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Text File | 1991-10-11 | 17KB | 433 lines

▄▄▄▄████████████████▄▄▄ ▄█▀▀ ████████████████ ▀▀█▄ ▄█▀ ██████████████ ▀█▄ ▄█▀ ████████████ ▀█▄ ▄█▀ ██████████ ▀█▄ █▀ ████████ ▀█ █ ▀████▀ █ █ ╔═════════════════════════╗ █ █ ║ O P E R A T I O N ║ █ █ ║ O V E R K I L L I I ║ █ ████████████║ ║██████████ ████████████║ S P E C I A L ║██████████ ████████████║ N O T I C E ║██████████ ███████████╚═════════════════════════╝██████████ █████████████████▌ ▐████████████████ ███████████████▌ ▐██████████████ ▀████████████▌ ▐███████████▀ ▀█████████▌ ▐████████▀ ▀███████ ██████▀ ▀██████▄ ▄█████▀ ▀▀▀▀█▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▀▀▀▀ !!!!! IMPORTANT INFORMATION !!!!!! Last Release Notice: We are sorry to say that releases of Operation Overkill will be given to our ALPHA locations as much as Two Months in advance for testing. Alpha Releases of Operation Overkill will ONLY be available from INFOQUEST Bellevue and will have the extension of A instead of B in the file name. ALPHA release version will NOT work without an Alpha Registration code..so there is no need to try to download these files. This will allow us to pre-test the new release to create a more robust and bug free product for all the Overkillers. For the last year, Dustin and I have been developing this game to create what we have felt was a challenging game. We wanted to create a game with action, mystery and an element of surprise. We are now close to reaching our goal. The final release testing involves a large amount of coding, bug testing, and changes. The complicated changes I have imposed on the game may cause several game functions to operate incorrectly. To avoid the "my version has a bug, and the players are mad" syndrome, and to avoid constant releasing of quick bug fixes as in the past, we are now going to an ALPHA TEST STAGE of the Overkill II development. This is what this means: 1) Registered Sysops remain registered to this point and will receive FREE upgrades to the 1.0 release when it is completed. However, this also means that version .995B is the last release until such time (unless of course there is a MAJOR bug in this release). 2) I have been searching for ALPHA TEST SIGHTS for the 1.0 release, and have a few BBS's in mind. 3) Total package cost will be $30 as of the 1.0 release. This price will be permanent and will include: Operation: Overkill II version 1.0 Operation: Overkill II Editor Newsletter with updates and information (We foresee a tremendous amount of changes!) 4) Since the 1.0 Release is a total package price and several people have registered the editor, we realize they have paid a total price of $35. To compensate for this difference, we have decided that those people who have registered the editor (out of goodness of their hearts) will get a "Sneak preview" Version of 1.0 before the 1.0 Final Release. This release will be available ONLY to those who have registered the editor up to the point of the start of Alpha Testing. This release will NOT be a completed version but will have additional features (some that may not work) and it will be their choice if they wish to run it on their BBS. 5) Registered Sysops will receive by mail the 1.0 release when it is ready for release. [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] [[[[ ALPHA TEST INFORMATION ]]]] [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] A total of twenty (20) Alpha Test sites will be selected from the entries already received and upcoming entries that are received before the 1.0A release. *ONLY* Alpha Test sites will have copies of the 1.0A release and will be required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. After these twenty sites are selected, no other sites will get advanced releases of Overkill II. This testing may take several months. All alpha test sights will be required to do the following: 1) Actively seek out and squash bugs/anomalies in OOII. (Crash it, crush it, and put it through the ringer!) 2) Monitor the OOII ECHO for developmental discussions and to relay bug information. 3) Head a team of test players to play the &$@*% out of the game. 4) Give input for improvements of the game via the OOII Echo and possibly create menus, monsters, ect for the game. 5) Each Alpha Test site will receive partial code of OOII to assist in the debugging of the game after the non disclosure form is signed. 6) Further duties will be listed with the first alpha package you receive. ============ REQUIREMENTS FOR ALPHA TESTINGS ============== You can become an ALPHA TEST SIGHT in one of two ways: 1) Be a fan of OOII and a programming guru. 2) Be an OOII Nut with a large player base The first option is listed below: 1) You must have advanced knowledge and experience in Turbo Pascal, C, C++ or assembly language programming. "Advanced" means: a) You understand complex data structures of programming, including Queues, Stacks, Link List, and Recursion. b) You have written or programmed extensively in one of the above languages (minimum of 2 years). c) You have a minimum of 2 years college experience in programming or equivelant educational background in the computer science field. d) You understand or have heard of the following concepts: (hashing, data abstraction, FIFO Queues, binary trees, B trees, heaps, stacks, pointers and the dangling referenence problem, post/pre/inorder traversal of binary trees, scoping rules, and precedence) c) Can you write the wildcard function without using built- in routines? (Not required) FUNCTION Match(Instr : String80; OutStr : String80): BOOLEAN; or INT Match(char *instr, char *outstr) Description: Given string Instr which can contain wildcards (*,?), determine if string Outstr matchs the wildcard string. C*T*H matches CATCH CATCATCATHHH and CTH but not ATCH CAT or CATCHED 2) You must be an extremely avid player of the Operation Overkill game. "Avid" meaning that you can play using the Nessus maps and kill Overkill in less than one week. I have found these type of players to reach between level 5 and 7 on their first day of play. a) You must be an AVID player b) You must have a good player base to test operation overkill. c) You must be reliable and a creative individual. ALL ALPHA TESTERS must meet one of the two above criteria and the following: 1) You must have an active interest in game playing. 