EnigmA Amiga Run 1997 February

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/ EnigmA Amiga Run 1997 February / EnigmA AMIGA RUN 15 (1997)(G.R. Edizioni)(IT)[!][issue 1997-02][PLANET CD V].iso / enigma / earcd / comm / comm1 / cnetmlls.lha / milles / CNetMilles.History < prev next >

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Text File | 1997-01-12 | 33KB | 612 lines

|============================================================================| $VER: CNet Milles (Mille Bornes) HISTORY, v1.13 File by Dotoran! |============================================================================| >>==--> v1.13 <--==<< Released: January 12, 1997! Bug Fixes: - It was possible for you to press "F" when the command was NOT able to be used. Because of this, an error was produced which exited the game prematurely. The same error existed when trying to use the "O" command when no olm messages were waiting either. - With the addition of the new "F" command, coupled with the "O" command being in effect, there wasn't enough room on the bottom line to display the entire prompt. This resulted in stray characters appearing at the end of the bottom line of the display. The NAME of the current player was moved UP a line, which should help out with any of the spacing problems that may have been evident. - More fixes to the Amiga Hazard Playing routines. (This is getting to be REAL fun! hehe) It may have been these problems which made the game appear to be harder to win at. Changes/Additions: - The game now takes ARGUMENTS! If you add a MIL command to BBSMENU, the user's can now specify up to FOUR arguments to launch a QUICK START game. The arguments, in order of sequence are as follows: - 1st - How many players in the game, between 2 and 6, NOT 5. If the 1st argument is a ?, /, or the first letter is an "H" (as in MIL HELP), a help screen will be displayed in lieu of starting a game. - 2nd - Which player the user would like to play as. If only the above argument is specified, then user will play the game as Player # 1. - 3rd - Speed of Game setting. If present, the Game Speed will be preset to this value before starting the game. If this argument is NOT specified, then the built-in default speed will be used. If the 3rd argument is a Y or N, the default speed will be used, and this argument will be used as the value of the 4th argument below. - 4th - Either a Y or N for whether or not the user wishes to play their partners hand as well as their own. This arg will only be looked at if the 1st arg is 4 or 6. If a 4- or 6-player game and this argument is NOT specified, the user will NOT play their partners hand either. If NO arguments are specified, or if the 1st argument is NOT a valid value, then a regular game will be initiated, with all the internal initial prompts being used. - The "Pre-Game" help screens have been expanded to also tell the user about the QUICKSTART, OLM and FINISH commands. Because this resulted in the need to create a second HELP screen, the user is now ASKED if they wish to view the "Pre-Game" help screens, with a default answer of NO being used. - Some Numeric Keypad commands were switched around: 0 and O now look for OLM messages. . and D now ask for Discards. 8 and F now ask for Hand Finish. After looking it over, I thought the above sounded better, since 0 was similar to an O and the . stands for DELETE on the keypad. The 8 had to be changed to make the others work. >>==--> v1.12 <--==<< Released: January 11, 1997! (Limited ALPHA release in IRC only) Bug Fixes: - The Amiga Players had the ability to play Hazard cards on TOP of other Hazard cards when they weren't supposed to. - If you tried to play a Remedy when you had the corresponding Safety card, it'd tell you you didn't need to play a ROLL card, even if the Remedy you chose was NOT a ROLL card. Changes/Additions: - The "speed" setting introduced in the 1.11 version would reset itself at the beginning of every game. It will now remember the speed setting and continue to use it for the entire duration you are IN the game. - Also pertaining to the SPEED, when you choose to CHANGE the speed, you'll be shown the current Speed Setting, which will be used as the default should you press RETURN/ENTER without entering a valid numeric value. - Also pertaining to speed, the setting will only be used during actual GAME PLAY, but will be disabled AFTER a HAND or GAME has been completed, so the user will be able to READ what the "end of game" prompts are saying. - Concerning the internal "amigascores" variable, a check is now performed in PARTNER games, so that if a user is playing a PARTNER game and their PARTNER is an Amiga Player and it's this Amiga Player that plays the winning points, the score WILL