World of Warcraft players reach gold limit cap

by Alexander Sliwinski { Jan 18th 2008 at 5:00PM }

It's simply un-American! The commie sympathizers at Blizzard have apparently placed financial restrictions on the amount of gold players can have in World of Warcraft. WoW Insider reports two players have reached the anti-capitalist limit of 214,748 gold, 36 silver, 48 copper and that's the end of the road for them. After that they are not entitled to the cash they have earned by the sweat of their own fingertips.

Without getting into an Andrew Ryan diatribe, the limit is apparently just some arbitrary number ... actually, Ross "über math nerd" Miller says, "It's not arbitrary, it's 2 to the power of 31, which is a 32-bit integer." We're not sure how Blizzard feels about the cap, but we're certain the citizens of Azeroth can't be too happy about "the man" keeping them from living out their financial fantasies.

Tags: gold, gold-limit, worldofwarcraft, wow

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Daxter1985 @ Jan 18th 2008 5:05PM

They could always send some of there gold to an alt character.

paragraph @ Jan 18th 2008 5:08PM

True, but they still would theoreticly lose X gil. Unless they transferred a safe amount (like 1/2 thier gil).

What can you do with that much anyways? Can you buy slaves at that point? Seriously who's complaining? Seems like a lot of gil to me.

jynxycat @ Jan 18th 2008 5:11PM

This isn't Final Fantasy.

Abuzar @ Jan 18th 2008 11:10PM

OR he could sell it on eBay and get a life?

Abscissa @ Jan 20th 2008 6:02AM

Shoot, someone beat me to the "Time to get a life" comment.

paragraph @ Jan 18th 2008 5:06PM

ONOZE! CALL THE WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMBULANCE!!!!!

-_-

Seriously though, i don't complain when Mario can't get more than 99 Lives, why should you complain when you can't get more than 2 to the power of 31 gil? It's perfectly rational :-P

They will iron it out... eventually.

jynxycat @ Jan 18th 2008 5:10PM

They don't have to 'iron it out'.

This is such as astronomical amount in that game, that he's probably the only player out of the 9 million to do so -_-

fonz @ Jan 18th 2008 5:11PM

yea, but Mario CAN get princess-crown-coin lives with that one trick.

paragraph @ Jan 18th 2008 5:14PM

@jynxycat

It only takes one Rotten Apple to spoil the whole orchard. Or something like that.

If they make enough of a fuss, i'm sure Blizzard will do something about it. They're all in to all that pleasing a single group while pissing on everyone else anyways, so they should be game for something like this ;)

jynxycat @ Jan 18th 2008 7:14PM

Single group ?

Single player.

:P

h8rain @ Jan 18th 2008 5:15PM

I can almost guarantee with won't be "fixed" (and seriously does it need to be?). That number is a stored variable in the game (Long variable if I am not mistaken), and it would not be an easy process to change.

paragraph @ Jan 18th 2008 5:19PM

There is a way around everything ;)

You could always just eliminate the whole money thing from the game... works for me, hell, why not get rid of WoW all together...

ok, that might not work. But i'm sure there is some work around, after all, it's not like there is a binary reason it wouldn't go higher (1000010100011101001000 is not maxed :P )

Anyways, i don't really care... have fun WoWers

arrrgh @ Jan 18th 2008 6:49PM

nono, that would work VERY well. I say they do it. Get rid of WoW altogtether...ancient crap, where's the next gen sequel?

Tim @ Jan 18th 2008 7:58PM

paragraph, it is maxed out. It's not 1000010100011101001000, it's 1111111111111111111111111111111 (31 1's). It's like the odometer of your car reading 999,999. One more and it's back to zero.

Zorink @ Jan 18th 2008 9:25PM

@Tim
They should just restart at 0 then, right?

Kevin @ Jan 18th 2008 10:37PM

it's an unsigned integer.

a long is 64 bits, which is entirely unnecessary.

(1 844 674 407 370 955g 16s 16c)

drezsworder @ Jan 20th 2008 11:24AM

It's a signed integer (-2147483648 to 2147483647). They could easily fix the problem by making it unsigned or changing in to a long (unless there's database problems).

