Worms Armageddon ReadMe (English)

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This page contains a complete transcription of the Beta ReadMe. Besides minor formatting changes for the purposes of presentation and some spelling corrections, the content has been unmodified.

The original RTF is included with Beta updates, and can be found in your W:A folder. You can also download it from here.

Important Licence Information

Thank you for participating in this External Beta Test for Worms Armageddon PC. All your comments are gratefully received and we will endeavour to address all of your reported problem points where possible for the intended Update Final Release. We would also like to extend our gratitude to the countless users providing requests and points for inclusion, without which much of the improved content could not have been made possible.

Please note that we can provide beta support in the English language only.

If you do happen to encounter any bugs during play, please read the Bug Reporting section later in this document for how to produce and report any findings directly to the Team17 Development Team.

IMPORTANT: You should very carefully read and agree to the following External Beta Test Licence Agreement prior to installing this software update.

If you do not agree to the terms and conditions of the licence then please do not install the software. It is also highly recommended to view this entire document in order to fully understand the software content, specific game additions and implications of accepting subsequent installation and use.

External Beta Test Licence Agreement

This software update and accompanying documentation are a copyright of Team17 Software Ltd. This release is provided to end users specifically for evaluation and testing purposes only within the conditions of the licence agreement. Any forms of use outside the terms of the licence agreement are expressly prohibited. On acceptance to proceed with the installation of this software you agree to be fully bound by the terms and conditions of this licence agreement and the acknowledgements comprised herein.

Licence Acknowledgements

It is your understanding that this particular software update is BETA, and is therefore as such a work in progress and may possibly contain problems that could be resultant in a loss of data. Team17 Software Ltd cannot be held responsible for damage sustained to operating system and / or game setups through installation and use of this update program in its current form.

Feedback information should be provided by you, the end user, where possible relating to problematic instances that may occur during use of this software update. This supply of information should be generated and forwarded for the attention of Team17 Software Ltd via the contact method as outlined within this documentation.

The software content comprised within this update is a property of Team17 Software Ltd and should therefore not be reverse engineered, disassembled, de-compiled or altered in any way from its original compilation. If conduct such as the aforementioned is subsequently performed without prior permission from Team17 Software Ltd this will be considered a breach of licence agreement terms and may result in appropriate action being taken.

Version History

Click an update to see a list of features and fixes for that update.

• v3.5 Beta 1 Update (2002.08.09)
• v3.5 Beta 2 Update (2002.08.15)
• v3.6.19.7 Beta Update (2004.02.09)
• v3.6.19.11 Beta Update (2004.02.10)
• v3.6.19.12 Beta Update (2004.02.11)
• v3.6.19.14 Beta Update (2004.02.12)
• v3.6.19.15 Beta Update (2004.02.20)
• v3.6.19.17 Beta Update (2004.03.11)
• v3.6.19.17a Beta Update (2004.03.12)
• v3.6.19.18 Beta Update (2004.03.19)
• v3.6.19.19 Beta Update (2004.03.21)
• v3.6.20.1 Beta Update (2004.07.13)
• v3.6.20.2 Beta Update (2004.08.03)
• v3.6.20.3 Beta Update (2004.08.06)
• v3.6.21.1 Beta Update (2004.09.23)
• v3.6.21.2 Beta Update (2004.09.27)
• v3.6.21.3 Beta Update (2004.09.28)
• v3.6.22.1 Beta Update (2004.10.06)
• v3.6.23.0 Beta Update (2005.03.23)
• v3.6.23.1 Beta Update (2005.03.23)
• v3.6.23.2 Beta Update (2005.03.24)
• v3.6.24.1 Beta Update (2005.03.29)
• v3.6.24.2 Beta Update (2005.03.31)
• v3.6.25.1a Beta Update (2005.04.26)
• v3.6.26.4 Beta Update (2005.11.22)
• v3.6.26.5 Beta Update (2006.01.05)
• v3.6.28.0 Beta Update (2007.06.29)
• v3.6.29.0 Beta Update (2008.07.28)
• v3.6.30.0 Beta Update (2010.10.26)
• v3.6.31.0 Beta Update (2010.11.16)

Installation

The contents of the update installer are the files required to update your current version of Worms Armageddon to v3.8.1 (Beta). This Beta includes all previous updates from the Official v3.0 and Beta versions of the game, excluding updates to GFX archives (introduced in v3.6.22.1). The Beta update installer will automatically offer to download and install the Official v3.0 Patch and the GFX updates if required. It will preserve your customized settings and teams, schemes, saved levels, replays, etc., contrary to what was done in the v3.0.5.0 Beta installer and v3.0 Patch.

