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╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ║
║ CorpSoft BBS (815) 886-9388 ║
║ 3 Nodes - USR 28.8 v.34 ║
║ ║
║ WAR OF THE WORDS ║
║ v1.8 ║
║ ║
║ MULTI-BBS Support ║
║ Supporting PCBoard, Wildcat!, Gap, QBBS, RBBS, Spitfire, ║
║ UltraBBS, Telegard, TriTel, and Remote Access ║
║ ║
║ Copyright 1996 ║
║ by Robert Neal ║
║ 317 Hickory Avenue ║
║ Romeoville, IL 60446 ║
║ ║
╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
War of the Words is released as SHAREWARE. You are granted a limited license
to evaluate the program. Try it out, if you continue to use it for more than
30 days you are required to register the program.
To register the program send $15.00 along with your name and BBS name
to: Robert Neal, 317 Hickory Avenue, Romeoville, IL 60446. See the file
MAILER.TXT for additonal pricing information and special discounts
available. You may also register ONLINE with Visa or MasterCard by
calling the support BBS at (815) 886-9388. Simply type CHARGE at the menu.
Once you register War of the Words, you will be given your own unique
registration number. The BBS name supplied with payment will be the name
used to create your unique registration number.
THIS SOFTWARE AND ACCOMPANYING MATERIALS ARE DISTRIBUTED "AS IS" WITHOUT
WITHOUT WARRANTY, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL ANYONE INVOLVED WITH THE CREATION AND
PRODUCTION OF THIS PRODUCT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, SPECIAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES, ARISING OUT OF ANY USE THEREOF OR BREACH OF ANY WARRANTY.
*PROGRAM DESCRIPTION*
War of the Words is a challenging word game. You are given 15 letter
tiles of randomly selected letters. You then begin to find words,
between 3 to 7 letters each, to play in the scoring grid. Each game is
limited in time, configurable by the sysop. Scoring for each letter
follows the rules of Scrabble. In addition, a multiplier bonus is
added based on the length of the word (ie a 3 letter word is worth
3 times the base letter scoring, a 7 letter word is worth 7 times
the base letter scoring).
To be fair to all players, War of the Words will randomly select
letters consistent between games. All players in games will be
given the same letter tiles in which to create words. For example,
all players of game #1 will have the same letter tiles to play
from. Other word games randomly select letters each game, but
with the same letters players are able to compete on the same
basis against other users.
A dictionary of over 40,000 words is included to validate words
played. Words contained are based on the Official Scrabble Players
Dictionary. The game will quickly scan through and search for the
number of words that can be played from each tileset, a nice touch
so that players can see just how many words can be made from each
letter set. Users are usually suprised to see just how many words
can be made.
War of the Words will automatically reset the scoreboard at the start
of each month, requiring no sysop maintenance after initial set-up.
*PROGRAM FEATURES*
- Easy to install, includes configuration editor.
- Requires no maintenance.
- Ansi colors and display.
- Terminates cleanly through exit code even on runtime error.
- Automatically creates a top score listing suitable for inclusion
as a text/bulletin file for display within your BBS. Both an
ANSI and ASCII file is created.
- Detects loss of carrier.
- Sysop function keys to return to the board, chat mode, user stats,
increase/decrease time, etc.
- Direct support for PCBoard, WildCat!, Gap, QBBS, RBBS,
Ultra BBS, Telegard, TriTel and Remote Access.
- Support for baud rates up to 115,200
- Support for COM1-15. Optional command line for non-standard IRQ's.
- Supports PCBoard environment variables %PCBDRIVE% and %PCBDIR%
- Support Fossil Drivers. A Fossil driver is not required to use the
program.
- Fully Multi-Node compatible.
- Support for multi-port digiboards, for use with PCBoard /M.
- Yearly scoreboard with rolling 12 month top scores.
- Optional "adopted by" banner to acknowledge users who contribute.
towards registration of the game.
- Command line local play option to evaluate the program.
- 40,000+ word dictionary
- Display of # of possible words from letter set
As an encouragement to register War of the Words, the following options
are not available until registered:
- Games per day (games are limited to 3 per day)
- Make up games
- Adopted by option (since it's not yet registered, it can't be
adopted, right?).