NOW be able to be placed on the High Scores sheets, even if the "amigascores" variable is set to 0. - Added a new command, Finish, which comes into play only AFTER the Draw Pile contains no more cards. When this occurs, if you see that there really isn't anything else you can do to help yourself, you can opt to press "F" (or "0" on the keypad) to have the GAME itself automatically finish the hand for you(by temporarily assigning some Amiga players to control your Human players). You'll be able to pick up with the start of the next hand. >>==--> v1.11 <--==<< Released: December 22, 1996! Bug Fixes: - If an Amiga Player plays a Hazard on someone with a Right of Way card, the resulting Coup Fourre would remove ANY Hazard card that player had on their Battle Pile, instead of just a STOP Card. - If you SAVED a game in the MIDDLE of a Hand, when you resumed that game, you would NOT get the points earned FOR that or future Hands. - If you SAVED a game after the completion of a Hand where an Amiga player won the hand, and it was a hand where the Amiga player opted NOT to play the Extension, depending on WHICH Amiga Player it was that WON the hand, there was the possibility that when you RESUMED the game, that player would opt TO play the extension(thus they changed their minds?). This affected the scoring again, so whatever decision the Amiga Player makes initially will get SAVED to the SAVED GAME files, so this type of problem won't occur again! - If you SAVED a 4-Player game, where YOU controlled the PARTNERS hand, in addition to your OWN, the NAME used in the SAVED GAME menu file was NOT your name, but the name of one of the Amiga Players. YOUR name was saved in the actual GAME file, and you COULD continue playing the partner's hand, but when viewing the list of SAVED GAMES, it wasn't being displayed correctly. Changes/Additions: - Added an "S" (or "9" on the keypad) command to allow the user to adjust the SPEED of the game. This affects the length of time the text comments are displayed at the BOTTOM of the screen. Setting the speed to "1" plays the game at the same speed the Amiga uses if in it's "Fast Amiga vs Amiga" mode. For players already familiar with the game, this helps out when playing on slower systems(One of my users requested this one!). Values between 1 and 200 may be used, or a "0" may be specified to use the built-in percentage wait limits, where shorter lines display for shorter periods of time, etc. - If you SAVE the game at the end of a hand, when you RESUME the game, I've made the score screen display the "Previous Total" as it would have appeared if you had REALLY just completed the hand. (Remember that the Grand Total already HAD the Hand Total added to it when the game was SAVED, so the user would see the Previous Total as being equal to the Grand Total, which made it look like the game wasn't adding the points it should have). - The "turns" counter is now immediately set to "0" at the end of each turn. This was done to correct the Score Bug in SAVED games, however it has a little quirk, as when the game is RESUMED, the player will see the game screen with a setting of "0 turns" right before the screen is cleared to display the Scores Screen. (I know it's only on the screen for a second, but want you to be aware of it in the event either YOU or one of your USERS spots it and tells you it's a BUG or something! hehe) - I noted that if a user has the same name for their HANDLE as they do for their FIRST NAME, it gets a bit confusing to see who is who, so it now appends a " 1" and " 2" to the names in these instances. - The game now checks for waiting OLM messages, and a "OLM Waiting" message will appear in the lower right corner if one should ever be waiting for you. In addition, when this message IS displayed, a new OLM command will be available(via the "O" or "8" keys), which will clear the screen, allow you to READ and/or RESPOND to the OLM, then press ENTER to redisplay the game screen and continue your game play. (Thanks to Capt Irgaac for helping me test this feature, even though he probably did not know he was! hehe) - If you complete a game which you RESUMED, the game now asks you if you'd like to DELETE the saved game on file. (This allows you to maintain housecleaning chores, as well as allowing you NOT to have it automatically delete the game, in the event you wish to finish the game again, but possibly try for a different outcome). >>==--> v1.10 <--==<< /* To those few who obtained advance copies, please reread this section, as a few new additions were made to this document & the readme file! */ Released: December 15, 1996 Bug Fixes: - When a hazard was played on an Amiga Opponent by a HUMAN player, they'd Coup Fourre it if possible, but