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SODA Off-Road Racing Demo (BETA 1.01) README 08/20/97 _______________________________________________________________________ [ To read this file, select Edit/Word Wrap from the menu above ] TO ORDER: Please call Sierra On-line sales support at 1-800-757-7707 _______________________________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS I] MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS II] HOW TO START SODA III] HOW TO PLAY SODA IV] KNOWN PROBLEMS I] MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS ======================================================================= MINIMUM CONFIGURATION - Operating System: Windows 95 - Pentium 90 Mhz processor (P-90) or faster - 16 MB RAM - Double speed CD-ROM drive (MPC 2 Compliant) - 16-bit Sound Card (Windows 95 and DirectX3 Compatible) - VLB/PCI SVGA DirectX3 Compatible Graphics Adapter - Hard Disk (50MB) plus space for DirectX Drivers - Keyboard (not recommended for driving... get a joystick!) RECOMMENDED CONFIGURATION - Pentium 133 Mhz processor (P-133) or faster - Rendition based 3D-accelerator board with 4 MB video RAM - 24 MB System RAM - Steering Wheel/Pedals (or at least a joystick) II] HOW TO START SODA ======================================================================= DEMO Notes ---------- This is a DEMO version of SODA Off-Road Racing. The DEMO version differs from the full version as follows: - The DEMO is a BETA version (an unfinished version), and will be put on CD-ROM several weeks before the final shipping version of the game is scheduled to be completed. - Championship Series Mode is disabled. - All Multi-player modes are disabled (IPX, TCP/IP, MODEM, SERIAL) . - Records (such as best lap times) are disabled. - The 2x4 and 4x4 trucks are disabled. - 11 of the 12 tracks are disabled. - 2 of the 3 racing environments are disabled. - Damage is disabled. - The replay system is disabled. - The World Wide Ranking System is omitted. - The ability to generate a track is disabled in the Track Designer, but you can still create a track and save its source. INSTALLATION ------------ Insert the CD-ROM containing SODA Off-Road Racing into your computerÆs CD-ROM drive. Start the installation process as follows: 1. Click the "Start" button on the Windows 95 task bar. 2. Choose "Run..." from the displayed menu. 3. Type the letter of your CD-ROM drive, followed by ":\sodademo\setup". For example, if your CD-ROM is drive D, type "D:\sodademo\setup". 4. Click the "OK" button to start the installation program. Follow the instructions provided by the installation program. RENDITION SUPPORT ----------------- This version of SODA Off-Road Racing has direct support for several Rendition 3D-Accelerator boards. Note that SODA requires the 2.0 series of display drivers. A temporary set of drivers is included on the SODA CD, but you may need to get your vendorÆs 2.0 display drivers. The following boards are supported: - ScreaminÆ 3D from Sierra On-Line - Intense 3D 100 from Intergraph - Total 3D from Canopus - 3D Blaster PCI from Creative Labs - Royal Flush from Miro SODA will auto-detect the accelerator board once the correct drivers are installed. When one of the above boards is detected, a "Rendition Ready" logo appears on the title screen, to let you know the game is running using 3D Acceleration. To disable 3D-Accelerator support in SODA, run offroad.exe with the /S command line option. If the "Rendition Ready" logo does not appear on the title screen, SODA is not using any 3D acceleration support. To install the Rendition display drivers from the SODA CD: 1. Click the Start button on the task bar, and choose Settings then Control Panel. 2. From the Control Panel select Display. 3. From the Settings tab push the Change Display Type button. 4. Under Adapter Type press Change. 5. Press the Have Disk button 6. Enter the drive letter of the CD-ROM, followed by "\rendition", then Choose OK. 7. Select the Rendition Verite 1000 PCI RRedline drivers, and push the OK button. 8. From the Change Display Type dialog push the Close button. From the Display Properties dialog push the Close button. Select Yes when asked to restart the computer. III] HOW TO PLAY SODA ======================================================================= STARTING THE GAME ----------------- First, close all other applications running on your system. Windows 95 is a multi-tasking environment, and running other applications while playing SODA Off-Road Racing will definitely reduce performance. Two icons are installed for launching SODA Off-Road Racing, one for Full-Screen Mode and the other for Windowed Mode. Full-Screen Mode is recommended because it supports 3D-Acceleration, it exhibits a better frame-rate on many systems, and it is more immersive. The Windowed Mode (/W on the command line) is mainly provided to allow the game to run on some systems where Full-Screen Mode cannot work due to incompatibilities with the video card. If a compatible 3D-accelerator board is detected, SODA will display the Rendition Ready logo while starting to let you know it will use the accelerator board. If a compatible board is not detected, the logo will not be displayed. If problems are encountered