HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: framhus@kopasker.is (Framhaldsskolinn Husavik)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: Re: Pools of Darkness - party composition
Date: 12 Oct 92 13:36:35 GMT
Organization: Primary School of Kopasker, Iceland

dresnick@athena.mit.edu (David I Resnick) writes:

>What do people out there think is the ideal party composition?
>I need to decide soon (I just started, and could restart).  I
>currently have:

>Paladin
>Ranger
>Fighter/Thief
>Cleric
>Mage
>Mage

>I have doubts about the F/T, since he (a dwarf), is maxed out as a
>fighter.  Is there anywhere in the game where a thief does anything a
>Knock spell or brute strength will not?  Is the backstab ability worth
>walking around in leather armor and not getting 2 attack per round (as
>he would if I had another fighter/ranger/magic user instead).  Does
>anyone out there have multiclass humans?  How about ranger convered to
>magic user?

My characters began advenuring in Pool of Radiance.  I started with:
Two human fighters
One half-elf cleric/fighter/magic-user
One human female cleric
One elf fighter/magic-user-thief
One human female macig-user.

In Curse, I let the two fighters retire and added one human paladin and one
human ranger instead.  In Blades I retired the c/f/m-u, as he couldn't advance
any more and added a dwarf fighter/thief.  This team finished off Blades and
is now about finishing POD:

Human paladin
Human ranger
Dwarf fighter/thief
Human female cleric
Elf fighter/magic-user/thief
Human female cleric

All characters have some type of good alignment.  I've been very pleased with
the team and I don't dual-class anybody ever.

In my opinion, thiefs are very good to have about to pick locks, find traps
and backstab, even in plate armor(!) if they are multi-classed.

Bjorgvin R. Leifsson
brl@kopasker.is
From: eph3@po.CWRU.Edu (Ephraim P. Hochberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: Lemmings
Date: 14 Oct 1992 19:29:39 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: eph3@po.CWRU.Edu (Ephraim P. Hochberg)
NNTP-Posting-Host: thor.ins.cwru.edu


At least on my demo you can skip levels without the code by clicking on the
difficulty button on the far right in the first screen. The name changes
from 'FUN' to 'Taxing' etc..

-- 
Ephraim Hochberg  |   "Ada - ardors and arbors" -Vladimir Nabokov
eph3@po.cwru.edu  |          'Ars longa, vita brevis'	
-------------------    ===> "Don't just do it: A.f.u it"<===
\.sig disinfectant/     'For any sufficiently large 2, 2+2=5.'
From: hulsej@lclark.edu (Jose Hulse)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: Re: Yearning for the good old Infodays
Date: 15 Oct 92 23:21:41 GMT
Article-I.D.: lclark.1992Oct15.232141.19210
Distribution: comp.sys.mac.games
Organization: Lewis & Clark College, Portland OR


Have you tried Unnkulian Unventures I and II?  Truly great games, IMHO.
Also, there is the Mac version of the old VAX game Dungeon aka Zork, in
case you haven't played it already (although I assume you have). It's
somewhat different from the commercial version, and it's at sumex for ftp.
I'm currently working on it and it's a lot of fun.  Admittedly, there's
not a lot out there, though.
Alas!
-Jose'
-- 
_______________________________________________
Jose' Hulse  hulsej@lclark.edu |  Four years ago, Bush said that if I voted 
for Dukakis I could expect crime,taxes and the deficit to go up.
I guess he was right...I voted for Dukakis and look what happened!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
From: erlingm@ifi.uio.no (Erling Mork)
Subject: Re: Lemmings level #4
Organization: Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 12:07:12 GMT
Originator: erlingm@holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no


In article <1992Oct15.092240.9980@odin.diku.dk>, klaus@diku.dk (Klaus Ole Kristiansen) writes:
> I have now timed level 4 with a stopwatch. Without shift, it takes
> more than 3 minutes. With shift, I can get it done in just under 90
> seconds. I also tried to time level 3, but quit out of boredom after
> 13 minutes.
> 
> It is not that the time does not run out, I have had this happen
> both on level 3 and 4. What gives?
> 
> Klaus O K

Obviously, then, the clock in the game is not tied to the Mac's rea|
clock. This would be a good thing for people with slower machines!  Game
'time' should always be tied to game speed, not real time.  Of course,
game speed _should_ optimally be 1 to 1 with real time on all models,
but we aint livin' in an optimal world. :)

------------
Erling Mork: Student at U of Oslo, Programmer at Data Nostra A/S
internet: erlingm@ifi.uio.no; AppleLink: NOR0042
Disclaimer: Did I say that?
"If it works, it must be obsolete." -- VP for Tech Planning at Bell Atlantic
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
From: Stephen Aylward <aylward@nn5.mdc.com>
Subject: NETTREK! (& Mazewars)
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A6FF1DD72601033F@d314m1.mdc.com>
X-Xxdate: Mon, 12 Oct 92 12:19:35 GMT
Organization: McDonnell Douglas Corporation - Neural Network Laboratory
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d9
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 17:14:34 GMT

To save the dialup charge - would anyone be willing to e-mail me a copy? 
 Or what about making it available for ftp?

