The Clan Master's Inn Documentation v1.00 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Thank you for trying out the Clan Master's Inn. We sincerely hope you enjoy this product. We hope to continue providing you with the best in service and quality. The Inn is a Shareware product. The current registration price is shown inside of the setup program. To see it, go to the MS-DOS prompt, change to the directory with CLAN.EXE and type: "CLAN.EXE SETUP" then press "R" for "Registration Information". This is the standard ASCII text format of the Documentation. A Microsoft Word format is also provided in the file CLAN.TXT. If you wish to print this document, we suggest using that file instead. THIS IGM IS FAIR AND BALANCED WITH L.O.R.D.! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Most LORD IGM's that we have seen have done little more than upset the gameplay balance found in LORD. Some IGMs allow players to easily "cheat". Others simply add nothing to the game except a few gems or forest-style fights. The Clan Master's Inn does NOT allow players to cheat. The Inn will NOT severely upset the play of your LORD game. The Inn ADDS many features to LORD not found anywhere else. The primary goal of the Clan Master's Inn is to take the concepts of "Forest Fights" and "User Fights" and add a third "Clan Fight" to the game which is just as fair, rewarding, and simply: FUN. Shareware Concept -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The Shareware concept is a form of computer program marketing where low-budget authors can sell their programs to the general public without investing a fortune. Since it can cost many thousands of dollars to market software to stores and retailers, this lets small software companies sell products without spending a large sum of money on marketing and advertisement costs. The two most common forms of Shareware include "Crippleware" and limited time restraints. Limited time restrained programs must be registered within a certain period of time or use of the program must be discontinued. Crippleware is software that has some limitations until registered. Registration involves mailing in the program's cost and receiving your registration disk, form, or code. The term "registration" can also be used in software to mean sending in a registration card with information such as your occupation and interests. Registration normally only involves money if you are talking about a Shareware product. Tour of the Inn -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The Clan Master's Inn gives Legend of the Red Dragon players a chance to team up against each other. The players can form "Clans" of up to 6 members. The clans can fight each other a certain number of times per day (See "Benefits of Registration".) The fights are very similar to fights in LORD, except that there can be up to 12 people participating in the same fight (they can be played by humans, or when off-line, their characters are played by the computer just as in LORD.) About once every 26 days (assuming a person who plays every day), a player will run into a friendly and warm creature called "The Great Evil" on their way to the Clan Master's Inn. The Great Evil waits at LEAST 6 days before haunting anyone again. Once registered, the Great Evil can be disabled from your game if you don't like him. The Great Evil is a player's nemesis, as the Great Evil's strength, defense, and hitpoints are carefully matched to that of the player who encounters him. The player has about a 65% chance of beating the Evil in most cases, and when the player tries to run, they have a one in three chance of escaping. When the Great Evil is defeated, the player receives 10% of their own experience, as well as a few gems (see "Benefits of Registration.") These are somewhat high rewards for a single fight, but not for a fight that only occurs once a month. Unfortunately, at no point in the Clan Master's Inn is there any support for "Death Knight", "Mystical Skills", or "Thieving Skills". These features were too much to add to a low cost program. However should the Clan Master's Inn show enough registration and support we will go ahead and try to add such features. Every other theme and concept from LORD has been kept alive as carefully as possible. As stated above, The Clan Master's Inn WILL NOT cause a serious imbalance in your LORD game. It will still take about the same amount of time for a player to advance. Of course the Inn does have some influence, as at very least the Inn adds a Clan Fight per day (which occasionally involves killing a number of people.) Benefits of Registration -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The Clan Master's Inn can be considered slightly crippled software. Use of the Clan Master's Inn is unlimited and can be quite enjoyable to your BBS, however these additional features will become available after registration. * Killing the Great Evil is worth 24 gems instead of 4, and the sysop can prevent him from haunting his players if so chosen (You can turn him on or off.) * You can change the number of clan fights per day. While unregistered, clans can only attack another clan once per day. * A clan can have up to 6 members, instead of 3. * The game will show up as registered to [Your name, or your BBS name.] Note that sysop options are enabled even in the unregistered version. However, about all that you can do is remove a player from a clan, or erase a particular clan. You can reset the Wins-Losses scores or reset the Clan Master's Inn also. To access the sysop control menu, use the CLAN.EXE SETUP command as shown below. Seeing it for yourself -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- You can take a look at the Clan Master's Inn yourself. Please keep in mind that a number of the options will be in gray, meaning they are unavailable, because they require more than one player or clan to exist before you can use them. You will need a LORD account to use this option correctly! If you don't have an account in your LORD game, go make one before you use the Inn. To use the Clan Master's Inn in local operation, change to your Inn's directory, and at the DOS prompt type: CLAN.EXE LOCAL Setting up the Clan Master's Inn -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Setting up the Inn is intended to be easy and quick. 1. Create a directory for the Inn (we recommend a subdirectory of your LORD directory such as C:\Lord\Clan.) Move or unzip all of the Clan Master's Inn files into that directory. 2. Change to the directory where you placed the Inn files. At the DOS prompt, type: CLAN.EXE SETUP 3. You will now be in the setup menu. Select (C)onfigure and provide the information needed. 