Todd Rogers banned from Twin Galaxies and records removed

[neotokeo2001]

It has been checked. Both cars are running on alternative frames and have their own timing.

 

Worth a shot. Thanks.

[Jinks]

He will always remind me of the fire blaster.

[Andromeda Stardust]

So true. When I programmed Thrust, I was convinced that no one could roll the fuel. And, guess what, a few years later, I had to add a bug fix.

 

And that's only one single episode from a developer's life.

How do you "roll the fuel"? Is it like the overflow bug in Super Mario Bros where your game ends if you accumulate more than 128 lives?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Yup. When you roll the fuel you are out of fuel and that ends the game very fast.

[aros-sg]

This is analogous to your own Barnstorming example where something that could only make you slower was removed and a perfect run still wasn't fast enough. The scenario Thomas made changes certain parameters to be more favorable than they could possibly be during normal operation in return for a model that could be analyzed completely, and it STILL wasn't fast enough.

 

What if what you think is perfect run, actually isn't perfect run? In Barnstorming it seems possible to score more than once per barn. See video on YouTube. So real perfect run may not be basically straight line from barn 1 to barn 10, but maybe barn 1 to barn 9, or barn 1 to barn 8 using cheat/trick/bug/glitch to get score for some barns more than once.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

 

In Barnstorming it seems possible to score more than once per barn.

But that would be considered cheating/abusing a glitch and invalidate the record.

[aros-sg]

It would still mean that a certain time needed to complete the game (== score 10 points) instead of being impossible actually may be possible, ie. the best possible time to complete the game ~calculated by someone may be wrong.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

It would still mean that a certain time needed to complete the game (== score 10 points) instead of being impossible actually may be possible, ie. the best possible time to complete the game ~calculated by someone may be wrong.

True, but for calculating, you would have to disassemble the game first. And then there is a good chance that you would find the bug which allows the glitch.

[Machine]

The real question is, "If a dragster runs a 5.51 in a VCS and no one is around to see, does it still make a world record?"

[+Atari_Warlord]

I finally decided to dig my old high score binder out to see what I scored to get the dragster patch. It was 5.94. As far as I'm concerned, anyone less than that must have cheated :grin:

[Andromeda Stardust]

The real question is, "If a dragster runs a 5.51 in a VCS and no one is around to see, does it still make a world record?"

Depends. Does it have a flux capacitor in the back? We may need to time travel in order to verify it.

[ZackAttack]

Depends. Does it have a flux capacitor in the back? We may need to time travel in order to verify it.

That's the only way this thread is going to die. Someone needs to go back in time and force Activision not to publish times.

[Jinks]

That's the only way this thread is going to die. Someone needs to go back in time and force Activision not to publish times.

Do you want me to score a 5.50?

Thing is how would you know if I didnt photoshop it?

[Shawn]

Everyone should watch at least the first 8 seconds of this video.

 

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

I dont think it is necessary to test all test cases, because Todd already proved himself a liar by stating he started in 2nd gear, which the game code shows is impossible.

 

From a few pages back, and I don't think this has ever been addressed, but I have a question on this...

 

Would "starting in 2nd gear" not slow down your initial speed, or does the game assume that by reaching gear 2 that you've already achieved the top speed(or near to it) of gear 1 and start from there?

 

I'm not a programmer, and honestly, can't make heads or tails of the charts and whatnot, so I'm asking. I hope the question is clear...

 

If not, basically, does starting in second gear also start your speed at the lowest speed for gear 2, or would it "slow down" your acceleration curve because your starting from the "wrong" gear? Would there even BE an advantage to starting in 2nd gear? If the answer to that last is "yes", maybe someone should start looking there for a possible answer. Let us assume, for even a moment, that doing so would NOT result in the "blown engine" scenario. Just for shits and giggles.

[Supergun]

Ever since I was a kid, I always "start" in 4th gear.

Now, to be clear, that doesn't mean I'm already in 4th gear the instant the countdown ends & the race begins. Rather, I get into 4th gear the immediate instant that the race begins.

 

My usual gameplay, which yields very low 6 second times, has always consisted of this method:

 

-- starting just as the 1 second display changes to zero, in effect jumping the starting gun early to gain every precious nanosecond.

 

-- immediately tapping left, at lightning speed, like 10 times in a row, to ensure she's in top gear right out of the gate.

 

-- continuing this motion, along with flooring the accelerator, whereby popping wheelies like a madman, as the car continues to speed up.

 

-- carefully monitiring the speed & managing the wheelies as I approach the finish line, taking extra care to keep it as close to max speed as possible, without blowing the engine.

 

(and this is done NOT by "letting go of the accelerator button, but by carefully timed lightning presses of that button, which slows the car, albeit very slightly)

[Gabriel]

I hold in Neutral until the counter reaches 1. Then I hit the gas. As the counter ticks 0, I release the clutch and start. First gear.

 

I don't hesitate at all. I immediately shift again to second. So the start of the race is gas, release-tap. Second gear.

 

Now I hesitate. It takes a split second for the Tach to reach the red. At that point I shift. Third gear. This kind of feels like gas, release-tap, tap.

 

From there it's another moment's hesitation. Then shift. Fourth gear.

 

Now I try to squeeze in four pops of the clutch/wheelies. This gets the tach higher. This is the part I really don't have down, but when I can get it right It's four pops.

 

On the last pop, I release the gas and hold the clutch. If I've done it right, the tach will be maxed out and I'll be releasing the gas a split second before both the engine blows and I finish the race.

 

I've gotten quite a few 5.87s. My top so far is a 5.81. I'm still a long way away.

 

I think my problem and what I'm trying to improve is that I'm too heavy on the shifting. You just barely need to tap it. A sensitive controller would go a long way.

