THE "WHAT'S NEW IN LEGENDS 5.0" HANDBOOK Written by Jeffrey D. Hoffman Copyright (c) 1993, 1994. All Rights Reserved. The following section describes all the new features and improvements of LEGENDS 5.0. The asterisks (*) that follow a majority of the features are there for one purpose. They are a reminder that these features were requested by Sysops, like yourself, and should be view as a "You asked for it, you got it - as promised!" Keep those comments coming - as you can see, I'm listening to each and every one! FOUR .TPG FILES?!? LEGENDS 5.0 makes use of four different .TPG files in order to function. The first is LEGENDS.TPG, which is the game that your users will play. The second is LGNDFORG.TPG, which is the DemiGOD module, where both Gods and DemiGODs will create new realms. Third, GTASK.TPG is an updated version of the original ghost task program. Finally, the forth is LGNDSWHO.TPG, a replacement program that is used instead of the TBBS Who's online function. RIPTERM GRAPHICS* LEGENDS 5.0 has full, real-time RIP graphics support. Players who use this feature will see moving bar-graphs of their hitpoints and spellpoints, plus have a wide selection of buttons that allow them to roll their characters, move throughout the world, and explore their surroundings. IMPROVED GHOST TASK I've updated the GTASK.TPG file to make updating the game a longer process, but more complete, including optional re-indexing upon running. NO ANSI REQUIREMENTS* LEGENDS no longer requires ANSI to be played. I've implemented code to accept both ANSI and non-ANSI users. INVISIBLE USERS* Many Sysops complained that players could find out what another character's real name is. Sysops who invoke this option are permitting LEGENDS to modify their userlog. When a user logs into the game, the user becomes invisible to anyone else on the board. When a user quits, is killed, or hangs up, they become visible again. Included with this archive, you will also find a 'improved' WHO command for your BBS. Use this .TPG when other members of the BBS want to see who is on-line your BBS. This program displays all the users currently on, plus the character names of those in LEGENDS. OPTIONAL SCOREBOARD* On some systems, having the score board displayed created too much competition between players, and as a result, they took the scoreboard off their menu. However, every time a users quit LEGENDS, the score board was generated. Now Sysops can select whether or not the score board is generated when a user quits. BUILT-IN MESSAGE BASE* There have been a lot of requests for this one. The message base that LEGENDS has is designed for brief, six line messages to be sent back and forth to players, using their character names, not their real names. The best part is that players don't have to leave LEGENDS in order to read their mail. REAL-TIME HEALING* One drastic problem with prior versions is that players would abuse the fact that characters would heal and gain back spellpoints every couple of commands that they enter. Many players discovered that by pressing gibberish commands, such as "A" over and over that their character could be healed in only a couple of minutes. Sysops, discovered, in turn that players who performed this act would cause LEGENDS to eat up CPU usage like crazy. LEGENDS 5.0 features real-time healing, by which players can ONLY gain back hitpoints and spellpoints by resting at the command prompt. As a result, players will sit and not enter commands at all. Their character gains back a hitpoints at a rate of one every five seconds. Spellpoints return at a rate of one every six seconds. NEW WORLD* A brand new version with tons of new features and possibilities required a brand new world to show off those features. Sysops who want to use the new world, and are running LEGENDS 4.3 or better, consult the update information in the Sysop documentation. A new world means a new towne, more dungeons, forests, planes, canyons, foothills, mountains, swamps, mazes, dungeons, traps, events, spells, non-playing characters, monsters, monsters, monsters, items, treasures, quests, and (did I mention?) monsters. MONSTERS IMMUNE TO ATTACKS AND SPELLS* To increase the challenge to players, and to encourage mutli-player party adventuring, monsters now have the option of being immune to various kinds of damage. This includes damage from weapons, fire spells, ice spells, acid spells, fear spells, etc. This aspect adds a tremendous amount to role-playing because non-magic players need to team up with magic players in order to defeat certain monsters. MONSTERS CAST SPELLS* Another new ability of monsters is that they can use and cast magical spells. LOCK PICKS* Thieves and lock picks go hand-in-hand, and now the PICK command is working successfully. NEW COMMAND, ASKABOUT Using the ASKABOUT command, players can gain information from NPCs about various topics. This allows for more