201 Action Adventure Games/201 Action Adventure Games.iso/newfiles/wsr_cnet.exe/embedded/InfoAfter.txt

Text File | 2002-09-03 | 36.6 KB | 754 lines

.... A message from the author of Wall Street Raider (Michael Jenkins)
In this shareware version, please note the following:

1.  The program does not include documentation files, but
    does have extensive 'HELP' files covering every aspect
    of the simulation.  If you are familiar with the old DOS
    version, you will already have a pretty good idea of how
    most parts of the new Windows version work.  NOTE:  The
    strategy manual, "WALL STREET RAIDER -- THE BOOK," is now
    available for sale on our web site, for $15.00 U.S. -- You
    can view it directly from the "Options" menu of W$R, if
    you have the REGISTERED VERSION of W$R and a web browser,
    such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.  To order,
    go to:   http://www.roninsoft.com/orderman.htm

2.  Some changes from the DOS version include the following:

    - There are up to 1590 companies in the new version, vs.
      250 in the DOS version.  1050 companies are active
      at the start of the game. You can start up new companies,
      and new ones will also be started up automatically,
      to enter highly profitable industries.  The number of
      companies that are in existence at any one time will
      vary, as they go out of business or new ones start up.

    - There are 70 industries, vs. 36 in the DOS version.

    - 'Control' of a company is still 20% voting control.
      However,  you can own 5% in one company, 15% in another,
      for example, and have control (if you control the two
      shareholder companies). You may even be able to maintain
      control for a while without owning any of the stock of
      a company, if you set up interlocking companies that
      control each other, and if you controlled the whole
      group at one point.  (But that will only last until the
      next shareholder meeting, which will be very soon....)

    - The maximum number of players has been increased from
      4 to 5.

    - The game continues as long as there is one (human)
      player left, so your game won't be cut short by having
      the Computer player go bankrupt.

    - Earnings reports.  You can call up a company's latest
      quarterly earnings report at any time, which data is saved
      until the next report comes out for that company.

    - Taxes have been made much more realistic.  For one thing,
      tax rates tend to rise, the longer the game goes on. Also,
      in the DOS version, you could use a profitable company to
      buy up any company with a tax loss and liquidate it, to
      use the tax loss to shelter income of the acquiring company.
      That was nice, but a bit unrealistic, as the tax laws had
      generally outlawed that tactic long ago in the U.S.

      So now, when you liquidate a company, you only get to use
      its tax loss carryovers if it is also an active company
      (not a holding company) in the same industry as the parent
      company that liquidates it.  That's still better than the
      REAL tax law rules, but somewhat tougher than under the
      old DOS version of W$R.

      I've also added a "consolidated tax returns" feature, so
      that any company, in any industry, that owns 80% or more
      of a subsidiary company, gets to "consolidate" the taxable
      income of the two.  So if the parent has profits, and the
      sub has losses, for example, the parent's tax is reduced
      by the losses of the sub, but the parent compensates the
      sub (in cash) for the tax savings.  Also, as in the real
      (U.S.) tax law world of consolidated returns, there is a
      Separate Return Limitation Year ("SRLY") rule, of sorts,
      built into W$R.  Thus, a parent that files consolidated
      taxes with a sub can use the sub's CURRENT tax losses to
      offset profits, but not the tax loss carryovers the sub
      had when the parent acquired it.  Those losses can only
      be used to offset subsequent taxable income earned by the
      sub itself, as under the real "SRLY" rules.

      However, the W$R tax rules are a bit less restrictive than
      the real SRLY rules:  If a parent has carryover losses,
      in W$R it can still acquire a subsidiary, and use its
      losses to shelter the taxable income of the subsidiary
      in the consolidated tax return.  (It will automatically
      be 'paid' by the subsidiary for the tax benefits the
      sub receives from using the parent's losses.)

    - Junk bonds.  You can trade in corporate bonds issued by any
      of hundreds of companies.  The bonds have varying interest
      ("coupon") rates, and maturity dates, and prices will go up
      and down with interest rates generally, and if the company's
      credit rating changes.  Only players, banks and insurers
      invest in bonds (Govt. or corporate) in the new W$R.  Companies
      can, however, buy back their own bonds on the open market, at
      market prices, or can (usually) call them for redemption at
      prices above par, before they come due.

