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HISTORY.DOC
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1997-06-02
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Sorcery vx.xx History File
*** v0.50a 5/29/96
- Initial Version Released.
*** v0.60a 6/23/96
- Fixed Problem with "Forfeit the Game" prompt.
- Made a few cosmetic changes.
- Changed the way Sorcery reads and writes Scores.Dat.
- Sorcery now Strips Pipe "|" Color Codes from handles, for you
Sysops who don't like your users to see |15Their |04Name that way.
This may be put in again at a later time, with coding for colors.
Sorcery does not at this time support Pipe Color Codes.
- Optimized the code a bit. Some of the searching and randomizing
routines run a bit faster on slower machines, now.
- Fixed the problem where the computer's monsters could attack your
character more than once per round. One attack per round is allowed
directed at the player (or computer) by creatures.
*** v0.70a 6/26/96
- Fixed Bug where enemy's creatures would attack your creatures
sometimes even when you didn't have any creatures, displaying
"Enemymonstername attacks your for damage!"
- Fixed a long-standing problem writing scores.dat when the very
first user exits the game. It now asks if you want to display
high scores regardless of whether you are a new or previous user
or if you won or lost you game. It also writes to scores.dat file
every time you win or lose, also regardless of whether you are the
first user or not.
- Fixed "Time Limit Exceeded" error, when the user actually had quite
a bit of time left. Remote Access seems to have negative seconds
left in the door.sys file, when you actually have plenty of time
left. It now reads seconds first, then if it is negative, it reads
the minutes left and multiplies by 60 (for seconds). Thanks to
Wayne Schroeder (1:280/1500) for that one.
- Sorcery does not support RIP. If RIP is detected, it will default
back to ANSI.
*** v0.71a 7/1/96
- Fixed problem where game would drop "Time Expired" when the
security level of the user was higher than 32,767. Changed drop
file reader so that it accepts long integers and chops the
security level down to 5000, since the game does not give any extra
options for being at a higher security level. Thanks to Richard
Owens (1:280/1600) for this baby.
*** v0.72B 7/7/96
- Some minor timing changes. More effective scoring routines.
- Computer is a little bit tougher to beat. Thinking about adding
an IQ setting in SORCERY.CFG. Would be available to registered
users.
- Fixed "Time Expired" problem for RA Sysops using DORINFOx.DEF.
*** v0.73B 8/7/96
- Computer now has a "memory". It remembers some of the moves the
user has made during his last game. This is effective when a
user is playing one game after another. It does not remember from
day to day.
- Due to responses from users on *MY* board, the computer is yet, a
little bit tougher AGAIN. I am leery of making him too tough,
which might make people not want to play it, but I guess not!
- A *MAJOR* change in the file handling code of monsters.dat. it
no longer reads the file every time a monster is summoned, but just
does it once at the beginning of the game. I had known about this
for some time, but I hadn't fixed this, until a friend who runs a
386 pointed out to me that it ran VERY slow on his machine.
* NOTE: Some major cosmetic changes are in the works, but are going
to have to wait a little until the game is worked on a little more.
*** v0.74B 11/10/96
- Everyone (including the computer) gets more spellpoints to start
out with. That makes the game length a little shorter. In fact,
you get almost twice as much as before.
- A little code optimization. People have been complaining that on
slower machines the game is running slowly, especially when it
is writing and reading from files. It runs a little faster now.
- I have experimented with other colors, but have not had much
success, at least with the QB library I use.
*** v0.75B 12/02/96
- I am almost embarrassed to say this, but I lost the source code
for .74B in a hard drive crash I had, and I didn't back it up.
So I had to go back to .73B and rewrite from there. However, I
did have some better ideas and changes I wanted to make. So,
here they are:
- Version .74B should have never been released, with the number of
bugs that were in it. Please upgrade with this version.
- Monsters.Dat is now only read ONCE total. No longer does it read
the file once for user summon at initialization, and once for the
first time the computer summons, but I use the same variables for
user AND computer monster summoning, so that either can summon the
same monsters. I am considering making a cmonsters.dat file that
only the computer can summon monsters from. That way you can
create a good versus evil or creature versus human sort of game.
