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1.1 root 1: This is a list of the fixes/enhancements made to larn V11.0 in Version 12.0.
2: (Version numbers consist of 2 parts: ver.subver. When the save file format
3: changes, ver must be bumped. This is why the next release of Larn is 12.0
4: and not 11.1. This is used in the savefile routines to check for out-of-date
5: save files). This list was mainly meant to be a record of what changed,
6: for my own sanity. It's included for your benefit (Warning: SPOILER!):
7:
8: 0. lprintf() in fileio.c (now called io.c) has been changed to use varargs
9: so that its variable number of arguments usage is now portable. Pyramids
10: primarily had this problem.
11:
12: 1. Panic handler was added to signal.c. This routine catches fatal errors
13: like segmentation faults, bus errors, illegal instructions, etc., and
14: trys to performs a savegame() before dumping core. This helps prevent
15: the loss of a good game due to a game malfunction. Also, the name of the
16: signal received is printed, instead of just its number.
17:
18: 2. The version number of the program is now selectable from the Makefile.
19: see the symbols VER and SUBVER.
20:
21: 3. When at an altar, pray and donate 3000000000 gp. and ye used to receive
22: a whopping amount of gold due to a wraparound problem with the signed
23: ints. This has been fixed by using unsigned longs when asking for money
24: amounts.
25:
26: 4. It was possible that when compiled with work hours checking, checkpointing
27: enabled, and having "play-day-play" in the .larnopts file a segmentation
28: fault would occur at its first attempt to do a checkpoint. This was due
29: to an improperly declared savefilename array in tok.c. This has been fixed.
30:
31: 5. on level H, casting a missile weapon (mle cld ssp bal lit) off the edge of
32: the level would mess up the display, as it didn't know when to stop. This
33: is needless to say, fixed. Absolute bounds are now in effect for missile
34: type spells, see godirect() in monster.c.
35:
36: 6. The create monster routine will now create monsters in random positions
37: around the player. Before, the 1st one would always be created to the
38: upper left.
39:
40: 7. If you vpr or lit at a throne, it would summon a gnome king that you
41: would have to deal with. However, as each throne has only one king with it,
42: successive vpr's should not create more gnome kings. Presently, successive
43: vpr's will create more kings. This has been fixed.
44:
45: 8. The mechanism to manage spheres of annihilation has been reworked to provide
46: a cleaner design and to eliminate some possible problems.
47:
48: 9. The spell gen (genocide monsters) has been implemented.
49:
50: 10. When dropping a ring of strength and having been weakened to STR=3 the
51: player might end up with a negative strength. Strength is now stored
52: in 2 variables, real strength, and strength bonuses. Only real strength
53: can now be weakened down to a minimum of 3, so unless you have a ring of
54: strength -3 or less, strengths below 3 should not occur.
55:
56: 11. larn -h will now print out a list of all available command line options.
57:
58: 12. larn -o<optsfile> now lets you specify a .larnopts file on the command
59: line. This was necessary as part of the solution to number 14 below.
60:
61: 13. The "savefile:" statement has been aded to the .larnopts format to allow
62: specifying the savefilename (full path) for the savegame operation.
63: This too was needed as part of # 14 below.
64:
65: 14. A player id facility has been added to larn. The complaint was that
66: the game used the userid to order the scoreboard, thus only one scoreboard
67: entry was allowed for each userid. If the compile time symbol UIDSCORE
68: is defined at compilation time (see Makefile), this will still be true.
69: However, if this define is omitted, the game will create and manage a
70: file called ".playerids" where names are taken from the specified
71: .larnopts file (now a command line option) and assigned a unique playerid.
72: playerid's will now be used to govern scoreboard entry posting. This
73: feature makes it easy for one person to have many characters, each
74: appearing on the scoreboard. Be kind to your fellow players!
75: The philosophy of one score per player gives more players the opportunity
76: to bask in glory for all to see!
77:
78: 15. It is no longer required that the player be WIZID to create the scoreboard
79: or to examine the logfile. Anyone with the correct wizard's password can
80: now use these command line options (password is only needed to create/clear
81: the scoreboard). If you want to prevent players from zeroing the
82: scoreboard, change the wizard's password. (in config.c) By the way, wizards
83: may be alot of fun, but they are prevented from being placed on any
84: scoreboard. (for clarification)
85:
86: 16. Monsters now have intelligence, that is some of them. This determines if
87: the monster moves using the previously stupid movement method, or by using
88: the new IMM (intelligent monster movement) algorithm. With IMM, monsters
89: will move around corners, avoid pits, traps, etc. With increasing levels
90: of difficulty, more monsters will be using IMM. Beware of IMM when
91: aggravated! Those little beasties can really find you!
92:
93: 17. Added the scroll of life protection.
94:
95: 18. Larn now consults the file ".holiday" to check for holidays if the TIMECHECK
96: option (no playing during working hours) is enabled. Before, larn knew
97: nothing about holidays. It should now let people play if it is a holiday.
98: The format for a .holiday entry is: "mmm dd yyyy comments . . .".
99:
100: 19. In nap() and napms() it is possible that with nap(0) or napms(0) there
101: would be an infinite loop and the game would hang. The case of nap(0)
102: is now looked for.
103:
104: 20. The granularity of gold piles has been increased. iarg[] has been changed
105: from char's to short's, so instead of 255 x 10^n granularity we now have
106: 32767 x 10^n granularity. This also means more than 255000 gp can be
107: dropped in one place. Not realistic, but it prevents a worthless
108: annoyance. Who said games were supposed to be realistic?