While we're on the subject of great, old, shareware games,  does anyone
have a copy of Mazewars?   It use to be PD/SW.   Once again mail or ftp
would be great.

				Thanks in advance,
				Stephen Aylward
From: billh@mesaadm.cre.nt.com (Bill Hansley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: Lemmings Question
Date: 9 Oct 92 15:02:30 GMT
Organization: NTI
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1b3

Ok, this is a WONDERFUL game, and I'm saving my dimes until the real
version is released. Until then, my question:

Is there a way to make these little critters dig UP??

Straight accross, straight down and diagonally down are no problem, but
there's no way to go up.

Thanks,
Bill
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
From: jreese@leland.Stanford.EDU (james reese)
Subject: Re: Yearning for the good old Infodays
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Distribution: comp.sys.mac.games
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 92 04:05:24 GMT

In article <1992Oct15.190008.1984@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> corleyj@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Jason D Corley ) writes:
>People of the net:
>
>	Does anyone, and I mean ANYONE know of any companies
>that are producing quality text adventures for any computer,
>not just Mac (excluding 99% of the public domain adventures,
>which are worthless)?  I am an old (in computer market terms)
>Infocom addict and can't seem to get my fixes anymore.  Sure,
>Lost Treasures of Infocom came out, but I already have half
>the games and the package is overpriced anyway!  What
>I'm looking for is the same kind of good storytelling, thought-
>provoking puzzles, and imaginative descriptions that used to
>be around in the "days of yore", as opposed to the "hack-n-slash"
>or "gee-whiz-look-at-this-great-animation" or "try-all-the-objects-
>in-my-inventory-until-I-find-something-that-works" (OK, OK, you
>had to do that on some Infocom games too, but only as a last resort)
>games that permeate the market nowadays.  Sure, a good hack-n-slash
>is good for a change of pace, but it gets awfully tiresome after
>a while.
>	Email or post, I don't care.  I _do_ read this newsgroup.
>	Jason
>	Ono-Sendai R&D

	Try the Unnkulian Unnventure Series, which is shareware IF written with
TADS, the Text Adventure Development System. Part I is by D.A. Leary, and is 
very reminiscent of the Zork series. Part II is by David Baggett and continues
the Unnkulian Underworld. More versions are in the works, allegedly coming out
in the very near future (I assume they're being planned for the huge Holiday
rush on interactive fiction). TADS itself is a fantastic development platform
for anyone who is interested in writing an IF; Mike Roberts of High Energy Software is the author.
	BTW, for those of you on this newsgroup who aren't aware, two groups
exist specifically for IF: rec.arts.int-fiction and rec.games.int-fiction.
Try 'em out if you can (and have the time).

Jim!
jreese@leland.stanford.edu
"Damnit, Jim's an intern, not a doctor!"
From: scharf@lrs.e-technik.uni-erlangen.de (Ron Scharf)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: Re: Lemmings! in B/W
Date: 7 Oct 92 16:06:55 GMT
Organization: LRS

guiyu@spectra (Kui Yu Chang) writes:

>>Does anyone know if the Lemmings demo on sumex works with black+white Macs?
>>jason

>Included in the Demo are 3 versions of LEMMINGS!
>	1) B/W
>	2) 13" Color
>	3) LC(12") Color
>But you have to get the whole file (800K) at one FTP.

>The B/W version should RUN on the 68000, otherwise why B/W? They would be losing
>a considerably big piece of market.

The demo at least runs on a SE/30's internal monitor (don't know whether it
will run on 68000 Macs also).
You have to press Cmd-Space to see the menu bar.

Bye
	Ron
scharf@lrs.e-technik.uni-erlangen.de
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
From: junio@twinsun.com (Jun Hamano)
Subject: Re: Hellcats over the Pacific gripes
Organization: Twin Sun, Inc.
	<1992Oct12.161055.5342@tamsun.tamu.edu>
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 19:46:22 GMT

In article <1992Oct12.161055.5342@tamsun.tamu.edu> wrr3118@tamsun.tamu.edu (Rick Russell) writes:

    - There is no War Emergency Power setting. More that just "100%"
   thrust (a strange way to designate engine capacity on a prop-driven
   plane to begin with), WEP is actually a heightened performance mode
   which can only be used for about 5 minutes at a time (or so the tech
   reference says). Why no simulation of WEP?

