*groans* hold on. Matt or I will post a link to the big ass thread that has all the info on Ermac we did a while ago...

Ok, read this thread

http://www.mortalkombatonline.com/content/forum/showmessage.cds?name=classic&message;=6311

This pretty much covers everything about the whole Ermac in MK1 thing

Don't bump the old thread, but feel free to comment about Ermac continuing in this thread. I enjoy reading about the people's different point of view on the whole Ermac debocle. I used to believe Ermac was real, but since the EGM scans surfaced I now believe it to be nothing more than a hoax.

This is what I understand, however I forgot where I read this.

Sometimes older versions of the arcade would encounter an error so massive, it would crash the machine and give the arcade operaters hell trying to clear the CMOS to get the game working again. This was known as a "Macro Error", even though the name is misleading because videogames are not programmed with Macros, which are usually in regard to databases, but they gave it the name "Error Macro" anyway.

Not knowing how to fix the error, as these huge errors causing these crashes were near impossible to reproduce, the programmers included a macro handler, which would keep the game occupied while in the background, it repaired itself.

While the game repairs itself, it would throw at the player a tougher version of Scorpion that would always win to buy time to attempt to fix the problem. To differentiate this version of Scorpion, they colored him red.

Sometimes when this "Scorpion" won, it would say "Ermac wins", Ermac being the abbreviated programming term for "Errormacro".

The few people that have seen this happen, thought they have discovered a secret character. If you think about it, any "non-programmer" would be led to believe this.

At least that's what I was led to believe. I also believe this is arcade only.

Now the rest is theory only, based upon the fact if you open the PC version of MKII in a hex editor, you can see text for Ermac.

I believe that Midway, when designing MKII, were in the process of adding Ermac as a hidden character but were stressed by release deadlines, and weren't able to put in a way for you to be able to find him. However, the programming code for him remains in the game, and NOBODY seems to even want to try to hack the binaries to actually see him. If I can get my hands on some sort of "extractor" I am positive I can find something.

Finally though, I am sure there are undiscovered secrets in the arcade version. Here's my logic: When arcade games were ported to consoles, even to this day, there is ALOT that is cut due to memory constraints. When MKII was still the current release, the majority of the fans tried to find extra secrets in the console versions, but were wasting their time because those things were edited out to save memory.

When it comes to MKII and MKI on the consoles, I know as a 100% fact that there is NOTHING more to be discovered. I have opened the console versions in hex editors, and there is no mention of anything else left to be found.

Now the logic I believe to be correct. The game mags at the time boasted the console versions to be arcade perfect. The average person would believe this, and would rather search for secrets in the console versions rather than waste quarters in an arcade machine.

The fact also remains that there is much more code in the arcade version in spite of the console versions of the game, changes more common than the typical demo screens, which take up a very tiny portion of FRAM.

I am certain that if I get my hands on a source code extractor and hack MKII, I would find something interesting.

All of those ideas are very good in theory, they make a lot of sense in some ways, and it would have been interesting to see exactly what an ERMAC was used for in MK1, unfortunately I think it was just *one of those audit jokes* because of Smash TV actually using ERMACS, and being a Midway game.

What it comes down to is someone made a connection between the two and they played on it, and the reason Ermac never made it to MKII, but the message at the end of game did was because it was published in a magazine after they had finished 99% of the game in terms of rom data. Changing text and adding text and stuff was the simplest thing they could do, and their way to answer the rumor of Ermac in MK1 was to just say it.

A handful of people don't accept that, but there isn't any other way to look at the whole situation. I think DreemerNJ pointed out that in MK2 character names are stored as full pictures not made of the system text. I don't know if that goes just for energy bars, but if that is how they did it in MK1, there's no way for Ermac to appear in the game as an accident, it would have to have been put in there, and you'd have to be able to find it with a hex editor, and no one has. There'd have to be a character value designated for him, and that would be findable as well.