in-depth quests and causes players to have to seek out characters and perform quests for certain pieces of information. NEW COMMAND, (") and (') Using a singe or double quote, players can now communicate with other players in addition to the SAY command. NEW COMMAND, EXPERT MODE By turning on expert mode, players can move from room to room very quickly. This command allows them to avoid the description of the room, exit listing, and also the item listing. They do, however, see the title of the room, plus any other characters there. NEW COMMAND, STATUSBAR While playing, players can bring up a statusbar, which displays just to the left of the command prompt. Players will be able to keep track of their hitpoints and spellpoints without having to constantly type STATUS during combat. NEW COMMAND, TAKE ALL* When confronted with a large list of items that the player needs to take, users can type TAKE ALL and get everything currently in the room they can carry. NEW COMMAND, DROP GOLD* In previous versions of LEGENDS players who wanted to help out other, newer characters had to purchase items for the new user. Now they can drop an amount of gold in a room using the DROP command. NEW COMMAND, UNREADY* Another improvement in LEGENDS is that players no longer need to drop an item to take it off of their body. Players can use this command to douse a light, put away a weapon as a sign of peace, or just take their armor off for a while. EVENTS!!!!! Similar to a programming language within the game, events allow you to create complex scenarios and traps within the game. Events are an extension of the traps that existed in LEGENDS 4.4. New features include: * Events may have to be disarmed to get past. * Events can require an item in order to be triggered. * Events can be created in series to cause a chain of events to occur to a player. * Events can summon monsters. * Events can create items. * Events can destroy items. * Events can do just about anything! ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Just for fun, LEGENDS allows players to become drunk by drinking alcoholic beverages in the tavern. Warning: Slurred speech and walking into walls are not the only consequence of drinking too much. AN INN* The Inn (that has been present in LEGENDS for a couple of versions now) is now entered using the ASKABOUT command. Look at the wooden sign in the tavern for more information. REAL-TIME DEATH FOR PLAYERS One problem with real-time combat between players is that if player one gives the death blow to player two, player two would be "technically" dead, but still permitted one last command before they would actually die. LEGENDS 5.0 has real-time death, which means that a player who is struck dead by another character dies instantly. NEW RESURRECTION ROUTINES* I've reworked the resurrection chance routine which makes players have a better chance at surviving their resurrection when they have been killed. DESCRIPTIONS WITHIN DESCRIPTIONS* The item handlers have been redesigned as you will see in the next couple of improvements. The first improvement is that items can be created invisibly as descriptions to increase the detail of a room. As an example, if a room has a large, wooden desk sitting in the corner, players can examine the desk, and find that "There is a crumpled note on the desk, next to the ink blotter." Players can examine the note then, and find out what their quest is, or find an extra bit of information. ITEMS WITH BIG DESCRIPTIONS Instead of being restricted to one-line descriptions for items, there are times (such as the crumpled note above) where you will want to elaborate with a rich, detailed description. LEGENDS 5.0 supports external text files that can be used as description files for items. ITEMS THAT TEACH The way that items handle magic has been improved also. Now, instead of just giving a player a nice weapon or armor as reward for a quest, they can examine a special item and actually LEARN a new spell for their spellbook. ITEMS THAT SURPRISE Items can also cause a spell to be cast at any character who examines it. The example I have for this improvement is complements of Rosebud, a personal friend and long time DemiGOD. Rosebud had a habit of playing pranks on any traveler who wandered through his dungeons. One such prank was a scroll, which happened to be lying in the first room of one of his hardest dungeons. Any adventurer who examined the scroll would see: It reads, "Dungeon survive tip #1: Do not read explosive runes." What the player didn't realize was that the message was one big explosive rune, and the scroll would blow up in their face. MORE ITEMS THAT SURPRISE In addition, items can automatically cast spells on the user when they are examined. For examine, if you have an evil player with a dark cloak, you can design the cloak to cause the wielder to disappear in a dark curl of smoke, which is actually a spell