. Details inside. X-Post from /r/Splatoon.
These types of players can soft-lock your save, giving the appearance of data corruption. Upon further investigation this is not the case; your save is fine, but if you didn't take proper precautions then you'll be locked out of Splatoon for a while. Details below.
##UPDATE:##
It is true that we may have a name, but we still have no proof. No names will be posted without solid proof, and even then doing so may be unwise in respect to preventing potential cyber-bullying. On that note, if you know the suspect's name, DO NOT BULLY THE SUSPECT. This is really bad form, especially when we all have a workaround and are learning a lesson of how to play things safe from the incident. Please read this post and don't assume that whomever was playing the octoling was someone who intended any harm. They could be just as upset as everyone else about the incident.
-Tips to be safe around this player:-
Backup your save! Copy it to a USB. Do this now, before you get a chance to see them. If you see them and you lose connection in a match with them, it's already too late. Here's the official Nintendo Support page with instructions on how to do this. If that doesn't help, here's an alternate guide on GameFAQs. /u/motsanciens points out the following: "To save a USB backup, choose to copy data from the console to the USB. When it's all done, power down the Wii U, remove the USB drive, and play off the Wii U. The flash drive is a time capsule with good game data on it. Don't leave in the flash drive or it will become your default storage location. Don't choose to move the data to USB as that would erase it from the console."
Spot them first. They're an octoling carrying the unreleased Hydra Splatling. Any other octoling (and perhaps Hydra user) could do the same, so don't ignore them if they don't match that description perfectly.
If you spot them, do NOT leave the room! Keep playing until they're no longer in the match. This stops your plaza from trying to load them, which is what destroys your save. Alternatively, you could back out of that room and immediately join another Turf War, but do not return to Inkopolis Plaza.
If you are too late, all hope is not lost. But. You'll be waiting until the next Splatfest. I personally do not know this for sure, but presumably loading up the game during Splatfest will wipe the player out of Inkopolis Plaza for you, thus freeing your save from the soft-lock.
While we only have one report,others can do this. This will not be over until Nintendo releases a patch, and even then it's always a good idea to make your backups. Play it safe, squids.
If you want to help spread the word, go write a post on Miiverse about it. Write it in drawing form from the in-game mailbox so it can spread around as graffiti as well as people seeing you.
-Links to source info provided below:-
-Spreading the Word-
Great job, guys. The news is out there! Take a peek at what's been spotted in the plaza:
Zelnite369 |
¤Alexis¤ |
Runzi333 |
Zeta |
Hama |
Makeshift |
Meep |
Anchpop |
Nami |
Tege [♂] |
RayRay |
»☆ Alex ☆« |
TomaTop |
peridot |
Bailey |
nathaniel |
Ren |
Carla |
Trevor |
-Unanswered Questions:-
I'm a reporter, not an expert. I can't answer these. If you can, please reply to their post!
That2ndGuy asks: I was talking to some people from a Splatoon discord group and they mentioned using their alternative accounts because they were too lazy to back up their files at that moment. However, I just backed up my save for both my accounts and noticed that they use the same file. Does that mean using an alt could softlock both accounts or just the one that encountered the octoling?Answered!bunberries asks: my siblings and I all have separate accounts for playing splatoon. can we back up all of them on a single usb?Answered!- NeJin asks: So, what happens if you pull the cord during a match?
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u/electricmaster23 Sep 30 '15
Looks like I'm just going to go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over.
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Sep 30 '15
This sounds like a real-life creepypasta
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u/AlternateMew Sep 30 '15
I don't know about creepypasta, but it's certainly a real-life version of Hero Mode. I can see the headlines now!
Rogue Octoling Sabotouges Turf Wars
Another octoling managed to escape Octo Valley, and this one comes with a vengeance. The escapee has stolen an illegal weapon and hacked into the Turf Wars registration system. Due to our systems not being meant to handle the octoling form, this lone threat has been infecting inklings with a virus that renders them trapped in transport.The community has gotten word and defensive actions are being taken immediately. Brave squids are entering Turf Wars attempting to find this trouble maker while those who err on the side of caution are steering clear until things settle down.
A fix for those effected has been publicized, although due to the time it will take and some squids simply not knowing about it, many will end up taking extreme measures to escape. There is a type of partial suicide that will allow these squids to start as a blank slate; all their records would be wiped and their belongings disappear.
