04-02-2003, 12:22 PM
Small technical nit.
>IIRC, the value for each shrine was calculated but not
>stored. Since the compiler that Buzzard used set
>unused memory to zero (not required in ANSI C),
Correct so far.
> that
>meant the first shrine or two were using a "random"
>zero to figure what slot to hit. Again, IIRC, slot 0 is
>the "shield" (left hand of the paper doll) slot.
Well, the seed is 0, but the slot calculated from a seed is not the same as the seed. The seed would go through one update before you can get a slot out of it and that would not be slot 0 (which is either the amulet or the head, not sure, by the way). The resulting slot from a 0 start seed however will be one of the jewlery slots, and I think it takes 2 or 3 tries before an actual slot is hit and that would be the shield slot.
> After
>loading a few levels (games? -- I really don't
>remember the details),
Levels is enough, games just make it multiple levels.
> the grunge that accumulated
>in memory would start to give Hidden shrines
>something more along the lines of "random" behavior.
You. It is thus actually not random until it catches on to a random seed whenn it turns very random. But since you can't tell when it do that by playing, one can at least say it gets more and more random :)
>Also, I might be mistaken, but I believe it was Jarulf
>that pointed all this out.
Well, I was the one who found the reason and exact nature of the bug. It had LONG been noted that the hidden shrine seemed to not at all give random results. The fact that it did so at times after playing many levels just diluted the result and made it harder to pinpoint. Checking the actual initialization code though made it completely obvious they forgot to save a seed in the correct variable for the shrine Hi,
IIRC, the value for each shrine was calculated but not stored. Since the compiler that Buzzard used set unused memory to zero (not required in ANSI C), that meant the first shrine or two were using a "random" zero to figure what slot to hit. Again, IIRC, slot 0 is the "shield" (left hand of the paper doll) slot. After loading a few levels (games? -- I really don't remember the details), the grunge that accumulated in memory would start to give Hidden shrines something more along the lines of "random" behavior. Also, I might be mistaken, but I believe it was Jarulf that pointed all this out.
:D
>IIRC, the value for each shrine was calculated but not
>stored. Since the compiler that Buzzard used set
>unused memory to zero (not required in ANSI C),
Correct so far.
> that
>meant the first shrine or two were using a "random"
>zero to figure what slot to hit. Again, IIRC, slot 0 is
>the "shield" (left hand of the paper doll) slot.
Well, the seed is 0, but the slot calculated from a seed is not the same as the seed. The seed would go through one update before you can get a slot out of it and that would not be slot 0 (which is either the amulet or the head, not sure, by the way). The resulting slot from a 0 start seed however will be one of the jewlery slots, and I think it takes 2 or 3 tries before an actual slot is hit and that would be the shield slot.
> After
>loading a few levels (games? -- I really don't
>remember the details),
Levels is enough, games just make it multiple levels.
> the grunge that accumulated
>in memory would start to give Hidden shrines
>something more along the lines of "random" behavior.
You. It is thus actually not random until it catches on to a random seed whenn it turns very random. But since you can't tell when it do that by playing, one can at least say it gets more and more random :)
>Also, I might be mistaken, but I believe it was Jarulf
>that pointed all this out.
Well, I was the one who found the reason and exact nature of the bug. It had LONG been noted that the hidden shrine seemed to not at all give random results. The fact that it did so at times after playing many levels just diluted the result and made it harder to pinpoint. Checking the actual initialization code though made it completely obvious they forgot to save a seed in the correct variable for the shrine Hi,
IIRC, the value for each shrine was calculated but not stored. Since the compiler that Buzzard used set unused memory to zero (not required in ANSI C), that meant the first shrine or two were using a "random" zero to figure what slot to hit. Again, IIRC, slot 0 is the "shield" (left hand of the paper doll) slot. After loading a few levels (games? -- I really don't remember the details), the grunge that accumulated in memory would start to give Hidden shrines something more along the lines of "random" behavior. Also, I might be mistaken, but I believe it was Jarulf that pointed all this out.
:D
There are three types of people in the world. Those who can count and those who can't.