Agreed, but this may be already built-in in their throttle
simulation, which is after all how WEP was controlled in the real
thing.

    - The tech reference very clearly states that flaps do not deploy at
   IAS greater than 170 knots, yet the effect of deploying flaps at very
   high speed is abrupt... in fact, flap are supposed to be deployed at
   an angle of incidence inversely proportional to the speed of the
   aircraft, but that doesn't happen as far as I can tell.

As you described above, the flaps are blown to smaller angle at
high airspeed.  The POH also says this happens no matter what
flap setting you have in the cockpit.  So even if you flap
indicator shows 40 degrees, it may be blown to, say, only 5
degrees at 170 KIAS.  As to the abrupt effect of deploying flaps,
remember at a higher speed, even smaller control surface movement
gives you a lot more effect than when you are flying slower.

    - Something about the aileron-rudder behaviour seems screwy.
   Shouldn't both rudders and ailerons be necessary for a coordinated
   turn? The manual claims that the Hellcat only uses ailerons (except
   when using Shift-Z and Shift-X to activate rudders specifically), but
   the turning behaviour of the Hellcat seems far too coordinated.

I agree with you that the rudder behaviour is really screwy.  The
manual says that you are always making a coordinated turn, which
means that (4) and (6) keys (or horizontal mouse movement)
controls both ailerons and rudder.  If that is the case, that's
fine by me.  Behaviour of (Z) and (X) rudder controls seems very
unnatural.  Maybe they should cause Hellcat to yaw and allow it
to fly sideways, losing airspeed.

    - As a general gripe, why are so many features of the actual Hellcat
   missing?  No command or navigation radios. No rudder/elevator/aileron
   trim. No possibility of damage to the hydraulic system, which should
   be one of the first things to go. I'd love to see a simulated
   hydraulic hand pump :-)

I don't think we need radios until we see network-multi-player
version ;-).  Elevator trim would be real nice; cannot agree more
about that.  You can lose your hydraulic system if you are hit,
even if you have no damage to your engine or anything else.
After combat, you should always check if your gears come down
before landing.
--
      |
   __-+-__      Jun Hamano
_-+ (\o/) +-_   junio@twinsun.com
  !   .   !
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
From: ingemar@isy.liu.se (Ingemar Ragnemalm)
Subject: Re: RE> Minesweeper for macintosh (Mine v1.0)
Organization: Dept of EE, University of Linkoping
Date:  7 Oct 92 18:54:08 GMT

tbl@rock.concert.net (Ted B Lowery -- Personal Account) writes:

>I have written a game called Mine v1.0, which is pretty much a clone of
>Minesweeper for Windows.
>(stuff deleted)
>I really don't have the time to spend trying to figure out why my
>program has not been posted, but I will offer some options:

>1 - anybody who wants the game, e-mail me and I will mail it back.
>2 - anybody who wants to try and get it posted for me, let me know.
>3 - get it off compuserve.
>4 - write one.

Dear gamers... Whatever you do, please don't do (4). The game above is
number *14* in my list of Mines/Minesweeper clones, most of which mimicks
the Windows version. That makes about 10 games that does *exactly* the
same thing. Only a few makes any real variations on the theme, and even
then they are not that far from the others. (I made one myself - Hexmines
- but I'm starting to regret it.) I think we have enough. Do something
else if you want to hear that you've made a worthwhile contribution. You
have been warned.

Mines, like Tetris and Snake, is a good exercise for starting Mac game
programming, and of course we need to do that, but it is more fun both for
the programmer and the rest of us if not everyone makes the same thing.

>Sorry if I sound a little crass, my latest program is not going well, and 
>I have had little success in getting things posted to the net.  Maybe it just
>doesn't like me.  If anyone wants to give me the secrets to getting your
>work posted, I have about 7 or 8 other programs that I will upload.

Mail it to MacGifts@mac.archive.umich.edu.

-- 
Ingemar Ragnemalm
Dept. of Electrical Engineering	     ...!uunet!mcvax!enea!rainier!ingemar
                  ..
University of Linkoping, Sweden	     ingemar@isy.liu.se
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
From: jmurphy@pop.nih.gov (Joe Murphy)
Subject: Re: Rethinking Japanese Plane in HOTP Leyte Screenshots
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.games
Organization: National Institutes of Health
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 20:56:02 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.162708.14983@athena.mit.edu>, sathomas@athena.mit.edu
(Stephen A Thomas) wrote:
> one in the screen shot.  I believe it is a Kawasaki "Violet Lightning" - I 


I think that was code named by the allies the "Frank"?