INSTALLATION

Launch the WA_update-3.8.1_Beta_Installer.exe update installer, and follow the installer instructions. Automatic download and installation of the v3.0 Patch and GFX updates requires a working Internet connection. Users requiring an offline installation may download the stand-alone installers for the v3.0 Patch and GFX updates from Team17's FTP server ( ftp://ftp.team17.com/pub/t17/patches/pc/ ).

Once the update has been installed, you can then run the game as you would normally.

Known Issues/Bugs

Versions / Patching
The Trymedia/Trygames online-downloadable version of Worms Armageddon cannot be patched, and is equivalent to v3.5 Beta 2.

Crashes / Fatal errors

If W:A is minimised in the front-end and it needs to display a dialog, switch to a different screen, etc., it may crash or the screen elements may be displaced on restoring. For example: During the end-of-round screen in an online game, W:A will crash if the host clicks the "Play Again" button before you have restored; If W:A is minimised just before entering WormNET, upon restoring the screen elements will not be placed at their correct locations. There are crashes that reportedly happen for various other causes, sometimes before W:A even has a chance to start up. These have not been thoroughly investigated, but may have something to do with nonstandard or erroneous files in the directory structure of the W:A CD-ROM or installed "Worms Armageddon" folder, often due to a pirated copy of W:A. W:A will not run on notebook computers with Intel video chipsets running Windows Vista. The reason is that Intel's drivers for Windows Vista do not support certain DirectX technologies used by the game. Norton Personal Firewall, and possibly other personal firewalls, do not gracefully detect the replacement of "WA.exe" with a new version. Symptom: You can no longer connect to WormNET. Workaround: Each time after you install a new W:A beta update you need to delete the entry for "WA.exe" from your firewall so it can create a new, working entry. Plan: In a future version this will be addressed by "faking" accesses to the needed ports before going full-screen, so that the user has a chance to respond to firewall windows that may pop up.

Privacy
Whispers are not sent securely, and can be spied upon using a network packet logger. This applies both to the host/join screen and the in-game chat.

In-game Connectivity

In an online game, the delay between turns (a minimum of 2 seconds) is perhaps sometimes longer than necessary. When a v3.6.24.1 user is present in an online game along with v3.6.23 or v3.6.24.2+ users, a desync may happen during long turns of the v3.6.23 / 3.6.24.2+ users. In v3.6.30.0, for a client in an online game with 3 or more players, if the host stops responding (without detectably dropping the connection) during a remote client's turn, then the game will not automatically time out the connection.

Usability issues

The front end may be slow/laggy sometimes. One known cause of this is MSN Messenger; if you are using it, go to Tools→Options→Personal and uncheck the box "Show me as "Busy" and block my alerts when I'm running a full-screen program, such as a slide presentation". Another known cause is video driver related, and this is addressed in v3.6.26.4. When returning to the front end from a finished game session, the palette sometimes is not correctly set and is black and white. Minimising and restoring fixes it, but without this step it's necessary to operate blind. In the end-of-round screen of an online game, the "Exit" button sometimes stays greyed out for an unreasonable or indefinite amount of time. When a WAgame file is launched from Windows Explorer, a refresh is triggered in Explorer, so upon returning from Playback, the selection is reset to the first file in the folder. A game hosted on WormNET will disappear from the list after a timeout, even if the game is still open for joining. If this is fixed before the implementation of a new rankings/server system, the fix will be an auto-renewal. There are some text strings (mainly those added in the beta patch) that have not been translated and are shown only in English. Under certain conditions (possibly related to the v3.6.26.4 "slow front end" fix) the Alt fine-tuning key in the Map Editor doesn't work properly.

