Syncopia/Pure Four Time Trial Glitch

[SaturnReturn]

Well, as some/many will already know, I experienced a glitch in the game on 20/02/2010 where I was allowed to play on Syncopia in Time Trial mode. I said I would explain further here, so here goes...

I started up my PS3, loaded up WipEout and started to do some Time Trial. It was Phantom class on Tech De Ra Reverse. After a while I left the TT to try and get online for some Avalon action. As the WOHD servers were undergoing maintenance I wasn't able to sign in. The screen did not change from the 'Connecting' box. After a short while I gave up, hit the O button and went back to the menu. Now, the game remembers which track and class you were last on, so to get back to TDR rev TT I should have just kept pressing the X button on Racebox all the way from the menu to the loading screen. This is what I did, however, after selecting the track, the announcer said, "Syncopia". At first I thought I had somehow selected Zone mode by accident, but once I was there I noticed that I did not have the Zone Icaras and the HUD was the Time Trial one. Sure enough I was in Time Trial mode on Syncopia. The track was dark and surroundings a deep red/pink, similar to the Icaras's own colours. It was somewhat eerie to be there, especially knowing full well that I was the only one who had ever been there, and possibly ever will. This was amplified by the dark, desolate looking city in the background, which I wasn't even sure wasn't supposed to be there at first. I luckily had my PVR hooked up via component cable, even though I wasn't recording, as my HDMI connection has broken. So hooked it up to my PC and captured some video.

I feel very lucky to have experienced this. I only apologise I'm not a better writer, or I would be able to convey this experience in a far more 'romantic' way.

I know some have suggested before that the Pure Four Zone tracks should be unlocked for racing. I was unsure myself, but I can safely say this track is a lot of fun to race TT on, so I now fully support this idea. There are lots of barrel rolls available, and also obvious shortcuts. These aren't not shown in the video, but you can go straight through the 'wavy bits' on the side of the track. The actual track feels very smooth and has a great flow to it. It seems that the majority of functionality for this is already supported too. I have a ghost save file for Syncopia Phantom TT and the Pure Four tracks now appear in the Time Trial records (which I assume they didn't before).

This makes me wonder if these tracks were initially intended to be available for play outside of Zone mode. Also, what is the city in the background? Perhaps this was going to be a normal version for racing on, with a full background like normal tracks? Or maybe it's actually the backdrop from a different track and I just don't recognise it?

Links
(Please keep any in depth discussion to this thread to avoid taking other threads too far off topic).
Video links posted in video thread.
Images links posted in image thread.
Ghost save file photo.
Pure Four Tracks record menu sample images.
I also uploaded some images as attachments in case the photobucket account ever dies.