darkSpyro

Just curious if anyone had heard, from a real world technically standpoint, where the details of the trapped villains are stored. Since you either trap a villain or you don't, and villains have some sort of upgrade mechanism, they must be stored somewhere. Obviously, if you place them in a 'sculpt', or whatever term they're using, then the villain info can be in there. However, since you can store your villains in the 'vault', the data must also (or instead of) be stored elsewhere. I don't think 'instead of' is happening though since they are giving away pre-loaded sculpts.

There are two options really, the first being the console hard-drive. If this is the case that means that you can't take a trapped villain over to a friends house (unless it's also stored on a sculpt). It also might mean that the data is probably stored to a specific saved game. Which in turn would mean that if you start a new game, you lose all your villains stored in the vault, similar to how you lose your soul gems. That also begs the question that if you save a villain on a sculpt, then play that villain on a different game (or console) then you originally captured the villain, can you store said villain on the vault of the new game?

The other option is the villain data is stored on the portal itself. That way you could transfer all your trapped villains to another game or console just by using the portal that you originally trapped the the villains. It would also be a field day for all the hackers.

I would guess it's the first option. The 2nd option is going to sell more sculpts (since that's the only way to transport a villain outside of a saved game). It will also allow players to re-trap villains by starting a new game. However, that still leaves open the question about saving a villain to the vault from a sculpt. I would guess it's not allowed. That way kids can't pass the Kaos sculpt around school till everyone's got it without actually defeating him.


The question is kind of important to me personally as my kids play skylanders at my place as well as their mom's, and usually transport the figures between the two.

I'm pretty sure we're trapped in the crystal when we're in a trap, and when we're in the vault, we're in the save file.

Why not in the trap? Just like the Skylanders they will have a RFID chip. The memory volume of these chips is not very big. I think it's just text informations, maybe even binary code, with the character stats, level progress, skills, and gold. Small enough that all changes immediatly could be saved. And how i can imagine with space for more data for the sequels. Additional level and progress informations or the character quests from Giants or Swap Force.

Anyway much more informations as the villains needs. The chip must only memorize which villains he contains and what the upgrade concerns, I think we're talking about any quests and a stats bonus or so. And this informations 5 times (or more) shouldn't not really will be a problem.

Please pardon me for asking too many questions, but is it possible to actually copy the villains from the vault to the traps? Or the villains can be placed in either one of them? What if we want to keep the villains within the game instead of inside the crystals? What would happen if the traps broke or something? What then?

Quote: TheShadowDragon

Please pardon me for asking too many questions, but is it possible to actually copy the villains from the vault to the traps? Or the villains can be placed in either one of them? What if we want to keep the villains within the game instead of inside the crystals? What would happen if the traps broke or something? What then?

It is a transfer, and as you imply, that means if your friend brings a trap and you go into your save file and move him to it...he would be gone in the save file. What next? I suspect re-play the level. These things aren't Skyrim epic length games...shouldn't be a problem...an annoyance for sure though. Same problem for when skylanders break--you buy another one. In this case however, you buy a blank and "recapture".

I'm more concerned about variants. If they're moved from the crystal to the vault, and you lose your save, that variant may be gone forever.

Nightmoon, you're assuming that the villain variant is stored in your save game. I believe you're probably correct, but if it's stored on the portal itself (as well as your trap/sculpt), then you would not lose your villain, variant or otherwise.

That brings up another point...if you purchase a pre-loaded trap/sculpt, can you even switch out the villain on that trap/sculpt? I am guessing that the transfer from vault to sculpt is one-way, you cannot transfer from sculpt to vault. I would hope that pre-loaded traps (from the manufacturer) cannot be overwritten.


I think this has been brought up before, but I'm sure people will sell pre-loaded trap/sculpts on ebay. It's going to be a nightmare when customers start claiming that the villain wasn't on the sculpt, exactly how do you prove that?

Edit: Ghostroaster, whether the villain vault is stored in the saved file or on the portal itself, I am doubtful that transfer a villain to the trap/sculpt deletes him from the vault. There is no need for the system to do that. At best, it would prevent customers from buying multiple sculpts and placing the same villain on him. Activision certainly doesn't want to limit what customers buy.

Quote: melvimbe

Nightmoon, you're assuming that the villain variant is stored in your save game. I believe you're probably correct, but if it's stored on the portal itself (as well as your trap/sculpt), then you would not lose your villain, variant or otherwise.

That brings up another point...if you purchase a pre-loaded trap/sculpt, can you even switch out the villain on that trap/sculpt?


I think this has been brought up before, but I'm sure people will sell pre-loaded trap/sculpts on ebay. It's going to be a nightmare when customers start claiming that the villain wasn't on the sculpt, exactly how do you prove that?

you will have to change owner as usual...

Personally, I'm not assuming anything, I'm simply speculating about potential problems with the ways villains may be stored.

If the vault is saved on the actual portal instead of save data, there could be equally tragic consequences as far as losing variants by breaking either the portal or trap. At least with figure variants, you could send the broken figure to Activision, but with villains being purely digital, and potentially possible to delete, that may well cause horrible problems all around.

I think that variants would be stored on your save file, but in theory if you replaced a variant villain in a trap with another villain then the variant villain would go to the vault in the hub world and you could just switch it back into the trap when you want and load it into another save file.

The E3 trap has no additional read/write protection.

Chances are that the game interprets the Variant-holding trap's unique ID as a message that essentially says "Hey, unlock this Variant villain in the vault", regardless of what villain is actually in it.

Trapping Villians just got a whole lot more complicated.