    - Treasury (government) bonds.  At any time, there are always
      two issues of govt. bonds you can invest in, with varying
      interest coupons.  One is a 20-year bond, the other matures
      10 years earlier.  After 10 years, the "short" bond is paid
      off, and the 20-year bond becomes the "short" (10-year)
      bond, and a new 20-year ("long") bond is issued by the govt.

    - Accrued bond interest.  If you pay less than par (100) for
      a bond, the "discount" will be amortized over the life of
      the bond, increasing your tax basis (cost) gradually, so
      that you will have no gain or loss when the bond is paid
      off at par.  The annual amortization is taxable, however,
      even though it is not a cash income item.  Similarly, if
      you pay over 100 for a bond, the excess cost ("premium")
      is amortized as a non-cash EXPENSE, reducing the tax basis
      (cost) of the bond until it is eventually 100 (par) at the
      time the bond matures and is paid off.

      When a company that issues bonds gets into financial trouble,
      and its net worth becomes negative, causing it to have a
      "D" credit rating, it will "accrue" interest, instead of
      paying it each quarter.  That is, the face amount of bonds
      you own in such a company will increase by the amount of
      any unpaid interest.  (Of course, you may never collect
      either the interest or the principal, if the company goes
      bankrupt....)

    - Unlike the DOS version, players have to pay capital gains
      taxes (at reduced tax rates) on their capital gains from
      trading in stocks and bonds. The program keeps track of
      your "tax basis" for all your stocks and bonds you own
      directly.  It also tracks the tax basis of bonds owned
      by banks or insurers.  Capital losses of players are not
      deductible, except against any future capital gains.

      Corporations pay regular income tax rates on gains on
      bonds or deduct losses on bonds.  However, the capital
      gains rate is assumed to be 0% on stock transactions by
      corporations that invest in stocks of other corporations.
      This may seem a bit unrealistic to Americans, but many
      other countries do not tax capital gains, so we have
      compromised (since this is a globally-played game, sold
      in almost every country), and W$R only subjects the
      individual players to capital gains taxes on stocks, as
      in the U.S., while corporations pay no capital gains
      tax, as in most of the civilized world.

    - As in the DOS version, banks generally can't invest in
      stocks, but they can do mergers where they acquire other
      banks. They can also sometimes receive stock in exchange for
      canceled debts in bankruptcies.  Bankruptcy is now a 7-level
      process, much more sophisticated and realistic than in the
      DOS version (but is still instantaneous and transparent to
      the user when it occurs).

    - Currencies.  You can play W$R now in any of quite a few
      national currencies, with amounts adjusted to reflect recent
      U.S. dollar exchange rates.  Final score of the winner is
      shown both in the foreign currency, and also in dollars,
      to permit comparisons where one player is playing in Swiss
      Francs, and the other gets a great score in Euros or
      Brazilian Reals, for example.

    - Law Firms.  The 'Options' button, which lets you choose
      currencies, set the Stock Ticker speed, and toggle Cheat
      Mode on/off (cheat "scenarios"), also allows you to choose
      a law firm (cheap, average, expensive), for antitrust suits
      and any other legal proceedings in the current game of W$R.

    - All transactions (except borrow/repay loans) are done in
      the separate Transactions Desk module, accessed by clicking
      on 'Transactions' button on main screen. Most are similar
      to transactions in the DOS version, except that a few have
      been added, like the "Change Bank" button, which lets a
      company change the bank it deals with (it's the "Buy Loans"
      button when the active entity is a bank).  Also, there is
      now a "Start Up" button, which lets you or any (non-bank)
      company start up a new 100%-owned company, in any industry,
      which you may then choose to take public, if the market is
      hot in its industry, once the startup has some earnings.
      Start your own bank or insurance company, for example.

