POD should run on any 16/256 colour/grey Macintosh running System 7.0 or later and with at least 3MB free RAM (subject to the exceptions noted below). POD should perform acceptably (in “fast” mode) even on low-end colour Macs, such as Mac II, LC and IIsi models.
Registration
Send us your registration fee via cash, bank draft, or cheque (US$25 for single player; US$40 for multiplayer license – covers four players) along with your name and address (including email address if you have one). Please send cheques or bank drafts drawn in your own currency. We will register you as quickly as we can (i.e. by email if possible).
We hope to be able to accept registration via credit card (Visa/Mastercard) in the near future.
Address Cheques to • A Barry, T & P Loewald
Postal Address • PO Box 76, Garran ACT 2605, AUSTRALIA
v1.0.6 21/11/94
IMPORTANT NOTES FOR MULTIPLE PLAYER USE
POD (as of 1.0.5) complains if you try to mix incompatible versions of POD Master and POD Player. POD Player has NOT been changed from 1.0.5. Also, do not try to run POD out of a common shared folder: each player should have his/her own copy of POD (including the Game Data folder in particular).
Bug Fixes
Monsters that leave the screen in combat are no longer considered dead. This means that if a monster with a vital possession runs away from a fight, you can come back later and kill them.
Some (not all) keywords in speech for which a computer-controlled character has a response are highlighted (red). Note that you may not have fulfilled the conditions that allow the character to reply. Also note that text may be red for emphasis.
Player movement has been improved. Characters shouldn’t get stuck on walls as easily.
Problem with monster “intelligence” that would cause them to become catatonic when placed in confusing situations rectified. (Or, as Andrew put it, “Monsters evolved above paint.”)
Updater now checksums its handiwork and rolls back if there is a problem. Thus, we are once again offering compact updates.
v1.0.5 14/11/94
THIS IS A REFERENCE RELEASE. No updaters from preceding versions to 1.0.5 will be provided.
Features Added
Network version checking instituted. POD Player and POD Master now check that versions match (the Master will reject earlier players that don’t check for themselves).
“Flick-scrolling” of room transitions has been disabled for multiplayer network play to improve performance.
Bugs Fixed
Tildes and other embedded bits and pieces are no longer read out by Plaintalk (previously, some versions worked better than others; all should work properly now).
Network play is now MUCH more stable.
Problem with lever in Nestar’s tomb fixed.
Fixed bug that would manifest as a mysterious white rectangle after a speech balloon followed by an immediate hang.
The “mem err” that would crop up intermittently has not been nailed down. We BELIEVE it to be a problem with our updater. We are working on a fix for our updater OR a self-check that ensures the integrity of POD (and should also detect virus infestations).
Some minor map bugs removed. (E.g. the rebel leaders now work properly.)
v1.0.4 23/10/94
Features Added
Finer grained collision mask added which should reduce problems with narrow passages (such as bridges and stairs).
Ada’s “Blue Sandestin” should now do a lot more damage.
Bugs Fixed
Island is now actually fixed. (I don’t know what happened, but they’re fixed now.)
The mysterious non-summoning triangles on the island now summon things, which should make the island a great place to visit.
Elven artificer now accepts Greater Orb. (Oops!)
The rebel armourer will now actually sell healing potions to you.
Different magic bows now have correct names (correcting problem where two different bows had the same name).
v1.0.3 16/10/94
Bugs Fixed
The rebel armourer will now actually purchase surplus items from you.
Saved games now work better. This fixes two bugs, one which causes room connections to fail and another which caused corpses and left (discarded) items to disappear after restoring a saved game.
Multiplayer saved games now work. Previously, there was a major error (at least on 680x0 Macs) when restoring multiplayer saved games.
Some minor changes to POD Player should improve multiplayer stability.
A number of teleporters have been fixed, including one that was supposed to send you to to a room in the city and another which sent you to the bottom of the elven palace.