Japanase Army Aire Force interceptor, 4 x 20mm..

---
Joe Murphy
Computer Specialist and Macintosh Trickster

National Institutes of Health, Bethesda MD. USA
Division of Computer Research and Technology
Personal Computing Branch, Macintosh Support Group

Internet: jmurphy@pop.nih.gov or jmurphy@alw.nih.gov
          or jmurphy@helix.nih.gov 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
From: carnahan@possum.den.mmc.com (Rich Carnahan)
Subject: Role Playing Games: Reprise
Organization: Martin Marietta Astronautics Group, Denver
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 00:17:28 GMT

Haven't yet received any response re: suggestions for mac role playing
games.  Somebody out there must have a favorite.  My son is anxiously
awating the verdict. :-)

Cheers.

Rich

===================================================================

----------> rich <----------  carnahan@pogo.den.mmc.com 

Martin Marietta Astronautics		"I see that, once again,
Box 179                			 the clue harvest didn't
MS F4063               			 exactly yield a bumper  
Denver, Colorado        		 crop."  
80201                          			-- J. Oliver 
(303) 971-3521
From: jon3@quads.uchicago.edu (Jason Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: Re: Mac games vs PC Games- comparison (again!)
Keywords: reality
Date: 12 Oct 92 14:16:34 GMT
Reply-To: jon3@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

Someone writes:
>I have not seen all these wonderful MS-DOS games, but I hear what is said
>esp. about Wolf3D. Now we have all talked about how QuickDraw isn't good
>enough for _real_ games, but a new library is coming out soon -- QuickDraw GX!
>It is no secret that QDGX is a completely rewritten resolution independent
>much faster graphics library..with functions like 3D graphics and superfast
>transformations. Can this change the games market? Is GX good enough?
>I'm not too much in on GX except what I read..anybody else more qualified
>to comment on this?

I doubt many people will use it for games.  The basic rule is "if you want
something done fast, do it yourself."  The 3D routines, for example, probably
wouldn't be used for a game like Wolf3D... you'd write them all from scratch.

Somebody else says (on IBM hardware):
> IF you happen to have a Sound-Blaster, it sounds like a Mac stuck at about
> 12-16K sampling.  OKay, but not great.

Not.  I'd trade the Mac Sound Manager for Sound Blaster hardware anyday.

And also says:
> Look at gmaes that are simmilar on both machines.                       
> two I can think of right away:                                        
> Lemmings(the real one will be out very soon)-thew demo is great/like the game
> PoPersia                                                                    
> compare them both running on both machines.                       

Your point is taken, games like Lemmings and PoP are much better on (say) a
Macintosh IIsi than a 386 20 machine (but keep in mind, that the guy who bought
the 386 20 could use the money he saved by not buying a IIsi to buy three
or four Sound Blaster cards).  But I'm more interested in the flight simulators
and virtual-reality games like Aces of the Pacific and Ultima Underworld.

Also, someone else compared Hellcats (Mac) to Aces of the Pacific (IBM).  I
think you should go play Aces before you pass judgement on it.  The graphics
are far superior to Hellcats (though at a lower resolution) but it can't
run at reasonable speed on anything less than a 386 20.  I don't know what
the balance between speed and realism should be... comments?

Jason.
From: cshotton@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Chuck Shotton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: Re: SimLife = Neat!
Date: 15 Oct 1992 13:20:49 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.games
Organization: Academic Computing

In article <palane.719087918@pv7412.vincent.iastate.edu>,
palane@iastate.edu (Paul A. Lane) wrote:
> 
> In <1992Oct14.140313.4839@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> ack@coos.dartmouth.edu (Andy J. Williams) writes:
> 
> >Just got and read through the entire SimLife manual! It's really neat!
> 
> >I won't even attempt a review. Suffice to say that it is extremely complex
> >and the interface is the smoothest they've yet done.
> 
> >Like SimAnt, you can just let it go and things will just happen. But the
> >point of this is not to "win". It is an experimentation tool (among other
> >purposes) and the point is to see what happens. So, you can let it go but
> >that's boring. It is much more fun to do nasty things to the ecosystem
> >and watch evolution do its thing... or not, as the case may be.
> 
> For those who might be interested, I believe this is a computer adapta-
> tion of the game Quirks that Eon published a few years ago (those are the
> same folks who published Cosmic Encounters). Glad to see that it didn't
> die when the company went under.
> 

In all honesty, this game makes a great first impression, but it quickly
lost its appeal to me. After studying the logic behind the game, and
looking at a few of the overview screens with a "different" slant, it
becomes pretty obvious that this is a MASSIVELY enhanced version of the
"Bugs" program described in Scientific American a few years ago.