4. Return to the main setup menu and select (I)nstall. 5. The Clan Master's Inn will now be ready to use. You can return to the setup menu anytime you need to change an option, register the Inn, or access sysop operations. Just type the command again: CLAN.EXE SETUP * Non-standard comports, IRQs, etc., are supported. They will be used automatically with help from LORD. Removing the Clan Master's Inn -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- (The un-install option truly does work in this IGM.) If you get tired of the Clan Master's Inn, simply change into the directory where you placed the Inn files and at the DOS prompt type: CLAN.EXE SETUP Select to (U)n-install the Inn. This will disconnect the Inn from LORD, and you can delete the Clan Master's Inn files if you so desire. Command Line Options -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- There are 4 command line options for the Clan Master's Inn. The first is the SETUP option which just takes you into the setup and sysop menu. CLAN.EXE SETUP The second option lets you enter the Clan Master's Inn without having to use a BBS. You will need a LORD account for this option, and that is why it asks for your real name. CLAN.EXE LOCAL The Clan Master's Inn performs daily maintenance. This is done without any interaction, and you DO NOT need to setup a maintenance program. The Inn will normally run maintenance whenever the first player of the day enters the Inn. If you do wish to run maintenance for some reason, type this to run maintenance once and exit: CLAN.EXE MAINT The Clan Master's Inn automatically supports non-standard comports and IRQs. The Inn will get this information from LORD. If, for some reason, you need to control the settings for this, additional command line instructions can be accessed by type CLAN.EXE with no parameters. If you wish to run multiple copies of the Clan Master's Inn, you can do so by setting up multiple directories for each game and using this option to control the configuration file being used (You may have to modify 3RDPARTY.DAT from your LORD directory.) The configuration file is usually named CONFIG.DAT, and this file is created by using "CLAN.EXE SETUP". To use a different filename, or a different path to your configuration file, use the /C option like so (upper or lowercase is irrelevant): CLAN.EXE /Cconfig.dat Contacting us and Technical Support -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- (Information is current as of July 26th, 1996) We're a small company with limited resources, but we will do our best to answer all mail, bug reports, and questions promptly. We don't have an office or anything of that nature yet, so the best we can do is e-mail and BBS Support. E-Mail: wblack@cypress.tgt.com BBS: (505) 865-0116 Terror's Zone BBS (505) 865-7789 (Send mail to the sysop, he's one of us.) Our other products -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The Clan Master's Inn was created by the LightSpeed team. The LightSpeed team is so named for creating the LightSpeed BBS Software package. LightSpeed BBS Software is currently available for as low as $ 25 for a single-node. LightSpeed BBS Software v1.4 is currently available, and we are working frantically on version 1.5. Look for LS1_4.ZIP for a Shareware version. Our team has also created a door programming kit called the "LsDoor Software Development Kit" (SDK for short.) This kit can be used to create DOOR.SYS, INFOLINK.DAT, or LORD-Compatible door software. The kit is limited to Borland C/C++ compilers, versions 3.1x, 4.xx, 5.0, and above. The kit is currently priced at $35 + S/H and includes everything you need to start your door production. As of this writing, version 1.0 has just been released. Look for LSDOOR10.ZIP for the Shareware version and more information. About the authors -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The LightSpeed team originally included 3 members during the early production of LightSpeed BBS Software. Since then only the lead programmer still remains, but 3 new members have joined up. 2 of the new members are artists and 1 is working the audio. The team is now working on our upcoming production, Distant Stars , which will be our flagship achievement. Wiley Black, lead programmer, LightSpeed team, author of Clan Master's Inn. Olivia Villescas, lead artist, LightSpeed team, author of Clan Master's Inn. Our team is hard at work on our grand production, however we have one little hurdle which we can't figure out: We need a name for our little company instead of "LightSpeed Team." If you have any really good ideas for a name, drop us a line, but do run it through a few friends first as we already get a lot of e-mail. We'd sure appreciate it. Special Thanks -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The Inn was made possible by the users of Terror's Zone BBS. Without them, it would have been impossible to create a working product such as this. Our greatest thanks to them for putting up with the quarks, bugs, and even lost accounts. And we wish the best of luck to Paul in the 2002 Olympics. Legal -=-=-=-=- THIS PRODUCT IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE RESULTS AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS ASSUMED BY YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE ENTIRE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. FURTHER, WE DO NOT WARRANT, GUARANTEE, OR MAKE REPRESENTATIONS REGARDING THE USE OF, OR THE RESULTS OF THE USE OF THIS PROGRAM IN TERMS OF CORRECTNESS, ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, CURRENTNESS, OR OTHERWISE; AND YOU RELY ON THE PROGRAM AND ITS RESULTS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. WE CANNOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR SYSTEM DAMAGE, LOSS OF PROFIT, OR ANY OTHER SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGE RESULTING FROM THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THIS PRODUCT. The Clan Master's Inn and accompanying documentation are Copyright (C) 1996 by Wiley Black, and all rights are reserved. The Clan Master's Inn is NOT public domain. Copying, duplication, selling, or otherwise distributing the registered form of this product is a violation of law. Modifying the Clan Master's Inn is strictly prohibited. You may not distribute any modified or incomplete copies of the Clan Master’s Inn. You may NOT distribute confidential registration information or registered copies of the Clan Master's Inn. We cannot be held responsible for lost or misdirected mail. We will not provide refunds in any form. Any attempt to use this software signifies acceptance of these terms and conditions.