when using a certain 3D-Accelerator board, the use of the acceleration features can be disabled by launching offroad.exe with the /S option on the command line. SCREEN NAVIGATION ----------------- Most menu, options, and record screens can be controlled by keyboard, mouse, joystick, or even steering wheel/pedals. Only a few name entry controls require the use of a keyboard. The following table describes the control options: Action Keyboard Joystick Mouse -----------------------------------------------------------------------| |Selecting | Tab key advances Button #2 Point | |Controls | to the next advances to and | | | control. the next control. click. | | | | |Selecting | Up/Down arrow keys. up/down | |Menu Items | Enter to select. Button #1 to select. Point | | | and | | | click | | | | |Buttons | Use the Spacebar Button #1 to Point | | | to activate the activate the and | | | selected button. selected button. click. | | | | |Lists | Up/Down Arrow keys up/down or left/right Point | | | for vertical lists. and | | | Left/Right Arrow click. | | | keys for horizontal | | | lists. | -----------------------------------------------------------------------| The mouse is recommended. Also, on many screens, two shortcuts are available - the Esc key will go to the previous screen (cancelling changes), and Enter key will advance to the next screen (applying changes). JOYSTICK, STEERING WHEEL, AND PEDALS SETUP ----------------------------------------- NOTE: You must first configure your controller in the joystick portion of the Windows 95 control panel before it will be available in the game. But, the joystick calibration available from within the Windows 95 Control-Panel is not recognized by SODA Off-Road Racing. You need to use the calibration procedure described below once the joystick has been properly configured. Before proceeding, and certainly before racing, you want to calibrate your controls. All analog input devices such as joysticks, steering wheels, and pedals need to be calibrated in order to work correctly with computer games. An incorrectly calibrated joystick may make it difficult or impossible to control your vehicle. This calibration procedure should be repeated regularly (at least once a week), especially if any control difficulties arise. At start-up, if the game detects that the joystick is too far from center, it will automatically bring you to the calibration screen, so you can perform the necessary recalibration. To calibrate your joystick, steering wheel, and/or pedals from the Main Menu Screen: 1. Select Options from the Main Menu Screen. 2. The Options Screen has a list of 4 pages along the bottom. Select the Control Options page. 3. On the Control Options Screen, push the Calibrate button. 4. Slowly move all of the connected joysticks, steering wheels, and pedals to their maximum extents, then center them (for pedals this means release the brake and accelerator). If you move the controls too quickly while calibrating it may result in a bad calibration, requiring the entire process to be repeated, so just be gentle. 5. If you are sure the calibration worked, push the OK button. However, we recommend that you instead push the Test button, and manually inspect the calibration, just to be sure. On the Test Screen you can actually see if your joystick is working and calibrated correctly. If you are satisfied with the calibration you can choose the OK button. If you wish to repeat the calibration, simply choose to Restart the calibration procedure. The Test Screen will also reveal any joystick malfunctions, such as the inability to return to center reliably or jumpy performance caused by wear and use. Both of these conditions can make it harder to drive. We recommend using high quality joysticks such as those listed in the installation instructions. CONTROL SETUP ------------- From the Control Options Screen you may configure the controls you want to use to drive and to change the camera view. Simply press the button for the desired action, and then provide an example input. For example, to use the joystick as the accelerator pedal, push the Accelerate button, and then push forward on the joystick. The words Joystick #1 Up should appear next to the Accelerate button, confirming your selection. If a control is already selected for another action, it cannot be reselected. Also, some keys cannot be used for driving actions because they are already assigned for other (non-driving) commands, or because they are not standard keys available on all keyboards. QUICK START ----------- Before your first race, at least make sure you have calibrated your joystick, steering wheel, and/or pedals, as described in the previous sections. Then, proceed as follows: 1. Select the Single Races command from the Main Menu. This mode is for racing one race at a time, and is good for practicing racing before trying to win a championship series. 2. Selecting Single Races will bring up the Vehicle Select screen. The Vehicle Select screen is where you choose which type of vehicle you want to race. Select the two-wheel drive buggy. 