All other aspects of operation are fully functional.
*FIRST TIME OPERATIONS*
Simply create a directory for War of the Words and copy all files
distributed with War of the Words to this directory. Additional data
files will automatically be created the first time War of the Words is run.
CONFIGURING THE PROGRAM
Use the program WOTWCFG which is included with the distributed program to
edit the file WOTW.CFG. Below is the layout of this file:
C:\PCB\PCBOARD.SYS
Corporate Headquarters
Bob
Neal
3
0
NA
3
300
Y
Line 1 = Full pathname of your door file. Formats supported by this
program are: PCBOARD.SYS, USERS.SYS, DOOR.SYS, USERINFO.DAT,
CALLINFO.BBS, DORINFOx.DEF, SFDOORS.DAT and
GTUSER.BBS, DOOR.SYS, and TRIBBS.SYS. When using
USERINFO.DAT, DOOR.SYS must be in the same
directory as USERINFO.DAT.
Line 2 = BBS name
Line 3 = Sysop First Name
Line 4 = Sysop Last Name
Line 5 = number of plays per day. I suggest a daily limit of 3 to 5,
but tailor to your own needs.
Line 6 = Registration number. Leave as 0 if unregistered.
Line 7 = You can place the name of the user who helped pay for the
registration of the door. Several sysops have specified that
users have paid the reigstration fee for War of the Words. You can
now place their name on this line and their name will be
proudly displayed at the end of the game so that others may
recognize their contribtion to the operation of your BBS.
Leave this blank or NA if you do not wish to use this
option.
Line 8 = Maximum number of make up games per day. You can allow your
users to make up games lost because they were unable to
call and play. Enter the number of GAMES (not days) you
allow them to make up each day.
Line 9 = Maximum number of seconds to be allowed per game. Recommend
300 seconds (5 minutes).
Line10 = Enter "Y" if you want to have a penalty assessed against the
users score for incorrect, duplicate and invalid letter
selections. The penalty is 10 times the number of letters
in the word, ie KAT would be assessed a 30 point penalty.
Line11 = Enter the minimum number of vowels to include with each
letter tile set. Recommended 2-3, too many vowels will
make the game too easy, too few vowels and users find it
too challenging. Default setting is 2.
Line12 = This is used to control the time spent polling the keyboard
on systems run under a multi-tasking environment. If you
run under DesqView, Windows, etc. you can increase this
value to reduce the amount of time spent polling the
keyboard. The default is 0, if this causes other nodes
on your system to slow down due to excessive keyboard
polling, increase this to 1, 2, 3, etc until you find
a value that is appropriate for your system. A value of
2 or 3 should be sufficient to significantly reduce the
amount of time spent polling the keyboard but still allow
ample responsiveness from the remote keyboard.
Line13 = Used to select if the game will check the number of possible
words that can be made from each tileset. Enter a "Y" to
turn on the option or "N" to turn off this option. Systems
run under a 386 or slower processor may find this routine
takes too much time and may want to disable this feature.
*EXECUTING PROGRAM*
To execute the program, enter the filename followed by the config file
name (ie WOTW WOTW.CFG).
Additionally, all CorpSoft doors allow you to fully evaluate the
program without the need to setting up the door and running it
from your BBS (we don't know why all doors don't include this feature,
being a sysop myself, it's a real hassle to evaluate some doors).
If you are running the program from the command line, enter WOTW LOCAL.
The default user name SysOp is used. This is good for testing
but you should once play begins, execute the program from your BBS
or consistantly run the game from the command line when you play.
You may also specify a non-standard IRQ. Put the IRQ number after the
.CFG on the command line. For example: WOTW WOTW.CFG /5. This tells
the program to use IRQ 5 instead of the standard IRQ.
You may also use the procedure above and create a variable IRQ so that
you can pass the IRQ setting as: WOTW WOTW.CFG /%IRQ%
Some users may have had conflicts when using non-standard IRQ's on
Novell/Netware systems. Novell seems to use the "/" character for
parameter passing. You may not optionally use the "*" character instead
of the "/", for example WOTW WOTW.CFG *%IRQ% is valid. Both "*" and
"/" will work.