Playability issues

Weapons dropped by a roping worm will sometimes immediately hit or bounce against the roping worm. Examples: The Bazooka may hit the roping worm before it has any chance to retreat, instantly detonating even if there are no obstacles in the immediate vicinity. The Holy Hand Grenade may bounce against the roping worm and fall the wrong way. The Sheep Launcher may brush against the roping worm and drop straight down while requiring one less pressing of the Fire key than is expected to trigger explosion. Graves can block a Girder from being placed in certain positions that would be possible if the grave were not present. The alternative, however, would be to allow the girder to be placed, thus causing the grave to fall down through the terrain, which would be rather weird (although it is already possible to do by shooting a grave with the Longbow). It is too easy to accidentally Surrender. It is possible to fall onto a Crate in a the middle of Rope Roll without collecting the crate. This is very rare. (This can also happen in a Mission/Training round, if a worm continues roping after losing enough health to die; that is a separate issue, and if anything needs to be fixed in that case it is the fact that a zombie worm can keep moving.) When computing the possibilities for firing a projectile, a CPU worm follows the paths with staggered pixels. However, a projectile's actual collision path sweeps a 7x5 rectangle, which may collide in a place the CPU worm didn't check. This can result in the CPU worm accidentally throwing a Grenade which bounces back onto itself, regardless of its CPU skill level. When the Pneumatic Drill is used on top of an Oil Drum, it does not cause an explosion. (It does, however, if a corner or side of the Oil Drum is hit.) The camera follows an opponent's active worm and cursor even if they are Invisible. This gives an advantage to players who are running W:A at a low resolution, since this narrows down the opponent's location. There are several performance issues with large maps, particularly during the spawning of randomly placed crates.

Cosmetic issues

PNG maps with more than 64 non-black colours create glitches in the soil texture when land is destroyed. (Note that the glitches can be avoided in 3.6.25.1+ by disabling Placement Holes, at the cost of losing soil textures and some or all background graphics.) During fast-forward, rising water can cause a graphical glitch in which there is a temporary shift between the terrain and sprites. (This may only happen when the resolution is high enough to letterbox a cavern terrain.) In the sprite of a Worm holding a Freeze, the worm is incorrectly shown as standing on a downward slope if it is standing on an upward slope. A fix for this will be bundled with the next update of Gfx0.dir and Gfx1.dir (delayed because it is hard to get the palette just right). With ambient music enabled, sudden switches in the music track (for example, when Sudden Death initiates) can cause an ugly audio pop. It is unknown whether this happens on all systems. Sometimes some buttons, e.g. the light-bulb icon in the host/join screen, are replaced by a small (16x16 pixels) black square. When viewing a map of nonstandard size (something other than 1920×696) in the Map Editor, the cavern borders are not rescaled or moved; they are shown as if the map is still 1920×696. Also, the water level will not be proportionally correct. The background debris in the front end moves at a speed dependent on your video refresh rate.

Replay/logging issues

In recorded replay files of online games, only the passage of game time separates lines of chat. Chat that took place during network lag or game loading will be displayed all at once during playback. In situations where a Mine is triggered after the end of a turn but before the beginning of the next, a Checksum Spurious and subsequent Checksum Missing may be reported during playback or in an exported log.

