=========================================================== MAGIC: THE GATHERING Version 1.1 Readme File 24 April 1997 =========================================================== Table of Contents ================= 1) Important Customer Support Note 2) FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) 3) New Features Shandalar The Duel and Gauntlet Dueling Table Deck Builder 3) Card Notes 4) Tutorial Errata IBM ThinkPad Compatibility 5) Technical Notes 6) Additional Credits Important Customer Support Note =============================== Do NOT call Wizards of the Coast Customer Service with questions, problems, or other issues related to this computer game; contact MicroProse Customer Support. The WotC folks will happily address card issues, as always, but they will not help you with issues specific to the computer game. FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) ================================ For further help for Magic: The Gathering, please read the Magic FAQ included on this CD-ROM. Look for the filename MAGICFAQ.TXT. The FAQ includes help for installation, sound cards, video cards, graphics, gameplay, Shandalar and specific cards. New Features ============ Shandalar --------- * You can now move your character using the mouse. Position the mouse cursor in the direction you want to move, then click. You'll move in that direction just as you would if you had used the keyboard controls. Click on the top half of your character to stop moving. * Right-clicking anywhere in the Big Window opens a mini-menu of game functions. At this menu, you can: Save Save your game Shift-S Load Load a saved game Quit Leave the game Esc See/Edit Deck View or edit your deck F1 See Map Look at the maps F2 See City List View the City List F3 See Dungeon Clues See your dungeon clues F4 See Stats Go to the Status screen F5 See Wiz Stats Check on the Guild Lords F6 * You can load a saved game in Shandalar without having to exit first. Just right-click with the mouse to bring up the mini-menu for saving, loading, etc. * You can play in Shandalar without a sound card. * You can now turn off the animation that runs after each duel (the crystal ball scene). After you've watched it all the way through at least once, right-click and toggle the animation off. You'll need to redo this each time you play. * As described on page 138 of the manual, your deck must have a minimum number of cards in it to be legal for use in a duel. The minimum for each difficulty level has changed. The limits now are: Apprentice = 30 Magician = 35 Sorcerer = 40 Wizard = 40 If you don't have enough cards, your deck size is boosted to the minimum with random basic lands, as described in the manual. * Your deck size in Shandalar is limited to 500 cards. As you approach the 500-card limit, the game will warn you. You can simply sell some cards to reduce your deck size. The Duel and Gauntlet --------------------- * Ante in the Gauntlet and any time you are playing an isolated duel (not in Shandalar) is not true ante. That is, no cards change ownership after the duel. The ante cards are removed from players' libraries for the duration of that duel, but are restored to their respective decks for any further duels. * When you save a duel during a Gauntlet, you save only the status of that current duel, not your progress through the Gauntlet. So, when you load a saved duel, you play that duel and not the rest of the Gauntlet. We plan to change this in the future. Dueling Table ------------- A few reminders of often overlooked features: * If you do not put a Stop (the red marker) on a phase, play will bypass that phase without bothering to ask you if you want to use optional effects (a Brass Man's untap or Land Tax, for example). This is a handy way to prevent the duel from bogging down, but if you are not careful, you could accidentally miss an opportunity. Thus, if you plan to use an optional effect (especially during the upkeep phase), make sure to Run To (by clicking on the phase bar) or put a Stop on the phase you have in mind. * Remember that creatures with negative power are treated as having a power of 0 for all purposes except raising the power. Thus, they are displayed during a duel as having 0 power. (This could change to an option in the future.) * Casting creatures and enchantments after combat (during the Main Post-Combat sub-phase) instead of before (during Main Pre-Combat) is one way to speed up the duel. Of course, this won't always be appropriate to your strategy. * Remember that all of the floating windows -- including the Ante and Mulligan displays, both hands, and the Situation Bar (but not the Spell Chain and Combat windows) -- are movable. Just click and drag them out of the way when necessary. * You can minimize both the Spell Chain and Combat windows. Just click anywhere on the title bar of the window to do so. To restore the Spell Chain window to full size, click on the star icon on the phase bar. To restore the Combat window to full size, click on the sword icon on the phase bar. * Hold the mouse over a particular thing (a card, part of the dueling table, or an ability marker, for instance) to find out what it is. * Right-click on things for a mini-menu of useful functions. * Click on things to use them. Double-click to auto-use; that is, to have mana drawn from lands automatically (and indiscriminately). Deck Builder ------------ * The manual states that saved decks must have a valid DOS filename, (8 characters followed by a .dck extension). Actually, the saved deck filenames just need to be valid Windows 95 filenames. The program will automatically append the .dck extension to the name you type in. * Moving multiple copies of a card into and out of your deck can be a pain. Instead of moving one copy at a time, now you can move as many as you need, all in one step. Hold down the Shift key and double-click on the card. Enter the number you want moved. * You can now right-click on the area in between the sets of Filter Buttons to open a mini-menu. This menu has only one option: the Main Buttons toggle. If you choose to toggle the Main Menu Buttons On, all of the filters EXCEPT the Other Filters become active (are turned on). If you toggle Main Menu Buttons Off, all of the Set Filters, Color Filters, and Type Filters are inactivated (switched off). * When you're