even though they had the correct Safety, the text at the bottom would say it had used the Extra Tank safety card to block the Safety. (Mike, aka Star Gazer) - If you SAVED a game AFTER all cards had been dealt out and AFTER at least one hand contained NO MORE cards, an error could occur if an Amiga attempted to make a random discard. (Randomly discard what?) (Jon & I) - If you SAVED a game AFTER obtaining 700 miles, even though it was resetting the hand total, it was readding the newly calculated hand total to the grand total(which meant you were getting twice the points for the hand in your grand total). (Star Gazer) - If you(or an Amiga player) were under a Speed Limit, and someone tried to STOP you, but you had the Right of Way card, the Speed Limit wasn't always "really" removed from the board. Sometimes it was even still in effect, however you couldn't End Of Limit either! (Jon & I) - If you opted to play the EXTENSION, then completed the hand and chose to SAVE the game, when you resumed the game, the point total screen was not showing the Extension Bonus(because the extension wasn't being saved to the SAVED GAME file). - During the Point Talley at the end of a HAND, the extension bonus was not correctly being added to each players hand total. I had thought I fixed this earlier, but noted I had only fixed the DISPLAY portion of the routine, but not the actual TALLEY portion. - I added a + (plus) sign to the {JL+1} command used in the welcome file that loads the SHOW file, as there were some SysOps who also had other MCI jump commands in their welcome file that used {1} as well(like for a `Quick Logon' type prompt). This OTHER {1} would be branched to FIRST, thus forming a loop of redispalying the SHOW file OVER and OVER. - The Error Check routine received the latest updates. Additions/Changes, etc: - We now have a Title Screen! Thanks to Jon for creating the screen I finally decided to use. Also thanks to the numerous others who sent screens for me to consider(some who even sent more than one)! - The "Break-In" options for HUMAN player games is now in place! Once the game has started, you can press "B" while an AMIGA player is taking their turn and be able to do the following: - Swap Seats : Able to change seats with any other player at the table. This lets you take over their hand and piles, while the player you swap with gets YOUR piles and hand. You could even swap seats with your partner if you want! - Kick Partner : If you opted to play your partners hand when the game first started, this lets you drop the reins on your partner and the appropriate Amiga player will take over that hand for you! - Play Partner : If you initially opted to NOT play your partners hand, or you kicked your partner out earlier, this command lets you once again control the partner's holdings. - Take Partner : If, while playing the game, you wish you had one of the other Amiga players as your partner, instead of the one the "draw" gave you, this command lets you swap your current partner with one of the other players. (This only works if your original partner was also an Amiga player) - If the player opts to use one of the new Break-In options, they will NOT be eligable to obtain a High Score! - I added a show of the Previous Total right below the Hand Total. This "Previous Total" was your grand total BEFORE the points earned for the last hand are added to become your NEW Grand Total. - If the HAND is won by an Amiga Player, the Amiga will decide if it wants to play the Extension or not(when playing a 2, 3, or 6-Player Game), as it really should NOT be up to the HUMAN to decide. This is especially true where the High Scores are concerned. - Note the new default value of the "amigascores" variable is "0", instead of "1", so change it back to "1" before using this version if you wanted the Amiga eligable for High Scores. The game is fairly popular over here, so I wanted the scores files to show the names of users, versus amalagams. >>==--> v1.07 <--==<< Released: December 9, 1996 Bug Fixes: - Missed a "carrier check" in one location that really needed it. Also included checks to various locations, just to speed the exiting of the file a bit IF a carrier is lost.