    - Unfortunately, I discovered late in the development of the
      new version that the computer language I'd chosen, while an
      excellent development tool generally, does not permit .EXE
      files to be much larger than 800k, usually. It simply can't
      compile them at or above a certain limit.  So I spent
      several extra months redesigning the single large program I
      was creating, so now it is broken up into 7 .EXE files and
      2 .DLLs, which is much more cumbersome than what I wanted to
      have, which one one big .EXE file that did everything.

      All the smaller EXE and DLL files execute almost instantly,
      so there is no delay problem with them.  However, the large
      TranMenu.EXE file (the Transactions Desk module) takes a second
      or two to load, and to transfer all 500k or so of game data back
      and forth between it and the main program, which is not ideal,
      but I had no alternative except to start all over and learn
      another language, which would allow me to create one giant EXE.
      (I figured users would shoot me, if they had to wait another
      year for a Windows version.)

      I'm told that the next release of the compiler I'm using will
      probably allow large EXE files to be compiled, so I'm hoping
      I'll be able to rewrite W$R as a single large EXE some time
      in the next year, if the next compiler/language update solves
      the file size limit problem.  For now, the slowness of
      accessing the Transactions Desk module is not ideal, but is
      not too significant, if you have a fairly new computer with
      a 400 mHz or faster microprocessor and a relatively fast hard
      drive.  But on older machines, like an old 120 mHz Compaq laptop
      I own, the new W$R is almost unusable, both due to the slow
      disk access time and the heavy computational load, which slows
      the stock ticker to a crawl on my old machine.

    - As in the DOS version, times marches on when the stock ticker
      is running, in the main module. Toggle the Ticker On/Off
      button to have it run for an extended time, or stop.  It
      will be halted when certain events occur, such as end of
      turn, or when an antitrust lawsuit is decided. It also
      stops temporarily when you are viewing a research screen
      or doing a transaction.

    - Whenever you are viewing research reports on companies or
      industries, you can generally double-click on the name of
      a company or industry to select it as the currently active
      entity or industry, for viewing with other research features.

    - It's still a stock and bond investment game.  I haven't
      yet decided to put in commodities trading.  If the language
      I'm writing W$R in is improved to allow large EXE files,
      eventually, than I'll be able to put in commodities, short
      sales, and perhaps options, but that isn't feasible at
      present with the compiler, since the huge data files that
      would have to be passed back and forth between multiple
      EXE files would slow things to a crawl.  Once I can re-do
      the program as a single EXE, with no need to read/write to
      disk except when saving/starting a game, the sky will be
      the limit, however...!

Free Future Upgrades:

      Incidentally, the price of the new Windows version includes
      free upgrades for any upgrades released in the 12 months
      after your date of purchase, something many of you have
      asked for. (I can't promise lifetime free upgrades, if I
      want to keep eating regularly in the future, however.)


W$R:  A Work in Progress:

      We are constantly revising W$R as we find things that need
      to be improved on, partly in response to user suggestions.
      Since the first Windows version came out in November, 2001,
      we have released a number of updated versions, as follows:

SUMMARY OF CHANGES IN WALL STREET RAIDER, WINDOWS VERSIONS:

1.01A  -- Released:  11/1/2001  -- Initial Windows version

1.01B  -- Released:  11/12/2001
          Minor technical changes to various algorithms,
          not apparent to users. Also added cheat feature,
          allowing user to add cash to his/her account in
          any amount, by double-clicking on W$R logo.

1.01C  -- Released:  11/21/2001
          Added Name Change button to main menu, allowing
          player to change name/stock symbol of any
          controlled company. Added cheat scenarios.

1.01D  -- Released:  11/25/2001
          Modified SETUP program to allow user to select
          directory where WSR is to be installed.

1.01E  -- Released: 11/30/2001
          .  Added feature that keeps track of high score
             by any player (in U.S. dollars).

          .  Changed cheat feature that allows player to
             add cash to his/her account, so that use of
             that feature to add cash will disqualify any
             final score in that game from being a valid
             high score.

          .  In shareware version, added Help files for
             Database Search dialog screen.

1.01F  -- Released: 12/4/2001
          . Modified merger routines to make it harder to
            merge a nearly bankrupt company with a healthy one.

