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PHANTASIA - A Multi-Node BBS Fantasy Door Game by Edward Boston WIZARD MANUAL DISCLAIMER This software is provided without any guarantee, either expressed or implied. All responsibilities for its use rest with the user of the software and not the author. Phantasia software and this document is (C) Copyright 1990, 1991, 1992 Edward Boston. All rights reserved World Wide. License Phantasia is not in the Public Domain. Phantasia is not free. Non-registered users are granted a limited, 30-day license to determine whether or not the program meets their needs. Continued use of Phantasia beyond the 30-day evaluation time period requires registration of the program. Use of non- registered copies of Phantasia beyond the original evaluation period is strictly prohibited. No one may modify Phantasia for any reason, in any way, including but not limited to, decompiling-compiling, patching, disassembling, or reverse engineering the program. These restriction also applies to all Phantasia screen displays such as the opening screen, help screen, and all other proprietary program output. Phantasia may be copied and distributed to others, subject to the above restrictions and the following: Phantasia must be copied in unmodified form, including the file containing this license information. Complete Phantasia documentation and Online Help must be included. No copying fee of any type may be assessed other than basic charges for the cost of the copying medium. Phantasia may not be distributed with any other software or hardware product(s) without the express written permission of the author, Edward Boston. Sysops (bulletin board SYStem OPerators) may make Phantasia available for downloading by their users as long as all above conditions are met. Commercial Distributors of Public Domain, ShareWare, or User- Supported software may distribute Phantasia subject to the above conditions only after obtaining specific written permission from the author, Edward Boston and filling out a registration form for upgrade notifications. This condition supersedes any and all previous agreements. No blanket authorization has been issued by the author, Edward Boston, for commercial distribution of this product. Description Phantasia is a role playing game which allows players to roll up characters of various types to fight monsters and other players. Progression of characters is based upon gaining experience from fighting monsters and other players. Most of the game is menu driven and self-explanatory (more or less). The characters are saved on a common file, in order to make the game interactive between players. The characters are given a password so only the creator of the character can retrieve them later. The wizard can also retrieve characters, but will not be asked for the password. See the section on running other's characters for more information. Only characters above level zero are saved. Characters unused for more than the time allotted by the wizard will be purged. Characters are only placed on the scoreboard when they die. Registration You are granted a license to run Phantaisa for 30 days to evaluate the usefulness of the software. After the 30 days, you are required to send in the registration fee to continue use of the program. Introduction The function of the WIZARD in Phantasia is to take care of the various needs of the users who play the game. The WIZARD can exercise all the functions of the valar plus a couple of other special options. It is not intended for the WIZARD to play a character, but that option is left up to the individuals in charge of the game. The WIZARD should be someone who can be relied upon to be fair in judgement when needed and available to help users play the game. This manual contains information about the game that should not be distributed to the general users of the game. Certain formulas that are used to calculate different factors can be released as needed. These will be noted as such when they are discussed. In this manual, I hope to convey as much knowledge about the program as is needed to keep the game fun and exciting for all who play. If addition help is needed, I can be reach through the SysOp of the board the game is registered with. Setting up the game The sysop of the BBS is responsible to set up the game on the BBS. This is a fairly simple procedure. Once the game has been setup, control can be turned over to the wizard. Included in the distribution files should be the following file: PHANT.EXE The actual game. SETUP.EXE Used to set up different data files. MONSTERS File containing the different monsters. PHANT.DOC Document for the players of Phant. README Any last minute changes that have been made. WIZARD.DOC This file. WIZPASS Passwords of the wizard. REGISTER.FRM Registration Form. GENERIC.SYS Sample Generic BBS file that can be used to run the game in local mode. If any files are missing, give me a call and I will get the file to you. Also, if there are any extra files such as BBS advertisements, let me know. These files are NOT AUTHORIZED and I need to know about them to stop these files from being attached to MY WORK! Any BBS ad that you find attached to these files are not authorized and do not represent an endorsement on the author's part. Setting up the game is very simple. Just do the following: 1) Un-Zip PHANT.ZIP into a directory to hold the game. This step should produce the above mentioned files. 