################################################### # # # TOTAL ENTERTAINMENT NETWORK: DEADLOCK VERSION # # # # ** README FILE 7/07/96 ** # # # ################################################### "When gamers read documentation, the sows will have goiter." -- Kazakhswanan proverb If you're reading this, something's probably wrong. Because if you're reading this, then you're not playing multiplayer games over the Internet through TEN. And if you're not on TEN, you're not happy, we're not happy, and the sows will require a painful series of out-patient operations. In this document, we'll do our best to get you back on track and in the gaming arenas. Here you'll find basic installation and sign on information, answers to common questions, and contact info for our happy customer service elves. There are other sources of help and information as well. There's an up-to-the-minute FAQ on the Web at www.ten.net/betazone. There's a TEN Help file accessible from within TEN (click on the fire extinguishers). And, again, there are TEN customer service people who get no greater pleasure in life than in helping you out. README TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 2.0 GAME INSTALLATION 3.0 CONNECTING TO TEN 4.0 SELECTING A CONNECTION METHOD 5.0 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQs) 6.0 CUSTOMER SERVICE 7.0 OTHER TEN INFORMATION 1.0 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS To play on the Total Entertainment Network, you must have the following minimum system setup: - Windows 95 - SVGA video card - 14.4 modem or better In addition, each game on TEN has additional system requirements. You'll notice that these requirements tend to be higher than the requirements for the game in single-player mode due to the fact that the TEN software and the game software must run at the same time. DEADLOCK - 486 66MHz - 8MB RAM - VESA Local Bus or PCI SVGA card 2.0 GAME INSTALLATION To play games on TEN, you must either buy or download the supported versions of the game, and install the game to your hard drive as per the game publisher's instructions. WATCH OUT!: It's a very bad idea to install games under the TEN directory, C:\PROGRAM FILES\TEN. All files under the TEN directory are subject to deletion during a TEN upgrade. SPECIAL INSTALLATION NOTES The first time you join or create a game on TEN, you will be asked to locate the game's executable file (.EXE). Use the Windows 95 file browser to find the game's directory, and then click on the .EXE. If you should ever move the game's files or directories, or install a new version of the game, you'll have to update the path to the game executable. To do this, click on the "Create" or "Join" buttons in the TEN game arena while holding down the control key (CTRL). This will call up the Windows 95 file browser and allow you to point TEN to the location of the new game executable (.EXE) file. 3.0 CONNECTING TO TEN Once you've installed the TEN software, you can launch TEN in two ways: You can 1) select the TEN icon (TEN.exe) located in the TEN directory on your hard drive. The default location for the TEN files is C:\PROGRAM FILES\TEN. Or 2) you can launch TEN by selecting the Deadlock icon in your Windows 95 START menu (usually in the lower left corner of your screen). The default path in the START menu is Start-->Programs-->TEN. Once the TEN software has been launched, you will see the TEN registration screen. Select the NEW USER button to register for a new TEN account. When registering, you will need to provide Name and Address information, and a valid credit card number. After you have created an account, you will be taken to the sign on screen. If you have any problems connecting to TEN, you can contact the friendly TEN Customer Service elves for help. See the end of this file for TEN's Customer Service contact information. If you have questions about TEN once you've signed on to the service, you can access the TEN online Help file by clicking the various Help fire extinguishers and Help buttons littered about the service. The Help file can also be viewed off-line by clicking on the "ten" help icon in the TEN directory (it looks like a purple book). 