          . Bug fix for "Name Change" button, which was
            sometimes "greyed out" (disabled) when it should
            not have been, in prior releases.

1.01G -- Released: 12/11/2001
         . Fixed bug in Mergers routine that made price of
           acquiring company go up when it shouldn't.

         . Changed "Junk Bond Issue" feature to allow a
           company to repurchase bonds from existing holders
           at market price (or 5 points over market, if bonds
           not owned by Player or one of his/her controlled
           companies).

         . Changed Liquidation routine to prevent bondholders
           from blocking liquidation, except where one of the
           two companies (Parent or Sub) has a large number of
           "public" bondholders who are assumed to object to
           the change.  Otherwise, if companies lack cash to
           buy out either Parent or Sub's bondholders, parent
           issues its bonds (equal in market value) to the
           Sub's bondholders in exchange for their bonds in
           the Sub that is being liquidated.

         . Changed currency configuration routine, to delete
           Dutch Guilders, Irish Punt and Spanish Pesetas,
           which are replaced by the Euro and no longer are
           official currencies after January 1, 2002. Replaced
           with Danish Krone, Argentine Peso and Indian Rupee
           currencies in currency configuration menu.

1.01H -- Released: 12/20/2001
         . Modified algorithms to "smooth out" excessive or
           extreme industry profitability or unprofitability.

1.01I -- Released: 01/02/2002
         . Made revisions so double-clicking on desktop icon
           or quick-start icon does not cause loading of two
           instances of program at same time.

         . Minor bug fixed, where user double-clicks on
           Transactions button.

         . Added cheat scenario for drug companies, revised
           several news/disaster scenarios.

1.01J -- Released:  01/09/2002
         . Modified to permit banks to buy stock of other
           companies (but with certain limitations).

         . Fixed serious bug that was in all prior versions,
           which could cause program to crash in certain
           rare situations. (Occurred where a "management
           change" was made at a company, and the company
           was liquidated shortly thereafter.)

         . Fixed another obscure bug that prevented display
           of a bank's Loan List if it had more than 75 loans
           outstanding.

         . Modified DB Search features, to allow listing up to
           500 companies that meet search criteria, vs. only 75
           in prior versions.

1.01K -- Released:  01/19/2002
         . Not file compatible with games saved by Versions 1.01A
           through 1.01H, but is compatible with I.01I and 1.01J.

         . Corrected divestment routine (where player or company
           forced to divest a subsidiary, for antitrust reasons,
           when attempting to do certain takeovers or mergers).
           Divestments did not always "take" in some situations
           before this correction.

         . Added asbestos liability scenario, and persistent
           asbestos lawsuits against targeted companies.

         . Added more news scenarios ("China cracks down on
           capitalist cult group," etc.)

         . In Database Search feature, list of companies with
           bonds issued now shows companies' credit ratings.

         . Made corrections and refinements in the displayed text
           of questions and responses, in the "Elect CEO" feature
           of Transactions Desk menu.

1.01L -- Released: 02/07/2002
         . Additional "cheat" scenarios added, for Recreation
           Equipment and Publishing industries, plus an "Enron"
           type of scenario.

         . Fixed unnecessary second prompt for minimum acceptable
           settlement offer amount, when filing antitrust suits
           as a plaintiff.

         . Improved junk bond pricing for companies that have
           already filed for bankruptcy protection.

         . Made numerous refinements to economic model and
           economic/political announcements/reports.

         . Added compression algorithm to reduce size of data
           file written to disk by about 40%, which reduces the
           loading time of Transaction Menu by about 30%.

         . Bug fix in display of "Who's Ahead" on main menu,
           where one or more players has gone bankrupt in
           some circumstances.

         . Startup (of new companies) feature is now made more
           realistic by charging substantial startup costs to
           the company, depending on the industry.

         . When selling stock, player is now given warning
           before selling if he/she will incur a large taxable
           gain.