 

And I'm not telling anyone this with this strategy. The optimal 5.57 strategy is out there for everyone to see. What I'm trying to convey is the feel of it. Dragster is a game which you really have to feel a good run to have any inkling of the game. What's strange is that when I have an exceptional run, it always feels so smooth and almost lazy that I initially think it's a bad one.

Edited February 21, 2018 by Gabriel

[Hydro Thunder]

Everyone should watch at least the first 8 seconds of this video.

 

 

I am absolutely going to have to give The Regular Show another try. If they parodied Billy severely enough that he sued them (and lost lolz), that's a show worth watching. I've seen a lot of gifs online and I know they give a lot of shout outs to retro gaming.

[Lauren Tyler]

Todd Rogers creeped on my wife when she was in college about 15 years ago. F@#$ that guy.

 

I always thought there was something creepy about him. The fact that it's been proven true really freaks me out.

 

My big question is...if someone would intentionally fake a video game score...why on earth would it be a chintzy who-cares game like Dragster??

 

Because for many years, people attempted to replicate the time but found it to be impossible. Only recently did someone disassemble the game and analyze the code and found out it was pretty much impossible.

 

 

 

Just one of a ton he faked. Guy was going for volume

 

Yeah, there was also his Barnstorming record. Someone hacked the ROM and removed all the obstacles, leaving only the barns in your path. Even without the obstacles it was found to be impossible to achieve his record.

[Great Hierophant]

Someone has it clearly out for Billy Mitchell :

 

 

[jaybird3rd]

He doesn't have a daddy, he is an experiment, horribly gone wrong. I thought he was banned ages ago, sad.

Let's try to avoid making personal remarks about other members, please.

[BassGuitari]

 

I always thought there was something creepy about him. The fact that it's been proven true really freaks me out.

 

At the time (and I guess still today) I personally thought it was more funny, sad, and pathetic than anything. Here was a man--I guess in his early 40s?--who was the very picture of "peaked in high school," trying to impress a 19- or 20-year-old he met on the internet with high score "records" he set before she was even born, for video games most socialized people hadn't even thought about in 20 years. It could be the plot of any tropey Owen Wilson-Vince Vaughn buddy movie where two middle-aged losers finally get their shit together, only nobody learns anything at the end.

 

But then, yeah, he'd offer to drive up to her dorm to visit her and buy her stuff and take her to Vegas or someplace. We lived in central Wisconsin at the time and IIRC he was in or near Chicago, so while that kind of drive up north would have been a bit of a haul at roughly 4.5 hours, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility; whether that's creepy-stalky-crazy or well-meaning-desperate, I'll leave for others to judge (although he did know she wasn't single, so...). Suffice to say, my wife (g/f at the time) was not interested either way.

 

And then there was that picture of him from back in the day--which I can't find online now for the life of me, but I think it was for a magazine or something during the height of his "Mr. Activisionness"--in which he was laying out [mostly?] naked and covered in Atari games, that he emailed to her. I'm not 100% on the details offhand, but there was definitely an unsolicited hint-nudge-wink pic.

 

And with the click of a block button, that was the last she ever heard from Mr. Todd Rogers.

 

(While we were engaged, I suggested we send him a wedding invite; she was not amused. )

[Omnigamer]

Hi. This thread has been very busy since I last saw it.

 

Just going to quickly address some of the major points that have come up throughout:

 

-The most likely scenario is a clerical error in entering the initial 5.51s, which were likely misread 5.61s.

-I have no way of knowing how many players legitimately accomplished a 5.57 back in the day, but I would venture very few to none. Todd, at least, could not have mathematically achieved a 5.57 using the strategies he showcased in every bit of historical footage.

-Since Todd had a working relationship with Activision, he may not have even needed to fabricate evidence at all. It's entirely possible that they simply trusted him at his word.

-Activision never officially removed the other alleged 5.51 players. This is true both in the publications and from discussions with one of the players. This claim only comes from Todd.

-The easiest, most compelling way to show 5.51 as an impossible time is through the simplified model that Thomas provided. I made a video going through a similar exercise; it's very straightforward, and just uses some basic arithmetic.

-The *true* search space, using only inputs and time reference is significantly large. However, there are other ways to break down the problem. Benoit Esnard cleverly mapped the number of state combinations of critical internal variables, and used that to simplify the search space. You can perform an exhaustive test in a very short amount of time now. You can find his code here: https://github.com/esnard/dragster

-The above code confirms that the best achievable time is a 5.57 with remaining distance of 98; the same as the TAS I submitted to TASVideos.

-Another user had previously developed a dynamic programming approach to do something similar, but its code and results are unfortunately no longer available. It also supported that 5.57 with 98 distance was optimal.

-Starting in 2nd gear would allow a 5.51 if and only if you were already in gear on the first frame of activity; ie no speedfreeze. If you are instead shifting from 1st to 2nd on that first frame, the best is still only a 5.54.

-There is no benefit to being the 2nd player, or on being the car that has a "0.00" drawn for 1 frame. Both players are capable of achieving the same times.

Edited February 21, 2018 by Omnigamer

[Goochman]

Omnigamer - you make an interesting comment above about starting in 2nd gear. Please no one take this as trying to reopen the can of worms here, just curious.

 

You say its possible to get a 5.51 if you start in 2nd gear - is that confirmed?

 

I think its also been proven that you cant start in 2nd gear correct?

 

I only ask cause Todd has been saying the 2nd gear start thing since before 2000.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Everyone should watch at least the first 8 seconds of this video.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=234Y76_3YPE

I watched the whole thing. I honestly believe Billy was a legit ledgend at one time, but something changed. He's not the villian he was portrayed as in King of Kong. He's much much worse. The "Lance Armstrong" of video games...