2) You must be a registered Sysop of Overkill II. 3) Alpha Test sites will be selected by their programming experience and by the BBS system they operate. We will attempt to have one alpha site on each BBS package that is being tested. Here is an example of current ALPHA Testers selected with reasoning: (Testers please don't take any of this information personally) For Option 1 : Vince Laurent I find Vince to be a strong programming person with both the experience and the knowledge to do proper testing of the program. I expect this type of tester to find things that player sights will not be able to locate like places where values overflow because we are using INTEGER variables instead of LONGINT or places where stack values are overflowing. I expect less bugs from this type of tester but the bugs will be of a more complex nature. Expect about 5 total bugs and 10 total DCRS per week of testing. For Option 2 : Donna Murrell Donna exceeds the AVID qualifications. Playing the NESSUS maps were so easy, she had to modify them to make them challenging(These are the maps included in this package). Here system contains a game of OOII for EACH map included and there are at least 10 players in EACH of those games. I expect to receive game playing suggestions on how to make the product a more challenging, more exciting and prettier look with this type of tester. I expect to find ways to cheat and things that should be added in order for proper game play. Expect about 15 Bugs and 5 total DCRS per week of testing. Combination 1 & 2: Curtis Brown Curtis has some programming experience and enjoys the program. His play skills are not has honed as Donna and his programming not as sharp as Vince, BUT I expect this combination to result in the best testing due to the diversity of both. Where Vinces bugs may have been resolved because he does not call in as often and where bugs that Donna list are not bugs but intentional in design, bugs reported by Curtis will be of the nature that "The package CAN NOT go out" with them in it. He has found several situations that we never thought to test which cause lock ups, run time errors or game values going into the sky. Total bugs reported was 26 in a three week period..but alot of the bugs reported result in OOII being not playable. All THREE of these ALPHA Testers are valuable because : 1) They report bugs and DCRS that are critical and would be found eventually by others. 2) They call in and check for new changes and verify that their bugs were fixed. I expect one call MINIMUM every three days. And at that time, SOME bug or DCR should be reported. 3) Since testing is a time critical thing, these problems MUST be found in the smallest amount of time available. A ALPHA tester that does not report bugs or who does not call in is not worth being on the testing list. 4) They are reliable, creative, trustworthy people. If I say to test this and report anything wrong. I expect a report by the next day or two and that it would have been tested well. ======================================================================== Answer the following questions as best you can on the application form. It is not necessary that you answer them all to be an Alpha Test site: Define the following : Basics: ~~~~~~ 1) Scope : 2) Data Abstraction : 3) Recursion : 4) What three conditions determine if a structure is a Heap? Efficiency: ~~~~~~~~~~ 5) Which is more efficient, MergeSort or QuickSort, and why? Logic: ~~~~~ A professor had three students, each extremely bright, and he had to pick one to be his new assistant. He brought them all into a room and said: "In this room there are three chairs, each facing towards the wall and each in a line so that the back chair sees the first two chairs and the second chair sees the front one and the very front chair sees no one. Inside this box, I have three black hats and two white hats. All hats are red on the bottom so each of you can not tell the color of the hat being worn." He then blind-folded the students and placed a hat on each of them. Next, he put the students each in a chair and said: "You can now take off the blindfolds. The first one to tell me the color of your hat shall become my new assistant." After fifteen minutes, the student in the very front chair, who could see no one, stood up and told the professor what color his hat was. The professor smiled and kinged the student as the new assistant. 6) What color was the hat, and how did he know? Creativity: ~~~~~~~~~~ 7) In your opinion, what would be the best way to store the maps in memory for OOII. Please define its structure. (Note: The maps are 25 x 30) Problem Solving: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A man has a wheel that is spinning so fast that he can not tell which direction it is rotating (clockwise or counter). He has been told that exactly half of each side of the wheel is painted a different color, one half white and one half black. He has purchased two sensors that detect black or white. 8) At what angles along the edge of the wheel would you place the sensors to detect the colors? 9) Write a short algorithm that uses these sensors and returns a value (clockwise or counterclockwise) of which direction the wheel is spinning? ======== THIS IS THE APPLICATION FORM FOR ALPHA TESTING ===== ======== PLEASE PRINT AND MAIL TO THE ADDRESS BELOW ===== If you feel you qualify as an alpha tester for Overkill II, please fill out the following form and mail it to: Tom Hazel Application for Alpha Testing 12720 NE 10th Place APT: D302 Bellevue, WA 98005 If you feel that your programming skills are not good enough to qualify you as a tester, please try to answer the questions AND write a short reason to me - WHY you should be selected for testing. ALL ALPHA TESTERS who are selected go on a trial period and if they are selected but found NOT to be useful, they they will be dropped from testing. Sorry, testers who do not test... (Hand written or sloppy applications will be discarded) FULL NAME : ___________________________________ ADDRESS : ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ VOICE PHONE : ( )____-_____ Ext:_______ BBS NAME : ___________________________________ BBS TYPE : ___________________________________ EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND : _________________________ __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ LANGUAGES KNOWN (Mark) : [ ] Pascal [ ] C [ ] Assembly [ ] Ada [ ] C++ [ ] Other:_________ NUMBER OF PLAYERS IN YOUR GAMES : _________ NUMBER OF CURRENT GAMES RUNNING : _________ SIZE OF YOUR HARD DISK IN MEGABYTES : _____ MAXIMUM SPEED OF YOUR MODEM : ______________ Answers to Questions above : 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9)