3. After clicking on the buggy, click the right arrow button on the lower left of the screen. This is called the Next Button, and advances you one screen closer to racing. This takes you to the Track Select Screen. This is where you select the racing environment and then the race track. Along the bottom of the screen, select the Tropics environment. Then, along the top left of the screen, select the track "Tropic Treat" . 4. After selecting the track, enter the Garage to make sure your vehicle is setup for the race. Enter the garage by pressing the Wrench Button on the bottom left of the Track Select Screen. Once in the garage, set the tires to "Deep Tread" or maybe "Normal Tread" because Tropic Treat has a lot of mud. Then set the transmission as you desire (Automatic or Manual), but at first we suggest using an automatic transmission because it is simpler to control. DonÆt bother adjusting the suspension or gearing for now... you might want to experiment with these settings after you master driving. 5. Choose the OK Button (the button with a green check), to return to the Track Select screen. Then choose the Next button to actually start the race. DRIVING CONTROLS ---------------- The controls for driving the vehicle are configured in the Control Options screen. The defaults are as follows: Up Shift - Joytick Button 1 Down Shift - Joystick Button 2 Accelerate - Joystick forward Brake - Joystick backward Turn Left - Joystick Left Turn Right - Joystick Right Change View - Spacebar When the race first starts, your vehicle is in neutral gear. Even when driving an automatic transmission, you still need to up-shift (once) in order to get into drive. Once in drive, the transmission will automatically change gears for you. If you get stuck and need to go into reverse, you need to down-shift twice. The first down-shift will put you back in neutral, the second will get you into reverse. COCKPIT CONTROLS ---------------- To PAUSE the game while racing, press either the "P" KEY or the "Esc" KEY. This will bring up the paused menu. From the paused menu you can do the following: Continue the race. Enter the garage to make changes to your vehicles setup. Terminate the race and return to the track select screen. Other commands that are available while racing are as follows: "1" Key - Change the ground graphics detail. "2" Key - Change the road graphics detail. "3" Key - Change the vehicle graphics detail. "4" Key - Change the trackside object graphics detail. "5" Key - Change the sky graphics detail. "6" Key - Turn on/off all telemetry "7" Key - Turn on/off the map. "8" Key - Change the shadow graphics detail. "9" Key - Turn on/off the rear-view mirror. "0" Key - Turn on/off replay controls in the replay system. "R" Key - Ride with the next opponent. "T" Key - Return to your vehicle. "Z" Key - Move the camera forward (in some camera views). "X" Key - Move the camera backward (in some camera views). "C" Key - Move the camera upward (in some camera views). "V" Key - Move the camera downward (in some camera views). "B" Key - Move the camera left (in some camera views). "N" Key - Move the camera right (in some camera views). "A" Key - roll the camera (in some camera views). "S" Key - roll the camera (in some camera views). "D" Key - yaw the camera (in some camera views). "F" Key - yaw the camera (in some camera views). "G" Key - pitch the camera (in some camera views). "H" Key - pitch the camera (in some camera views). "K" Key - restore camera attitude (in some camera views). SETUP TIPS ---------- g-Force Analyzer: The g-Force analyzer shows you how much traction your vehicle is getting. Before you suspect that SODA's handling is too slippery, check out the values on this tool. A late model Corvette on pavement can corner at 0.84 g's, a very respectable figure. A Trans-Am race car reportedly produced 1.15 g's in skid-pad testing. The vehicles in SODA are cornering at or above these values, and they are racing on dirt and mud, not pavement. We slightly exageratted the traction to increase playability. So if the corners still seem too slippery, you are probably driving too fast around the turns, and applying too much horse power, causing the backend to lose all lateral traction. When turning, letting off the brake and gas will allow all four tires to attain their maximum lateral traction. The g-Force analyzer is a tool for making setup changes to your vehicle. The analyzer shows the overall instananeous acceleration affecting the vehicle's body in the forward/backward and left/right directions. The number in the middle is how many g's (or earth gravitys) that the vehicle is feeling. The goal of setting up your vehicle is to maximize that value when accelerating, braking, and turning. To use the g-Force analyzer, turn it on in the garage. Then race a few laps normally, without really paying any attention to it at all. After racing a few laps, enter the replay system, and notice the average values obtained while going around various turns (possibly you want to write these values down), and on various racing surfaces. For choosing tires, it may be enough just to lock up the brakes on a straight away and note the value. Be aware however, that different road surfaces on the same track will produce different tractions and drags for different tires. Next, enter the garage and tweak a setting, such as your tire type. For best results