4.0 SELECTING A CONNECTION METHOD There are three ways to access the TEN service: 1) a TEN local access number, 2) an Internet connection provide by an Internet Service Provider (ISP), 3) or a direct connection to the Internet via your office or school. TEN LOCAL ACCESS NUMBER: If you do not already have access to the Internet through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) you can use your modem to dial a local access number. TEN has local access numbers spread across North America, so it's likely there is an access number near you. To use one of these numbers, install TEN, run the TEN software, and select the SETTINGS button from the sign on screen. Next, select the "Select one of TEN's local access numbers" option, click "OK," and then choose the local access number nearest you. (Note: Toll charges may apply if the number is long distance for you.) YOUR OWN INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER: An alternate way to access TEN is through your own Internet Service Provider (ISP). You do this by 1) logging on to your ISP, 2) running the TEN software, 3) selecting the SETTINGS button on the TEN sign on screen, and 4) choosing the "Use my direct Internet connection" option. If you use your own ISP, pay careful attention to what Mr. Bandwidth (the funny looking guy on the Arena screen) has to say about your connection quality. Some ISPs do not provide a good enough connection to play fast-action games like Duke Nukem 3D over the Internet. If Mr. Bandwidth says that your connection is not up to snuff, you'll want to try signing on through one of TEN's local access numbers. (Note that you can still play games like Deadlock, CivNet and Warcraft with slower connections.) DIRECT CONNECTION AT THE OFFICE OR SCHOOL Another way to access TEN is through a direct connection to the Internet provided by your office or school. Simply run the TEN software and choose "Use my direct Internet connection" after clicking the SETTINGS button on the sign on screen. This option is only available when your boss isn't looking or you've finished all your Calculus homework. 5.0 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQs) Remember, the most up-to-the-minute FAQs can be found on the Web at www.ten.net/betazone. GENERAL TEN FAQS -0- What features do you plan to add to the service? We've got big plans. Heap big plans. For starters, better, more advanced game creation and game matching features. Rankings. Player profiles. Dancing bears. Full World Wide Web access. Chat-only areas. E-mail. White lace stockings and a mini skirt. A complete game resource center. A wet bar. And more and more freakin' games! These features and more will be incorporated into TEN bit by bit over the summer. -0- How secure is my personal info and credit card number on TEN? TEN uses the latest security precautions for our data transfers and storage. Additionally, no one at TEN has access to your entire credit card number. Customer Support only has access to the last four digits of the account number and the expiration date for identification purposes. In other words, we're like Fort Knox compared to your local WaltzMart or the average phone ordering service. -0- What are TENGuides? Actually, the question is "who" are TENGuides, cuz TENGuides are people. Yes, they are friendly, helpful folk who have VOLUNTEERED out of the goodness of their hearts to be online assistants. They are not TEN employees, and they are not all- powerful SYSOPs: they are people who know more than most about how TEN works and what's going on behind the scenes. They can usually be found in the HELP arenas, giving advice and assistance to whomever they can. -0- How do I cancel an account? You CAN'T! Ha ha ha! Didn't you read the software licensing agreement during installation? We now own your immortal soul! Clicked right past it, didn't you? Well, that's the last time you'll ever make THAT mistake... Actually, our corporate pact with the Devil doesn't give us quite that much power. You can cancel an account, and it's quite easy. Just give our Customer Service folks a call at 1-800-8040-TEN during standard business hours. Tell us your full name, screen name, address, phone number, and the reason for your cancellation. Your account will then be promptly nuked. -0- Do you support international accounts? Unfortunately, we don't yet have the facilities to support world-wide accounts, even if you have a credit card that is valid in the U.S. and Canada. We may be adding this ability in the near future. SIGNING ON TO TEN -0- All of a sudden, my password doesn't seem to work. What's the deal? Make sure that your CAPS LOCK key is off, since the password is case sensitive. This is a common problem, since many people turn on CAPS LOCK when they play Duke Nukem 3D, and then forget to turn it off when they sign on to TEN. If you're still having problems with your password, e-mail us at customerservice@ten.net or call us at 1-800-8040-TEN. THE ARENA SELECTOR -0- What is a ZONE and why does it matter? ZONEs are strange cyber-regions that are difficult to explain, but we'll give it a shot. Basically, a ZONE is like a geographical region (i.e., the Ukraine or the Midwest) but its dimensions