109:
110: 21. Termcap capability has been added to larn. If the symbol VT100 is defined
111: in the makefile, the game will be compiled to use only VT100 compatible
112: terminals (Much more efficient). If the symbol VT100 is omitted, the game
113: will be compiled to use the termcap entry for whatever terminal you are
114: using. This involves an extra layer of output interpretation, as every
115: byte sent to the terminal must be inspected for control tokens.
116: Only 3 termcap entries need be found for the game to be functional:
117: CM (cursor movement), CE (clear to end of line), and CL (clear screen).
118: For a better display, the following are optional: AL (insert line), DL
119: (delete line), SO (Standout begin), SE (Standout end), and CD (clear to end
120: of screen). The .larn.help file was left as is, with VT100 escape
121: sequences in it. If the termcap version of larn reads it, it is translated
122: for the desired terminal type. The .mail60* files have been removed, and
123: their text is now included in bill.c so it can be used with any terminal.
124: Note: If compiled for termcap, and using a VT100, the display will act
125: a little different. This is because the VT100 does not have insert line/
126: delete line codes, and the scrolling region must be simulated with vertical
127: wraparound instead of scrolling. Thanks goes to Michiel Huisjes for the
128: original termcap patch.
129:
130: 22. When playing as wizard, if you go down stairs on 10 or V3, or up stairs
131: on H, 1, or V1, etc. you would be placed in a phantom zone where the display
132: was really weird ([-1] subscripting), and would eventually lead to a
133: segmentation fault. Stairs and volcano shafts now check for the level
134: they are being used on.
135:
136: 23. In response to some sites having only unsigned chars (flame the
137: manufacturer), the chars that were used to store positive and negative
138: numbers have been changed to shorts. This includes diroffx[], diroffy[],
139: iarg[][][], ivenarg[], and some others. I believe the changes are correct,
140: but I have none of these machines to try it out on. (Volunteers?)
141:
142: 24. The function fullhit(n) in monster.c was supposed to return the damage
143: done by n full hits on a monster. It only returned the damage for ONE hit,
144: thus severely limiting the usefulness of the web and sle spells.
145:
146: 25. Someone said that they were getting segmentation faults when they were
147: reading scrolls as the wizard. I couldn't find the problem, which may
148: have had something to do with the signed char problem mentioned above.
149: However, I've added a check in read_scroll() and quaff_potion() to trap
150: any scroll or potion types that are not in the game.
151:
152: 26. "vt125" has been added to the acceptable terminal list
153: (checked only if compiled with -DVT100).
154:
155: 27. In savegame() and restoregame(), there was a 6 hardwired into the i/o
156: statements which assumed the size of struct cel was 6. On some machines
157: this caused the rightmost part of each level to not be saved in a savefile.
158: These 6's have been replaced with sizeof(struct cel), and should now be
159: portable.
160:
161: 28. The option "no-beep" has been added to the .larnopts file. When specified,
162: beeping is inhibited at the terminal.
163:
164: 29. When becoming wizard, no longer to you wear the ring of protection, and
165: null scrolls and potions are no longer created.
166:
167: 30. Many spelling errors have been fixed, both in player messages, and in the
168: code itself. A thanks goes to Mars Gralia who sent me a detailed list of
169: the mistakes.
170:
171: 31. When a player wins a game, if getlogin() fails, a segmentation fault will
172: result, because the NULL returned from getlogin() is used as a pointer.
173: This call has been replaced (now using loginname already determined).
174: Also, the mail creation upon winning has been rewritten, mainly to allow
175: termcapping of the text.
176:
177: 32. The Larn Revenue Service will now always appear on level H. Before, it
178: was only created if the player had outstanding taxes. In that multiple
179: save files per player are now more possible, this was seen as incorrect.
180:
181: 33. Input buffer flushing is now in effect. If the input char queue exceeds
182: 5 bytes, the excess is discarded. Also, if the player hits or gets hit
183: all input bytes are flushed (within 1). This relieves the situation
184: where many moves have been typed ahead of the display and the player keeps
185: getting hit while the queue of moves is processed.
186:
187: 34. When a savefile has been altered, a warning message is displayed to the
188: effect that you've cheated, and you will not be placed on the normal
189: scoreboard. If you then save the game, and start 'er up again, memory
190: of the cheating was lost. This has been fixed, by letting the scoreboard
191: routines consult the cheating flag. Also, the I node number of the
192: savefile is written into the savefile, so cp'ing, etc., will avail the
193: cheater not. If high security is needed, the game should be run suid.
194: This suid mode has not been made the default because most installations
195: do not want to install it that way.
196:
197: 35. The sources have been run through lint, and most of lint's complaints have
198: been taken care of. An attempt was made to adjust the code for 16 bit int
199: machines. Many casts to long have been put in. I don't know if it will
200: run on a 16 bitter, but it should be closer to that end.
201:
202: 36. When larn starts up, if it can't find the scoreboard, it will now make a
203: blank one instead of complaining that there is no scoreboard. It is not
204: necessary to do "larn -c" to initially create the scoreboard.
205:
206: 37. When listing out the logfile (larn -l), the error message "error reading
207: from input file" has been fixed. Also, the date & time of a player's
208: demise is now included in the logfile.
209:
210: 38. When casting web or sle into a mirror, the game will no longer bash the
211: player. Instead, the player will either fall asleep or get stuck in his
212: web.
213:
214: 39. Items like cookies, books, chests, swords of slashing, and Bessmann's
215: flailing hammer can now be sold at the trading post.
216:
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