Santo @ Jan 18th 2008 5:15PM

Not nearly enough. They can only buy flying mount training for 43 characters! And the character limit is 50!

/sarcasm

paragraph @ Jan 18th 2008 5:20PM

EGADS! ZOINKS! and WOWZORZ! More Monies Please!

Macroy @ Jan 18th 2008 5:27PM

Even though I don't play WoW, couldn't they just make more money to pay for the remaining 7 characters?

(Yes, I knew you were joking!)

Batzarro @ Jan 18th 2008 5:39PM

Don't level up for yourself! Do it for the workers!(waves hammer and and sickle)

Marty @ Jan 18th 2008 5:44PM

Why do I get the impression that here is an inverse relationship between one's proximity to the gold cap in WoW and how active his social life is?

Zsavior @ Jan 18th 2008 5:48PM

I have no idea how they made that much money. I am serious I can not fathom it. Just to get to 5200 I struggled, I don not know how they made that much money at once.

WiNG @ Jan 18th 2008 5:50PM

Buy low; sell high.

Miles @ Jan 18th 2008 6:18PM

greed is good

WiNG @ Jan 18th 2008 5:49PM

What's the big deal, can't they just trade their gold in for SOJs or Zods? Problem solved.

Kn1ves @ Jan 18th 2008 7:44PM

you win.

bigcitygas @ Jan 18th 2008 6:46PM

The 2^32 cap is actually half true ; WoW was built for 32-bits machine, which is what the common folk has (64-bits machine are for studios). 2^32 ; 4294967296 copper. That's 429496 gold, 72 silver, 96 copper. The number in WoWInsider is thus half.

Geno @ Jan 18th 2008 7:23PM

Right, this likely means your gold in WoW is stored as a signed 32-bit int. Meaning that it would be possible to store a negative value. Was it possible to go into debt at some point in the game's testing? What are the overdraft fees like in Azeroth? :P

jynxycat @ Jan 18th 2008 7:19PM

This relates to signed integers, so it's 2^32-1.

GANNONSMASH @ Jan 18th 2008 7:20PM

Except it's 2^31, not 32.

nonamo @ Jan 18th 2008 7:27PM

What stumps me is why they are using a SIGNED integer. You can't have negative gold in WoW can you???
Bad coding clearly! As bigcitygas shows, utilising that extra bit would double the max in and shut up those loosers for a while.

ThornedVenom @ Jan 19th 2008 12:49AM

All of your theories are valid in a system where you divide the total by zero.

colin @ Jan 19th 2008 1:21AM

no no no no nO NO NO! DO NOT DIVIDE BY ZERO! you canNOT cross the streams!

Burnt Meatloaf @ Jan 19th 2008 5:03AM

Signed integers? Bit twiddling? 2's compliment cross-analysis? No, no, no... it works like this:

Lead programmer: "2147483647 ought to be enough. I'll just make it easy, use 'int playerMoolah;', and be done with it."

Frankly, I find it amazing that they had the foresight to add an overflow cap in the first place.

Jonah Falcon @ Jan 18th 2008 6:09PM

Nah, let them earn another copper so it resets to 0. >:)

BigD145 @ Jan 18th 2008 6:06PM

When you have too much garbage, sell it on ebay.

Deuxhero @ Jan 18th 2008 6:21PM

Not that I play WoW, but what is stoping him from solidifying his assets?

Seattle Yonkers @ Jan 18th 2008 6:38PM

Two hundred and fourteen thousand gold, and no life whatsoever.

Hmm.

krazy @ Jan 18th 2008 6:39PM

Now he or she can buy themselves the time they wasted...

wickedpheonix @ Jan 18th 2008 6:40PM

might this mean that the amount of players in WoW might actually decline? =O

Other than that... seriously what would you do with so much gil? Just sell half of it on eBay and buy another car or something jeez...

ThornedVenom @ Jan 18th 2008 6:43PM

"Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own brow?

No, says the man in Washington, it belongs to the poor.
No, says the man in the Vatican, it belongs to God.
No, says the man in Moscow, it belongs to everyone."

Whatever the case, at least all of that money is over nine thousand.