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World of Warcraft Gold Limit Reached, It's 2^31
Mitch writes "Blizzard apparently used signed integers for their World of Warcraft gold values as some people have recently hit the limit of 2^31. "Apparently that amount is 214,748 gold, 36 silver, 48 copper. After you reach that lofty sum, you'll no longer be able to receive money from any source in the game. While some responses to the original posts claim that this exact limit had previously been theorized to exist, there have been no reports of anyone in the game actually achieving this amount via legal means." I guess Blizzard didn't expect anyone to ever get close to that much gold in game."
2^31 should be enough for anyone...
Somehow I think only 'News for nerds' apply for this one.
On three level 70s and one level 61, I still have trouble breaking 3,000 gold between them. How does one get that much gold together in the first place?
It could have rolled over :)
Since the money is fiat, i.e. not backed by a fixed standard in the game, have people seen monetary inflation causing price increases in the game, or has the population of players offset any growth in money?
I don't play WoW (played it a few times and have watched some addicts^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hfriends play it), so I'm not familiar with how pricing works.
I would assume, though, that if money growth exceeds population/player growth, prices would tend to rise. Is this the case?
Are there any online games that have a relatively fixed amount of money in the game?
At market value of 1000G for 31$ he can sell that amount for 6657.188$.
http://sparter.com/web/shop.jsp#market=WWU01A&quantity=500
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
Reminds me of when I was using a hex editor to "help myseslf" to some extra gold in Civilization I - I remember I could only up my gold to 3000 pieces, that was the Civ Is upper limit. Very off-putting, when you have to leave the game and start the hex editor just to replenish your reserves!
;o)
How short-sighted of Sid
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Dude, I'm sure he didn't mean to hurt you. Take it easy.
At least it means there won't be a "Who wants to be a millionaire" in WOW.
This isn't the first time a signed integer has been used to store the amount of money a player has (and I suspect it won't be the last, either) - years ago when I played MicroProse's Railroad Tycoon, I found an interesting bug (feature) with the way cash was stored:
For the game, a negative cash made a small bit of sense (overdraft) and so a signed integer was used. If you just bought up >50% of the shares in your railroad company (to ensure that you couldn't be fired), and then ensured that you had lots of expenditure but no income every financial period, you would end each financial period with more negative cash until it eventually overflowed and became positive. Once positive, with lots of income, it refused to overflow back negative.
I found it interesting, that although a positive overflow was checked a negative one wasn't. The assumption must be that the programmer never really expected the limit condition to be met and so only put a cursory check in - checking for a positive overflow to prevent sudden negative cash (in both games) and the problems that could cause the program and game play, but in MicroProse's case, not bothering with the negative overflow as it was an extreme case not expected - the game play was possibly meant to prevent it and I found the 1 in a whatever chance to get it to happen (I was trying to see how negative a rating I could achieve without being "fired").
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet;
A chrysanthemum by any other name would be easier to spell
Euh.... get a life?
It used to just annoy me until someone suggested I should actually go take a hike instead of playing games. Not like 'get lost, loser' but actually take a hike. Like that's somehow better for -anyone- if I do. That's when I realized that entertainment is entertainment, no matter what the form. (Assuming it doesn't actively hurt others, of course.) Why should some hiker feel special because he hikes instead of playing video games?
FWIW: I played D&D twice and found both groups to be complete morons. (I know there are non-moron D&D players out there, but I have yet to actually see them play.) I played WoW for about 2 months before I got bored of it. I'm a gamer, but I can't stand to sit in front of the same game for months at a time grinding. The game has to be interesting, not just a time-sink.
I'm just bloody sick of people getting all high and mighty because they don't play games, and then going and sitting in front of the TV and watching Friends or football.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I'm not sure spending 2400 hours on any one activity can be referred to as "casual"...
If you think WoW is better than making babies then you clearly need to get out more.
This guy's the limit!
Warning: Geekish Post Ahead
If you put a lot of emphasis in controlling inflation in your game then you can keep a game going with the ability to bring new players in cold and they have a better chance of staying. Economics of a game needs to have more of a priority than just killing mobs, crafting new items and completing the quest. Here's why.
I've been an avid gamer for a long time and have always found that economics within the game are never up to par with any standard, let alone a true economic standard. While I understand that there would be too much work in maintaining a true economy in many cases, the fact that the developers of each game don't bother to put in enough money sinks to keep the flow of money in game vs. out of game in check is astounding, especially in the case of WoW with n million players.
One exception to this rule is CCP Games "EVE Online". The game is fundamentally an economics simulator in a space setting. While this sounds about as fun as counting grains of sand on a beach on a windy day, don't knock the premise until you try it. The whole game revolves around the flow of money into and out of wallets via new ships, replacement equipment, massive costs for new skills and upkeep costs for space stations etc. CCP even has an economist on staff to give reports on how the game economics is doing.
Again, this sounds like no fun at all, but EVE has been running for over 4 years, is still increasing in population (albeit slowly) and I still did not have trouble getting started in the game and buying new equipment without it being ungodly hard to make the money to buy it. Oh and it's a fun space simulator too.
Blizzard Exec #2: What kind of person would do this?
Blizzard Exec #1: Only one kind... Whoever this person is, he has played world of warcraft nearly ever hour, of every day, for the past year and a half. Gentlemen we are dealing with someone here who has absolutely no life.
What is the War of Worldcraft thing? I've seen it mentioned here a few times, but nobody actually explains what it does.
Is it a book?
In either case, here at Microsoft, we feel standards are important. And we have fun, too. Doug Mahugh, Microsoft
clearly you've never played a gnome...
i know someone who will buy your baby for 214,748 gold
If I fully realized the impact of kids on my life, I would never have had him. I'd cut off my dick with rusty scissors first.
Not kidding, either.
Well yeah, it's illegal for a start...
Now, my precious little spawn, she's important...
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.