Chris++ Posted July 23, 2004 Share Posted July 23, 2004 72,100 is the best I've done all week. My mind starts wandering and I start thinking of all the things I'm going to do when I don't have to play Taz anymore. That might be part of the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted July 23, 2004 Share Posted July 23, 2004 I said 10's digit, and meant 100's digit. Since edit mode is unavailable I am correcting it in this post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted July 23, 2004 Share Posted July 23, 2004 The have a two byte difference at00000FF9: FF 00 00001FF8: FF 00 Those differences are resulting from dumping identical ROMs using different hard- or software. The two addresses are the bankswitching hotspots (which are usually dumped as random or fixed values), the contents at those addresses are completely irrelevant for the game. So you don't have to compare those two ROMs any more. They will show no difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquid_sky Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 34,300 (digital camera bit the dust but I have no chance to win anyhow!!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the 5th ghost Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 Congrats Todd! I knew it wouldn't be long till you got a million in this game. Interesting, I didn't know there were different versions of Taz out there, I wonder which version mine is? And way to go Keilbaca! (get your package yet??) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffy Arensmeyer Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 The file below is the binary file (zipped) that was downloaded from AtariAge today at approximately 12:00 noon CST. It's been modified using ShowGFX and EditGFX to blank all of the dynamite (zeroed out). Thus, there's no visible collisions to be detected. Essentially, you can play this version forever. The only changes to the file were the two dynamite graphics (left and right) have been removed. If you have the time to play until it rolls over, you will confirm what Shannon has posted. The last highest score displayed is 999500 then the score reverts back to a single 0. Since a PAL version is considered inappropriate, a never-seen-before additional version should not be allowed either. Unfortunately, the next "photo" displayed will probably have the correct score that's already been thoroughly discussed. You won't be satisfied until any bit of fun left here is completely sucked out, will you?Ahhh... It's fun when you're cheating on people, but not when you're getting caught cheating. Please, whatever sent you away before, find it again. You've apparently come back to bark; well, I bark back. ò¿ó taz_no_dynamite.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sku_u Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 You won't be satisfied until any bit of fun left here is completely sucked out, will you?Ahhh... It's fun when you're cheating on people, but not when you're getting caught cheating. Please, whatever sent you away before, find it again. You've apparently come back to bark; well, I bark back. That's been apparent from every post you've made every week so far. You were probably the kid on the playground who ran home with the only ball when he didn't get his way growing up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gospeedde Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 Gospeedde: My earlier score was not in challange it was another players time that he achieved his score in that was in concern. I know that noone was talking about your earlier score. I wasn't being clear enough. My point was that neither your score of 999,900 or your earlier score of 277,100 are possible to get if Taz is scoring the way it's supposed to. I was thinking that this would indicate that your version keeps score differently, since it did it twice. That's all I meant, sorry for the trouble. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 I think like gospeedde said, the original score posted by Todd was/is an indication that his cart is scoring differently. Although from his description upon further study it sounded like the scoring was more of a disadvantage to him than everyone else. We ran into a similar situation this week in the atari 8-bit HSC for Gyruss. Everybody was playing a bad version except for me. But after messing with the bad version I concluded they were at more disadvantage than me (and beat me too boot). So aside from making the correct version available for those willing to give it a try, I just took it with a grain of salt. At the very least someone should dump Todd Rodgers version, cause there was obviously a correction made between carts. I think everyone would agree it is nearly impossible to make sure everyone is playing the exact same version. So unless there are some severe advantage/disadvantages it should not really matter. But that is my opinion. I'm not the one competing for top dog here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malc74 Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 You won't be satisfied until any bit of fun left here is completely sucked out, will you?Ahhh... It's fun when you're cheating on people, but not when you're getting caught cheating. Please, whatever sent you away before, find it again. You've apparently come back to bark; well, I bark back. That's been apparent from every post you've made every week so far. You were probably the kid on the playground who ran home with the only ball when he didn't get his way growing up. With the greatest of respect Sku_u, I still haven't seen you explain how you were able to spend an hour-and-a-half playing Stampede and post the score 24 minutes after Ze_ro listed the game. I think Jeffy's complaint is legitimate. If the scores go up in increments of 500 in everybody else's version of the game then Todd's score must be explained. Note - I'm accusing neither of you of cheating - in fact I looked for other reasons when Todd and Jeffy picked up on your Stampede score, but was disappointed you provided no explanation. I'm sure you're capable of the maximum score on Stampede and Todd may very well have a proto cart of Taz which scores differently, but if you're going to give Jeffy hassle, the least you could do is explain the whole Stampede situation, rather than completely ignoring it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 Strange... I was looking thru the scores and did not see Jeff post a score. I assume that since you gave such detailed tips you did have a score right? You might wanna post it so it can be added to the list by Ze_ro. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malc74 Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 Well, I decided to go and have another game, and increased my best score to 129,000. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sku_u Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 With the greatest of respect Sku_u, I still haven't seen you explain how you were able to spend an hour-and-a-half playing Stampede and post the score 24 minutes after Ze_ro listed the game. I think Jeffy's complaint is legitimate. If the scores go up in increments of 500 in everybody else's version of the game then Todd's score must be explained. Note - I'm accusing neither of you of cheating - in fact I looked for other reasons when Todd and Jeffy picked up on your Stampede score, but was disappointed you provided no explanation. I'm sure you're capable of the maximum score on Stampede and Todd may very well have a proto cart of Taz which scores differently, but if you're going to give Jeffy hassle, the least you could do is explain the whole Stampede situation, rather than completely ignoring it. Because I have no idea what happened and have no explanation for the discrepancy and because I misread initially about which game version to log a score on and only found out about that way after the fact. My score was on version 1 which would have made my score invalid anyway. For those who think I was trying to "cheat", if that were the case, why did I post sucky scores on several games in the past weeks. Was I cheating then, too? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keilbaca Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 Congrats Todd! I knew it wouldn't be long till you got a million in this game. Interesting, I didn't know there were different versions of Taz out there, I wonder which version mine is? And way to go Keilbaca! (get your package yet??) You sent me a package? the only ones i'm missing is swordquest waterworld, tunnel runner, and swordquest fireworld (my label was crap) The only one I remember from someone from the forums was Shining Slade which i got his, and i got the one from my home, which allows me to play taz on a real atari. And thanks the 5th ghost for the compliment... it aint up there with yours, but i'm working on it. Meanwhile I won't be able to play it all day today, I have to go to a LAN party, so expect some scores tomorrow. Take care all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ze_ro Posted July 24, 2004 Author Share Posted July 24, 2004 Hmm... well, I guess I should be voicing some kind of opinion on this matter, right? I mean, I am the leader of this cadre and all I suppose. From what I can tell from from Jeffy's numbers, once you get to the first Turnip wave, your scores should theoretically all be in multiples of 500.... And since the first Turnip wave starts after you have exactly 52,500, anyone who posted a score higher than this that ISN'T a multiple of 500 would (in theory) be cheating... This would also include Chris++'s score of 72,100 if all this is correct. I haven't checked ALL the reported scores, I'm guessing that there will be at least one or two that might be "off" as well. However, I'm guessing that this might all be the result of some obscure programming bug that some people might have been hitting by accident. Perhaps the routine that checks your score and changes food does not run every single frame, so it may be possible to "accidentally" grab two pieces of food before it changes the score to the new value, thus causing the scores to be off just slightly. It's probably impossible to know unless someone were to decompile the source code, but it's entirely possible that all this is just the result of some seldom-triggered bug in the scoring. I have no evidence that any such bug exists... but it seems entirely possible to me, and certainly more probable than both Todd and Chris++ cheating. I fully imagine that Todd videotaped his run so that he can add the score to Twin Galaxies at some point, so I very much doubt that he cheated at all. In fact, if you DO have a video tape of it Todd, you might want to try re-watching to see if all the score milestones actually "line up" properly. However, I've always been a little curious about the screenshots you've posted Todd... how much time do you actually spent getting as close to the roll-over point as possible? --Zero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 Actually I had a brief(!) look a the code, but I couldn't find a bug (yet). Maybe Todd and/or Chris++ can dump and send their ROMs. BTW: Todd also reported an intermediate score of 277,100, which IMO makes it even more likely that his version scores differently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffy Arensmeyer Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 Wave 1 - 50 x 50 = 2500Wave 2 - 50 x 100 = 5000 + 2500 = 7500 Wave 3 - 50 x 200 = 10000 + 7500 = 17500 Wave 4 - 50 x 300 = 15000 + 17500 = 32500 Wave 5 - 50 x 400 = 20000 + 32500 = 52500 Wave 6 - 50 x 500 = 25000 + 52500 = 77500 At the end of Wave 5, Chriss++'s score would be 52500. Then... 52500 + 19600 : (49 food items at 400 points each) = 72100. His score would be legit. Once again, it's after Wave 6 that all scores will and must end in ???500 or ???000. ò¿ó Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToddRogers Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 TAZ final conclusions: Well from my observations on the gaming testing that i did on versions "A,B and C" "B" acts the same as before. Version "A" The 1983 cart. the one that im sure most people have in their collections, Jeffry's point value chart through out the game is accurate and again im satified with his math table and view points. Maybe with enough bloopers in that game would their be a glitch like i found in Version "B". but im not going to play it over and over to find out. Version "B" The 1984 cart. this version has repeated scoring discrepancies then Version "A". If you die before the next wave on an early wave the score will be just off from Jeffrys score table thus allowing your score to be deemed different the version "A" and continuing on to the next wave with points reflective of earlier point values. Like representative in the "400pt/900Pt" ending numbers OR "100pt/600pt" ending