just try adjusting one setting at a time. Repeat the above procedure of racing a few laps, then entering the replay system to check the g-force analyzer results. By comparing the results of the various trials, it should be possible for you to determine if the setup changes improved, degraded, or had no impact on the vehicle's handling. Also, you should record your lap times for each trial, as the lap time is actually more important to you than how many g's you can get in the corners. Also, be aware that the best setup in terms of g-Force, may not be best for damage control. When setting up your vehicle you need to compromise between handling and preventing damage. For instance, setting your springs soft may lower the vehicle's center-of-gravity, and provide better traction, but it may also cause the suspension to bottom out on bumps and jumps, bending or breaking suspension components. The g-Force analyzer can also help you analyze your driving technique. When entering and exiting turns, the arrow indicating the direction of force should smoothly rotate around the circle. If it jerks from the forward to the side, or from the side to the back of the circle, then your turning technique may not be optimal. Also, the value in the circle should stay as large as possible all of the time. To get best lap times, your vehicle should always be under large accelerations, either accelerating towards the next turn, braking before turning, or cornering during a turn. To win races the vehicle should never just be coasting near zero g's except when flying through the air. The primary way to tell if setup changes are helping or hurting is to race several laps until your lap times stabilize at your best ability. Then change one setup item, and repeat the procedure. Changing multiple items at once is not recommended because they may cancel each other out, or make it impossible to determine what really made the difference to the handling. Also, in the garage you can load/save your setups to disk. This is handy for creating optimal setups for each track which can then be loaded during series racing or multi-player races. Tire Selection: The following information may help you choose tires for each track and racing environment. The numbers below are relative, and are not in any specific units. The road surfaces in the country are dirt and mud. In the desert, they are gravel and packed dirt, and in the tropics are mud and packed dirt. Typically, in each enviroment, there is a trade-off between two tread types depending on the amount of each of the two road surfaces on the track. As a general rule, in the country normal is good unless there is a lot of mud. In the desert, shallow is good, unless the track is nearly all gravel. In the tropics, shallow is good, unless there is a lot of mud. Also the wear on the surfaces off the road (not shown) are a lot higher than the road itself - spinning your tires on grass will quickly slice open your tires on an invisible sharp rock and cause a flat. Also the drags off the road (not shown) are quite high to help prevent racers from taking too many "short-cuts". DEEP TREAD NORMAL TREAD SHALLOW TREAD SURFACE Traction Drag Wear Traction Drag Wear Traction Drag Wear ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- DIRT 73 8 13 82 6 11 77 2 9 MUD 80 25 11 74 50 7 70 65 5 GRAVEL 75 20 11 79 15 7 73 10 19 PACKED DIRT 72 8 15 73 04 7 80 2 11 To reduce tire wear: 1. Avoid spinning your wheels too much. 2. Don't run with excessive wheel camber. 3. Don't push it too hard in the corners. 4. Don't hit bumps and jumps at top speed. Camber: A wheel's camber is the angle that the wheel is tilted. If the wheel is tilted in at the top, then the wheel has negative camber. If the wheel is titled out at the top, then the wheel has positive camber. A wheel's camber has two main effects, tire wear and camber thrust. If a tire is not perpendicular to the ground it will not wear evenly, so large camber angles will cause a tire to wear out more quickly. Camber thrust is the lateral force produced when a tire is run with a non-zero camber, and is in the direction of the tilt. A negative camber can therefore help a vehicle corner at higher speed, because the camber thrust will be larger in the direction that the car is turning due to weight transfer while cornering. For wide street radials, the camber forces tend to fall off at about 5 degrees. For rounded motorcycle tires, the force can be useful up to 50 degrees. For off-road racing trucks, the best angle is probably somewhere between these two, but closer to the street radials. A vehicle's camber should be set to maximize cornering force as reported by the g-force analyzer, but should be reduced if necessary to lessen wheel and tire damage caused by jumps, bumps, and normal tread wear. Also be aware that the camber angle on the outside tires increases slightly in the positive direction when cornering, because the vehicle's body (and wheels) roll to the outside of the turn during cornering. Springs: The springs are used to keep the tires in contact with a bumpy road as much as possible. If the springs are set too soft the suspension will "bottom out" when landing from jumps and when hitting bumps, causing damage to the