M.U.L.E. land auction bugs - is it me, or is it M.U.L.E.?

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M.U.L.E. land auction bugs - is it me, or is it M.U.L.E.?

Postby xot » 28 Apr 2006, 22:27

I've been playing a lot of MULE on the Dreamcast lately, and I've noticed some weird things happening, things I don't remember ever seeing when I played on the Atari way-back-when.

All of the possible "bugs" I've noticed so far are happening during land auctions, particularly when a player is selling a plot. I've been playing two different versions on the Dreamcast, to see if the problem happens in both. The answer is maybe. I've seen different bugs in the different versions.

The first bug happens fairly predictably in the first game/emulator. When two players sell a plot in the same round, and both use collusion. Everything works correctly for the first sale. During the second sale the selling player jumps down to around the buy line when collusion starts (below the line I think). Other than the graphical glitch, everything works correctly for the second sale.

In the second game/emulator another bug has happened once. Again two players are selling plots (trading them with collusion). The first land auction is for player one. I think this is the usual thing, first the human players sell their plots, then the random land auction(s) start. This time, player one sold a plot, a random plot came up for auction, and the second player's auction never happened. That little bug cost me a plot for a round which cost me the game (grrrrr!!!!!)

Another bug has happened at least three times so far (possibly in both versions of the game/emulator). Again, two player are selling plots in collusion. When the visible timer is used up, the auction doesn't end right away, the timer keeps audibly ticking, the players can't move or do anything for several seconds. Then the auction ends as normal. This once happened two private auctions in a row.

I wonder, are these bugs in MULE, or bugs in the emulation? MULE does use a few weird, obscure, and undocumented 6502 tricks that might not be emulated correctly. I haven't gotten to the land auction code yet, so I don't know what else might be causing it. Has anybody else seen these bugs in any version of MULE?

(I'm cross posting this at AMO, hope you don't mind)
xot
 
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