On Saturday, Manfred came out of the shadows and told his story for the first time during his talk. Read more: The Mystery of the Creepiest Television Hack You don't even want them to know that what you're doing is possible." You don't want to disrupt the players, you don't want the game company to find out about your hacks. "When hacking online games, the main goal is to be invisible. "The best hacks are the invisible ones because you change the rules without anyone knowing what's going on," Manfred told me. He hacked games because he made it his living. Unlike most video game hackers, Manfred didn't cheat to gain an advantage over his opponents.
He said he's found more than 100 publicly unknown vulnerabilities in more than 20 online video games, making hacking and trading virtual goods into his full time job. He said he wanted to be "invisible," just like he's been for the past two decades. When I spoke to Manfred ahead of his talk at the Def Con hacking conference, he said he wanted to go in, give his demo, and go out "as a ghost," never to be seen or heard from again. "The best hacks are the invisible ones because you change the rules without anyone knowing what's going on."
This is obviously an outlandish number, but, essentially, his income was only limited by the real-life market for the in-game currency. He would then sell those items and currency to other players (for real money) or wholesales them to online gray markets, such as the Internet Game Exchange, that then would sell those goods to individual players.Īt the current exchange rate, Manfred estimates he has $397 trillion worth of WildStar gold. His modus operandi has changed slightly from game to game, but, in essence, it consisted of tricking games into giving him items or currency he doesn't have a right to have. Manfred, who asked me not to reveal his real name, says he has been hacking several video games for 20 years, making a real-life living by using hacks like the one I just witnessed. I'm watching this hack in a demo video recorded by Manfred as I stand next to him in a Las Vegas bar on Thursday. In a few seconds of what seems to be an extremely easy hack, Manfred's virtual currency skyrockets up to more than 18,000,000,000,000,000,000, or 18 quintillion. Manfred, the real life person behind the character, is typing commands into a debugger. This concludes the “A Fine Night For It” Stranger Mission in Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2). For all other Stranger Missions check out the full Red Dead Redemption 2 Stranger Missions Walkthrough.Manfred's character is standing still in the virtual world of the 2014 sci-fi online multiplayer game WildStar Online. Once the four enemies are down, we can finally claim our reward from the old man. Very likely, a sneaky freak with a machete will creep up on you from the right side, if you just shot the enemies on the left side! Beware, that their small red dots on the map can disappear and reappear on the map.
This is not the end though, four more enemies will spawn outside and head for the small cabin.Īnother time to use the Dead Eye to take them out.
When the freaks have been dealt with, the man runs inside and we should claim our reward.
Using the Dead Eyes manual tagging feature will come in very handy and you might get all of them with a single use. There is going to be a total of five enemies – once you have been spotted, they will all run towards you, mostly with machetes. Once you arrive at the man’s house, make sure your Dead Eye is replenished and ready to use. If you had an eligible encounter with the Night Folk, a Stranger Mission appears at night-time on the road heading in/out of Lagras.Īn older man is sitting at a camp and tells us about the Night Folk – some bad murdering people who roam the Bayou and also have claimed his house.Īgree to help him to clear them out of his property and follow him through the swamps, where he points out several new corpses which seem to be the handiwork of the Night Folk. They tend to happen most frequently around the large lake in the middle of the area. It could be literally any creepy encounter. If you are riding through the Bayou and Bluewater Marsh at night-time and hear voices, see shadows or lights, or see any other grey dot on your mini-map – go investigate. In order to unlock the “A Fine Night For It” Side Quest and it’s Stranger, you have to encounter the Night Folk of the Bayou at least once.