Kind of like creating a new deck, (for those of you who play Magic:
The Gathering, like I do.)
- Fixed a bug where when you have a Spell Defense Bonus, which you
have cast on yourself, via the Aura of Protection spell, and you
have fireball cast on you from the computer, it did not display
the right number of hitpoints you were saved from losing, because
of your defense bonus.
- Added ENEMIES.DAT, which allows the Sysop to configure and create
other opponents for his users. You can make the enemies VERY
tough, VERY easy, or a combination, using health and spell points.
I am going to be adding an incremental enemy scheme in which each
time the user wins, he goes up a rank, or something. I haven't
really worked out how this will all work, but it is in the design
stage. The coding isn't that tough, just how I am going to decide
the ranks, etc...
*** v0.76B 1/09/97
- Sorcery now truncates enemy names in ENEMIES.DAT to 17 characters
so that the centering and writing of the enemy's name to the
remote screen is not affected by extremely long names.
- Sorcery also truncates monster names in MONSTERS.DAT to 15
characters, so that the STAT screen listing does not wrap the
monster names incorrectly.
- When entering spellpoints and healthpoints into the ENEMIES.DAT
file, not always does the enemy have that many points of each.
There is now a random chance that the number can change plus or
minus by a few points, so that users don't get used to certain
enemies having the SAME number of points each time they fight.
- Added a routine that checks enemy and monster names for errors
which may occur during parsing and truncating.
- Fixed a few bugs that most people wouldn't notice, but there are
some sysops who run some WEIRD systems out there.
- Fixed a small error in which if the first person who finishes a
game, wins, it says they won 1% of their games, instead of 100%.
- Changed the Cast Spell option, so that the spells come up
instead of just the (0-9)[L=List Spells] menu.
*** v0.80B 1/15/97
- I changed the truncating of monster names to 16 characters. Some
monster names were exactly that long, but some will still be cut
off short.
- Added some comm routines that should make the game run a little
better with some odd fossil drivers.
- Sorcery now uses two seperate monster files. MONSTERS.DAT is for
the user monsters, and EMONSTER.DAT is for the computer enemy's
monsters. You can now create good vs. evil or human vs. orc, or
whatever the heck you want to do. Just follow the directions in
the *.DAT files. This should make the game more fun for Sysops
who like to design their own game.
- The Scores display has changed once again, believe it or not! ;)
It now displays the total number of games played, so users who
win after one game who have 100% of their games won ;( will
say they have only played one game.
*** v0.85B 2/10/97
* MAJOR ADDITION *
- A Basic E-Mail System (BEMS) has been added, and will be referred
to from now on as BEMS. It is crude, and will get some touching up
but for now it is just in testing. You can write to any other user
who has played and won or lost a game. Only users who have gone
through one game, won or lost, can receive E-Mail. However, anyone
can SEND E-Mail. I haven't decided if I will restrict E-Mail to
users who have played a game, but they can't receive E-Mail for
now. Sorcery creates a MAIL*.DAT file, which the * is the order
number in which the player resides in the PLAYERS.DAT file. If he
is on the 3rd line, he is MAIL3.DAT, etc. It does not go by score
rank, so do not get confused with that. I don't see how it could
happen, but it is theoretically possible that the MAIL*.DAT files
could get out of order and the wrong players could get wrong
E-Mail. This is just a chance we have to take until it has been
tested further. For now, I am going to leave the BEMS MAIL*.DAT
files unchecked, and see how well I guess I can write programs...
:) You can check your SORCERY.LOG file to see if the BEMS is
sending E-Mail correctly.
* NOTE * - As a Sysop, if you notice that the mail files are not
indexing correctly, you should just DELETE MAIL*.DAT. This will
correct the problem, rather than having to mess with it, and I
know how that is for a Sysop.
- I mentioned it in the last part, but the BEMS logs the SENDING of
E-Mail in the SORCERY.LOG file. That way if a user is harrassing
another user (and each Sysop can determine the limits they want to
impose), you can see who is writing who messages. It does not
allow the Sysop to read the E-Mail from the log file. On the line
it specifies which MAIL*.DAT file it wrote to. That way if you
feel the urge, you can read your users' mail or find indexing
problems easier.