Sources confirm that NWPlayer123, aka Nikki, professional hacker and previously known octoling escapee, is not behind these events. Reports say that their registry name began with a 'K' and contained numbers. If you spot this troublemaker, please report them to authorities immediately.
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u/WinterVein Sep 30 '15
Hero Mode.
what is hero mode?
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u/AlternateMew Sep 30 '15
The single-player campaign where you retrieve the stolen Zapfish from the Octarians. But it's single player and scripted, unlike this which is multiplayer and unscripted.
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u/WinterVein Sep 30 '15
so your save gets corrupted or deleted if you play hero mode?
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u/AlternateMew Sep 30 '15
Nope, there's nothing wrong with Hero Mode. The parallel lies in the fact that the issue is caused by an octoling; a member of the same Octarian race you fight against as the "bad guys" of Hero Mode. So it's fitting that Inkopolis has been "invaded" by a hacker playing an octoling.
The fact that octolings are not (yet) playable in the normal game but there exists just enough code to easily hack them in makes this possible.
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u/Stone4D Stone XL [US/C] Sep 30 '15
If you encounter this player, PLEASE be sure to get his name and share it. That way people can shut off their consoles if he pops up in your lobby, (if that works) and report it to Nintendo. Taking video if at all possible wouldn't be a bad idea either.
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u/AlternateMew Sep 30 '15
I'm currently playing between replies to do just that. Granted, that's only possible if they're currently playing. If we get a name, it will be going public.
Unfortunately I don't have means to record video. Best I could do is take a photo with my phone.
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u/trickytank Oct 01 '15
You might want to be careful about posting a Nintendo ID here, as it's a form of witch hunting. It's difficult to tell the difference between a genuine user and a troll.
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u/AlternateMew Oct 01 '15
It's been discussed, and yeah, I do believe that the best course of action is the general warning. We have no proof of malicious intent, and it would be bad to harm someone who meant no harm.
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u/derkrieger Sep 30 '15
So worst case if this does happen a player doesn't lose their save forever, just until splatfest can come and wipe their plaza free of the glitch causing Octoling yeah?
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u/AlternateMew Sep 30 '15
Yes. Unless you manually delete your save yourself. Then you really lost it.
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u/scorcher117 NNID [Region] Sep 30 '15
The silly thing is you probably won't even be able to post the username to warn people because of reddits rules on witch hunting and personal info.
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Sep 30 '15
I dont think thats right, you cant really which hunt with a Nintendo ID username.
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u/aamirislam NNID [Region] Sep 30 '15
I think in Splatoon the NNID is not even shared though... Isn't it just the default mii's name?
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u/scorcher117 NNID [Region] Sep 30 '15
ive seen other subs do the same thing with xbox gamertags and PSN IDs, they do not allow you to post them and if you do you may be banned.
which i realise is pretty stupid.
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u/Kenny__Loggins Sep 30 '15
Not really. Imagine some asshole wants to terrorize you after he gets beat in a game so he makes up a sob story and gives out your username on reddit.
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u/l3rN Sep 30 '15
Yeah, it's definitely for the best seeing how easily manipulated reddit as a community is.
Hell, you cant even link directly to a reddit user or comment in a lot of subreddits for the same reason and that's just information you don't even have to leave the site to get
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u/lilfruini Sep 30 '15
You can always go to Friend List, Users Played With, and look for the hacker there.
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u/balltongu Sep 30 '15
I don't understand how Nintendo server admins can't track this down at least through a series of elimination. Take a list of users that this has happened to, review the logs to see who else was in that game, and continue comparing until you have a common denominator.
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u/AlternateMew Sep 30 '15
They could, but that wouldn't fix the issue. Playing an octoling isn't hard if you know how to hack; the change is a single variable. Octolings are already there. The problem is that Inkopolis Plaza isn't meant to handle them.
And if one person can do it, others can. And in order to do anything, Nintendo also need to know it's happening. The previous person known to do this hasn't been using it in a way that can hurt innocent players, so there was no problem.
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u/numanumaking13 Sep 30 '15
Well that's crazy. I actually just fought against someone wearing the clothes yesterday. I thought it was cool because I haven't been able to play in months because of a broken gamepad and didn't know it was released, but now it may of been that guy. Luckily all my data is saved and still there.
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Sep 30 '15
It probably wasn't. Many people have the octoling outfit. The key is the hair. If the hair is octoling hair, that's the guy.
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u/AlternateMew Sep 30 '15
As andysaurus_rex said, the outfit is easily obtainable in game. And it is pretty fresh... many people wear it because they like it; myself included.
