----------------------------------------- REVISION HISTORY OF THE LORDS OF IRONGATE ----------------------------------------- INITIAL REVISION: v1.00 RELEASED: 25-Jun-94 ============================================================================== -> Initial release of the Lords of Irongate 'Quest for the magic Orb' for both Amigas and PCs (ANSI Text mode only) CHANGES IN REVISION: v1.10 RELEASED: 09-Jul-94 ============================================================================== -> Fixed the Amiga default dir bug found by Bill Staneski. Amiga users must now issue a ASSIGN IRONGATE: command 1st in order to ensure C-NET/DLG users all access the same PLAYERS data file (Since it contains everyones score). -> Added a prompt to verify if user wanted to quit at the top players screen since extra RETURNs in the keyboard buffer caused users to be kicked out without a chance to enter their name. -> Added a new character class called 'UNDECIDED' this is both to fix a bug and to fill a gap for those student types (like me) who go to school for centuries learning a little of this and a little of that but yet can't ever seem to get enough credits in any one field to graduate from college. -> Incorporated the following improvement suggested by Leon D. Shaner (Thanx for the feedback!): - Added the USERNAME= Command line argument for sysops to pass the players name straight from the BBS without a need for a password. CHANGES IN REVISION: v1.20 RELEASED: 23-Jul-94 ============================================================================== -> Added VGA HI-RES GRAPHICS SUPPORT! (to PC Version only) to activate type: "IRONGATE GFX" on the command line. Now the monsters look like monsters! -> Fixed left and right map border problem with the Amiga vers which was causing map redraw (and at start) to be shifted by one character. -> Added some images which weren't being drawn before, and changed some around mainly to support the gfx mode but it also impacted the text characters being displayed in some areas. -> Changed standard IO functions from the AmigaDOS ones to the SAS-C ones and cleaned up the CTRL-C handling code a bit. A CTRL-C command during game play (or carrier loss) should now correctly and cleanly exit back to BBS: -> Minor cleanups to some of the messages, typos, and some flags which weren't being set properly. -> Incorporated the following improvement suggested by Leon D. Shaner: Added the ANSI=COLOR or ANSI=MONO command line argument to allow sysops to pass whether or not the player can use ANSI COLORS, also added this as a player prompt should the sysop be unable to add this as a command line arg. CHANGES IN REVISION: v1.21 RELEASED: 25-Jul-94 ============================================================================== -> Fixed the food symbol '%' causing random numbers to appear in dungeon, accidentally introduced this bug in v1.20 when I changed the printf() function around. Thanx goes to Kurt Christ of Mount Olympus BBS for finding this one first. CHANGES IN REVISION: v2.00 RELEASED: 15-Oct-94 ============================================================================== -> Since previous versions (1.xx) would not properly run as a BBS door on PC machines I did some research to find out why and figured out the BBS DOOR designs on PCs is much different than on Amigas so this version 2.xx has all of the modifications necessary to run as a BBS DOOR for PCs. IT NOW FULLY SUPPORT THE FOLLOWING PC BBS DOOR formats: PCBoard, GAP (ie.. DOOR.SYS), Spitfire, RBBS, WildCat!, TriBBS, and WWIV. To identify what mode IRONGATE should operate in there needs to be a 5 line config file, of which the first line contains one of the following codes to tell it the BBS mode of operation: PCB, GAP, SF, RBBS, WC, TRIBBS or WWIV. -> REDUCED SIZE (MEMORY USE) BY OVER 50%!!! Moved objects & monsters to an external data (*.DAT) file, and since no-one was interested in VGA graphics, I took them ALL out! Thats right, Irongate no longer supports local VGA graphics, it only operates as an ANSI/TEXT DOOR game. It can still be run in local mode though (type Irongate ? for new arguments/directions). -> Added more detailed on-line help as well as on-line hints now. It now displays ANSI and plain ASCII text files ie... LOI????.ANS or LOI????.TXT files which contain information about commands, hints, hiscores, about etc... instead of taking up .exe space. -> Created new files called HISCORES.* which contains the top 10 player scores, there is both an ASCII (.TXT) and an ANSI (.ANS) file which is updated whenever a player saves his game and can be copied to any BBS bulletin directory for display (but leave the original copy alone so it can be read by Irongate during the startup). -> Added a timeout=... argument for the PC version to allow the program to timeout and exit when no key is pressed in ... nr of seconds (default is 180 seconds - ie.. 3 minutes, but it can be changed from 10 seconds up to 10 minutes [600 seconds]). I wanted to add this to the Amiga version but was unable to find a getch() function, or combination of simple functions to get a keypress or timeout - If anyone knows of a way to incorporate a stdio getch() function with the ability to timeout in SAS-C then let me know!!! -> Added hidden/secret rooms, increased the quantity of monsters and monster items. Moved most of the better treasures to the secret rooms rather than being in plain sight. Also added a few spells and scrolls to reveal hidden areas since the magic map won't do it. -> Fixed bug which allowed player to cheat by casting spells on dead monsters to gain additional experience. -> Revised the dungeon draw algorithm so doors wouldn't appear inside of rooms and to give it more of a 'cavernous dungeon' appearance. -> Changed some of the symbols, Since a player is 'X' monsters are now 'O's unless they are dead meat in which case they're '*', thats short for... SPLAT! hehe. -> Made some minor cleanups with object detections, and keypress entries. --------------------------------------------------- OTHER IDEAS STILL PENDING, OR JUST BEING CONSIDERED --------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================== -> Add some new stuff like TRAPS, LOCKED DOORS, ALTARS, AMUSING NickNacs etc. -> Enhance special skills of monsters such as vampires ability to SUCK BLOOD etc...