traveling in Shandalar, you can also right-click on the background area behind the cards in your deck to get another mini-menu. This one has two options that let you to move cards according to their color. Use Move By Color Into Deck to put all the cards of the colors you choose from the inventory into the current deck, and Move By Color Out Of Deck to move cards from your deck into your inventory. You're prompted to choose which of the five colors, plus "artifacts" (not "colorless"), you want moved. Note that the basic lands that correspond to the colors you choose also move. (No lands move with artifacts, however.) * The Deck Builder considers basic lands as having the same color as the color of mana they produce for the purpose of deck stats. (For example, 5 Islands count as 5 Blue cards.) Card Notes ========== * A display issue: The name of artist Brian Snoddy should always have a line over the 'o'. (Sorry, Brian.) * In some places in the game, the name of El-Hajjaj is displayed incorrectly. There should always be an accent circumflex (caret) over the final 'a'. Tutorial Errata =============== * Any time one of the wizards in the Tutorial mentions "points," he or she is being informal. There are actually no "points" in the game of Magic: The Gathering. Thus: - In Chapters 4, 6, 8, 9 and anywhere else, when the wizards refer to "points of damage," they mean simply "damage." - In Chapter 4 (and anywhere else), when they speak of "points of mana," they really mean "mana." - In Chapter 8, one of them says, "...the ogre does two points against the knight's two points of toughness." That should be "...the ogre does two damage against the knight's two toughness." - In Chapters 4 and 7, the wizards talk of "life points." They mean "life total." * In Chapter 7, the wizard mentions the "Heal Phase." Obviously, his information is out-of-date. Under the 5th Edition rules, the Heal Phase no longer exists. It has been replaced by the Cleanup Phase. * In Chapter 8, the wizard says, "...other special powers include regeneration, flight, and many more..." He means "...regeneration, FLYING, and many more." IBM ThinkPad Compatibility -------------------------- * Those of you installing this game on a ThinkPad might experience a problem when viewing the Tutorial videos. This is caused by the video software attempting to use an incorrect driver. We've included a program on the CD-ROM that corrects this problem. Run this file: autoplay\setindeo.exe and the Tutorial should work just fine. Technical Notes =============== * Don't forget to take a look at the Magic FAQ (MAGICFAQ.TXT) on the program disc for further help with troubleshooting any problems. * Some players might experience compatibility problems. Our tests lead us to believe that the most common cause of these problems is not the game itself, but out-of-date device drivers installed on the computer. If you experience compatibility problems, please make sure that you are using the most recent drivers provided for your hardware. If you have the correct drivers and the problem persists, call Customer Support. * If you experience problems with any part of this game after you install new hardware or software, you might have updated a sound driver, video driver, DirectX driver or Indeo Video driver to a version that is not compatible with the game. To fix this, you can reinstall the DirectX drivers from the Magic: The Gathering CD-ROM. * We stongly suggest that you play this game in High Color (16-bit) video mode or better. If you are playing in a lesser mode (that is, you are using 256 colors or less), you might experience transitory graphic oddities. These are superficial and should not have any lasting effect on the game. * This game is designed to work with the standard issue Windows 95. We do NOT support ANY of the beta upgrades to Windows 95. * If you experience problems with flickering video in Shandalar, it's likely you need to update your video drivers. Most vendors now supply Windows 95 versions of their video drivers. You can normally download these drivers from the vendor's BBS or Web site. * If you do not hear the sound effects in the game, you might not have selected to install the DirectX drivers. Rerun the install program, but do not select ANY game components to install. Allow the new DirectX drivers to be installed. * If you have the new Sound Blaster 16/AWE-32 driver for Windows 95 (Revision 7), you may experience problems running this game. The new Sound Blaster driver updates the Audio Drive Component to version 4.33.00.0012. This version causes the game to crash with a fatal exception error in VXD VMM(01) and terminates the application. Reinstall the DirectX drivers (as in the previous paragraph). The DirectX Audio Drive Component is version 4.31.00.0068, which functions correctly. Creative Labs also has a new driver, version 4.33.00.0014, which does not cause the problem. * Our testers have experienced problems using the Creative Labs Graphics Blaster MA 302 (Revision 1). The drivers for this video card apparently are not completely compatible with DirectX 3.0. In order for this card to function correctly with the game, you MUST reinstall the DirectX drivers supplied with the game. * If you try to manually delete this game using Windows Explorer, you might experience problems. (We suggest you ALWAYS use the Uninstall feature instead.) When you run the game, some game files temporarily become part of the Windows 95 system resources. These files cannot be used or deleted if they are currently being used by your system. If you experience this type of problem, you can reboot your computer to free the affected files. You should then be able to delete the files. * The Uninstall feature removes only those files installed by the Install Shield program. Any files created by the game, such as saved games, will be left on the system after you run uninstall. Additional Credits ================== * Since the credits in the manual and the game were finalized, a few more people have become involved in the production of this game: -Even More Additional Testers- Gary Tomlinson Larry S. Webber Matt Bittman Anthony Rubbo Jeff Bostic Eleanor Crawley -Compatibility Testing- Hoi Nguyen William Hom -Special Thanks- Rene Flores Lenny Raymond Jesper Myrfors -We Couldn't Have Done It Without You- Gayle Keidel