World of Warcraft Gold Limit Reached, Its 2^31

ScratchMonkey declared in:
Xns9A2A9A0B92A3Fscratchmonkey.DeleteThis@216.196.97.136 :
> http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/19/1321241&from=rss
>
>> "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."
>
> The article includes links to 2 different screenshots.

This, of course, has been confirmed ages ago on private servers
with increased gold-rates.

You think this will be changed in an upcoming patch/expansion?
 >> Stay informed about: World of Warcraft Gold Limit Reached, Its 2^31 

"Thomas Hejl Pilgaard" wrote in
$25160$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com:

> This, of course, has been confirmed ages ago on private servers
> with increased gold-rates.
>
> You think this will be changed in an upcoming patch/expansion?

Only if there's a lot of inflation, or if Blizzard retrofits their DB with
one that has wider integers. Otherwise, the number of people who would
benefit from the change would be too small to justify the diversion of
manpower from more important work.
 >> Stay informed about: World of Warcraft Gold Limit Reached, Its 2^31 

"Thomas Hejl Pilgaard" wrote in message

> ScratchMonkey declared in:
> Xns9A2A9A0B92A3Fscratchmonkey.TakeThisOut@216.196.97.136 :
>> http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/19/1321241&from=rss
>>
>>> "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."
>>
>> The article includes links to 2 different screenshots.
>
> This, of course, has been confirmed ages ago on private servers
> with increased gold-rates.
>
> You think this will be changed in an upcoming patch/expansion?

There is no great need to fix it.
All they need to do is add a vendor item "Gold bar" that you can buy for
25,000 gold and sell back for the same cost.
You can just turn some of your spare cash into that and change it back when
you need it. No code changes at all needed.
 >> Stay informed about: World of Warcraft Gold Limit Reached, Its 2^31 

Chinese Farmer wrote in
a534fea9f1e0 RemoveThis @k39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:

> Isn't the largest signed 32-bit integer 2147483647 (2^31-1)?
> 1 extra copper?

The screenshots show a number slightly less than that, so presumably they
were trying to perform transactions close but not at the limit.
 >> Stay informed about: World of Warcraft Gold Limit Reached, Its 2^31 

ScratchMonkey skrev:

> The article includes links to 2 different screenshots.

http://www.worldofraids.com/

Quote:

Interview with Tyram, a golden player (aka the one who solo reached the
gold cap)

You might have heard/read about it yesterday on several sites (such as
Nihilum or SK-Gaming), a german player "Tyram" reached the Gold limit
which is 214.748 gold, 36 silver and 46 copper. In this screenshot, a
gamemaster admitted that him and the EU gm team are amazed that a single
player managed to reach it, he also confirmed the gold cap.

Lifeblood of Spinebreaker server posted (WoW Forums) that the gold cap
made perfect sense. Since the maximum limit is 2 to the power of 31, it
is a signed int32 - a type of coding used by most developers. All in
all, the total amount is plus or minus 2,147,483,647 copper.

Now, lets come to the point of that news, Unowiel from WoWszene.de
interviewed that particular player "Tyram", however the original
interview is in german, so we translated it (thanks Zetti & Ellyn) for
curious players.

Unowiel: Please introcude yourself to the community! Whats your name,
how old are you and where are you from?
Tyram: My name is Christian, I am 28 years old and im from Hamburg.

Unowiel: Since when do you play WoW and how many hours do you
approximately play each week?
Tyram: I am playing WoW since february 2005 and I play around 35-40
hours during the week.

Unowiel: Alright, so you are quite a real hardcore gamer since the
beginning. What is your current Job?
Tyram: Yes, you can pretty much say that. I am currently working in
public service.

Unowiel: Great, so you are a real banker or something. *g* Now lets get
to your WoW-Being. You got a lot of attention today and eventually
gained a lot of fame as well when you started a thread in the official
Blizzard forum, asking why you could not gather any more gold. It turned
out that you reached the gold cap. What kept you motivated to keep
collecting gold?
Tyram: Well, it all started when i was saving up for my first lvl 40
Mount. Back in the day i started trading, because it was simply the
fastest way to get gold. I used to farm "The Green Hills of
Stranglethorn" in Stranglethorn which were needed for a quest (there
were 15 different ones) and then i sold them for 50 silver up to 1 gold.
That was a lot of gold back then.
After that i got to know the auction house and bought cheap stuff and
sold it for a bit more. Also the trading channel was in my field of view
and I kept checking for cheap offers. That way I gathered a lot of gold
quite quickly. I studied the patchnotes carefully so I knew what was
needed when the patch was about to be released and then I sold the
needed items for more than they were normally worth.
This is how I gathered 27.000 gold before the release of The Burning
Crusade.

