Readme file for patch v1.03

Darkstone version 1.03

Thanks for playing Darkstone.

This patch brings new features we wanted to add and some which have been requested by the players. It also fixes a couple of minor errors we discovered after the release of the game.

Enjoy playing and replaying Darkstone!

Delphine Software.

New features

• A new level of difficulty -- Hero
• The chat box supports up to 80 characters
• Chat messages are now visible by the sender
• A life bar is displayed on all characters in cooperative mode
• The server is able to end the session of another player using "K" following by the player number
• The ability to have your second character attack your closest attacker using "D"
• The ability to pre-select the spell for the second character using Shift and 1-8
• Moving the mouse on a multiplayer character will display his experience level
• If you stop a cinematic sequence, it will skip all the others
• The Berseker spell will be used automatically by your second character only if he is attacking
• In cooperative mode, your character can't be attacked by another player

• New command line options
  • -reversecam : reverse camera rotation of direction keys
  • -keepalive : enable the DirectPlay keepAlive option (Default : IPX : on ; TCP/IP : off)
  • -nooptimizelatency : remove the bandwidth optimisation for latency delays
  • -directplayprotocol : enable the DirectPlayProtocol (Default : IPX : on ; TCP/IP : off)
  • -nodirectPlayprotocol : disable the DirectPlayProtocol (Default : IPX : on ; TCP/IP : off)
  • -noasync : remove the asynchrone network messages (Default is on)
  • -noguarantee : remove the guarantee messages (Default is on)
  • -nointro : skip the intro cinematic sequences (Default is on)

ATTENTION: After installing this patch, you will not be able to play multiplayer with another user who has version 1.0.0. All the players will have to upgrade their version to 1.0.3.

Problems fixed:

• Durability of objects: We were not restoring the durability of objects when we saved the characters and the saved games. It may occur that the durability could increase in a special case which has now been fixed.
• Amend shooting through doors. It is now not possible to do this.
• Resistences now operate correctly.
• Magic bomb and poison cloud spell can only be cast if the target is within the line of sight.
• Special weapon (fire element, poison etc) were doing only 1 point of damage if the target is immune to the spell. They will now inflict basic damage instead.

Network Code:

• Better and more secured object management regarding the selections, losts and duplications.
• Better management regarding lost connections after some latency delays.
• Overall improvement of network code.
• Faster connection time to an existing session.