Footnotes

1. If a Worm dismounts a horizontally-stationary Ninja Rope in direct contact with the ground, it will land instantly, thus ready to do other things without delay. It is not always possible to extend a rope to the length necessary for this to happen — since it extends and retracts 4 pixels at a time, it may stop with 1-3 pixels of room remaining between Worm and ground. Also, even if a rope appears to be horizontally stationary, it may have a microscopic amount of momentum. Following are ways to recreate the circumstances required for an instant rope dismount:
   • (All versions of W:A) Worm is standing in a confined space (e.g. at the bottom of a tunnel 9 pixels wide and at least 8 pixels high), and shoots the Ninja Rope straight upward. It may then retract and extend the rope and/or fire a weapon, as long as it does not nudge the rope left or right. Then, when that rope is extended to maximum length (either by not moving at all, or by re-extending the rope as far as it will go) the Worm is in direct contact with the ground.
   • (v3.6.23.0 and later) Same as above, but Worm is not required to fire the rope from a confined space. It may do so from any standing position.
   • (v3.6.23.0 and later) Worm is in midair, with no horizontal velocity, and shoots the Ninja Rope straight upward. There is a 25% chance that the rope will be phased such that it is possible to put the Worm in direct contact with the ground.
   • (All versions of W:A) Same as above, but Worm must be in a 9-pixel-wide tunnel at the time the rope connects.
2. This bug is emulated for compatibility with older versions of W:A. An emulated crash ends the game in a draw for those using a newer version. The older versions will still crash.
3. The wa:// protocol can be used to join or host games with advanced parameters. The format is wa://address?param1=value1&...&paramN=valueN. Specifying a blank address will cause the game to host a game with the specified parameters. The following parameters are supported:
   • pass or password – specifies the game's password.
   • id or gameid – specifies the game's ID, as used on WormNET.

   • scheme – specifies the channel scheme to be used. This setting should be identical on all ends. Since this information isn't transmitted via the game peer-to-peer connection, unmatching values can cause a desynchronisation. For more information on the channel scheme format, see http://worms2d.info/WormNET_(Worms_Armageddon)#Channels

     Using the scheme parameter, it's possible to create direct IP games with rope knocking enabled. To do this, the host must run WA.exe wa://?scheme=Pf , and other players must run WA.exe wa://address?scheme=Pf .

     If the game is hosted on a TCP port other than the default one (17011), the port can be specified with the syntax: wa://address:port?parameters...

4. The following registry tweaks allow setting certain game options, most of which can also be set using the Advanced Options screen. These files are located in the Tweaks folder, and are activated by double-clicking them (the game should not be running).
   • BackgroundGradientParallax_Disable.reg, BackgroundGradientParallax_Enable.reg – enable or disable the dithered gradient parallax effect introduced in the same version. (introduced in v3.6.30.0)
   • FrontendPaletteFix_On.reg, FrontendPaletteFix_Off.reg – Enables workarounds to prevent palette loss in the front end. Enabled by default. (introduced in v3.6.30.0)
   • FrontendUseDesktopWindow_Enable.reg, FrontendUseDesktopWindow_Disable.reg – Enables a workaround to allow the front end to render correctly under Wine. (introduced in v3.6.30.0)
   • FrontendUseVRAM_Enable.reg, FrontendUseVRAM_Disable.reg – Allows or prevents usage of video memory in the front end. Enabled by default. (introduced in v3.6.30.0)
   • ForceWineVirtualDesktop_On.reg, ForceWineVirtualDesktop_Off.reg – Causes W:A to automatically restart itself under a Wine virtual desktop. (introduced in v3.6.30.0)
   • InGameDoubleBuffering_Enable.reg, InGameDoubleBuffering_Disable.reg – Enables or disables in-game double buffering. Disabling fixes flickering under VMware. Enabled by default. (introduced in v3.6.30.0)
   • LargerFonts_On.reg, LargerFonts_Off.reg – Use a larger font in some places in-game and in the front end. (introduced in v3.6.28.0)
   • LegacyUtilityKey_On.reg, LegacyUtilityKey_Off.reg – Use the key used for typing the ` character for the current input language to select utilities, instead of using the key under Escape (for non-US keyboard layouts). (introduced in v3.6.28.0)
   • MapAreaWarnLimit_Always.reg, MapAreaWarnLimit_Default.reg, MapAreaWarnLimit_Unlimited.reg – Sets the threshold for which to display the map loading prompt, to prevent a Denial of Service attack by loading a very large map. (introduced in v3.6.28.0)
   • NoLandInVram_On.reg, NoLandInVram_Off.reg – Controls whether W:A creates land surfaces in video memory. Improves compatibility with certain Wine versions. (introduced in v3.6.28.0)
   • SkipIntro_On.reg, SkipIntro_Off.reg – Skips the intro and logos shown upon W:A startup; identical to the /nointro command line option. (introduced in v3.6.30.0)
   • OfflineRopeKnocking_On.reg, OfflineRopeKnocking_Off.reg – Enables "rope knocking" in Offline Multi-Player and Quick CPU games. (introduced in v3.6.24.2)
   • Phone_Disable.reg, Phone_Enable.reg – Disables or enables the in-game telephone icon (used for notification of new chat messages). (introduced in v3.6.26.4)
   • RegisterAssociations_Automatically.reg, RegisterAssociations_Manually.reg – Enables associating W:A with replays and wa:// on W:A start-up. (introduced in v3.6.30.0)
   • SlowFrontendWorkaround_On.reg, SlowFrontendWorkaround_Alternative.reg, SlowFrontendWorkaround_Off.reg – Enables a compatibility tweak for certain new video cards, which may resolve low responsiveness and refresh rates in the front end. Even if there is no frame rate problem, it can reduce the black-out period when switching between dialog screens. (introduced in v3.6.26.5, v3.6.28.0)
   • SmoothBackgroundGradient_Disable.reg, SmoothBackgroundGradient_Enable.reg – Disables or re-enables the dithered background gradient in all in-game detail levels. (introduced in v3.6.30.0)
   • StereoEffects_Disabled.reg, StereoEffects_Normal.reg, StereoEffects_Reversed.reg – Disable, enable (default) and reverse the stereo sound effects. (introduced in v3.6.29.0)
   • TimerWorkaround_On.reg, TimerWorkaround_Off.reg – Prevents W:A from using the system's high-resolution timer. (introduced in v3.6.20.1)