Unowiel: Interesting! And how did you do that? In your post in the
official forum you mentioned that you earned a lot with jewelcrafting.
Are there any other tricks for beginners? (during The Burning Crusade?)
Tyram: I made even more money once TBC was released. Herbalism and
jewelcrafting made it possible to gain 2000-4000 gold each day, because
everybody was in need of jewels for their new items. With the gold i
saved i was able to buy the expensive recipes right away and therefore i
was the leading jewelcrafter for a long period of time.
But i made the most money with the start of the arena season. Everybody
was in need of blue gems and enchanting materials which i owned in huge
quantities. I sold them for 40 gold per large prismatic shard and the
gems for up to 90 gold. I was also trading with the Horde because
Sen'Jin is a PvE Realm. I toke advantage of the price difference between
the Horde and Alliance.
And thats how i collected the amount of gold i have now.

Unowiel: Amazing! What do you think about the economic system in World
of Warcraft? Are there any weaknesses that come to your mind right now?
Tyram: Well, someday you will reach a point where you cant get anything
new or useful for your gold. Once you have the best riding skill you
wont need to spend a huge amount of gold anymore. The economic system of
WoW is alright but the daily quests could lead to inflation because
everybody will have a lot of money. If repair costs will make up for
that is questionable. WoW is lacking possibilities to spend your money
on once you have a lot of gold. Im thinking of the Spectral Tiger (at
the moment TCG only) - the mount could be sold for 50.000 gold just like
the flying mount of the Cenarion Expedition for 2.000 gold.

Unowiel: Or maybe spend your money for the not yet implemented Player
housing? That would be a great addition for a collector like you, right?
Tyram: Yeah, that would be a good possibility, but Blizzard shortly
announced that they are not currently planning on implementing that feature.

Unowiel: That's right. But maybe they'll add that if we keep begging for it.
Tyram: I hope so. ; )

Unowiel: Let's get back to the game. You are successfully raiding Black
Temple. Which content do you prefer? PvE or PvP? And how long did it
take you to get to Illidan?
Tyram: I prefer PvE. Im also enjoying PvP but my focus is set to PvE. We
killed Illidan approximately 3 months ago and my guild is waiting for
the 2.4 patch and the new instance, because we are quite bored of the
content.
At this point I'd like to greet my guild eVolution!

Unowiel: You only got famous today. How does it feel to suddenly be that
famous? Did you receive a lot of messages?
Tyram: Well, 'famous' is a little exaggerated. Shame i forgot to cut out
my character's name when i posted the screenshot. ^^ I received 300-500
whispers that evening. A lot of funny whispers and also beggers. One of
the guys said hes going to get a tattoo if i pay for his flying mount
and the riding skill. Also a couple english speaking players whispered
me and asked for tricks. Blizzard also messaged me and suspended my
account - luckily it was unlocked after 2 hours (after checking the
account).

Unowiel: Oh, why did they do that?
Tyram: Well, im guessing that they thought i was going to sell the gold
for Euros. Which of course isn't the case!

Unowiel: Alright! Thanks for your time, I wish you a nice evening and
all the best for the future!
Tyram: Thanks and keep up the good work with your fansite.
 >> Stay informed about: World of Warcraft Gold Limit Reached, Its 2^31 

On Jan 20, 5:01 am, "John Burton" wrote:

> There is no great need to fix it.
> All they need to do is add a vendor item "Gold bar" that you can buy for
> 25,000 gold and sell back for the same cost.
> You can just turn some of your spare cash into that and change it back when
> you need it. No code changes at all needed.

Still kind of a problem; whatever routine is displaying the total gold
you have is undoubtedly using the 32-bit variable. So either you have
to change that routine (and any other places you display the amount of
gold) or the your total amount displayed will have to display only the
actual coin amount (ignoring any bars you have).
 >> Stay informed about: World of Warcraft Gold Limit Reached, Its 2^31