suspension and wheels. If the springs are set too stiff, the vehicle's traction will suffer, and in this game the vehicle's center of gravity will be raised, causing less traction in turns, and making the vehicle easier to roll. Generally, the springs should be set as soft as possible for the best handling and traction. SODA Off-Road Racing, like many Off-Road racing teams, relies on variable rate springs, which means that the spring rate increases as the spring is compressed. This allows the vehicle to ride near the middle of the suspension travel at normal loads, while still being able to handle very large loads without bottoming out under extreme conditions. Setting the rear shocks/springs stiffer or softer than the front shocks/springs can adjust the vehicle's oversteer/understeer to a limited extent, but it cannot overcome the oversteer cause by too much accelerator pedal. If suffering from severe oversteer, try reducing the vehicle's horse power before trying to fix it by adjusting the springs. Shocks: The shocks are used to dampen the springs. Without shocks, off-road vehicles would bounce around on their springs like crazy, and be nearly impossible to drive. In off-road races, shocks also help absorb the force from landing from large jumps or from hitting large bumps. If the shocks are set too soft, the springs will bottom-out too easily causing suspension and wheel damage. If the shocks are set too stiff, the shocks themselves will absorb too much impact and take damage. Try to balance the settings of the shocks and springs so that the shocks and suspension take about equal damage when landing from large jumps, and set both the shocks and springs only as stiff as absolutely necessary to make it through the race with acceptable damage to the suspension. Gearing: The gearing can make a huge impact on lap times. When gears are set too tall the vehicle has too large of a top speed, and its acceleration suffers. Conversely, if set too small, the acceleration may be too large, causing the wheels to break lose too easily, and the engine will redline in 4th gear. Generally, set the 4th gear over the top speed you expect to use on the track. For twisty tracks you probably want more acceleration and less top speed, so you would set 4th gear lower. For tracks with lots of long straight-aways, you probably want a higher top speed. If you are redlining the engine in fourth gear without wheel spin, you should probably set 4th gear higher. After setting fourth gear, run some laps and determine how 3rd gear should be set to maximize lap times. 1st and 2nd gears are much less important than 3rd and 4th gears, and are rarely used while racing. When adjusting gears you must insure enough overlap in the speed ranges of each gear so that the automatic transmission can shift. For instance, if the automatic transmission is not shifting from 2nd to 3rd gear (even when redlined), then 3rd gear is probably too large. Overlapping the gears is important for the manual transmission too, but will not prevent shifting even if setup incorrectly. FRAME RATE TIPS --------------- Any or all of following suggestions can help improve the game's frame rate on many PCs: - Turn off the rear-view mirror. The track map overlay may be more useful anyway, and has a negligable impact on frame rate. - Turn off translucency in the graphics detail settings (for shadows, etc.) - Lower graphics detail settings. Just turning off the texture mapped sky can make a large difference on some PCs. - Race with fewer opponent vehicles. Each car consists of over 500 polygons. - Do not race in cockpit view. Bumper-Cam has the best performance because most of your car does not appear in the view, reducing the number if polygons that need to be rendered each frame. - Race in the lower resolution 320x200 mode instead of the maximum 640x480 mode. PAGE FAULTS ----------- On systems with less than 32 MB of RAM, the system may sometimes page fault. The main symptom of this is the disk drive running while racing, or short pauses while racing, where the system locks up for a fraction of a second. This is due to the options you have selected requiring too much memory. The following tips can help solve the problem: - Make sure no other applications are running. - Reduce the replay system capacity to 2 minutes, or turn it off in the options. (Saves up to 1MB of RAM). - Turn off the radio voice (Saves 2MB of RAM) in the options. This especially improves multi-player races on 16MB systems and track load time. - Turn off damage in the options. This keeps the body panels from having to load into memory. - Race with fewer opponents. Fewer car textures and car body objects need to be loaded into memory. - Reduce the graphics detail. The textures will swap out of system memory and the page faults (if any) will quickly subside. DRIVING TIPS ------------ As in the real thing, many of the vehicles in SODA Off-Road Racing are over-powered. If you experience difficulty driving, try the following: - Reduce your vehicles horse-power in the garage to the minimum. - Turn into the slide. If your backend slides to the right, turn right. - Be very gentle with the accelerator. You only need to push the accelerator very lightly to match the