(Jon and I both found this one) - During the end of deck play, when the Draw Pile was empty, it was possible for you to either PLAY or DISCARD from an empty card slot. This could give you a slight playing advantage, and should NOT have been possible anyways. (Michael, aka Star Gazer found this one) - For Numeric Keypad players, it's always been possible to play the game using the keypad alone, however Jon noted that the "0" key, which was supposed to be an alternate way to DISCARD, did not work as advertised. (Jon again) - When a HAND is SAVED at the 700/1000 Mile Mark for completion later, the next time you PLAYED the game, it would give you TWICE the amount of points you were entitled too. Your HandTotal variable is now reset to "0" when you continue a game, as it will be recreated shortly after restarting anyways. (the "lingering" v1.06 bug!) - If a user initially had the MORE prompt enabled, then entered the Mille Docs file and dropped carrier, the more prompt was disabled the next time they logged on. It will now be reenabled if needed. - If at one time you SAVED a game, then used the DELETE command to delete the game, when you started a NEW game upon entering the file new, if you opted to SAVE the new game, the list of saved entries appeared using GAME.1, GAME.2, thru GAME.5, instead of the text stating the slots were "Empty". This one was a pup to find! hehe Changes/Additions: - To complete the FULL availability of using the Numeric Keypad to play this game, the following ADDITIONAL keystrokes are now possible using either the main keyboard, or the keypad: "*" will also activate ReDraw(as well as "R") (This works in ALL play modes.) "." (period) will also activate BreakIn (as well as "B") (Remember, though, that BreakIn still only functions inside an Amiga vs Amiga game). "8" (or "9") will also ask for QUIT (along with "Q"). (This works in ALL play modes.) - The request to view the High Scores files was moved BACK in the game selection process, so that the only prompt presented on the "Hidden Command Mode" screen is the confirmation that you DO want to play that game. - When SAVING a game, if you select a slot that presently contains a SAVED game, you'll be asked if it's alright to overwrite that game with the stats of the current game. - The SAVE GAME screen now offers a default option of NOT saving the game. (In case you went there by mistake) - The correct NAME of this game is "Mille Bornes", however I had been using "Milles Bornes" (two "s"'s) in numerous places throughout the file. "Mille Bornes" stands for "Mile Stones", however my usage of "CNetMilles" (WITH the "s") IS correct, as that meaning converts to "CNet Miles", which IS what I wanted it to say. So, this means that within the GAME and the DOCS, references to the game should NOT have the "s" after "Mille", but when dealing with the directory and file names used IN the game, the "s" SHOULD come after "Mille". :-) I know, it's my "perfectionist" nature showing through again! hehe - The High Scores still weren't functioning the way I initially had envisioned them. They now work in this manner: The player must get a Score HIGHER than one of the ones on the list ALREADY in order to get added TO the list. In past versions, if your score MATCHED one of the scores on the list, and there were available spots IN the list, then you'd get added. This resulted in having many entries with the SAME Mileage value on the list, which I didn't think was appropriate. One interesting side effect of the way I'm doing it now is that you have to BEAT a score(even if it's the SAME score as yours, so if User 1 is on the list with 1500 miles, and he's number 2 on the list under another user with, say 2200 miles, even if YOU score 1500 miles, you WILL NOT be added to the list, even though the list only contained those 2 users, because you FAILED to BEAT the score of User 2). I hope that's understandable to you all. :-) - The "Ron Amiga" player was renamed to "Ray Amiga" in rememberence of a close family friend who passed away Friday, December 6, 1996 of a Brain Aneurysm. He was 46 years of age and has left a wife and three children(the youngest of which is in 7th grade). Please hold a place in your hearts or prayers for this family during the holiday season. >>==--> v1.06 <--==<< Released: December 7, 1996 (Moving right along! hehe) Bug Fixes: (Thanks to Jon Reddick for finding & reporting many of these*) *- At the completion of a hand, the "# of Safeties" talley was being calculated wrong for player 2 and 3. (Actually, instead of adding their safeties, I was adding player 1's safeties to all three!) *- My "random player seating" routine was being called at the end of every hand. This was extremely bad, as you'd lose yourself or the players you were just getting used to playing against. Ooops! hehe *- If you completed a game by scoring EXACTLY 5,000 miles, then it didn't accept that as a win and would, in fact, ask if you'd like to play the next hand! This was fixed! - There were some problems in the way the game SAVED high scores, where it would sometimes show incorrect variable data. - Because I wasn't SAVING the "old" values of the Battle and Speed piles, and because I was not using separate "old" piles for ALL players(but in fact was