> Z: I got to thinking ... when an new version or upgrade arrives perhaps it
> could come either in 2 flavours .. one zip as an up grade or perhaps a smart
> installer ...  maybe the archive could distribute with a utility that would
>create the 3rdparty.dat, goodsay.dat, various editable data files (monsters fo
>one seeing some data files are editable), etc so that if the *don't* exist the
> will be created as opposed to sysop changes being overwritten with the
> instruction "unzip lord.zip into your existing LORD
directory" whereby all of
> our changes are deleted  ... just a suggestion :)
> I could code something up if ya like .. or the great Donald could lol

Well thanks for the compliment, but I do not touch the LORD files as to any form of
distribution.  A certain person in Nebraska tends to have major temper tamptrums
when someone does anything with LORD in a distribution sense.  As in, thou shalt
NOT EVER distribute copies of betalord.zip, for example to others.  Or, thou shalt
NOT post LORD*.zip version files to Fidonet.  Got blessed out a couple of years ago
by him for putting Lord406.zip on my FDN site.  

I don't do brand new installs of lord very often, so was not really aware that Lord
4.06 would overwrite an existing 3rdparty.dat file.  That's very strange.  Were you
referring to Lord doing the file overwrite during install process, or
referring to your
archive program (Winzip, pkzip, etc) doing that overwrite?  If you are using pkunzip,
just always use the -n parameter to unzip the newest files -- *UNLESS* you
have altered any to your own preferences.  In which case, I'd suggest
write-protecting
the modified files - such as a personalized monsters.dat or lord.ldy file - that you
want to protect.  Then do the pkunzip -n lord.zip command.

Preslar doesn't seem to care much in the past year, roughly, about posting
mail here in the Lord echo. And he doesn't write very often in the Lordnews
mailing list
either.  His own Lord_Dev mailing list appears to be dead or in a coma, since it
has not been in usage in at least the past few months. I can't speak for
him, so I have
no idea why that is the way it is.  But things like that give various
people the impression
that he is not providing adequate tech support for Lord at times, as I have
heard from 
various people via email over the past year.

There are some exceptions, that each person has to decide about themselves.
Say you edited trainers.dat to your own liking.  And Preslar updates the
official
version file.  Which version are you going to use?  His version might have fixed
the bug you altered, and added something new.  On the other hand, it might
screw up your game if you used his modified trainers.dat file.  

There was a time last year, when lord 4.07 beta was screwed up enough that Level 11
players could not challenge Turgon.  That's one reason my Lpedit utility has a sysop
option that allows them to manually update a player from Level 11 to 12, so that
the player could go after the red Dragon.  Since the feature is useful even after
that issue was taken care of, I've left it in the current v1.10 beta of Lpedit.
 
You have to decide when to use official lord data files, and when to use your own 
modifications or someone else's.  personally I used a trainers.dat file that Michael 
Everett made up, that I liked using for awhile.  Then I went back to the regular 
file once the Turgon issue was fixed.

Good luck with getting back up to speed on your lord play and igms work.

And please remember to keep me notified people whenever you release a new
Lord, Lord2, or Wildcat Tournament Lord program. To contact me, use
donald.tidmore{at}fidotel.com for Lord-related mail. 

Side note:  The docs updates of Michael Adams programs, which include one
Lord menuset, and a few Lord2 programs, can be accessed from the Lordfile
and Lord2fil directories of my Camelot Lordnews FDN site, if you need/want
them.
See http://www.filegate.net/camelot/ to access the site.

Donald.

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