T H E P I T ============= Online Game Version 1.17b HISTORY OF UPDATES & CORRECTIONS MADE Copyright (c) 1990 by MIDAS TOUCH SOFTWARE, all rights reserved Copyright (c) 1990 by James R. Berry, all rights reserved As you can see a number of improvements have been made on the original design of THE PIT. The following is a history of improvments made: REVISIONS --------- Version 1.06 : Rewrote screen I/O so that MONO users could see the screen (02/15/90) in its proper context. An OPTIONS screen was added to the MAIN MENU to allow users to edit their defaults. Version 1.07 : Introduced BBS MUSIC as a permanent addition to the game. (02/22/90) Intro to game was rewritten to prompt user for information such as whether they have a MONO or COLOR screen, BBS MUSIC, and what they would like to say when attacking or when defeated. Version 1.07a: First attempts at creating a save feature. Resulted in a (03/01/90) compilation of a seperate program to test its features. Completed in approximately 1-2 hours of tinkering. Version 1.07b: The SAVE feature was permanently installed into the game. (03/08/90) It now keeps track of player stats, and allows 15 minutes of game play three times per day (Sysop is unlimited). Players are given (100 * level) gold per day to help them stay alive. Version 1.08 : Players rank are now being kept track of, but this feature will (03/12/90) not be implemented until Version 1.08a. All screens except GAMBLING were rewritten to be faster and look better. Version 1.08a: Players ranks are now used for fighting between players. There (03/14/90) was a bug in the ranking code (Binary file problem), but I remedied that. Version 1.08b: I rewrote the Challenge and View sections so that DEAD players (03/15/90) could not be challenged. Fixed some more minor funky screen I/O. Version 1.08c: I wrote a battle save routine. If a player runs out of time or (03/20/90) hangs up in the middle of a battle, it will make him finish the battle on his next turn. Version 1.09 : Wrote a LOG of Battles routine so that players can see what (03/24/90) other players were doing Today and Yesterday. Version 1.09a: Rewrote the entire GAMBLING section. It now appears clean and (03/26/90) runs smoothly. I still haven't implemented the number of bets per day number. I will have to wait and see what the users prefer. (03/28/90) - (05/10/90) Version 1.09b: A thorough BETA TEST was run for approximately 120 hours of total game time. Numerous bugs were found and fixed. Most of them were minor gliches in the screen display (wrong color, wrong placement ect.) A few suggestions were made and were saved to be added on to the registered version of the game. The TAVERN and the Message Center was created at this time. Version 1.10 : The unregistered copy of THE PIT is placed onto the public BBS's. (05/10/90) It allows users to test drive the game from 20th to 23rd level. Users must send the $15.00 registration fee to receive the fully functional program. Version 1.10b: A new copy of the unregistered game was released with alot of the BUGS removed. And I also extended play to 25th level. Version 1.12 : (Registered version) All features were added to the game. And (05/10/90) some other features were improved. Version 1.15 : The game was rewritten, and remote activation for registered users was added in. There is no longer a seperate Registered/Unregistered version. Only the level limits (1st-8th) seperate the two programs. All GAMBLING, MESSAGE USAGE, and PLAYER VIEWING is now active on both programs. Version 1.16 : Added support for 5 other BBS systems, added Bios screen write option, added Flow control for high speed modems, added 150 more monsters, and added enhanced arrow firing. Version 1.17 : Added support for 8 Com Ports, Fossil Drivers, Multi-lined BBS's, and Snow Control. Also wrote a Player Editor and Top-10 Bulletin Creator as add ons. Two utility programs were written, an ugrade utility that allows users to convert from v1.16 to v1.17 (PITCONV.EXE) and a Rank File Rebuilder (RANKBLD.EXE). Magic Items were added. Their powers are not revealed in this game. Only user trial and error will reveal their secrets and how to retrieve them. The whole program was scoured and purged of any errors that could be found. Although numerous problems occured with this revision, it should be a stepping stone to the next version which will have many new features. Note a change in upgrade policies, and a price change to $20. Our previous pricing has been found to be unprofitable, and dictates an increase in price. Version 1.17a: Well version 1.17 was a fine mess! I dicovered that the large libraries of my 'C' compiler were corrupted. Ended up purchasing a new copy of my compiler (Microsoft C v6.0) to remedy the problem. The PIT.EXE shrank about 70K in size and now takes 40K less memory to run, so I guess I cannot complain too much. This version should run perfectly now. Version 1.17b: Got a newer compiler that is suppose to be bug free. Recompiled and get a better executable than that provided in v1.17a BUGS FOUND AND CORRECTED ------------------------ Version 1.08 : I had to rewrite the SAVE and RANKING features in case a user is deleted from the BBS and another user gets that BBS user number. (I use the number to cross-reference my player records). Version 1.08c: Discovered that the battle save routine was accidentally called when the last opponent surrendered. Caught this bug thanks to a beta test BBS (Excalibur (806) 793-5416). Version 1.09b: Discovered a segment error that caused some weapons to be traded for illegal ones. Simple 5 minute rewrite, but a big bug nonetheless. Version 1.10a: There was a Bug found in the BANK procedure. Whereby values entered that were larger than an integer caused a negative value to be returned. Fixed 05/16/90. Version 1.10b: When SWAPPED the program would crash if a flood of characters were sent by the remote user while returning to the BBS. There was also a logic error found in the challenge procedure. The Hand weapon got swapped to the wrong user on a loss. Version 1.1 : Had a problem with the program freezing the keyboard up on machines using ZEOS BIOS. Version 1.2 : Complete player reset occurred if the DRAGON appeared whenever a player was being ressurected. A minor bug with an overlapping menu appearing when a "?" was pressed while fighting... Version 1.5 : Fixed bugs in this version that included a bug when WWIV was running the GOLD MOD. And also fixed the HIGH SPEED MODEM problem, which was hard considering I do not own one! Version 1.5a : Fixed bugs in the IMMORTAL status region. Version 1.17 : Too many bugs found and fixed here to mention in less than 20 pages. Many screen bugs fixed, and with the amount of internal changes (Almost a total rewrite) bugs were fixed and found as testing occurred. This should be the longest and most difficult revision I ever have to make on this game. (I hope...) BUG HUNT CLUB ------------- This revision was helped greatly by the efforts of the following people: ShadowHawk (alias) of Shadow Realm BBS - (806) 793-5416 BBS features online Role Playing Games as its main focus. Runs 24 Hours/Day, 7 Days a week, and supports 300-2400. Morpheus (alias) of Morpheus Manor - (806) 795-6215 BBS features strange ideas, messaging and general anarchy as its main focus. Runs 24 Hours/Day, 7 Days a week, and supports 300-2400. Edward Greene of The Shop - (603) 772-7803 BBS features 2 public and 2 private lines and a huge file selection (4000+). Runs 24 Hours/Day, 7 Days a week, and supports 300-14.4K (HST Dual). I would also like to publically thank Kevin Higgins for helping me track down the information on BBS DOORS. Now if he can just avoid going to Saudi Arabia, he might be able to finish writing up those new monsters for me to add into THE PIT. FUTURE GOALS ------------ With these improvements completed I have some goals of which I will be implementing in the near future (Version 1.18?): o Fix the CHAT MODE color bug. o Add fighting between the SysOp and the player. Where the SysOp plays the monsters against the player. (This was a user's idea, but I cannot remember who said it, so I cannot give him proper credit). o Add interactive fighting between lines on a multi-noded BBS. o Create a User End Terminal Emulator for THE PIT (PTERM). The first version of this will be in standard IBM character graphics (ANSI). But later an EGA version will be implemented(1.19?).