only using ONE set of "old" piles), there were times when you'd play a "Coup Fourre" or a "Prevention", and would notice that what you USED to have underneath the Hazard is NOT what was shown when the Hazard WAS removed. In order to fix this problem, all SAVED GAME files need to be DELETED again! - Numerous additional color mistakes and typos were found & fixed! Changes/Additions: - Colorization of the Docs file is now complete! Check out the "New & Improved" Rule Book section! - Loss of Carrier checks were added to both prompts in the Docs file. - The new "CNetMilles.Show" file is complete! Placed in your welcome file and a random High Score file will be shown to your users and they will be asked if they wish to play the game! - Program consolidation is complete! The main file is now 46,315 bytes long(from 78,??? bytes previously). The file has yet to be optimized but this should make SOME of you happier! - The SHOWTXT() routine used to display the lines of text at the bottom of the main game screen received a slight change that you'll immediately notice, because it gives us a 40% increase in display speed of these text strings! - To show how fast the computer can REALLY play, if you choose to WATCH the Amiga play against itself, you'll additionally be asked if you want it to slow the pace down enough for you to read, or if it can play out the game at it's own speed. On my 2000/020, it's so fast I can just make out what the lines of text are saying, but forget comparing that info to what was printed to the game screen above. On a 4000/040 or better, you can forget even trying to read the text lines I'm willing to bet! hehe - The "Joy Amiga" player was renamed "Jen Amiga", as some of you were thinking this was "Joe Amiga", but a typo somewhere in the code. - The Player NAMES have been added to the "Hand/Game Score Talley" screen to make reading the screen a bit easier. - Two more information pieces have been added to the main game screen: - Turns: Tells you how many "rounds" have been completed in the current hand. If you opt to SAVE the game, this turns variable is also SAVED. - Cards: Tells you how many cards are left in the Draw Pile. Even though you wouldn't know EXACTLY how many cards were left in the REAL game, you could get an IDEA as to how many were left simply by noting how thick the stack was! - If you reload a game saved previously, then choose to SAVE the game again, you'll be told which slot the game was previously saved in. This comes in real handy if you have numerous 2-Player games saved, and are trying to SAVE a 2-player game, for instance. (This was in the last version, but I forgot to mention it! hehe) - A Lingering Bug: - There's a bug in the SAVED GAMES scoring if you choose to SAVE the game at the END of a hand. The next time you reload the game, you'll be told you've WON the hand(which is normal), however if the SCORE you obtained in the hand is 2,500 points or higher, you'll ALSO be told that you've won the GAME as well, and will have your name(s) added to the High Score files for the GAME, too. This, with the additional fact that your name is added to the High Hand file again as well still exist in the coding, but I wanted(needed) to get the current version out to you as promised! I'll catch this bug in the next release. :-) >>==--> v1.05 <--==<< Released: December 4, 1996 (only 2 people downloaded 1.04) Bug Fixes: - Unless you were the HIGHEST numbered player in the game, when you SAVED a game, all the data wasn't being saved. ie: if you were the third player in a 6 player game, players 4, 5, and 6 would not get SAVED. Due to this bug, all saved games will once again need to be deleted and restarted. - I slightly <over> corrected when fixing the HUMAN side, when you wanted to play a Hazard on a player who was showing a Right of Way card. Opponents got a "super" Right of Way card, because it would not let you play ANY of the Hazard cards on them! (Thank Star Gazer for finding this one.) >>==--> v1.04 <--==<< Released: December 4, 1996 Bug Fixes: - Put simply, the "Right of Way" card was royally screwed up! hehe There were NUMEROUS places where the computer (and two places where the human) player was NOT taking this card into consideration, or else considering the card incorrectly. Hopefully, these problems have all been addressed in this version. (I've been testing this version CONSIDERABLY on this end the past few week!) - There were some problems in the SAVE GAME coding if you saved the game right after reaching the 700 mile(or the 1000 mile) mark. Now if you hit 700 and SAVE, when resuming, you'll immediately be asked if you'd like to play the extension, while if resuming at 1000, it will immediately ask if you'd like to play the next