Octolings In The Wild (This Is Bad)

It's not anticipated for this to be an incredibly widespread issue, but one or two Squidboards users have already encountered this problem, and we wanted to make sure to alert everyone.

A kernel exploit for the Wii U has now been made public for Wii U's on an older firmware version. The simple and relevant explanation of what this means is that it is now much easier for unscrupulous folks to modify their Splatoon save files.

The very negative side effect of this, is it means a person could potentially modify their save file to change their character ID from 0 or 1 (Inkling Boy and Inkling Girl respectively) to 2, which represents Octolings.

Playing as Octolings would be super cool! ...but only when the game is made for it to happen...
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If you encounter a player that has done this, you need to make sure to stay in the lobby until they leave it, and then play one more match. This should ensure the game doesn't put their hacked Octoling character into your Inkopolis Plaza. The Plaza is not programmed to handle Octolings, and so if one is placed into it, your game will crash whenever it tries to load them. This includes the title screen, which means your save file is effectively 'soft-locked' and cannot be used until either Nintendo patches this issue, or your plaza is cleared by the beginning of a Splatfest.

It is possible to back up any of your Wii U save files to a flash drive, and we'd recommend doing so if you wish to be absolutely safe.

 

Chances are, plenty of them know EXACTLY what they're doing, and the fact that it corrupts saves is the very reason they're doing it.

This is why I hate hackers so very, very much. An arrogant and annoying lot, many just do what they want because they have teh skillz, and that trumps all. And for some of them, there's little that's more fun than screwing with people over the Net in some way. In this case, by ruining things. ....well, okay, "ruining things" is USUALLY the case.

And of course others do it just to show off. Heck with what it might do so save files. They look so AWESOME, that's what counts! *facepalm*

Now I have to find a way to backup the save. A thanks to Warchamp for posting this and letting everyone know.

That's a whole lot of assumptions. We have no other information on this person other than someone saying they played with them online and now their save is corrupted. We don't know for sure if this person is doing it on purpose or not, and so far, no one else has reported this happening to them, so we don't even know if this is a widespread thing or just an isolated case.

Take proper precautions, but don't jump to conclusions. There's more than enough FUD going around.

 

I know that Nikki (NWPlayer123) plays as the octolings using an entirely different method. The way she does it doesn't crash others games, but unfortunately other hackers don't seem to do this safe method.

 

Surprised that this happened. Thank you for the warning about it. Also thanks for giving us a way to avoid the "soft-locked"

 

BTW guys, make sure to back up your files, or have a backup NNID. That way, if it does happen, you can still play. Also, I think Splatfest resets the plaza? Nikki said that the next splatfest was scheduled for October 9th.

 

Can you say "No" when asked if you'd like to battle again? Does this work? Or do I really have to try and outlast the hacker? What if (s)he has ALL day; I do NOT have ALL day to wait around. Or is it only if the hacker manages to get into my Plaza area? Someone please help. :-/

 

Wait, this can affect ALL of your Wii U's save files or just Splatoon?

Can't see how a single data change for one game would mess all your games up...

 

Can you say "No" when asked if you'd like to battle again? Does this work? Or do I really have to try and outlast the hacker? What if (s)he has ALL day; I do NOT have ALL day to wait around. Or is it only if the hacker manages to get into my Plaza area? Someone please help. :-/

It's only if you meet up with them in a match. Backing up your save and then transferring it over works to fix it when it happens.

If you can't back up, playing until they leave works. Or i would imagine going "nope" and playing another few matches would too.

 

Dang, that's lame. Maybe Nintendo should have considered adding Octolings. (Terrible solution, I know, but don't act like you don't want it.)

 

I almost wonder if the hacker in question is aware of the effect this has on other people and is doing it on purpose in an attempt to force Nintendo to make Octolings playable as a way of fixing the problem.

I've thought about this, too. It's diabolical, but I doubt Nintendo would actually need to make them playable to fix the issue. They could probably just update the way the Plaza renders other players to make it compatible with Octolings. But... That doesn't mean I don't want Octolings to be playable! As the OP said,

Playing as Octolings would be super cool! ...but only when the game is made for it to happen...

 

Nintendo IT employee at the moment...

 

Can't see how a single data change for one game would mess all your games up...

Yeah sorry, I'm completely out of it today and seeing some of these posts got me confused.

Even backing up your file may not help because that thing will stay in your plaza until you play more games.

 

Wait, this can affect ALL of your Wii U's save files or just Splatoon?

I believe it's just for Splatoon. I'm backing up my copy rn. It looks like it's gonna take forever :(

 

Yeah sorry, I'm completely out of it today and seeing some of these posts got me confused.

Even backing up your file may not help because that thing will stay in your plaza until you play more games.

It did for that one person though.

 

Hm...I have a question. What if when you have to wait out the Octoling-user and they'll be in the lobby all day and you gotta leave? I think the best option is to stay off Splatoon for now. But what if your still in the lobby with the Octoling but you turn off the Nintendo Wii u console entirely? Will it still Soft-Lock?

 

I'm new here but considering we're on the topic of soft-hacking, I think now would be the best time to ask. Would putting new music or victory anthems lock the game for myself or others?

 

I know this is a serious situation, but at least we know what will happen canoncially if Octlings were to illegally participate in Turf Wars and Ranked Battles.

 

It's sad that people always find a way to ruin a game. I just hope Nintendo will fix this as soon as possible. :/ I understand that people can find fun to play with Octolings, but if it has bad consequences for the others, just stop... ~_~

 

Reminder:

It's not anticipated for this to be an incredibly widespread issue, but one or two Squidboards users have already encountered this problem, and we wanted to make sure to alert everyone.

It's rare, so keep playing. It also doesn't hurt to be safe and backup.

 

Oh gosh... I should probably tell my friend about this so her file doesn't get corrupted. :c This is one of the reasons I don't like hackers. Not all hackers are bad, but ones who do this just to corrupt people's files... This is just sad. .-.

And I was wondering... If we block the player through the Recently Played With list on our NNID menu, will that remove the Octoling from the plaza if it happens...?

 

Sorry to interrupt the serious chat guys, but the inkling plaza is hilarious right now. It's full of wanted posters, inkling propaganda, and many other drawings/comments that feel like these inklings are out for blood in the game narrative. As horrible as this is, I can't help but smile when the community gathers like this, At least a few positives came from peoples' data scrambling.