Monastery stairs and ladders have been seen to. They should work better now.
The shield of Theseus is now fixed. Really.
The scrolls in the shop are now fixed. Honest.
Problem with healer at Wygard not healing you until you ESC from blessing balloon fixed.
The orb in Nestar’s tomb will no longer reactivate the convergence teleporters.
Bogus items in Hell have been fixed.
The famous disappearing and reappearing Tome of Knowledge in Myrdale no longer recurs. This was deliberate, but people insisted on reporting it as a bug, so it’s gone now.
Clarifications
Note that Tomes of Knowledge only advance you to level 5 (whether or not you’re registered). More advanced tomes allow you to progress much further.
Errors of type 28 (Stack/Heap collision) are bogus. They appear to becaused by a problem with 24-bit addressing and should be fixed by 1.0.2 or later.
Restoration of saved games (including autosaved games) in unregistered copies was originally disabled but has been enabled as of v1.0.2.
Pause is not available in the multi-player game.
Known Bugs & Incompatibilities
We have a reported incompatibility with DayStar PowerPro accelerator cards. POD will, apparently, run fine on machines with the DayStar PowerPro in 680x0 mode, but strange behaviour has been noted in accelerated mode.
There is an incompatibility with some Centris/Quadra XX0avs and PowerBook 5x0s if using pre-7.5 system software. There are three solutions: Mac OS 7.5; Sound Manager 3.0.2 (unconfirmed); and POD_AV5x0.sit.hqx (should make current and future versions of POD work on these Macs – requires ResEdit, some assembly required).
v1.0.2 3/10/94
New Features
Notification of timeout. Unregistered game no longer times out without warning.
Notification of save disabled (in 1.0.1). We should have put this in from the start.
Volume controls. 0 = silence to 9 = max volume.
Pause. Caps lock down is pause; caps lock up is unpaused.
Show license info on startup. We just thought you’d like to know.
Control, option, and command keys for defend, shoot, and attack. May – in some cases – improve responsiveness of controls (and doesn’t do any harm).
Bugs Fixed
Error that would cause a bus error on some machines on startup eliminated.
Incompatibility with late model (new sound chip?) Macs fixed by removing resource compression from sounds. This problem appears to be a result of strange interactions between sound manager and resource compression.
Problems with 24-bit addressing and/or 16 greys mode fixed.
Magic items that would cause crashes fixed. Map errors corrected: including [yet more] bugs in the shop (it’s still not exactly perfect), teleports to/from ardeford, and problems in the tomb.
Ada’s collision mask has been modified (for the better, I hope).
v1.0.1 25/9/94
New Features
No more searching through briefcase for keys. “What do you want to unlock this door with?” and similar balloons eliminated. If you have the appropriate item, you will see an: “I used the purple key” style balloon. Steer clear of doors you don’t actually want to open! (Saves on sifting through large collections of keys manually. Speak up if you preferred it the old way.)
Powerbook support improved and documented! You could already move using the [, ], \ keys – although that was a SECRET; now you can back off using the “'” key. (Blame the bastards who stole our PowerBook 165c.)
Bugs Fixed
Multiple monitor bug corrected. POD should be utterly compatible with multiple monitors.
Note: the weird behaviour of the landscape at the “top” of the tower is actually deliberate. That’s why it’s called “The Convergence”. This is not a bug, it’s a feature.
Documentation altered to reflect changes.
v1.0 18/9/94
First release. The POD Master (single player and multi-player server) application seems to be very stable. The POD Player (multi-player client) application appears to have stability problems.
We have, on one occasion, noticed the disappearance of thought balloons. You can save the game, quit, and relaunch if this should happen to you.
Prince of Destruction has been extensively tested in 256 colours on an LC475, Quadra 700, and Power Mac 6100/60 and aside from the problems stated, there are no known bugs. 16 greys mode works but has not been tested as extensively.
