Night Owl 6/Night Owl's Shareware - PDSI-006 - Night Owl Corp (1990).iso/002a/wa_126.zip/CHANGES.TXT

Text File | 1991-10-06 | 13KB | 348 lines

CHANGES FOR VERSION 1.01

    Cursoring didn't work (except in local mode) -- made the game
    pretty much unplayable.

    Fixed a bug that sometimes left a player on the map when he died,
    instead of replacing his symbol with that of a corpse.  This
    had undesirable side-effects later.

    There was a bug that sometimes allowed players to pick up and
    carry corpses (which are actually not pickupable) -- if they
    were the corpses of players.

    Changed the syntax for running locally:  used to be WIZARD LOCAL <name>;
    now it's simply WIZARD, and you'll be prompted for the name.  Even
    in local mode, I'm now going through CKIT for primitive I/O.

    WIZARD can now generate its own GENERIC.SYS file, should it need
    one -- which it will, in local mode.


CHANGES FOR VERSION 1.02

    Removed the check for page-length and ANSI graphics status --
    they didn't seem to work very well.

    Modified the map slightly.


CHANGES FOR VERSION 1.03

    Improved semaphoring -- now based on record-locking (although
    I'm putting off full implementation a few days)

    Updates to the 'Surroundings' display are now rather faster.

    SENSE MAGIC and DETECT MAGIC are now a little more informative
    (allows distinction between spells ON and spells IN an item.

    Added a 'fast move' option (toggle between moving 1 and moving 3
    spaces.

    Players should no longer be allowed to summon Wimps/Fighters/Heros
    and kill them for the experience...similarly, controlled creatures
    can't attack their controller.

    Counterattacks by non-player creatures worked a little funny.
    You could end up with a character with  HP < 0, which caused all
    sorts of problems.

    I allow new wizards an extra 10 AP on their first turn -- I think
    it'll help people get interested.  Hope so, anyway.


CHANGES FOR VERSION 1.10

    Numerous changes in implementation -- shouldn't be apparent to
    the user/sysop.

    The ability to register the software has been added.  Registration
    allows the sysop some control over the time the player is allowed
    in the door, and over the rate of AP recovery.  See the sysop docs
    and REGISTER.TXT for details.

    Added the ability to define the sysop's name.  Won't appear on-
    screen until the game is registered, however.

    Added the ability  for terrain to issue messages to the user
    (things like "You are now in a broken-down old temple").

    Extensive modifications to the documentation.

    Extensive changes to the Dungeon itself.

    Improved the 'overhead view' algorithm for what I hope is the
    last time.

    Used newer version of CKIT (registered).

    Added 'ugly mode' to screen display.  Gives more room for the
    text area, at some aesthetic cost.

    Corrected a bug -- if you made an item using MAJOR CREATION
    (which is stupid, since you can make items with the less-
    exhausting MINOR CREATION), you got "Something Invisible".

    Added Zombies & Ghouls.

    Added XRAY, LOCATE and CONTROL.

    Weekly cleanups will now spread around a few independent
    creatures.

    Independent creatures can now live out their rather meaningless
    lives; moving, attacking players, grabbing stuff.

    Action points are now calculated a bit differently.  If your
    agility <= 15, you get a number of points equal to your agility.
    Every two points above 15, you get 1 more. (This ratio of 1 AP for
    every 2 agility is modifiable, if the sysop registers his copy of the
    program).

    I'm not distributing it in PKLITEd form, as I had planned -- the
    licensing fee is beyond my means.


CHANGES FOR VERSION 1.11

    Added a new command-line option, which I'm leaving mostly undocumented.
    In short, don't mistakenly put '-F' as an option to the program. You'll
    get a HUGE and largely USELESS error-file, which will NEVER be cleaned
    up by the program.

    Re-wrote the daily maintenance routines.

    Added a simple 'progress indicator' for daily and weekly maintenance.