The dead give-away is in the genes that control "turning". Anyone who
remembers the Scientific American article will remember the descriptions of
loopers, cruisers, etc. The same descriptions are used to describe the
turning genes in Sim Life. Also, the overview window (if you turn off the
terrain, etc.) looks just like a "Bugs" screen.

I took some time a few years ago to write a version of the Bugs program
called Bugglings that included things like carnivores, herbivores, etc. in
addition to genetic tools to modify the individual bugs, track one, watch
its stats, etc. It looks like the author of Sim Life just got massively
carried away and added a LOT more to the Bugs concept. I got bored with
Bugs and Bugglings after about a week. I suspect that's the same reason Sim
Life loses its appeal.

Chuck Shotton
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
From: caraher@pn32.petnet.med.umich.edu
Subject: Re: Leyte Screenshots
Organization: pet/cyclotron
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 13:13:08 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.083336.367@doc.bmd.trw.com> auerbach@doc.bmd.trw.com
writes:
>
>One of the primary reasons the top German and Japanese aces (who survived)
were
>credited with so many kills is that were not rotated back to non-comabt
>positions as the American pilots were.  The Americans had a requirement to
>complete so many missions (x for bombers, y for fighters, but I'm not sure
what
>the x and y values were).  The Germans and Japanese had to fight for the
entire
>war to defend first their occupied territories, and second their homelands. 
>Perhaps what would more signify relatives skills and airplane quality would be
>to look at the number of surviving pilots on all sides.  Also, if one looks at
>the number of kills rotated American pilots had, and complare it to the actual
>time in combat, one might see that the Americans tallied up a realatively
>large number of kills per combat hour.
>
>I beleive the top British aces (and allied pilots other than Americans, e.g.,
>the Soviets) were also creditied with large number of kills.  Like their
German
>and Japanese counterparts, these pilots also did not have the luxery of
>rotation.  But then like their German and Japanes counterparts, a large number
>of them never returned home.
>
I don't think the Axis superaces were necessarily better pilots than top US
aces with far fewer kills, for reasons stated above and in another posting. For
an interesting analysis of kill rates and kill ratios in air campaigns see Mike
Spick's book "The Ace Factor." Basically, if you want to really rack up a huge
personal score it helps if you are desparately outnumbered! (Another remarkable
fact is that across all eras of air combat and for either side, roughly 5% of
the fighter pilots routinely account for 40% of that side's air-air kills.
Spick paints a picture of air combat in which 95% of the participants are more
or less targets looking just to survive the attacks of the remaining 5%)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
From: msmiller@Rational.COM (Mark Miller)
Subject: Re: Japanese Plane in HOTP Leyte Screenshots
Organization: Rational
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 18:46:14 GMT

In article <schwager.718648977@mike.cs.uiuc.edu>, schwager@cs.uiuc.edu (Mike Schwager) writes:
|> msmiller@Rational.COM (Mark Miller) writes:
|> 
|> >I'm pretty sure the new Japanese fighter introduced in Leyte is the
|> >Ki-84 Hayate. Was very fast, had a couple 20mm cannon, and was pretty
|> >well armored even by US standards.
|> 
|> >When it goes live this new plane should harvest plenty of dweebs.
|> 
|> >But it can only kill you if you let it.
|> 
|> Geez, I hope it's a little more interesting to fight than the Zero's.  I
|> can run rings around those things with the Hellcat.  Since when could a
|> Hellcat dogfight a Zero as if the Zero was standing still??

It ain't. At least not in the beta. GraphSim still hasn't taught the
enemy planes about flaps. So you can pop flaps for one hard turn,
get behind the KI, and then just fire away till it blows smoke. At which
point its just a matter of time. If they re-model flaps this will all
change, of course. The Ki's main nuisance factors are (a) takes a lot
of hits to kill and (b) you can't out-run it.

For people who had problems fighting Zekes, the Ki will just gut 'em
like a fish. For people who got bored with the Zekes, the Ki will
make things slightly more interesting.

When they get a head-to-head mode, then we're talking ...

	-MSM

________________________________________________________________________
Mark S. Miller                                     msmiller@Rational.COM
"Life is a 4-letter word."                        msmiller@world.std.com
[ insert tedious disclaimer drivel here ]                           IV-Q
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games