1.01M -- Released: 02/20/2002
         . Improved Computer player's strategy algorithm, adding
           new company startups, IPOs, harassing lawsuits against
           other player's main companies, rumor-mongering.  Have
           generally made "Wally Raider" (Computer player) much
           more aggressive and likely to attack you if you are in
           a weak financial condition and it is strong, to try
           to break you financially.

         . Modified capital asset purchases routines to simplify,
           and provide for "blended" rate of profitability
           when a company acquires more capital assets (new or
           from a competitor company), to prevent abusive
           tactics; e.g., taking a small company spending
           50% of its assets on restructuring, etc., to improve
           its profitability, then acquiring large amounts
           of new (or used) assets that would have all been
           equally profitable before this loophole was plugged.

         . Changed asset sales routines to only permit sales of
           assets to other companies in the same industry. If
           no buyers with sufficient funds can be found, the seller
           is given the option to "scrap" the assets at a big loss,
           taking the assets out of service, thus reducing "supply"
           in that industry.

         . Fixed minor glitches in main screen, so that a
           player who borrows money now sees it immediately
           reflected on the main screen's balance sheet; and
           fixed bug that displayed hundreds of blank lines
           after the end of certain news announcements (of
           the interruption type).

         . Changed asset acquisition routine, so a buyer
           can now buy up to 100% of the capital assets of a
           selling company, if the player controls both.

1.01N -- Released: 03/15/2002
         . Registered Version now can be purchased with Customizer
           Utility program included, which allows easy editing of
           company names, stock symbols, and nation of incorporation,
           for all 1590 corporations in W$R.

         . Closed "loopholes" that would allow infinite pyramiding
           of startup companies by doing IPOs, floating bonds,
           and then starting up larger company, etc., etc.  As
           revised, a startup company cannot do IPO or float bonds
           until it has a track record of 2 to 3 years in business,
           and a player can only create 3 startup companies in any
           2-year period.

         . Also inserted limits on how much "new" assets a company
           can buy, where industry is already very unprofitable due
           to oversupply, or would if a company bought a huge
           amount of new "capacity" (capital assets).

         . Fixed bug in corporate bond purchase routine, that
           sometimes showed that buyer had funds to buy more bonds
           than was possible.

         . Major revisions to the way CEO salary for a company is
           computed:  In the past versions of W$R (DOS and Windows),
           your salary as a company's CEO was strictly a function
           of the value (capitalization) of the company's stock.
           Now the "salary formula" has been revised so that salary
           is reduced if the company has substantial "passive"
           assets, such as cash and stock holdings. Therefore, for
           example, a holding company will pay only small salaries,
           unless its stock sells for more than its underlying net
           assets (all of which are passive assets, in the case of
           a holding company).  Stocks and bonds held by banks and
           insurers are NOT considered passive assets in the W$R
           CEO salary formula, however, since the business of banks
           and insurers is investing and lending money. Any company
           of which you are CEO will pay at least a minimum annual
           salary of .2 Million ($200,000 U.S.), however, or the
           equivalent in other currencies.

         . Added item in "Financial Profile" of a company, to show
           the (approximate) CEO salary you will receive if you
           are CEO of that company, and added similar item in a
           player's personal "Financial Profile" for the player's
           current compensation as a CEO (if any).

         . Revised business asset sale feature, to make pricing of
           assets sold more closely reflect business conditions in
           that industry.

         . Revised formula for computing maximum allowable "extra-
           ordinary dividend" a company can pay, to prevent fraud
           against the company's creditors, and also built in a tax
           warning where the player initiating the extraordinary
           dividend will receive part or all of it.

         . Added new features for the computer player, to have it
           seek to get control of your lending bank, freeze your
           line of credit and call in your loans if you get into
           financial trouble. (If playing at higher difficulty
           levels of 2 or 3.)

         . In junk bond issuance routine, added option to let
           the issuer commit to using some or all of the bond
           issue proceeds to pay down bank debt, and thus get
           a lower interest rate and better credit rating on
           the bonds.

         . Added feature to the "Buy Stock" button in Transactions
           Menu, so that a player (or controlled company) can buy
           a stock from another controlled company, or from the
           player, that owns stock of the target company, with no
           commission and at market price, in a private sale,
           as an alternative to having to buy stock in a tender
           offer or on the open market, which runs up the price.