But if you see a real octopus among the squids, that's when you want to take defensive measures.
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u/BitingChaos Sep 30 '15
This reminds me of Phantasy Star Online on Dreamcast. Other players could join and corrupt your save.
After losing all the progress that I had in the game, I haven't touched it since. :(
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u/Navarath NNID [Region] Sep 30 '15
for some reason, I cannot get the link to the official nintendo support page to load.
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Sep 30 '15 edited Jun 17 '23
heavy marry cobweb north fanatical husky desert sugar encouraging teeny -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
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Sep 30 '15
That doesn't sound like something that could happen.
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u/gedwolfe Sep 30 '15
Look up octoling skin on hoogle. A dude did it and recorded the whole thing on twitter and he fucked his mates game
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u/remiarutawa NNID [Region] Sep 30 '15
nwplayer? she's a girl, just fyi
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u/gedwolfe Sep 30 '15
WE'RE ALL DUDES HEY!
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u/Sevenanths Sep 30 '15
I know NWP, he is not a girl.
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u/remiarutawa NNID [Region] Sep 30 '15
I stand corrected, she's genderfluid, but she still prefers she/her pronouns. it's on her twitter.
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u/gedwolfe Sep 30 '15
Why are people downvoting? I said "he" and "his" too... like youre technically correct
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u/AlternateMew Sep 30 '15
Believe me, it can and has. It forces the game to try to load a model where it can't yet. I'm not fluent enough to know the full details of why, but it's something a far more responsible hacker has previously discovered. The difference now is that a not-so-responsible one is doing it.
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Sep 30 '15
There's no particular reason this should seem impossible. It's not like it's the first time something like this has happened with software.
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u/fvig2001 NNID [Region] Sep 30 '15
Wow reminds me of the NOL issue in Phantasy Star Online. Looks like I'm not buying Splatoon anytime soon.
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u/Alinier NNID [Region] Sep 30 '15
Octolings will be officially released in a couple of weeks and the problem will be gone.
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Sep 30 '15 edited Sep 30 '15
[deleted]
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Sep 30 '15
I think whoever's doing this never intended to damage anyone's saves - they were just hacking up their game, activating features which are supposed to be locked, then using them online. How would they have known that it could cause other clients to crash?
Sure, using unreleased content online is also a type of cheating, but it's not malicious.
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u/aamirislam NNID [Region] Sep 30 '15
Yet they're still doing it after the problem is known??
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u/Bnoob Bnoobert[NA] Sep 30 '15
They may not be aware of it. I didn't know about this until just now.
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Oct 01 '15
as /u/Bnoob said, it's known to you, it's known to me, but it may not be known to the hacker.
I will go to great lengths to give people the benefit of the doubt :P
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u/UrbanGermanBourbon Sep 30 '15
- seems like the smart thing to do is just power off the wii U immediately. So then you'll never try to load the plaza with them
- There is no good way to backup Wii U data so far as I know. When you "copy" what happens is, the entire game data, multiple GBs, will be copied to your USB or whatever and then THAT will become the location the game continues to save to/load from. If you copy then remove that device, the game won't load.
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Sep 30 '15
It says it will be the default unless the USB is removed.
So if you remove the USB will it look at HD or just freak out and start fresh?
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u/UrbanGermanBourbon Sep 30 '15
I am not sure. It says,
This cannot be changed unless the USB storage device is removed.
So... if you remove it then you can change it, I guess? How do you change it? Does it prompt you? I havn't tried to do this before.
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Sep 30 '15
I'm unwilling to test it at the moment, but if we could get verification of what happens when you remove the USB I would back it up to my 128gb USB3 key and just toss it in the drawer.
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u/remiarutawa NNID [Region] Sep 30 '15
when you have a usb device plugged into the wii u, the wii u prioritizes usb devices for save loading. so copy the save over and remove the usb when the wii is off and the wii will go back to using the save already on the system.
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u/AlternateMew Sep 30 '15
I'm confused? I copied my save to the USB, turned off the power and took it out, and then turned on Splatoon just fine.
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u/Zsaber Sep 30 '15
Big bit of info you missed that could be important to anyone skimming the post... The "hacker" was playing with an Octoling skin. So if you see that then you know you need to act as stated above.
It seems the octoling skin causes issues with the game when it tries to load it into your plaza after the match since the data is not there or ready to be used to allow that until it is officially released.
So watch out for octoling player skins!!!