    Added a 'recheck today's mail' command.

    Disallowed leading spaces in character name.


CHANGES FOR VERSION 1.12 (First general release!)

    The characters can now choose their gender.  Added Amazons and Heroines.

    Fixed a couple of display 'uglies'.

    Disallowed leading spaces in character names.

    With this version, I'll start distributing the exe in a compressed
    format.

    Corrected a bug in 'drop item' code, and another that happened if a
    player was slain by a wandering monster (under very unlikely
    conditions).


CHANGES FOR VERSION 1.13

    Strictly a bug-fix -- if time-remaining was too low, the game would
    exit, but there would be strange DOS problems afterward.  (Nothing
    tragic, just system lockups).


CHANGES FOR VERSION 1.20 (never generally released)

    This snowballed into a pretty big revision; a couple of bug-fixes,
    but mostly enhancements (which is why its 1.20 instead of 1.1x).
    Additionally, I converted over to version 2.0 of CKIT -- this
    makes it possible in principle to make a foreign-language version of
    the game (though I have little interest in doing so at this time),
    as well as clearing up one or two minor issues -- and causing me to
    modify certain chunks of my  code.


    BUG FIXES:

        If a character was slain by an NPC during a counterattack, no
        message about it was posted.  Now one is.

        Fixed a slightly obscure bug involving objects carried by NPCs.
        (No-one ever ran into it, I guess -- the NPC had to be the first
        object, which is pretty unlikely).

        Fixed the grammar in a couple of the messages.  Nothing too bad.

        If the player attacked and killed an NPC, but the game-system
        decided not to put down a corpse, then the system could corrupt
        the database and hang.  Doesn't any more.

        There was a memory-management bug, as well; it manifested only
        with a dozen or so players.  It had the potential to mangle the
        database beyond easy repair.


    ENHANCEMENTS / ALTERATIONS:

        Daily clean-ups have been made more complex, to allow for more
        interesting behavior from NPCs and the rest of the environment.
        I've optimized pretty thoroughly, but they're still a little
        time-consuming.  I've made a standalone daily maintenance program
        that you can run use to manually do that maintenance as part of a
        nightly routine.  There's further information in SYSOP.TXT.

        There no longer is any weekly maintenance; the daily routines
        now perform all those functions.

        Added feature to let the sysop reset the console color when the
        program terminates.

        When ripping off a corpse, you couldn't change your mind and NOT
        take some of his loot (other than by picking an invalid
        selection).  Now, 'N' can be entered, for 'None'.

        Changed the RETRY spell -- when cast on an item, it now
        lasts four days.  Used to work for 1 stroke, but I found that it
        was pretty useless.

        Added Orcs and Ogres.

        Added SUMMON OGRE spell, OGRE STRENGTH and ANIMATE CORPSE.

        Added ranged weapons (slings and crossbows), and the cudgel
        (carried by Ogres).

        Re-documented the errorlevel for daily maintenance (100).

        Wrote an upgrade program to allow me to extend the database formats
        with each release (if needed). Further, WIZARD'S ARENA will no
        longer accept a database whose version number is different
        than its own -- it'll abort and recommend that you run an upgrade.

        I changed some of the symbols, and enchanted items are now a
        different color than mundane ones.

        The command-line options for the both the registered and
        unregistered versions have been revised, modified, updated,
        folded, spindled and mutilated. (Well, they've been changed a
        bit, anyway). See REGISTER.TXT and SYSOP.TXT. In particular, the
        -O option may be of interest.

        Corpses now rot more quickly, and skulls disappear after a few
        days; I found that corpses/skulls really littered up the place.
        There's also an intermediate step between corpses and skulls
        (skeletons).