- The Install program clears out all old MAIL*.DAT files when you
choose the INSTALL > RESET option.
- FINALLY! I am so sick and tired of problems with the damn scores
sorting, displaying, and printing to files that I could PUKE!
I think it is FINALLY working. It works, at least on my system...
FINALLY!
*** v0.85B 2/12/97 *FIX*
- I'm not stupid, I'm just drawn that way. I had changed the hit
points of the computer very low for testing purposes, but forgot
to change it back when I release version 0.85B. It has been fixed
and a S085FIX.ZIP file has been released to DDSDOORS and made
available locally for FREQ and download.
*** v0.90B 2/20/97
* MAJOR ADDITION *
- User Versus User battles are now available! Have you watched one
of the other users rise so high in the scores that you didn't
think you could catch them? Well, now you can. You have to keep in
mind though, that, the higher the user's number of wins, the
harder they are going to be to kill. ;) When you fight another
user, both yours and the user's scores will be affected. This is
a registered-only function.
- There is something else new, but if I told you what it is, you
wouldn't enjoy it so much. ;)
*** v0.91B 2/24/97
- Small Fix - Version 0.90B had a small error I had overlooked that
would cause the game to lock up when selecting to fight a second
game after you had won or lost the first. Fixed.
- I also deleted and changed a few things that should make it need
to access files less.
- If you had noticed that I am having to release fixes more often,
here is my reasoning. When you add more features, there are more
bugs to squash. That's it.
*** v0.92B 5/18/97
- Fixed logfile problem that displayed the computer and user ending
spellpoints incorrectly.
- Fixed doubling of monster and enemy names when you entered the
game for the second time in the same gaming session.
*** v0.94B 6/2/97
- After beating my computer to a bloody pulp, your enemy, whether
it be a computer enemy, or another user, is quite a bit stronger
now. By the request of several other authors and many users,
sado-masochistic as they may be, they will be beaten harder now.
I have made a lot of changes and I plan on making more as they come
to mind. I won't say exactly what the motives of the computer enemy
will be, but I can say that I have always believed in a brutally
quick strike. ;)
- For all the registered users: User vs. User battles are much
improved. The battles should be more fun, and scores are now
kept between games.
- A new Health/Spellpoint scheme has been adopted. Health and SP
are now dependent upon the number of total wins you have accrued.
For example, a user with 100 wins will be tougher to beat than
one with 4 wins. The number of losses is not used in this
calculation. The idea is not to get people to worry about losing
the game, but to play the game more often. ;)
* NEW ADDITION *
- This new scheme is based on the Health/Spellpoint scheme above.
User vs. Computer battles will be quite different now. The computer
(and I don't mean the computer fighting as another User), will have
roughly the same Health and Spellpoints as you. Since Health and
Spellpoints are dependent upon your wins, it would be silly for
a user to fight computer enemys with 40 Health when they have 100.
So, once the user reaches a certain point, battles will be much
tougher, as the computer will have about the same stats as the
user. This will allow users to become familiar with the game before
getting destroyed. ;) However, this is not done for User vs. User
battles. It is entirely possible that some high-leveled users will
beat the tar out of lower-leveled users. But... life is hell,
isn't it?
- Some minor refinements to the BEMS - Basic E-Mail System. I plan
on adding a "New Mail Auto-Scan" to the system as the user enters
the game, but I don't plan on doing that in this version.
* MAJOR CHANGE *
- Weaken spell has been changed to Mystic Destruction. Mystic
Destruction will partially destroy your enemy's magical defense.
There really was no one using Weaken, so it is gone. However...
the computer enemy still has it. ;) I am considering allowing
different spells to be used by the computer, so I can test out
spells before I give them to you guys... ;)
- When casting spells, the spell listing will now display the cost
per spell, in number of Spellpoints. Some, however, you may have
to think about, because some are calculations. But they are fairly
easy to understand.
- Fireball damage is now dependent on your stats also. As you raise
your stats by gaining wins, you will do more damage to both the
computer and other users. It is entirely possible that I will make
the other spells dependent on this variable also.
- Some minor cosmetic changes to reflect many peoples' suggestions.