Almost every day I read the door echos in FidoNet.  I stay away from 
the internet door echos as they are a bit on the large size for me.  I 
imagine they are more of the same thing though.  One thing I always notice 
are the number of dissatisfied shareware buyers in the echos.  I guess it's 
human nature to complain about authors, every one seems to love doing it.  I 
do it myself.  In fact, that's what this article is about, Except it's a door 
authors turn to complain. Yes, the tables are turned!!

	I have a voice support number for my door games.  It gets used 
frequently although not because my doors are hard to set up.  Sure, you're 
thinking!  No, seriously, I want to talk about type of phone calls I receive.  
Of which all of them are three types.
	
	The first kind ask me how to register my doors.  This I will never 
understand as all my doors come with SysOp documentation which clearly 
explains how to send me a check or use the credit card/checking door on my 
BBS.  They must have looked in this to get my phone number.  This brings me 
to my real pet peeve.  People who can't or won't read.

	Obviously I'm complaining to the wrong people here as you are reading 
this and can't possibly belong in this group.  But what the hell, I have to 
complain to someone about this and my wife is sick of hearing it!

	The second type of phone call I get is really just more of the first 
with a twist.  New SysOps who don't have the faintest idea how to set up a 
door with their BBS.  After a minute or so on the phone it becomes apparent 
to me that they have not read the documentation that came with the BBS.  
When I ask them how they got their BBS set up, you would be surprised at how 
many people say to me Well, a friend came over and got it up and running for 
me.

	I have become an expert at about 10 different types of BBS's this 
way.  In fact it happens so often that I have downloaded just about every BBS 
I have ever come across just so that I can print out a copy of the docs for 
these types of phone calls.  The most fun I ever have with these people is 
when they insist that their BBS does not set up the way I am explaining to 
them.  I ask them what page of the manual they are looking at because my copy 
of their BBS manual does not describe it that way.  I always get a long pause 
at this point.  It always seems to go quickly after this as they let me walk 
them through the setup.

	The third type of call I receive is a simple "you're game won't run".  
I almost always become optimistic at this point because their are only two 
reasons why my doors won't run.  I always say, "no problem we will get it up 
and running".  They almost always say something like, "Hey, I run over 50 
doors on my BBS and this is the only one I can't get running. There must be 
something wrong with your game".  I always answer that "Terra-Firma is up and 
running on hundreds and hundreds of BBS's so the game is OK, it's just 
something simple don't worry we will figure it out".

	The first thing I look into is the path command in the Terra-Firma 
control file.  DOS commands are picky and must be just right. Eight times 
out of ten this is the problem.  I have them read me their path command that 
Terra uses to find their BBS drop file.  It always sounds right.  I normally 
say "well, that sounds correct". "see, I told you" they say.  Then I have 
them spell out the path command.  At this point some SysOps start to get a 
little indignant and who can blame them, as I am obviously calling into 
question their command of the DOS syntax, their IQ and quite possibly 
insulting their mother!  When I hear them spell something wrong I try to be 
as meek and mild as possible and say something like, "Um, I'm not sure, but 
isn't DORINFO1.DEF spelled with only one O"?  I always hear some noise from 
their keyboards and possibly an "oh shit", or a "darn"!

	If all is well with the path command then it's always that their 
drop file is not where it's supposed to be.  This is usually a simple matter 
of finding out where it is and re-doing the path command or copying the drop 
file some place where Terra can find it.

	As I said earlier, one of my pet peeves is that people just don't 
take the time to read instructions.  This problem surfaces in two places for 
me regarding doors.  One is that I hear Terra-Firma is too hard to learn how 
to play. It's true that you will die rather quickly in the Terra-Firma 
universe if you don't read the instructions on how to stay alive in the game.  
This is mentioned at the very beginning of the game but people still complain 
about it?  I know it's hard to begin Terra-Firma.  It is not a TradeWars 
clone and so being needs a small learning curve to adjust.  I wrote it that 
way. That is the way most players prefer it.  At least all the mail I get 
leans in that direction.  In regards to this, some SysOps have told me that 
younger players on their BBS's prefer games that they can intuitively grasp 
and not have to take the time to read the instructions.  Possibly it's 
because folks are under a time constraint when calling BBS's.  I really 
believe however that most callers just won't take the time and concentration 
necessary to do it. I have made the player instructions downloadable from the 
main menu of Terra just for this reason.  Who knows?

	 The other place it comes up for me all the time is SysOps calling 
my BBS to place a credit card order for a door game.  I have three VERY short 
messages at log in on my BBS.  The first time log in itself only takes about 
30 seconds.  I realize folks are calling long distance.  But you would not 
believe the people who hit the enter key as soon as the alert messages comes 
up.  They don't even take a second to see what the message is about!  One of 
the three messages is my new BBS phone number. It's important.  

	One of the other two messages is for SysOps who use an alias on their 
BBS.  The message instructs them to leave me a short E-Mail if they wish the 
registered key for their door game to come up with a different name besides 
the one they logged into my BBS with.  You would not believe the amount of 
reg keys I have to do twice because SysOps never read the message!

	Well, I have been on this soap box a bit too long!  Next month, if 
they still let me write another article after reading this one.  I want to 
tell you about the new computer I bought and the silly things I had to go 
through to get it operational.  It's a great story.  Sorry, my wife is sick 
of hearing this one as well......

	I would be more than pleased to hear from you.


Dave Wendling
Support BBS 413-684-0145
FiDoNet 1:321/227
Phoenix 33:900/0
XeroNet 131:4130/100
DoorNet 75:7413/10
InTerNet nugicon@delphi.com
I also mointor DOORGAMES/DOORWARE/ON_LINE_DOORS. Or send it into Door World.
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