4.300.000.000 didn`t exist !!!!!

[DarkoS]

Sorry but my english its really suck but im gonna do my best.

Ok this is what i found, I was flying on florion height and i have a 4.200.000.000 points and 26 points of shield, then i knew that im gonna beat almost a 4.500.000.000 !!!! Yeas thats true but the real SHOCK came when i pass the 4.299.999.999. When im do that the COUNTNER (points of zone) START COUNT FROM 0 !!!!!! What a hell its going on ?? Why any one from this forum didn`t discover that ???

I

[oggob]

DarkoS - yeah, mate, everyone knows about this..... it was found out quite a while ago, that's why if you look at the Official Fusion site, with all the top scores for Zone Mode, there are none that are over 4.3 Billion.

It is a problem, so just keep going, and whatever your score is after the reset, just add 4.3 Billion and that's your score, just don't make up any 'cheated' scores up!

[vincoof]

I don't know if anyone pointed out in the Fusion board, but I haven't *seen* it posted in the WoZ board, so there it is :

The 4.3 billion is a numeric limit that the development team did not care about -- probably because they thought that nobody would reach it ! There's numerical limits in every game, but generally the limit is choosen high enough not to bother the gamer. Obviously the score was underestimated this time.
I won't make any computer theory about it, but what you have to know is that the exact limit is 4,294,967,296.
In fact, you don't really have to add 4.3billion, even though that's a fair approximation.

Just my 2 c !

[AmigoJack]

vincoof is right - 4'294'967'296 is exactly 4G (divide the number three times by 1024) constructing a native DWORD. if this is the "real" score boarder its pretty lame - its no big deal to implement larger integer variables (at least by always using two DWORDs).

[vincoof]

That's right that it's not difficult. But the thing is, I bet they didn't think the limit would be reached one day or another. That's pretty lame but that's it I think.

[DarkoS]

What a pity ! Now problem is for thoes who pass 5.000.000.000 :( and more.

But probably number of zone you reach will be a solution. If you pass 5 bilion and the countner will start count from 0 you still have the number of ZONE :)

[Dado]

Hi, I just want to add some "historical development considerations" about this bug.
First of all, I have to say you're right, the bug is caused by a limit of the integer variable we use to store the zone score, 2^32 = 4294967296. That's the only reason, there was no other reason, you know, it's really stupid to have limit on score like the zone score, we never thought about that!!
Second of all, just some months before the end of the project the limit was 2^31, a signed integer, and the score wuod have been resetted at 2147483648, fortunately for us, me and Rob played zone mode a lot in those days, and we managed to go above 2billion, but we were quite sure no one could go far better than 2billion, which was an impressive score at that time... So we used the unsigned interger variable, 2^32, 4.3billion, but we did understimated some excellent players like most of you (A part from Infox obviuosly, he's very crap :-) )

This is the story so far of the zone bug, maybe you can find intresting to know such a kind of things, maybe not, whatever, nevermind :-)

[Task]

:D That's definitely very interesting.
Mostly because you actually found the problem, and then actually chose to only partially fix it because the thought of someone twice as good as you didn't even cross your mind. I wouldn't have imagined it possible myself, until They Who Are Amazing started talking about zone 100 and higher. I guess the beta testers never got a score of 2 billion or more either.
I think the lesson to be learned from this is that WipeoutZone members should be on the beta testing team of all future wipeouts. :D
(Yeah, I'm dreaming, but everyone can dream with me!)

[Lance]

.
don't forget that in addition to having Al on the beta testing team, you also need to have lesser 'talents' like :cough: myself on the team so that you know that a wide range of people can play and enjoy the game
.

[oggob]

Dado - Had heard about that, and that's why I can't believe how some people have really started having a massive go at anyone asociated with the game, while I might have been one of those people at the start, I now realise that you at least tried to compensate for the problem, which is good...

Not knowing much about the programming language, and can understand that a score double what yourself and Rob were achieving at the time would seem out of reach, why wasn't it set for something that truly was impossible like 30-40 Billion or something? Or the fact that the Lap Bonuses & Zone Bonuses weren't reduced by 50% of what they are? that way the reset mark of 4.2 Billion might have worked?

As for the Al Factor.... It could really be a good idea, I mean have him playing it, him setting results for various tasks, then, lower the mark slightly and then they could be used as a difficultly level, if you reach the Zone 100 mark on Area 1, that gives you a secret password which entitles you to something special... could be interesting...

I could be Al's understudy for the task by the way! having joined the 100 Club! :D

You have Bronze, Silver, Gold.... why not Platinum? For the "experts"...

Cheers! God I love the game! :D

[vincoof]

Dado: thanx alot for your explanations ! Reading your post, I'm assuming you're one of the developers of the game.
Believe me or not, but I guessed that there was a first limit of 2billion. Most integers are defined as signed because the integer limit is rarely supposed to be reached.
Going from 31bits to 32bits is a good choice, but going to 63bits or 64bits would have been a better choice (even though it would probably have messed up data alignment, especially the savegame structure).


> why wasn't it set for something that truly was impossible like 30-40 Billion or something?
Simply because 4billion was "truly impossible" ! At least that's what they thought.
And what about 40billion ? How do you know it's "truly impossible" ? Theorically it _is_ possible !
So, you would like to set the limit to 200billion ? The story never ends...
The developers thought that 4billion was impossible just like you think that 40billion is impossible. It's as simple as that.

[DarkoS]

Hmm.

Well, no matter how big it could be the Zone Last LEVEL people like us will reached for all cost. Yesterday i was reached the Zone Level 98 and im know that the even Zone 200 is possible. It`s only a matter of TIME and little Discipline.


So dont tell "IT`S IMPOSSIBLE