*AUTOMATIC MAINTENANCE*
The program will automatically during the first play of each new month
reset it's user file and top score listing. The previous months
scoreboard will be renamed to WOTW.OLD and WOTWG.OLD. This can then
be included as a text file to display the previous months winners.
You should be aware of this so if you are starting a new game for the
first time towards the end of the month, the game will automatically perform
the maintenace come the first of the month.
As an option, you may pass the parameter "NEW" on the command line, for
example WOTW NEW. This will reset _all_ War of the Words data files,
including the overall high scorer information.
*FOSSIL DRIVER*
War of the Words includes support for FOSSIL drivers. This means that the
program will work with Digiboard (for Wildcat M and PCBoard/M versions)
and other multi-port boards. To activate the Fossil driver support just
include /FD on the command line in your door batch file.
For example: WOTW WOTW.CFG /FD
If no Fossil driver is available, War of the Words will display a message
indicating such and exit cleanly.
This documentation will not go into the mechanics of how you set-up a door
program on your BBS. It is assumed that you have a working knowledge of
how to complete this task. It would be impossible for me to explain how
to install a door for all BBS programs supported by War of the Words.
*SYSOP KEYS ACTIVE*
F3 - Toggles the printer On/Off. Value is passed to PCBoard and/or
written to DOOR.SYS and USERS.SYS
F4 - Toggles the Page Bell on/off. Value is passed to PCBoard
and/or written to DOOR.SYS and USERS.SYS
F5 - DOS Shell. Allows SysOp to exit to DOS from inside a DOOR.
F7 - Toggles the Caller Alarm On/Off. Value is passed to PCBoard
and/or written to DOOR.SYS and USERS.SYS
F8 - Returns the caller involuntarily to the BBS.
F9 - Toggles the local display On/Off. Value is passed to PCBoard
and/or written to DOOR.SYS and USERS.SYS
F10 - Activates SysOp CHAT mode within the DOOR.
ESC - Deactivates CHAT mode. DOOR is resumed.
UP - Give the caller extra time while in the DOOR.
DN - Subtract time from the caller while in the DOOR.
HOME - HELP key for Status Line options.
ALT-N - SysOp next on toggle. Value passed to PCBoard. (PCBoard only)
ALT-X - PCBoard will exit after current caller logs off. Value is
passed to PCBoard. Not available on non-PCBoard systems.
*MAKE UP DAYS OPTION (Registered version only)*
Many users will not participate in a game if they know they will be
unable to play each and every day. With the Make Up Days option, you can
allow players to make up missed games (the number allowed per day is
defined by you). If you enter a 0, you will disable this option. Please
note that the value placed on this field in the .CFG file is the
number of games, not days, you will allow the user to make up.
As an example, if you allow 5 games per day, but allow 8 make up games,
the user will be able to play a maximum of 13 games on any single day.
If the user has played all games to date then the user will only be
allowed to play 5 games (as defined by you for number of plays per day).
*ADOPTED BY OPTION (Registered version only)*
Many sysops are fortunate to have their users offer to register a door
they enjoy playing. You can now give recognition to the user or users
who assist in contributing to the registration of this program. Simply
enter their name(s) on the appropriate line in the configuration file.
When unregistered, the door will inform the user that they can adopt
the door and refers them to ask you for details. You can give the
user the registration form for them to send in if you'd like.
After the program is registered, each time a user quits the game a
screen will be displayed informing other users who contributed towards
the registration of the game.
If you wish to disable this option, enter NA on the line in the
configuration file.
*TROUBLESHOOTING*
- If you are running this Door on a 486 system and encounter an error
message "ERROR 6 - OVERFLOW ERROR" or you experience irratic Keyboard
Timeout messages, you may have to put the following in either your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file or in the batch file you use to call this program.
SET NO87=ON
If you are running on a 486 system with co-processor under DesqView, you
may alternately set Math Coprocessor in each window to YES.
- If you encounter an ERROR 62 when the program first is loaded, this
will usually indicate that there is an error in your .CFG file.
Recheck your .CFG file to verify the proper format (if you use the
WOTWCFG program you should never encounter this error).