hand. - When playing a PARTNER game(either 4 or 6 players), the amiga would play HAZARD cards on it's PARTNER! If only that were possible! :-) - In some instances, the amiga would play a Speed Limit card on one of it's opponents, and either the Speed Limit would NOT show up, or was being placed on the WRONG Speed Pile(related to the bug above)! Changes/Additions: - High Scores files are now created for each TYPE of game(2, 3, 4, or 6-Players) and for both the High HAND as well as the High GAME. I will also be including a small ARexx file for use in your welcome file that will display these files to each user while logging on, and will also have the ability of launching the game then and there! (Will include in the next release version) - I've begun the process of CONSOLIDATING the coding. This means going through and recoding sections to remove redundant code wherever possible. The file is still blitzed with /* Commenting */, however is beginning to shrink considerably. Where the original v1.00 was 78K, this version is 66K in length(and that INCLUDES the above NEW coding for the High Scores routines). Eventually, once the bugs are all taken care of, I'll go in and begin OPTIMIZING the code, however I'll also include a "source" listing in CONSOLIDATED format for any SysOp interested in taking a gander at the READABLE form. - The lines of text printed to the bottom of the screen telling you what player did what were changed slightly from the HUMAN side, as when playing a PARTNER game and you opt to also play the PARTNER, it was hard to tell WHICH partner did what. The HUMAN text lines now also include the NAME of the player who does something, just like the AMIGA players use. - The AMOUNT OF TIME the above mentioned text lines appear on the screen was not enough to be readable I was told. After initially doubling this value, it occurred to me that the LENGTH of the text line should ALSO play a role in how long it was displayed, so this routine has been modified to present the info for a set period of time based on the LENGTH of the line. For the longer lines, this period is roughly 1.8 to 2 times longer than the previous version, while the shorter lines may be .8 to the original length wait. I'm still playing with this some, so if you feel it's STILL displaying too fast, please get back to me. - Since the release of the initial BETA version, there have been SIX, unique AMIGA opponents in the game, EACH with their own playing style, however these opponents were "locked" into finite positions within the game. By this, I mean that if playing a 2-Player game, you'd ALWAYS be playing against the SECOND Amiga Opponent. Through a bit more coding, I'm now "shuffling" the Amiga Opponents BEFORE assigning them to their seats. This will allow you the possibility of going against any one of the six Amiga opponents in ANY game, and will allow you to PARTNER yourself with an Amiga Player with different styles of play. One of you(Mike), has asked if it could be possible to SPECIFY which player you went up against, so that, if you were a seasoned expert at the game, you could go against a cutthroat version player. Upon thinking about this, I believe that, in real life, this would NOT happen. There would be times you'd be playing against a player NOT as good as you, and othertimes against a player that could play your socks off. IF, however, you feel that a feature like this SHOULD be added to the game, let me know. If a feature of this type WERE to be included, I'm make it an option for the USER, so THEY could specify which player they played against. - The GROWCARD() routine was modified to create the proper preceeding word in front of the card NAME. Either "a" or "an", depending on if the card started with a vowel, or the word "the" if one of the four Safety Cards is used(as there is only ONE of EACH in the deck). MCI coding was also removed to slightly speed up the display of these text lines as well. - Numerous internal color changes were made. >>==--> v1.00 <--==<< Released: November 28, 1996 (w/ BETA versions starting 11/5/95) After numerous BETA releases, this first version of the game was released to the general masses. Thanks to Paloma, Galt, and Star Gazer for their BETA TESTING efforts and useful bug reports. Things lacking in the initial release included the high scores files, the ability to break into the game if you were already playing(meaning it was only possible in a computer controlled game), and a few other internal coding considerations, like consolidated code and optimized code. ============================================================================= Frontiers BBS (716)/823-9892! =============================================================================