If it said Scorpion for his name, it would have had to have said it when he won as well because saying anything else wouldn't be possible.

Some people believe that the EGM magazine article is 100% horse shit but that there was actually a "Red Scorpion glitch" and that is where the ERMAC rumor stemmed from. There is no documentation of Red Scorpions appearing in the game before it was announced by EGM magazine, and I have never met anyone who knows MK and heard about Ermac or Red Scorpion before EGM. This is not conclusive evidence, but it is safe to say that the ERMAC EGM magazine is the root of all of this evil, and if it is, it's 100% not true.

We have also determined that the Reddish Scorpion in the picture from EGM is just Scorpion since the color distortions on the banners in the back line up with him.

All of the statements in the article are lies, I'm not saying this because I want them to be lies, it's because they are, as 12 years of playing the game has proven none of what was said has ever happened to anyone else but "Toney Casey." This seriously hurts the credibility of the entire rumor.

In any event, some people are still going to believe, a lot of people who did believe don't anymore though because of that EGM article. People say there's no way to prove it either way, but that's only if you go by the theory that the glitch happened before the EGM magazine called it "ERMAC" and people knew about it. This is purely conjecture and holds no merit in this debate, also called guesswork.

If you go by the EGM magazine as the only source of evidence, which is what I go by and I don't see how anyone can go by anything else, then that is the proof it is false, because the EGM magazine was in fact a hoax. There's nothing anyone can say to refute that, no buts, no what ifs.

The "Ermac does not exist" message in MKII, and the EGM magazine is more than enough evidence that the rumor was in fact just a rumor.

There is nothing backing up the "Red Scorpion" glitch other than "It could have happened."

I don't think there's any more to say about this because everything's been said, but for the new comers, go right ahead.

Matt

lol thats really weird, but i get it now, thanks guys

I personally believe there is a red scorpion glitch that just says "Scorpion: in the health bar. I believe this because there are a TON of glitched characters in MK1. For the Genesis version, there are 7 of them! However, with this glitch the game paints the characters green and distorted, but if that could happen in the Genesis version, maybe the arcade glitch is similiar.

See the green character glitch here:
http://mkshin.mortalkombatonline.com/random/1.png

If nobody knows about the Genesis glitch I can go further with it. Rumor has it though that the green sonya glitch was what MKII meant by jade being in MK1. I doubt it though. :(

About the character text, I don't think they used images for character names in healthbars until MK3. MK1 and MK2 was just text. It even used system text to show if you beat reptile and earn the 10,000 points.

Did you guys also know that when you are fighting Reptile, and press start for Player 2 and go back to the character select screen, that the game colors Scorpion and Sub Zero green? I thought that was interesting.

The point I'm trying to make, is that MK1 was a glitched mess, I'm sure a red scorpion would be in there, that glitch is probably just the arcade version of the Genesis character glitch.

In any case, to know for sure about MKII I need to hack it. Anyone know where I can find a source code extractor?!

We are aware of all of that, and those glitches were home system glitches. Smaller pallets, bad programming, more succeptable to corruption. They have nothing to do with what happens on the arcade machines. All of this has been discussed already,

Matt

All I am saying is that if the console versions are full of glitches, that is an indication of the arcade game. They didn't remake the games from scratch when they made the console versions, they PORTED them, meaning a great deal of arcade code remained.

Absolutely none of the arcade code remained in the home systems in terms of the examples you are giving. They had to completely redo things, even redraw stuff. There is an enormous difference between the 16 bit systems coding and the programming code used for the arcade games.

Matt

jlacroix Wrote: All I am saying is that if the console versions are full of glitches, that is an indication of the arcade game. They didn't remake the games from scratch when they made the console versions, they PORTED them, meaning a great deal of arcade code remained.

Actually, the arcade ran on a processor with its own command set. Each of the consoles had their own different command sets. The game's code was rewritten with the new command set with a goal of approximating the gameplay of the arcade version.