that returns the player to a different area in the game - a hideout or crypt. ENVRNMNT.TXT FILE If you create a file called ENVRNMNT.TXT in your LEGENDS directory, every player who logs in will see that message displayed to them. This is a way to post something publicly for the players, announce a quest, or just tell the players about the weather today. SPELLS DON'T EFFECT SHOPKEEPERS* Many Sysops mentioned that they were having problems with players who would cast death, teleportation, and other spells at the shopkeepers. Instead of spending their spare time creating new areas and things, Sysops were continually resurrecting or restoring killed NPCs. LEGENDS 5.0 does not allow a spell to effect a shopkeeper anymore. NEW FEATURES OF LEGENDS FORGE 5.0 At this point, you're probably wondering what this FORGE thing is. You've also noticed that I didn't mention anything about the ways that you or your DemiGODs can work with and build off of all the new features that LEGENDS offers. Well, this next section outlines what the new creation and editing capabilities you have as a God of the realm. The Sysop documentation has specifics on what the FORGE is. NEW PRIVILEGE LEVELS* The biggest request I received concerning DemiGODs is that Sysops wanted to be able to assign abilities on a one-by-one basis. They wanted one DemiGOD who could create rooms, another who could create items, and a third who could create everything. They wanted more freedom with their DemiGODs than the set of numbers (0-500) that LEGENDS 4.4 supported. LEGENDS 5.0 uses a new system, similar to the A1-A4 fields of TBBS. Sysops can define the abilities of their DemiGODs, giving each DemiGOD different powers. CUSTOM-DEFINABLE DEMIGOD MESSAGES DemiGODs can also edit their own greeting-, teleportation-, and leaving-message. What this means is that your DemiGODs can create a one-line message that is broadcast to all the users when they log in, another for when they quit, and also a custom message that other characters see when they teleport around. EXIT EDITOR* I've finally settled on the code to use in order to allow Sysops to create and edit doors, either open, closed, locked, or hidden! In addition, this screen will allow you to move exits around, change their appearance, plus give doors descriptions. SPELL EDITOR* The FORGE also allows you to create your own spells, or modify the ones that exist. EVENT EDITOR The trap editor has been updated to allow you to create and edit events. CONVERSATION EDITOR* The ASKABOUT command (see above) wouldn't work too well if you didn't have the ability to make the responses that an NPC will have to different topics. You can also create your own shopkeepers by way of conversation. PLAYER EDITOR, FROM ANYWHERE* The player editor is now designed to allow you to edit a player from anywhere. Just type EDITPLAYER and then the player's name, and !POOF! the player's statistics come right up. NEW COMMAND, COPY MONSTER* Tired of creating eight monsters who look exactly the same because you need eight identical monsters? DemiGODs can duplicate their monsters with ease now by way of this command. NEW COMMAND, GIVE* One concern may sysops shared was that players were getting too good at walking into a room that had a powerful guardian monster in the room and casting calm at the monster. The calm spell would cause the monster to stop attacking, and the player was free to walk in, grab the magic item the monster guarded, and walk out. DemiGODs wanted the ability to place an item within a monster's inventory, so that the monster had to be killed before the item could be retrieved. NEW COMMAND, HIDE As mentioned above, events can summon monsters and create items by bringing them into the room. DemiGODs need a place to keep monsters and items until an event summons them. Using this command, the DemiGOD can place his items in safe keeping, and not worry about a player accidentally randomly teleporting into a room where they are kept. NEW COMMAND, OFFLINE The OFFLINE command has been updated so that sysops no longer have to type OFFLINE repeatedly in order to get a bunch of players off-line who appear on. Using this command automatically checks each player who is on-line to see if they are really there. NEW COMMAND, REARM Another command that works with events is the REARM command. This command rearms any disarmed events in any room that DemiGOD is standing in. NEW COMMAND, TEST Because the FORGE does not support combat from within it, DemiGODs still need a way to test the abilities of their monsters - how much damage they do per attack, and how much damage their spells cast. This command allows them to do it. NEW COMMAND, WHO The WHO command has been updated. Sysops can see a player's real name in addition to their level, and their current location. (As a result, the WHERE command has been removed.) * Denotes, "You asked for it, you got it - as promised!"