2) Make available for download the file PHANT.DOC. 3) Edit the file called WIZPASS. This file will contain the passwords of the wizard. Each password is placed on a single line, terminated by a return. You can add passwords to allow a temporary wizard without having to give the master password out. 4) Run the program SETUP.EXE. For more information on running SETUP, see the section RUNNING SETUP. One of the functions this program performs is the creation of a configuration file which contains the following information: The wizard's name. If you want to create a bulletin file of the top players. If so, the path and name of the file. If the owners of the characters are to be shown. Allow players multiple characters. If not, if the characters should be restricted to the player that created the character. If you want to create a Hall of Fame file. If the Hall of Fame is to be created, you will also be asked the name of the file to save it in and the minimum level for a player to be added to this file. How many days of inactivity before a character is purged from the system. The value of a gem in gold pieces. The location of the data files The name of the BBS A message of the day. 5) At this point, the game should be ready to play. See the section on Running Phantasia on how to start the program. Running the Setup Program The setup program creates a data file that Phantasia reads to find out what type of BBS it is being run by and where certain files are that it needs. The following is a sample screen of the setup program: a) Wizard's Name ---------------->[SYSOP ] b) Make Bulletin ---------------->[Y] c) File Name --------->[ ] d) Show Owners ------------------>[Y] e) One character per player------>[N] f) Restrict character->[N] g) Make Hall of Fame ------------>[Y] h) File name --------->[ ] i) Minimum Level ----->[ 0] j) Maximum days of inactivity --->[ 30] k) Gem value -------------------->[1000] l) Directory for data files ----->[. ] m) BBS Name --------------------->[ ] n) Message of the Day: [ ] q) Quit, no save x) Exit, Save changes z) Exit, No file checks Each field is defined as follows: a) Wizard's Name: This is the name of the person that questions should be sent to concerning Phantasia. This is a TEXT field. b) Make Bulletin: This is a Yes/No field. If you answer 'Y', a file will be created that shows the highest characters. This file is updated every time a character quits. It is similar to the title screen of the game, but all characters are listed. c) File Name: This is the name of the file the bulletin will be put in if you answered yes to the above question. The file name should include the drive and path to put the file in. Setup will check to make sure that the path is accessible. This is a TEXT field. If you answered no to the above question, the contents of this field are ignored. d) Show Owners: This is a Yes/No field. If you answer yes, the login name of the player will be shown with the character. e) One character per player: Yes/No field. This allows the game to allow each player to have only one character. If this field is set to yes, when a player starts the game, and a character has already been created, it is started automatically. This also implies that only the creator of the character can use it so no password is asked. f) Restrict character: Yes/No field. This allows the game to only allow the creator of a character to run it. If this is set to yes, only the creator can activate the character so no password is asked when starting the character. g) Make Hall of Fame: This is a Yes/No field. If you answer yes, a file will be created that lists the highest character killed for each player. h) File Name: This is the name of the file the Hall of Fame will be placed in. The full path name should be used including drive and path. This is a TEXT field. If you answered no to the above question, the contents of this field will be ignored. i) Minimum Level: This is the minimum level a dead character must be to be listed in the Hall of Fame. If you answered no to question 'g', this field is ignored. j) Maximum days of inactivity: This is the maximum number of days a character can sit idle with out being played. After the number of days specified, the character is deleted out of the game. A character killed in this method does not get recorded in the Hall of Fame. k) Gem Value: This is the worth of a gem in gold pieces. l) Directory for Phantasia data files: This is the full path name of the directory the data files are to be placed in. If you plan on using a RAM disk, this should be the drive that is used for the RAM disk. This is a TEXT field. m) BBS Name: This is the name of BBS is running Phantasia. n) Message of the Day: This is a one line message that is shown on the Title screen when the game is started. After you have entered all the data, select 'X' to create the data files. Any previous data files will not be altered. When you save or exit, the information you entered will be checked to make sure all is correct. If there is a problem, you will be told where it is so you can correct the error. Text fields can be edited with the following keys on the numeric key pad: Right Arrow Moves one character to the right Left Arrow Moves one character to the left End Moves to the end of the text field Home Moves to the beginning of the text field Insert Toggle insert mode off and on Delete Deletes the character at the cursor Back Arrow Deletes the character to the left of the cursor Running Phantasia Phantasia is run by executing the file PHANT. EXE in the following fashion: PHANT <system_file> [PORT:AAAA:X] [PORT:F:P] <system_file> is the path/name to the system door file. Phantasia supports the PCBOARD.SYS, DOOR.SYS, CALLINFO.BBS, DORINFOx.DEF, and a GENERIC.SYS. Please consult the section on GENERIC.SYS if your board cannot use these system files. [PORT:AAAA:X] is used if you have a non-standard port address and IRQ. AAAA is the base address of the port and X is IRQ used by the port. [PORT:F:P:] is used for FOSSIL driver support. 