Credits

Lead Code	Karl Morton
Lead Art	Dan Cartwright
Original Concept	Andy Davidson
Lead Support Code	Colin Surridge
Support Code	Rob Hill, Martin Randall
Network Code	Phil Carlisle
Producer	Martyn Brown
Scenario Art	Tony Senghore, Rico Holmes, "Jan The Man"
Sound and Music	Bjørn Lynne
Additional Audio	Matinee Studios, Martyn Brown, Richie Palmer, Cris Blyth (inc vocals on WormSong98), Rico Holmes, Fraser Stewart, Mike Green
Additional Art	Paul Robinson, Cris Blyth, Rory McLeish
Assistant Producer	Craig Jones
Mission Design	Porl Dunstan, John Eggett, Martyn Brown
Lead QA	Kelvin Aston, Mark Baldwin
QA	John Eggett, Grant Towell, Andy Aveyard, Kevin Carthew, Paul Webb, Brian Fitzpatrick
QA Manager	Paul Field
Localisation	Paul Sharp
Beta Coding/Design:
Versions 3.5 to 3.8.1 and later	David Ellsworth — "Deadcode"
Versions 3.6.27.1 to 3.8.1 and later	Vladimir Panteleev — "CyberShadow"
Beta Localization:
French	"Jabba"
German	"bonz"
Dutch	"Koen"
Spanish	"OutofOrder"
Russian	"Mr.X", "Shtirlitz"

Bug Reporting To Team17

This software update is in a continued state of internal development and testing. The update has been primarily released for external consumption in order to capture a greater range of system setups for compatibility purposes.

In the interests of efficiency we have provided a bug reporting service that is available through the Team17 Forum. If you wish to provide feedback, registering on the forum is free, quick and easy to perform. It is recommended and we would most appreciate that you browse through forum posts prior to submitting any feedback information. This will hopefully restrict the level of duplicate reports that are received.

If, for any reason, you encounter any problems whatsoever running the game, please contact us and provide the following information via the Team17 Forum.

External Beta Submission Form

W:A Beta Version:

Operating System:

CPU:

Motherboard:

System Memory:

Video Card / Driver Revision:

Sound Card / Driver Revision:

DirectX Revision:

Nature of the problem:

Steps to recreate:

If your problem is related to a crash (W:A fails to start or closes unexpectedly, followed by the message "Worms Armageddon has encountered an error. Detailed information about the error can be found in the ERRORLOG.TXT file"), attach the file ERRORLOG.TXT (located in the folder where you installed W:A) to your post.