Trials of Battle is the first 3D first person action game for OS/2. While many people out there have played games such as Mech Warrior, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, and DOOM before. Many others have not.
To this end, let met give you some tips on how you can enjoy the game best based on our playing experiences:
At
640x480x65k colors
Watch your resolution. By default, Trials of Battle maximizes itself to take up the entire screen. This means that if you, like me, are running at 1280x1024x65k colors, it will use all that. The problem is, unless you have some sort of unknown mega-system, the game won't perform well. Anyone who's played Duke3D or Quake can tell you that the realistic limit of resolution on today's computers is probably 800x600 if you have a high end machine. For most people, the realistic resolution to play at is 640x480x256 colors. On my machine, I play at 640x480x65k colors and it runs fine. I have a Pentium 120 however so your mileage may vary. For most people, this gives you two options:
A) Change your system's resolution to 640x480x65k (or 256 color 640x480).
or
B) Hit the F4 key and the game will resize itself to a 640x480 window. This isn't an optimal solution but you'll be surprised how well it works. This is the way I usually go unless I know I'm going to play for many hours at a time.
Check your options. Trials of Battle has lots of different graphics options. When you're in the hangar view, you can click on the little control panel that is just to the left of the big hangar door (the one with the big symbol on it). From there, you can change your settings. By default, the game is not at maximum graphics quality. Before you jump and change that, you may find that the non-textured mapped ground is not so bad. In fact, I prefer it this way since it makes the floor of the arena look like a desert instead of rocky. It's just a matter of taste. You can turn off graphics options to speed things up. The background music is also quite processor intensive since it is having to mix that in real-time. On my Pentium 120, I play with all the options on except for the ground texture map and it's very fast. But if you're running on a 486, you will probably want to tweak these settings.
Intel Pentium (or Pentium
class) CPU recommended for Trials of Battle servers.
Be careful who you make the server. I am willing to say that Trials of Battle has probably the smartest AI of any real-time first person action game that I've ever played. When you shoot at the computer players, they will actively try to dodge your shots and return fire. This is a far cry from games like DOOM where the bad guys are only a challenge if there are enough of them and they have powerful enough weapons. But Trials of Battle is also very impressive as a multiplayer game. But to enjoy this, you have to be careful who "Creates" the multiplayer game. The best way to go is have whomever has the fastest machine be the server. Ideally, it would be great if the person creating the multiplayer gmae doesn't play at all but this isn't very realistic but if your home or office (after hours of course) has a Pentium or better machine sitting around, make it the server. It would also be a good idea to try to decrease the graphics and such as much as you can. The more CPU power the server has, the better off the other players will have it. In actual play, my machine is usually the server at the office and I play at the same time with no one having difficulties. But don't throw some guy with a 486DX33 as the server!
Stardock will list high speed
Trials of Battle servers for Internet play.
Long-Distance multiplayer play. We know it's going to happen so let me say that I warned you. Someone with a 14.4k modem is going to start up a server and invite their friends to join in over the Internet. They'll email their friends what the IP address that their PPP account gave them. They'll all join in and the game will be slow and they'll post to the Internet that the game is slow. You absolutely will not be able to play at decent speeds friends over the internet on a modem to modem connection. You could probably get away with a 1 on 1 game but you get 4 or 5 people trying to play the game connected via modem to the Internet where the server is also connected by modem and you're in for frustration. This is because of latency time on the Internet. If I'm on the Internet as a server with my modem and so are you, it takes over half a second or more (best case scenario) to get a message to you and back. In a game doing anywhere from 10 to 30 frames per second, that's going to cause problem. If you play regular modem to modem (you just dial their phone number) it'll be fine but you'll want to make sure you're not making a long sistance call.
Joining an Internet game. Shortly after release, Stardock will begin making available IP addresses of Trials of Battle players who are connected to the Internet with at least an ISDN line. Those are games where (even if you are on via modem) you should be able to play them over the Internet. If they are on via a T1 (we'll list what type of connection they are on with), things will be better. Performance will very depending on your Internet service provider and your modem speed. You should have at least a 28.8k modem to do this sort of thing so that you don't slow other players down.
Coming up Next... Choosing the right weapons...