'F' tells Phantasia to use the FOSSIL drivers and P is the port number to use. Example: PORT:F:2 tells Phantasia to use FOSSIL drivers on port 2. NOTE: This is an optional parameter. If used, do not include the [ ]. Local Operation Phantasia can also be run in a local mode for editing and playing. These two modes are started by: PHANT EDIT (for local edit mode) PHANT LOCAL (for local play mode) In the edit mode, the program will take you into the wizard's menu without having to log into the board and playing. The local mode allows you to play without having to go through the board. RAMDisks and PHANT In the course of the game, there will be a great number of disk accesses. Every time a player moves or something happens to them, the data is recorded on the disk. This is for the multi- player functions. To eliminate the wear on your hard disk, a RAMDisk is recommended for the data files if you have many players at the same time. When only one person is playing, the data is not saved to disk as often. Whenever a player enters the game, a search should be made to see if the data files exist in the RAM disk. The data files can be downloaded when the BBS is first brought up. If the files are not in the RAM disk, they should be copied to it. A check can be made by using the DOS batch commands IF and EXIST. Refer to the DOS manual for more information on these commands. At the end of every game, these files MUST be copied back to the hard disk. This is to prevent the data from being lost due to power failures or machine lock ups. Moving the data file to RAM should result in faster games. It is not necessary to delete the data files from the RAM disk. Entering Wizard Mode There are two places at which you may enter the Wizard Mode. 1) When the game is first started and you are asked if you have a character you run, if you answer with 'W', you will be asked for the Wizard's password. If the password entered is valid, a message will be printed telling you that Wizard mode is enabled. 2) The second place to enter Wizard mode is from the main command prompt in the game. By entering '~' (tilde), you will be asked for the Wizard password. If the password you enter is valid, a message will be printed indicating that Wizard mode is now set. As a security factor, when ever a player enters or attempts to enter wizard mode, an entry is made in the error file. The password used is recorded in this entry. This will enable you to see if anyone is trying to crack the passwords. If a player attempts to gain access to the wizard mode and enters three incorrect passwords, the player will be locked out of the game. The only way the player can use the game again is for the wizard to go into the utility mode and edit the player file. See the section in the WIZARD UTILITY. Super Experimento If you enable wizard mode from the title screen and create a new character, you will find a seventh choice. This new character is a Super Experimento. The only difference between the Super Experimento and a regular Experimento is that the Super Experimento has maximum values in all categories. Wizard Utility Menu Once you are in wizard mode, you are given a few extra options. The first one is the Wizard Utility Menu. This menu is accessed from the main command line by selection option 'U' while in wizard mode. Don't bother looking for it because this option, and others you can use, don't show up. You may also enter the utility menu from the title screen. After enabling wizard mode, respond with a 'U' when asked if you have a character to run. With this menu, you can select for review / modification any of the current characters on file. You can get a list of the monsters in the system along with their stats, show all characters and levels, display the scoreboard of the highest characters killed of each player, and view information about the actual players. Examine Character (E) This function is selected through the Wizard Utility Menu as option 'E'. When you select this function, a list of characters will be displayed for you to choose from. Enter the character's name you wish to view, or 'QUIT' if you want to leave the function. After you choose a character to view, you will be shown a screen like this sample screen with the character's stats. Login................. FIRSTNAME LASTNAME a Name................... BAM-BAM r Gold.................. 27741 b Password................ VECTRA s Gem....................... 1 c Used......................... 4 t Wormhole.................. F d Experience............. 1487747 y Type............ 2 - Fighter e Level....................... 35 v Sin....................... 0 f Strength................... 155 w Poison.................... 0 g Sword........................ 6 x X-Coord................ 2940 h Quickness................... 31 y Y-Coord................. 146 i Quicksilver.................. 0 z Holy Water................ 0 j Energy.................... 1100 1 Charm..................... 1 k Max Energy................ 1098 2 Crowns.................... 0 l Shield....................... 2 3 Amulets................... 3 m Magic....................... 57 4 Age.................... 1996 n Mana...................... 4001 5 Status.................... 0 o Brains..................... 571 6 Tampered.................. 0 p Ring......................... 0 7 Scratch1............... 1000 r Duration..................... 0 8 Scratch2.................. 0 9 Virgin.. F 0 Blessed.. F A Blind.. F B Palantir.. F C Lives.. 