NEW Coliseum Demo 1.01!

[StormcloudCreations]

There is a brand new Version of the Coliseum demo up for download here at Shrapnel, at the place where you downloaded the original demo.
It adds new balance tweaks, features and changes, many requested by Users. It should be more challenging now than before.

Here is the technical list of changes:

- Completely redid the starting warrior stat generation to be more even and balanced early on (less of a gap between the various warriors stats) to make the overall league more competitive and balanced than before - this change will effectively make gambling a little tougher than before, since stats tend to be more even overall, so it will fix most problems with gambling being "broken" and will also make training more important
- Altered advertising and attendance to more closely match the records of the fighters and the "interest" level of the match, and made advertising revenue a bit more varied so that "maxing out" isn't always the best option
- Added a NEW feature: You can alter the combat strategy in the middle of a match by yelling various things or strategies at your warrior (changing stategies by being aggressive, more defensive, etc.) if you go below 20 WP. It will amplify the effect of an already chosen strategy at the beginning of the fight as well. This will allow managers to be more involved in the flow and outcome of a fight sometimes!
- Made training a bit more expensive, so it's tougher (almost impossible early on) to "max out"; altered it to be a bit more effective too, to balance out the cost
- Fixed all known bugs, including the warrior "rename" bug, occasional potion bugs, and auctioning off a top warrior and having his record still show up in the top standings with the name blank
- Added two new text delay options - 1 second (for a fast fight) and 8 seconds (to make for easier reading)
- Tweaked fights to improve "flow" and make a little bit more "sense" in terms of the stats displayed (though upsets are still possible)
- Added more combat sound effects

Link is here:

Demo 1.01 Download

Thanks and have fun!

[gregebowman]

I'll definitely try out this demo. I played the original demo over the weekend, and it was very good. Can't wait to see the final product, which, is hard to believe, will ship out next week. It's hard to believe it's December already. The big day isn't that too far away.

[David E. Gervais]

Lots of great stuff added and fixed,.. and a spiffy new icon too

Let the games begin..

Cheers!

[Quiller]

New Version of demo still crashes going into fights (usually second time, but sometimes first) and resets my monitors refresh rate to 60Hz.

[StormcloudCreations]

Quiller: I just tried the demo on my 2 systems and it does not change the refresh rate on either of mine. Strange.

As far as crashes, what does it say? An error message? This is an unusual report, so I want to help you out. Most have reported running the demo fine. If it is just a sudden crash, then something you may be running the background may be interfering with it. Do you have file lock or protection programs going with an anti-virus program? Heavy, intensive programs like Word or messaging things like ICQ and the like? Lots of different programs running at Start-Up? These can interfere with many programs and cause strange behavior.

That said, with the full Version i'll try to code assuming people have other things running in the background to make the game more friendly to other running tasks.

I only say it might be your system mainly because i'm sure if it crashed on the first or second fight for everyone or most everyone, i'd have heard an earfull about it.

[StormcloudCreations]

Quiller: Update on the refresh issue -> I have tracked it down and redid the code that changes resolutions for the game. The problem will be fixed for the full Version of the game. It will restore both your original resolution and your refresh rate when the game exits.

Wasn't too hard either...Curse my laziness!

Thanks!

[gregebowman]

Finally got around to playing the demo Last night. Didn't think I had to, since the release date was supposed to be yesterday. It's a great demo, but I was hoping to play a full season. Any specific date as to when the game will ship out?

[StormcloudCreations]

gregebowman: Sorry about the slight delay. I was slowed by adding new features (then testing them to make sure they worked; they're noted on the Home page Shrapnel press release), + all the holiday shopping and family stuff my girl insists on doing at Christmas/Thanksgiving time, and a touch of the flu i've been trying to get for awhile (not that you wanted to hear about all of that, i'm sure ).

Glad you enjoyed the demo! The full Version shipping date should be sometime before Christmas, but i'm not too sure of the exact date.

[Quiller]

Derek,

Thanks for the response. The crash is reproducable - on every second fight after a clean boot of my system. It comes up with the Microsoft error trapping screens - "V 1.01 (Demo Version) has encountered a problem and needs to close"

the error signature info is:

AppName: coliseum.exe
AppVer: 1.0.0.1
ModName: ntdll.dll
ModVer: 5.1.2600.1217
Offset: 00033aed

I'm running XP home patched to latest if that's any help. Not running word, ICQ, anti-virus etc.