         . Added new "Options" menu item, "High Score," allowing
           user at any time to check for highest score recorded
           so far on his/her copy of W$R.

         . Eliminated possibility of rare but occasional merger of
           a company controlled by a player to another company,
           initiated the player's company without action by the
           controlling player.

1.01O -- Released: 04/18/2002
         . Fixed bugs: in Credit Rating button function that
           showed up for one particular bank only; rare bug
           that could cause new companies formed by the
           Computer player to still show old debts from
           before, if they had previously existed and had
           been liquidated by a (human) player; and glitch
           in currency configuration, where Singapore
           dollars and S. African Rand currency selections
           were inverted.

         . Closed "loophole" that allowed player to buy some
           companies at start of game at a small fraction of
           their net worth, before stock ticker began running
           and stock values were updated.

         . Made it more difficult to sell stock in a startup
           company for the first few years after it begins
           operations. Also, owner can no longer sell stock
           of a wholly-owned subsidiary to the public until it
           first has done a public or private offering of some
           of its stock. (If playing at difficulty level 3.)

         . Added warning question in liquidation routine, if the
           liquidation of a subsidiary would result in loss of
           its tax loss carryovers.

1.01P -- Released: 05/22/2002
         . Modified portions of program to restate prior years'
           earnings where new stock issued, or where a company
           buys back its stock, to make prior earnings per
           share more comparable to those after the stock
           issuance or buyback.

         . Changed the timing of purchases of capital assets
           by a company that is growing its capital asset base.
           Previously, all such acquisitions by a company
           occurred at one time during each quarter; have now
           modified so that the quarterly purchases occur in
           smaller "bites" at 5 different times during the
           quarter. (Or, if "disinvesting" in capital assets,
           the cash proceeds from disinvesting now occur in
           5 smaller transactions, rather than one large one,
           each quarter.)

         . Made changes in economic data (GDP, oil prices, etc.)
           to make such factors fluctuate more rapidly and in
           a more realistic manner.

         . Added "$" icon to main and transaction menu title bars.

1.10  -- Released June 18, 2002
         . Not file-compatible with saved game files from
           prior versions of W$R.

         . Numerous changes and refinements were made to the
           "antitrust suit" and harassing ("phony") lawsuit
           features, which now work much better and more
           realistically, including the queuing of multiple
           lawsuits that are filed by players, some of which
           may not be decided for 2 or 3 years of play, if
           several are filed at once or in a short period of
           time.

         . In the corporate "Financial Profiles," added an item
           for "Accrued Taxes" in the liability section of the
           Financial Balance Sheet, showing the tax owed on
           income received to date, if any, during each quarter.
           The accrued tax is a liability that affects a company's
           credit rating and borrowing power.

         . In the "Financial Profile" for individual players,
           added an item that shows the amount of year-to-date
           ordinary income or loss for the current year, for the
           player, as a footnoted item.  (Players are on a
           "cash basis" of accounting, so no tax liability is
           shown on your balance sheet.)

         . Added a disclosure in the "Research Report" on a
           corporation, to disclose if there are anti-trust
           lawsuits pending against the company, in addition
           to "Superfund" (environmental liability) and
           asbestos liability lawsuits, which were already
           shown in recent versions of W$R.

         . New feature added in Transactions Menu, under
           the "Buy Loans" command button (for banks only).
           Banks are now able to invest their cash in
           consumer loans or mortgage loans, not just to
           acquire additional business (corporate) loan
           accounts from other banks.

         . New feature added to the "Startup" command
           button routine in the Transactions Menu, which
           allows you to select the country of a startup's
           incorporation, when starting up a new company.

         . Lengthened the "drop lists" for selecting a
           company or industry, to show 11 line items instead
           of only 5, in response to user suggestions.

1.11  --   Released July 1, 2002
         . File-compatible with saved game files from v. 1.10,
           but not from earlier versions of W$R.