1 Update character Delete The following list explains what each item is for: Login Login name of the last person to use the character. This field is filled in by the game with the login name of the character playing. This field cannot be changed. Name This is the character's name. Password Character's password. Used Number of days since character was last played. Experience Experience Points. Level Current level. Should not be changed manually. If you want to raise someone's level, increase experience points. Strength Character's strength. Sword Size of character's sword (axe, dagger, etc. Quickness Character's quickness Quicksilver Number of quicksilver the character has. Limited to 99. Energy Energy level of character. Maximum value is Max-Energy + Shield value. Max-Energy Maximum value of character's personal energy. Shield Size of the character's shields. Magic Character's magic level. Mana Amount of mana character carries. Limited to 15 times level plus 5000. Brains Size of character's brain. Ring Does the character have a ring? 0 = No ring 1 = Cursed Nazgul Ring 2 = Good Nazgul Ring 3 = Good Dark Lord Ring 4 = Cursed Dark Lord Ring 5 = Spoiled Ring Duration Duration of the ring until used up or taking control of player. Gold Amount of gold the character is carrying. Gem Number of gems the character is carrying. Wormhole A value other than zero is which cavern the character is in. See the Wormhole map. Type Type of character. Sin Amount of sin the character has. Poison Amount of poison the character has. X-Coord X location of character. Y-Coord Y location of character. Holy Water Amount of Holy Water the character has. Charms Number of charms the character has. Crowns Number of crowns the character has found and not used. Amulets Number of amulets carried. Age Age of the character in seconds. Status Status of the character. 0 = Not Playing 1 = Playing 2 = Cloaked 3 = In Battle 4 = Dead 5 = Quitting Tampered Tampered Value 0 = Nothing pending 1 = Hit Energy Void 2 = Found Grail 3 = Transported to (Scratch1,Scratch2) 4 = Bestowed amount of Gold in Scratch1 5 = Character has been CURSED 6 = Monster number in Scratch1 thrown 7 = Character has been Blessed 8 = Moved to (Scratch1, Scratch2) 9 = Character has been Healed 10 = Character has been Vaporized 11 = Throne has been stolen from character Scratch1 Value used by Tampered and Interterminal battles. Scratch2 Value used by Tampered and Interterminal battles. Virgin Does character have a Virgin with them? Blessed Is the character Blessed? Blind Is the player blind? Palantir Does the character have a palantir? Lives Number of lives the character has lost. NOTE: If you wish to modify the character you are currently running, use the 'Z' option. The 'E' option will only work on character that are not currently playing. Monster List (M) This function will allow you to view the stats on all the monsters in Phantasia. The listing show Monster name, strength, brain, speed, hits, experience, treasure type, monster type, and flocking percent. These values are for size 1 monsters. If you want the stats for a larger monster, be sure to adjust the stats accordingly (See PHANT user manual). Player Information (P) This option will first show a list of all BBS users who have played the game. This option will also show if the player is locked out and how many bad passwords for wizard mode has been entered. You have four functions at this point: Reset This function resets the bad password count to zero and unlocks the player. Delete This function removes the entry from the player file. It does not stop the player from entering the game. The next time the player enters the game, a new record will be created for them. The main purpose of this function is to clean up records that have become corrupted. Lock Out This function sets the locked out flag for the user named. A user whose record has this flag set cannot play the game. When they enter the game, they are notified that they cannot play. The flag is set automatically when the player enters three incorrect passwords for the wizard mode. Unlock This function clears the locked out flag. Once this flag is cleared, the player can enter the game again. Grail (G) This option will show you where the grail is located at. It is useful if you have someone searching for the grail, but is having trouble locating it. You can find the location and give them some hints. Vaporize Character Options While playing a character in wizard mode, you have all the functions of a Valar plus one extra option. This extra option is a Vaporize command. This allows the wizard to quickly dispose of any unwanted characters in the game by setting the tamper value to '10' (vaporize). The characters vaporized do not get to be saved from death by anything. This function should not be used unless you have a character deserving of such a fate. Once you have vaporized a character, the only way to save them is to change the tampered value back to zero (0) before the character is played again. File Usage When setup is run, several files are created. Some of these files will not appear until the game has been played. The following is a list of these files and what they are used for: MONSTERS This file contains the names and stats of the monsters in Phantasia. This file will only be modified if a player is killed by a cursed ring. You can avoid copying the file back to the hard disk if you can compare the file date and time to the file on your hard disk to see if it has changed. CHARACS This file contains the name and stats of the characters playing Phantasia. When setup is run, it checks to see if the file exists. If it does not, it is created. This file can be modified by using the wizard's menu option 'E'. This file must be copied back to hard disk at the end of the