have more to do with the funky geography of cyberspace than physical geography. Usually, you will have a better connection to one zone than the other, because you are closer (in Internet terms) to one ZONE than the other. We currently have two ZONEs on TEN, PANDEMONIUM and VALHALLA. From the Arena Selector screen, choose the ZONE that offers you the best connection. In general, people who come in to TEN via a local access number will have their best connection to the VALHALLA zone. People using their own Internet connection will usually get their best connection to the PANDEMONIUM zone. There are a few exceptions (Internet folks in the Midwest can get a good connection to VALHALLA), but in general this division works. NOTE: Not all games have seperate Zones. Zones are usually only needed for games that require very fast performance (fast action games and real-time simulations). THE ARENAS -0- I've been trying to chat with people in the Arenas, but they don't respond. Is it my breath or something? You may have noticed that many of the names in the WHO'S HERE list have a yellow squiggle next to them. This means that the players are currently involved in a game and cannot see what you type in the Arena. If you want to chat with someone, find a name that does not have a squiggle and directly address them (i.e., "Hey there, WarPig!"). If they don't respond, either they've stepped away from their computer for a second, or it IS your breath. -0- Is there a way to send private messages to individuals in the Arena? Yes, there is a "whisper" mode. When you're in an arena, type "/w USERNAME:" where "USERNAME" is the screen name of the person you want to whisper to. So, if you were in an arena with WarPig and you wanted to send a private note, you'd type "/w WarPig: Hi WarPig!" (quote marks not included). -0- Some jerk is being extremely abusive, vulgar, or disruptive and ruining my day. What can I do? As the bumper stickers here in San Francisco say--"Mean people suck!" Stupid and immature people aren't much fun either. We at TEN try to take a more "hands off" approach to our environment than most commercial online services. Our users are over 18 years old, which means we expect they will act like civilized human beings, treat each other with respect, and work out minor difficulties amongst themselves. However, this is not a perfect world, and there are plenty of idiots out there. If you find someone being excessively hostile or disruptive, follow these steps: 1) "Muzzle" the sucker. Select the offensive users name in an Arena's WHO'S HERE list. Clicking the right mouse button will now bring up an options list. Select "Muzzle" from the list. Once muzzled, all chat from the muzzled user will be blocked. (NOTE: This feature may not be available in the Deadlock version of TEN, but will be added shortly.) 2) Find a TENGuide (usually found in a HELP arena) and kindly inform them of the player's behavior. The Guide will evaluate the situation and take appropriate action. 3) If you can't find a TENGuide, send e-mail to customer service informing them of the situation. -0- Is it okay for me to run truckloads of programs in the background while I'm playing games on TEN? Uh, no. At least not always. Games are hungry memory-pigs, so every program you have running at the same time sucks memory away from the game. If you have more RAM than God, this may be okay. But many programs, like PointCast Network, and Netscape Navigator also suck processor time, which is not so okay. The latest versions of TEN include a program that will notify you of problematic programs running on your machine. The TEN program will give you the opportunity to "kill" the bothersome programs. The kill program works, but it is safer for you to exit TEN and close the programs yourself. To save yourself time and frustration, you should always close all other programs before running TEN. -0- Beside Mr. Bandwidth, is there any other way to get information about the quality of my connection to TEN? Why, yes, there is. When you're in a game arena, type "/latency YOURUSERNAME" and you will see a graph of your connection's latency performance for the last few minutes. You will notice some colored lines on the graph: green, yellow and red. When your average latency performance falls under the green line, Mr. Bandwidth will give you an "Excellent" rating. When the average is between the green and yellow lines, you'll get a "Good." Between yellow and red--"Okay." And red and above-- "Forget it." Mr Bandwidth may change his rating now and then due to the changing performance of your connection. Note that the number on the top of the graph is your IP address, your machine's unique address