Also, the graphics were redone completely for the home versions because graphics were stored differently in the home versions. SNES in particular has a very strange method for storing the images. In Genesis you will even notice that Goro's lair was completely remade (terribly) because of the lack of colors on the Genesis.

Overall this means that glitches that happen in one version have practically nothing in common with glitches in the other.

The energy bar names, I do believe, are images in MK1 for the arcade, which is why they didn't take the time to add Reptile's name to the energy when you fight against him.

My take on Ermac in general is that if it hadn't been mentioned in that EGM article, it wouldn't have been so widely accepted. Really, since there is no evidence of a red scorpion appearing, believing in any theoretically possible glitch is as valid as believing in Ermac. So, if I were to say there is an error macro that causes Sonya to appear with a Light Pink color scheme who is incredibly hard to defeat, it is as valid as the current Ermac. There could also be a yellow Raiden or a purple Johnny Cage or anything else one could dream up.

jlacroix Wrote: Sometimes older versions of the arcade would encounter an error so massive, it would crash the machine and give the arcade operaters hell trying to clear the CMOS to get the game working again. This was known as a "Macro Error", even though the name is misleading because videogames are not programmed with Macros, which are usually in regard to databases, but they gave it the name "Error Macro" anyway. Not knowing how to fix the error, as these huge errors causing these crashes were near impossible to reproduce, the programmers included a macro handler, which would keep the game occupied while in the background, it repaired itself. While the game repairs itself, it would throw at the player a tougher version of Scorpion that would always win to buy time to attempt to fix the problem. To differentiate this version of Scorpion, they colored him red. Sometimes when this "Scorpion" won, it would say "Ermac wins", Ermac being the abbreviated programming term for "Errormacro". The few people that have seen this happen, thought they have discovered a secret character. If you think about it, any "non-programmer" would be led to believe this. At least that's what I was led to believe. I also believe this is arcade only.

lol, ERMAC is NEO! And I guess jlacroix is The Architect...

The problem is for every one of us pointing out that it's a myth there's 15 fans going around rambling about how it's real and telling their own little version of it. Even though there's no proof and not even one standard story it's just brought up and said to be true so much people are overwhelmed into believing it.

There is so much widespread misinformation in the MK community that stuff like this is never going to die. I think a great deal of it is because fans want to believe. Fans like exaggerating and hyping up how "mysterious" MK games are and the Ermac legend is the ultimate way to push that.

"Ohhh, does this ever, and I mean eeeeeever stop?!!?"


Umm, I think it may have been true in some of the Beta MK1 versions. Watch MKDA's History of MK. Look at MK3's actors. Okay, look at Shang Tsung's actor. His pants are red, opposed to the yellow color his game identity sports. I'm assuming that the pants are red because they are going to be recolored in the actual game. This must have been the case with the ninjas in MK1. I think the glitch had removed Scorpion's yellow, thus making him red.
I have no theory on the "Ermac Wins" thing though. If it exists.

Apples and oranges.

Sponge-Zer0 Wrote: "Ohhh, does this ever, and I mean eeeeeever stop?!!?" Umm, I think it may have been true in some of the Beta MK1 versions. Watch MKDA's History of MK. Look at MK3's actors. Okay, look at Shang Tsung's actor. His pants are red, opposed to the yellow color his game identity sports. I'm assuming that the pants are red because they are going to be recolored in the actual game. This must have been the case with the ninjas in MK1. I think the glitch had removed Scorpion's yellow, thus making him red. I have no theory on the "Ermac Wins" thing though. If it exists.

Just so you know there wouldn't be a color underneath scorpions. Think of the sprites for the Ninjas as paint by number. It has no color until it loads a pallet. If it doesn't load scorpion's pallet, then it will load some other set of colors or no color at all. If it loads no color it should be invisible. If it loads someone else's pallet you get the very messed up looking Goro when he loads Kano's pallet in MK1.