         . Changed accounting rules, so that now a company that
           owns less than 20% of a subsidiary company (say 8%)
           may include a portion (8%, for example) of the
           subsidiary's net income (or loss) in the parent's
           net income, if both companies are under control of
           the same player or of the same company.  Previously,
           a company that owned less than 20% of another could
           only include in income the dividends paid to it
           by the other company (and never included a share
           of any net losses of the subsidiary company). Now,
           if under common control, the company receiving a
           dividend will not include the dividend in income
           (except for income tax purposes.)

         . Added a prohibition on banks, preventing a bank
           from purchasing stock when it has a deficit in
           its net worth.

         . Major changes have been made in the timing of
           cash flows. Instead of computing and paying loan
           interest for each company once each quarter, the
           interest is calculated and paid in small incre-
           ments all throughout the quarter, and taxable
           income is increased for the bank lender as it receives
           the interest, and income is decreased for the payor
           as it pays the interest. Similar spreading of capital
           investments (at the selected growth rate) was done
           in Release 1.01P.  This release also spreads the
           cash flow that is earned on capital assets evenly
           throughout each quarter, so that, as in the real
           world, a company constantly has money coming in, if
           it is profitable, instead of receiving all its sales
           less expenses in one lump at the end of each quarter.
           (Or, if the company is losing money, it now drains
           out slowly throughout the quarter....)  Similarly,
           insurance companies that are growing their policy
           reserves now receive the cash inflow in small
           increments throughout the quarter.  Only a few
           items are now computed and paid or received all at
           one time, once in each quarter -- bond interest,
           dividends, CEO salaries, and income taxes -- not
           unlike the real world.  (And taxes of individual
           players are only paid at the end of each year.)

           We hope you will like these significant new
           improvements to the realism and functionality of
           Wall Street Raider!

1.12  --   Released July 15, 2002
         . File-compatible with version 1.11, but not with
           files saved using versions earlier than 1.11.

         . Numerous cosmetic changes, and fine-tuning of
           stock-pricing algorithm and many other algorithms
           in the program.

         . Have also added various "accounting fraud" disaster
           news headline items, which can occur for different
           companies (but rarely for companies you control), and
           which may depress such a company's stock for an
           extended period of play, due to lack of trust by
           investors.

         . Added restrictions on the frequency of Public and
           Private Offerings of stock by any one company.

1.13 --    Released July 22, 2002
         . Not file-compatible with previous versions.

         . Modified stock pricing algorithm, so that the price
           of any stock "remembers" large buy/sell transactions
           for a limited period of time, an effect that gradually
           wears off.

1.14 --    Released August 24, 2002

         . File-compatible with v. 1.13 only, of prior versions.

         . Modified "Lookup" button function in Transactions
           Menu, so that list of companies to select from only
           includes those with bonds issued, when you seek to
           look up a company to buy its bonds, when using the
           "Corp. Bonds" button.  Thus, you can now randomly
           click on any company in the list, and it will be a
           company with bonds issued and outstanding.

         . Made improvements to the "Change Entity" button
           functions in Transactions Menu.  If you only
           control one company, clicking on this button
           will automatically select that company or, if
           it was already selected, will select you (the
           player) as the new transacting entity.  Also,
           if you control multiple companies, and if you
           click on the "Lookup" button when using the
           "Change Entity" function, only those companies
           that you control will be shown in the lookup
           list, to select from.  (This is a handy way of
           viewing a complete list of all the companies
           that you control.)

         . Corrected rounding error in payoff of bank loans
           when issuing bonds, where some of proceeds are
           applied to bank loan payoff, to prevent annoyance
           of having tiny amount remain unpaid, due to
           rounding error.

  .....   ANNOUNCING.... The electronic book, "WALL STREET RAIDER --
          THE BOOK," a strategy manual in the form of HTML files,
          which can be viewed directly from Wall Street Raider's
          "Options" menu, is now available for purchase online,
          for $15.00 (U.S.) at:

           http://www.roninsoft.com/orderman.htm

           (Note:  You must have a web browser installed, and the
            registered version of Wall Street Raider software, to
            view the electronic book, which consists of HTML and
            graphics image files.)