        This version of the game has certain 'debugging' aids --
        undocumented commands which let me see how the program's doing
        in place.  These are all accessed via a '&' command, follwed by:

            'M' shows memory available
            'E' dumps out the error log
            'S' prints out certain game statistics

        For sysops who don't want anyone to access these features, the
        -E option disallows them -- and also disallows the 'remote
        registration' feature.  (Some sysops didn't seem to like the idea.)
        Anyway, if you're worried about these rather benign 'backdoors',
        use the '-E' option and they're unavailable.


CHANGES FOR VERSION 1.21 (never generally released)

    The program would sometimes redraw the whole "overhead view", and
    sometimes even the whole screen, even if it changed the contents of
    only one visible square (for example, during takes, drops, and after
    attacks which kill the target).  It doesn't do this any more.

    When a player died, any spells affecting him were carried over into
    his next 'incarnation'.  This is no longer the case.
    Registered users can now set the number of experience points it
    takes to train; this can have a dramatic effect on game-play.

    The upgrade program now does a certain amount of error-checking,
    even if it doesn't need to update the database formats.

    Line-noise won't cause so much 'gibbering' as it used to.

    When a player dies, he now has the option of exiting the game,
    instead of being 'auto-reincarnated'.


CHANGES FOR VERSION 1.22 (never generally released)

    Went back to an older version of CKIT.  The latest seemed to cause
    certain problems with the display, and to gradually corrupt the
    database.

    The game in now customized via a "CONFIG.WA" file, rather than by
    the increasingly-cumbersome command-line parameters. See CONFIG.TXT
    for details.

    The character's name and symbol are no longer forced to be
    upper-case.  The user's name, however, always will be.

    The game now uses DOOR.SYS instead of GENERIC.SYS.  Unlike GENERIC.SYS,
    the game doesn't auto-generate one if it needs to;  you'll need
    to keep DOOR.SYS around if you ever want to run locally.


CHANGES FOR VERSION 1.23 (never generally released)

    Strictly bug-fixes, for things that turned up in beta-testing.
    The exact bugs fixed are too obscure to be interesting, and they
    naturally affected no-one but my beleagured beta-site.


CHANGES FOR VERSION 1.24 (never generally released)

    I changed the '?' command -- it now shows a quick on-line help
    screen.  The old stuff is available via a new '.' command.

    There's also a 'G' (get) command -- it seems that the old method
    of picking up objects by using the number of an empty slot was
    counter-intuitive to many people.  (The old way still works,
    though.)

    There was a bug -- if a player name, symbol or message had a
    '%' character in it, problems could result.  Shouldn't be
    a problem anymore.

    There's now an AUTOSAVE configuration parameter.  Check it out
    in CONFIG.TXT.

    A recoverable error in off-line daily-maintenance will no longer
    keep the system 'stuck' waiting for input.


CHANGES FOR VERSION 1.25

    The 'rankings' report was added. It is generated by the daily
    maintenance, so you can't see it until one has been run.  It
    is generated into a file named 'RANKINGS.TXT' (a simple ASCII
    file).  It can be seen by the players via the 'R' subcommand of
    the '.' menu.

    The players can now set individual page-lengths, as long as
    they stay above 19.  This is available via the 'L' subcommand
    of the '.' menu.

    Minor bug: a skull or skeleton, if spells were cast on it, would
    never lose them.  Didn't have much effect on game-play.

    Major bug: a monster would keep hacking at a player's corpse,
    which can and did cause all sorts of problems.  Shouldn't
    happen anymore.


CHANGES FOR VERSION 1.26  (second general release!)

    The sysop can now specify a number of AP as a 'starting bonus' for
    new players, via the STARTBONUS configuration option.

    On their first turn in the game, players can't attack other players.
    This is to keep the STARTBONUS from completely dominating the game.

    There's an "AUTOVALIDATE" configuration option, that forces
    database validation whenever someone enters the game.

    Players who want to use their keypads for movement can now do so
    by entering the '.' menu and selecting the new option 'Numlock'.
    This changes the meaning of the numbers to be directions.  To
    use objects, they must use Shift + the number of the object.