power from a "floored" accelerator of a normal car. - Test your calibration from the calibration screen and make sure your input device is calibrated and working. A bad calibration can make it impossible to control the amount of torque delivered to the rear wheels. - At first just try to drive 30 or 40 MPH until you master the track and vehicle. driving with 800 HP is much more challenging than driving a normal passenger vehicle. - Always down-shift to first gear when starting from a stop. If you try to get going in third or fourth gear it is difficult not to spin out again. - Try not to accelerate or brake much while turning. Acceleration and braking reduce the available traction for cornering. - Make sure you have the appropriate tires for the track. Using mud tires on gravel, or gravel tires on mud will cause the vehicle to have less cornering ability, and may make the road seem excessively slippery. Also, choosing the wrong tire in mud can dramatically increase drag. - Try not to lock the brakes up when slowing down. Be gentle with the joystick. When the wheels are locked up, all ability to steer the vehicle is lost. Sometimes, if you brake too hard, quickly tapping the accelerator can get the tires back up to speed, and help you to regain control. - If the vehicle starts to get too sideways, immediately stop accelerating, and try down-shifting or lightly tapping the brakes. This sometimes helps get the vehicle back under control. Acclerating when starting to slide will usually cause the backend to "break loose" even more, insuring you completely spin-out! - Reduce graphics detail to get the best frame-rate that your system can provide. When the graphics performance is slow or "jumpy" it makes it harder to drive. You want the animation to be as smooth as possible. IV] KNOWN PROBLEMS ======================================================================= 1. Low-Res mode (320x200) does not work correctly on some video cards. The symptom is the game running in the upper-left corner of the screen, instead of the display actually switching to the proper resolution. This problem has mainly been reported on some Matrox Mystique and some Matrox Millennium video cards. 2. The computer controlled cars can sometimes get stuck at a bluff, and not find their way back onto the road. This happens less often than it did in previous versions, however. 3. The difficulty levels of championship series have not yet been fine-tuned. Some levels/vehicles may seem too difficult or easy. 4, Some polygons comprising the track, usually along the road, do not draw. The problem is severe on some tracks, and non-existent on others. 5. Sometimes the radio voice will repeatedly announce that you have missed a checkpoint, when it should only say it once or twice. Sometimes it does not announce that you're back on track when you hit the checkpoint that you previously missed. 6. The radio voice has spoken while the AI is learning a track. It should be silent during learning. 7. Damage is not fully implemented yet. Some collisions may seem to cause too much damage while others seem far too gentle. Tire damage, wheel damage, and shock damage have been tuned for normal racing and jumping, but not for collisions with tire barriers, walls, other cars, etc. 8. The replay system can crash the game when a lot of splicing is done in one replay session. 9. Adding control points to fences, puddles, and/or the road, when the track is max'ed out can sometimes crash the track designer. Save your tracks often while developing them, and under a few different names, to make sure you do not lose your work. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SIERRA ON-LINE, INC. DOES NOT WARRANTY OR PROMISE THAT THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL WORK WITH ANY OR ALL COMPUTER SYSTEMS. SIERRA DOES NOT ASSUME ANY LIABILITY, EITHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL, FOR THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN, INCLUDING ANY AND ALL DAMAGE TO OR LOST USE OF COMPUTER HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE PRODUCTS, LOSS OF WARRANTIES, OR LOST DATA BY THE CUSTOMER OR ANY THIRD PARTY. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN BY SIERRA, ITS EMPLOYEES, DISTRIBUTORS, DEALER OR AGENTS SHALL CHANGE THE RESTRICTION OF LIABILITY OR CREATE ANY NEW WARRANTIES. IN NO CASE SHALL SIERRA'S LIABILITY EXCEED THE PURCHASE PRICE OF THE SIERRA SOFTWARE PRODUCT. SOFTWARE ALLIES, INC. DOES NOT WARRANTY OR PROMISE THAT THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL WORK WITH ANY OR ALL COMPUTER SYSTEMS. SOFTWARE ALLIES DOES NOT ASSUME ANY LIABILITY, EITHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL, FOR THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN, INCLUDING ANY AND ALL DAMAGE TO OR LOST USE OF COMPUTER HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE PRODUCTS, LOSS OF WARRANTIES, OR LOST DATA BY THE CUSTOMER OR ANY THIRD PARTY. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN BY SOFTWARE ALLIES, ITS EMPLOYEES, DISTRIBUTORS, DEALER OR AGENTS SHALL CHANGE THE RESTRICTION OF LIABILITY OR CREATE ANY NEW WARRANTIES. IN NO CASE SHALL SOFTWARE ALLIES'S LIABILITY EXCEED THE PURCHASE PRICE OF THE SIERRA SOFTWARE PRODUCT.