- An ERROR 70 message means you more than likely do not have SHARE
loaded. This is typically only required for multi-node systems.
*MULTI-NODE OPERATION*
If you are running a multi-node BBS, there are two ways which you
can set-up War of the Words.
1. Create a seperate configuration file for each node.
The only difference between the configuration files would
be the location of your BBS drop file.
2. You can use one configuration file for all nodes by
using an environment variable. Both PCBoard and Wildcat
provide these automatically when running a door program.
For PCBoard, the environment variables are PCBDIR and PCBDRIVE.
You can then place the following on the first line of your
configuration file:
%PCBDRIVE%%PCBDIR%\PCBOARD.SYS
For Wildcat systems, it uses the variable WCNODEID, you can
place the following on the first line of your configuration
file:
C:\WC30\WCWORK\NODE%WCNODEID%\DOOR.SYS
If you are running other BBS software, you should be able to
create these variables so that you can run the program as
explained above.
Other BBS systems may also use these variables by
including the following either in your BBS batch or
AUTOEXEC.BAT file:
SET PCBDRIVE=C: <- Drive letter of your BBS files
SET PCBDIR=\BBS <- Path of your BBS files
*CONTACT ME FOR SUPPORT*
If you encounter any problems you may contact me at CorpSoft BBS
(815) 886-9388.
I can also be reached via the RIME network in the SYSOP, DOORS,
SHAREWARE and BBS SOFTWARE conferences as well as the COMMON conference.
I can also be reached via Internet e-mail at bob.neal@corpsoft.com. or
via FIDO at 1:2235/886 (Bob Neal@1:2235/886).
If you have any suggestions for improvements for this program, please feel
free to let me know. This game has included suggestions from users during
beta testing.
*DISTRIBUTION SITES*
As always you can find the latest version of War of the Words available
for downloading from CorpSoft BBS.
CorpSoft BBS (815) 886-9388 (3 nodes with automatic ring-down,
running USR 28800 v.everything)
We also accept Visa and Mastercard. Register online with your Visa or
Mastercard by calling CorpSoft BBS, simply type CHARGE at the main menu
prompt.
User's with FIDO capabilities can FREQ the latest version of my software
from me at 1:2235/886. The magic names for my software are:
WOTW War of the Words
KING Kings are Wild Solitaire
CARD Card Sharks
BOWL BBS Bowling Solitaire
GOLF Links Golf
ZWORD Z-Wordz
CORPSOFT All my shareware releases
You can also download our files via our web site. Visit us at
http://user.aol.com/corpsoft
To further make it convenient for people to download my software, you can
also login to my support BBS by enter CORPSOFT GUEST when prompted for
your name. You will not need to go through the new user information
questionaire and will immediately be able to download my shareware.
Please note that if you wish to register online, you will need to
set-up a user account so that your registration keys can be made available
to you.
*VERSION HISTORY*
v1.8 - Rewrote the routine to count # of possible words, now 50% faster.
Put in display when maintenance was being done. On slower systems
users may have thought game was locked up, display now lets them
know the progress.
Modified the display while # of possible words is being checked,
this shows a progress bar (rather than changing colors as in
previous version).
v1.7 - Had a report from a sysop who mentioned that he was experiencing a lot
of callers who would end up with a dropped carrier from WOTW. It
was either a problem with the I/O routines dropping carrier, or as
I expected, they had found a way to cheat - shame on them. Turns
that the users could view the letter set and quickly drop carrier.
This was addressed in the original release, but looks like the
cheater trap was disabled somewhere along the enhancement route.
The cheater trap is once again activated - if a player says he
wants to play another game he will be 'charged' as playing that
game as soon as the letter tiles are displayed. If they drop
carrier the next time in they'll have passed over the game they
tried to cheat and be shown the next games tile set.
v1.6 - Looks like the revised keyboard polling introduced in v1.5 fixed
a problem for some systems, but caused a problem on others (mainly
those running a slower processor). Redid the routine and initial
reports says that this looks like a winner. If there are still
problems this can be disabled or tweaked as required.
Along the same lines, users with a slower CPU found that the
"check for possible words" routine took way too much time.