game. MESS This file contains the message sent by the last Announce or talk command or system message. Saving the file after a game is optional. By not saving the file, the next player will not see any messages left by the previous player. LASTDEAD This file contains the name of the last character to die. It also contains the way the character was killed along with the user name running the character. This file does not need to be saved, but is recommended. This information is used in the title screen and the bulletin file. GOLD The gold file contains the amount of gold collected in taxes. This file must be saved. VOID The void file contains one to twenty-one records. The first record is the location of the grail. The next twenty records has the locations of any energy voids the king may have set up. This file must be saved. SCOREBD This file keeps a record of the highest character killed of each user in the game. It is used for generating the bulletin file and must be saved after each game. PLAYERS This file is used to store game information about each user of the BBS that plays the game. The file contains the user's name, date and time last played, and the number of games and amount of time played during the current day. This file must be saved after each game. PHANTERR This file is where the game records errors during play. If an error occurs, the name of the user, time, and error will be recorded here for review at a later time. This file must be save if you want to retain any new errors that occur. If you are running multiple nodes, the file will have an extension for the node it is to. Node 1 would create PHANTERR.1, Node 2 would create PHANTERR.2, etc. WIZPASS This file has the passwords to enable wizard mode. Enter one password per line. This file is not modified by the game and does not need to be save. PHANTCFG Configuration file for game. Will not be modified during game playing so it does not need to be saved. Formulas When playing the game, there are several questions about limits and movement that will be asked. The following formulas should help you better answer these questions. Movement When moving by the keypad, you move the maximum distance allowed for the characters level. This distance is calculated by (character level * 1.5) + 1. For odd levels, the distance is rounded down. For diagonal movement, the distance is the square root of twice the square of normal move or (2 * level ^ 2) ^ 1/2. This gives the maximum distance in both direction. NOTE: as a level 0 character, you cannot move diagonal because you move less that one in both directions and the formula rounds down. Trading Trading posts are found along the diagonals by Posts the formula |x| = |y| = N * N * 100 where N = 1, 2, 3, etc. The first trading post is at 1 * 1 * 100 or (100, 100). The second post is at 2 * 2 * 100 or (400, 400). The third at (900, 900), etc. There is a post on each of diagonals ((100, 100), (-100, 100), (100, -100), (-100, -100)). Transport The distance you move when transporting depends on both the amount of mana you have and your level. As a regular user, the maximum distance you can transport is 20 * (character level + magic level). The Ex-Valar is limited to the same distance plus 1,000,000. The amount of mana used is (distance / 75 + 1) * 20. Example: A player wants to move from (100, 100) to (200, 200) is level 15 and magic level 55. Can they do it and if so, how much mana would it take. The distance of the two points is the square root of (X2 - X1)^2 + (Y2 - Y1)^2 or 141 (rounded down). The maximum distance the character can transport is 20 * (15 + 55) or 1400 so the character can transport that distance. The amount of mana it takes is (141 / 75 + 1) * 20 or 40. Mana Each character is allowed to carry 5000 + 15 * level in mana. If a character is level 5, they can have 5000 + 15 * 5 or 5075 mana. Quick Character are only allowed to have 99 quick Silver silver at any time. Gold and There is no limit to the amount of gold or gems Gem you can have. There is a limit before the weight of these items start to slow you down. A character can carry without reduction in speed up to 200 * level + 1000 in weight. A gem weighs half as much as a gold piece. Example: Will a level 132 character be reduced in speed if they have 30,000 in gold and 50 gems? The maximum weight the character can carry would be 200 * 132 + 1000 or 27,400. The weight of the gold and gems is 30,000 + 50 / 2 or 30,025. This amount of gold and gems will reduce the character's quickness. Running Other's Characters as a Wizard If you need to run some ones character, you should only do it as the wizard. If you start a character as a regular user, the system will replace the login name of the original creator and replace it with the current user name. If you enter wizard mode from the title screen and select a character to run, you will not be prompted for the character's password. Also, the login name will not be modified. GENERIC.SYS To allow Phantasia to work on as many types of systems as possible, the program supports a GENERIC.SYS file format. This format consists of a straight ASCII text file and contains three lines: Line 1 The BBS operator's Name. Line 2 The COM port in use. COM0: is used for Local Mode. Line 3 Time Allowed in door. When a generic.sys file is passed to Phantasia, the game will ask the user for their name. The user must enter at least one character or Phantasia will return an error and go back to the BBS. I hope that this manual will help in running the game. If you have any problems, I can be contacted at the following address: Edward Boston 12282 West Hickory Boise, ID 83704-1432 (208) 939-6626 (voice/fax) (208) 939-1350 (bbs)