Power Pros Forum

Here's the problem with the password. If you look at it, there are way more letters/numbers then there could possibly be codes and stats. A lot of it appears to just be junk put in there to make it harder to guess. It's randomized and only a small portion counts. It might even be something like if M4C, then code follows A format, C6^ then code follows B format, ect. So it appears practically impossible to guess. Whoever wrote the good did a good job with it.

I disagree. If there is any junk, I doubt that it accounts for a large portion of the password. There's a lot of info to encode. Remember that everyone has pitching, batting, and fielding stats/abilities, regardless of the position they play.

You need to keep track of which breaking balls they throw and at what level. There's pitching style, batting stance, bats/throws. The player can play multiple positions, so you need to know the relative proficiencies. And how about Gd strike zone?

Then there's the non-baseball info such as appearance, uniform number, birthday, bat, glove, and wristbands. The most variable data to encode may be first name, last name, and saved name.

True, I didn't think about hitters pitching and pitchrers hitting. Good point.

I think I might have something. When pitchers have had their htting abilities upgraded, the passwords seem to be slightly longer. Maybe they have a 3-symbol string to tell if a pitcher has kept the A B or C hitting starting stats but it takes up more room if it has been changed. It's not for certain just something that crossed my mind.

I also have something. On 2008 every password I've seen, none of them use a vowel on the wii. On 2007, almost always there is a vowel. Has anyone else seen this?

After quickly glancing at the passwords posted in the exchange forum, that does appear to be the case, though I'm not sure if that's really pertinent since passwords are incompatible between 2007 and 2008.

By the way, the vowel thing seems to hold true for PS2 passwords as well. They appear in 2007 but not 2008. But again, it's probably not that helpful because there is no compatibility across different platforms or years.

But that might be why they aren't compatible. The only other problem would be that 2007 players can't get the abilities like Pr Rain, so there's really no way to give them those.

Abilities take a very large amount of the code, as players with most/all of the abilities have a much loner codecompared to guys who don't. It's often as much as twice the length.

The vowel thing partially illustrates the incompatibility between 2007 and 2008, but not between Wii and PS2. I don't think it matters. Each variation of the game uses a different algorithm. We know that.

If you really want to know how the password is encoded, I'd start by creating players who are the same in every way, except for one. If you see a small difference between the two passwords, you've identified that one thing.

Keep in mind that one thing may be encoded using multiple symbols. It's also possible that multiple things can be encoded using just one symbol.

However, this would be relatively easy if you have the time, so they may have built something extra into the password, like a checksum, which would make things a little harder.

Don't forget the "junk" so it would have more than just one little difference.

There is no proof of the existence of any junk, but yes, that would complicate matters.

And if there is a checksum, that would be another difference.

I've definitly noticed that the password changes after each viewing so whatever that is("junk" or a timestamp or whatever) it would make things difficult. What's a checksum?

Let's say you have a password. Then you take all the characters there and run it through a function which spits out another string of characters, perhaps 5-10 of them. This second string of characters is wholly dependent on the first. This is the checksum.

Even a small change in the base password will make the checksum vastly different. Taken together, the base password is only considered valid if the checksum matches what you expect it to be.

Checksums are used in a variety of applications. One example is in compression software. Files in .zip format and others have checksums built into the file in order to check for errors. Another example is in file transfer protocols. Checksums are created on the sending end so that the receiving end knows if the data is complete.

I hope that makes sense.

So, if one of the first codes on there is for example: M1r, then the next eight lines would depend on that first code. Or if we m2R then it could be completely different?

Something like that. A tricky thing about trying to decipher the password if there is a checksum, other than determining which part of it is the checksum, is that there would be two different algorithms: one for player's info, one for the checksum.

So it would be easier to compare two passwords by creating two players who were exactly the same in every way except one. And it would be better if they didn't have a lot of abilities or a long name, so that the passwords weren't very long, say 4 lines instead of 7+.