number values and so on.The video tape clearly shows that glitch in which i replicated a number of times resulting in off setting the end numbering of your score and to see if it carried on thru the game and it does.Either bad programming or poor representation of values. Version "C" The EMU is Stella is like Version "A" in game play so the ROM is probably a dump from a 1983 cart. Ultimatly ZE_RO has the call in the contest i will not be offended if he wishes to remove that score simply because of the variations of the game. We cannot always be sure that we are all playing the same versions of games since there are so many minute changes before final product. I also am not offended by Jeffrys accurate analization of the game after all isint that what we are here for to find all the vatiations of games so we can play all of them to enjoy them.I do not believe that this game Version"B" is a prototype simply because it has a different date on the label unless they made little modifiactions upon and before its release. Thomas it is true that on some games they are easier to calculate how close you can get to before the game flips while playing them but some games however take a bit more of time to narrow down the accuracy to achieve what you want in a score. Sometimes i over shoot my goal and have to play it again this is where a video tape comes in handy to freeze frame right before the flip. But even then you cannot guarantee that you will maximize your score before your flip thats when multipal game playing comes into effect and that can be time consuming. For the Twin Galaxies score updating, even though i am in charge as a referee of all the Atari 2600 platform updates i too have to send off my accomplishments to another referee for verification. I cannot just input my own scores and to be fair about it Twin Galaxies has made that request of all their Referees so they dont take advantage of their duties and privelages.I hope this information clears things up too because im sure there are some people out their that are not aquainted with Twin Galaxies that may think otherwise on score updating. Todd Mr Activision Rogers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 I suppose the discussion won't stop until we have the 1984 ROM available. So either Todd dumps it or anybody else finds a similar cart in his collection. So everybody, please have a look! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khryssun Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 I agree with you... I was talking in a general way for the majority of a same game Title not for adaptations from one game to another where I don't know what they really did I have only disassembled a few games so far, but quite often PAL conversions run slower than NTSC originals. This is especially true for Activision titles. But maybe Atari did a better job here, though it might not be possible to reproduce the speed 100% perfect. The problem with fractional arithmetics is, that they require valueable additional RAM space (and more CPU time too). Though TAZ looks simple enough, so RAM shouldn't have been a big problem. Hi thomas, Thanks for your explanations and sharing your experience about NTSC to PAL conversions... so it seems I said some (little) errors Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert M Posted July 25, 2004 Share Posted July 25, 2004 My best for the week is 77,000. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffy Arensmeyer Posted July 25, 2004 Share Posted July 25, 2004 ...(a lot)... Todd, thank you very much. You've apparently put a considerable amount of time and effort into resolving this issue. Your efforts are appreciated by me and most definitely and by all others here, I'm sure. You've not only revealed an apparently undiscovered anomaly, but you've reinfirced the integrity of the representatives of Twin Galaxies itself. As Thomas mentioned, it would be a bonus if we could all try the dumped ROM from the game, as well as have Albert "electronically document" the findings. However, I'm sure everyone would agree that it would be a luxury you can perform at your convenience since it's not necessary. At this point, removing or invalidating your score would be ridiculous. You've done the work of making the score, researching the anomaly, and posted the results. I'm assured Ze_ro has already determined all of this. Thank you for describing the validation method for TG referees and employess. It's not common for employees of a "reward service" to be included in the competition process, and a protocol of this manner should always be set up, which it is. I hope you can can understand my explicit concerns regarding your score especially after you've now done all of the work to determine the problem. I apologize for my harshness of presentation, but will always maintain a skeptical viewpoint of any erroneous situation, regardless of the individual claiming it. In time, hopefully everyone here can forgive me for throwing a grenade into our tea party. This (HSC) is a lot of fun, and to make "such a fuss" here is disruptive at minimal. Please review the data and try to understand my concern. Accepting my concern is at your mercy. As for sku_u, two facts are evident: either you point blank lied about your score or. Jeff ò¿ó Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tin Posted July 25, 2004 Share Posted July 25, 2004 hey made 40500 ok not a really great score but better then what i did have Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sku_u Posted July 25, 2004 Share Posted July 25, 2004 Shut your mouth and continue your posts in other topics, as you have since your "dismissal", even though you claimed to have a heavy personal schedule. Jeff ò¿ó okay Jeffy. Why don't you crawl back under that rock you crawled out from under? Things were much more peaceful during your six month hiatus from the site. And yes, I have been busy but I never said I was going anywhere. I look forward to reading future posts from you when I need a good laugh and look forward to future weeks as you use this icon to try to discredit other members of the HSC with points totals close to yours :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keilbaca Posted July 25, 2004 Share Posted July 25, 2004 New score! Blew my old score away, puts me closer to the 5th ghost but still in 3rd... 307,500 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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