The lowest rated CPU I tested this on was a 486/25SX which
took approximately 15 seconds. Had a report that a 386 system
was taking 2.5 minutes. This is now an option that can be
toggled on or off. I'm looking to make it an option in the next
version where this can be done as part of a nightly maint event.
Based on yet another sysop report (your feedback is very beneficial)
they thought that displaying the complete scoreboard with all
the game high scores was a waste of time. I now added an option
where the user can exit the scoreboard after each page.
v1.5 - Fixed a problem with the word gathering routine. The # of possible
words was being overstated in some instances.
Fixed a problem if two players were playing the same game
number and both scored higher than the recorded high game. Player
#2's score would always be recorded even if player #1 had a higher
score. The high score for each round is now immediately written
and high score re-verified after each round (it was easier to
fix than the try and explain <g>).
Revised the keyboard polling to reduce the amount of time slicing
it utilizes. The input was being polled nearly 60 times in a
second before, no one can type that fast, so I've revised it
to less frequently. This should make the program more friendlier
to those running under a multi-tasking environment.
Found that the high score for each round may not be getting
fully erased before the next round score was displayed. This
made it look like a REALLY high score was recorded. Simply
a display problem, the actual scores were recorded and displayed
correctly if the screen was redrawn.
v1.4 - New feature - database is now kept which keeps the stats for
each game, including the top scorer and high score. In
addition, the letter set is also included plus the number
of words that can be made from the letter set for that game.
New feature - will now scan through the 40,000 dictionary and
determine how many words can be produced from each letter set.
The program will calculate the number of words the first time
a game is played the first time. This information is then stored
in our new WOTWSTAT.DAT database and used for subsequent plays.
This takes between 10 seconds to calculate on a 486/100 and
about 20 seconds on a slow 486/25. Not too bad considering there
are 15 letters to be used to search through over 40,000 words!
Your users will probably be suprised to see just how many words
can be made from each letterset.
New feature - Scoreboard now will also include the top scorer for
each game. In addition, when each game is played, the top scorer
for that game is displayed at the top of the word grid.
New option - I've made it an option for the sysop to determine
how many vowels should be included in each letter set. The
default is 2, adding more will typically increase the number
of possible words. I'd recommend keeping 2, but would not have
more than 4.
Once again.... with the new database being kept for the game
stats, including the letter sets, I've been able to rewrite the
random letter selection routine and have managed to improve the
overall selection, less repeats of patterns, etc.
v1.3 - Found an error (egads!). If a player called just before midnight
and then entered the game after midnight they would be informed
they were out of time and kick them back to the BBS.
Revised the word dictionary files to account for revisions
in the latest version of the Official Scrabble Players
Dictionary (used as our source for valid words).
Once again I've rewritten the letter selection to pull a much
more randomized letter selection. Tore apart the routine and
started with a clean slate. I've tested the routine for a couple
of weeks and logged the letter selection then ran a program to
test the selection and found that the letters are being selected
on a pretty even basis. Fingers crossed, this should put this
issue to rest, but then I thought that before :0
v1.2 - With the new year I found that the yearly scoreboards displayed
an incorrect date for the December rollover information, the
date was shown as 12/96 instead of 12/95. Fixed. Also, the
incorrect yearly scoreboard information will be corrected the
first time that the "Y"early scoreboard is displayed within the
game.
Still having problems with poor letter selection. Seems that the
PC just doesn't generate a very random random number. Rewrote
routine which hopefully resolves the problem with too many
repeated letters showing up once and for all. Had four other
systems test the results all with positive results. If you
still have problems, let me know.
v1.1 - Added routine to continuously update the time left. Previous version
would only update time after entry of a word.
Rewrote the word lookup routine, now 300-400% faster. You'll notice
this especially for 6 and 7 letter word lookups.
Expanded the help function. I felt there was too much information
being shown on one screen. This is not broken up into several
different pages, each page selectable by the user.
Added option at start of game where user can view the scoreboard
before starting to play the game and before timer starts running.
Modified the text display boxes to include the box outline so that
non-color users can easily view text displays.
Revised letter selection routine to ensure that at least 2 vowels
are always selected.
Several other minor display and internal changes.
v1.0 - Initial Release