on the Internet. -0- My game crashed and froze up. How do I get out of this mess? To get out of the game, try exiting the game through the game's usually exit method. If that doesn't work, your game has totally bombed. Hit the ALT and ENTER keys at the same time, and then close the DOS window. Alternatively, you can hit CTRL-ALT-DEL, highlight the TENCOMM program, and then select END TASK from the options window to kill the game. -0- When I try to join or create a game, I get a "wrong version" error. What's the deal? This message can be the result of two different things: 1) You are trying to play the shareware version of the game in the retail Arena, or vice-versa. This is a no-no. 2) You are trying to play with an older version of the game and you need to get a patch. Whenever new patches of games are released, we'll be sure to let you know. -0- Whenever I join a game and the game starts, I get booted out. What the hell?! This is often caused by a lack of Windows 95 swap space. The easiest way to solve this problem is to erase some of those crappy old single-player games (or other drek that you never use) off your hard disk to free up more space. 6.0 CUSTOMER SERVICE Support for TEN is available via phone, fax, the Web and electronic mail. PHONE: 1-800-8040-TEN o TENFONE (Computer) - Automated voice response - Includes general and technical information - Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week o TENFAX - Automated faxback service - Includes general and technical information - Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week o Support Representatives (Humans!) - Customer and technical support - Available between 10AM and 9PM, PST, 7 days a week REGULAR FAX: (415) 778-3521 WORLD WIDE WEB: o TEN Home Page: www.ten.net - General info and corporate stuff o Beta Zone: www.ten.net/betazone - News, FAQs, Bug list/reports and downloads o File Factory: www.filefactory.com - Tons of patches, shareware and upgrades for your fav games ELECTRONIC MAIL (24-hour turnaround): o General Assistance: customerservice@ten.net o Technical Assistance: technicalsupport@ten.net o Billing Issues: billing@ten.net o Bug Issues/Reports: bugs@ten.net o Suggestions: suggestions@ten.net o Complaints: complaints@ten.net o Compliments: kudos@ten.net 7.0 OTHER TEN INFORMATION Here are the system requirments for the other games that you can play on TEN: DARK SUN ONLINE - 486 66MHz - 8MB RAM - VESA Local Bus or PCI SVGA card DUKE NUKEM 3D (Shareware and Full Retail) - Pentium 60MHz - 12MB RAM - VLB or PCI SVGA card CIVNET - 486 66MHz - 16MB RAM WARCRAFT - Pentium 60MHz - 8MB RAM (16MB recommended) TERMINAL VELOCITY - 486 66MHz - 8MB RAM INSTALLATION NOTES ON OTHER TEN SUPPORTED SOFTWARE DARK SUN ONLINE Dark Sun is currently in its beta test period. That means the programmers are having all-night pizza sessions and wielding economy-size cans of Raid. It's also why you can't find Dark Sun at your software store. You can, however, download the beta version from www.ten.net/betazone. DUKE NUKEM 3D SHAREWARE To play the shareware version of Duke Nukem 3D on TEN, you must have the latest shareware version installed on your hard drive. You can find shareware Duke Nukem 3D at the following Internet sites: TEN'S BETA ZONE: www.ten.net/betazone TEN'S FTP SITE: ftp.ten.net/TEN/games/duke THE FILE FACTORY: www.filefactory.com 3D REALMS' PAGE: www.3drealms.com After you've downloaded the self-extracting file, run it to install the game to your hard drive. You'll need to run the SETUP program to configure the sound and control options. You'll need the full retail version of Duke Nukem 3D installed on your hard drive if you want to play it on TEN. You can buy the retail version at your favorite software retailer. CIVNET SOFTWARE UPGRADE You must own and install the retail version of CivNet, AND apply the TEN CivNet upgrade. The upgrade can be found at www.ten.net/betazone or ftp.ten.net/TEN/games/civnet. WARCRAFT SOFTWARE UPGRADE While you don't need to buy a retail version of Warcraft, you must download a special TEN version to play the game on TEN. The file can be found at www.ten.net/betazone or ftp.ten.net/TEN/games/warcraft. After you've downloaded the self-extracting archive, run it to extract the file to your hard drive. You'll need to run the SETUP program to configure the sound and control options. TERMINAL VELOCITY SHAREWARE You must have a special TEN version of Terminal Velocity to play on TEN. The file can be found at www.ten.net/betazone or ftp.ten.net/TEN/games/termvel. After you've downloaded the self-extracting archive, run it to extract the file to your hard drive. You'll need to run the SETUP program to configure the sound and control options. DUKE NUKEM 3D QUESTIONS -0- I can't get Duke Nukem 3D to run on TEN when I'm running in MS-DOS. How come? Well, my friend, Duke may be a DOS game, but TEN ain't. You gotta be in Windows 95 for TEN and Duke to work. Guess it's time to upgrade, huh? -0- Duke Nukem 3D doesn't play as smoothly on TEN as it does over a local area network (LAN). Why is that? TEN is a nationwide service running over the Internet. It takes a lot more time for game information to travel from Joe's computer in California to Cary's in Rhode Island than it does to travel from one local office computer to another. The time it takes for information to travel across the Internet is referred to as "latency." Unfortunately, latency is a fact of life on the Internet. Games on TEN (or any other nationwide service) will never run as well as they do on a LAN. However, the rocket scientists at TEN are working hard to ensure that games always play at an acceptable level. See the next question for more info on the wackiness of the Internet. -0- I'm coming into TEN via my own Internet Service Provider (ISP) and Mr. Bandwidth says that my connection is "good," but my games are still very chunky. What's the problem? There could be several different problems: 1) While your ISP may provide fast access to the Internet, it may be losing "packets" (game data) at an unacceptable rate. Packet loss can seriously effect the performance of Duke Nukem 3D. We are currently tuning Mr. Bandwidth so that his evaluations reflect packet loss in addition to latency. Try a TEN local access number and see if your performance improves. 2) Duke Nukem 3D is a "lowest common denominator" game, which means that the game will only go as fast as the slowest connection in the game. So, someone else in the game may have a poor connection that is dragging everybody else down. Try to figure out who has the slow connection, and gently suggest that they check their connection quality. 3) The TEN service and/or the Internet may be having a "bad hair day." We're doing our best to improve game performance and ensure the stability of our service. Hang in there! 4) You or someone you're playing with could have programs running in the background that screw up Duke. -0- Can shareware Duke people play with retail Duke people? No. The shareware and the retail versions of Duke are not compatible. That's why we have separate Arenas dedicated to the shareware and retail versions. -0- What is an OUT OF SYNC ERROR? An OUT OF SYNC ERROR means that the computers involved in a Duke Nukem 3D game are no longer "speaking the same language." When this occurs, each computer has a different understanding of what's happening in the Duke Nukem 3D world. It's bad news, plain and simple. Often, you can continue playing games that have become out of sync, but the more you play, the weirder things tend to get. It's best to start a new one. Note that you don't have to quit completely out of Duke Nukem to start a new game, even if you get an OUT OF SYNC error. While in a game, hit ESCape to bring up the Duke Nukem game menu and select NEW GAME. Choose a Duke level, and the slaughter continues. -0- Does TEN support user-created Duke MAP files? Not yet, but we will. Believe us, we're getting just as bored as you are with the "Red Light District" and "LA Meltdown." User-created level support will be coming soon. -0- Can I minimize the Duke launch screen while I'm waiting for players to join? It's a really bad idea to minimize the Duke launch screen while waiting. You can move it around (if it's not full screen) so that you can see the Arena chat area, but it's not a good idea to mess with it beyond that. The problem is that if Duke launches while the screen is minimized or hidden behind another screen, the game may crash. Yuck. (This whole launch screen business will be done away with completely in subsequent versions of TEN. But you'll have to deal with it for now.) To switch from full screen to partial screen mode while waiting for players to join, hit the ALT and ENTER keys at the same time. -0- I was playing Duke and I got a "Connection to game server lost" error. What happened and what can I do? Ah. This means that the computer hosting the Arena you were playing in crashed. Uh oh. This will happen on occasion and there is little you can do about it. However, you can avoid getting kicked off the system all together by such a crash. Here's what you do: 1) Quit out of the Duke game you're playing. 2) Press CTRL-ALT-DEL and end the TENCOMM task. 3) Once back in the TEN Arena, click on the BACK button. You should find yourself back in the Arena Selector screen where you can choose a new Arena that hasn't crashed. Fin.