*** EXULT 1.0 - READ CAREFULLY ***

After more than four years since the first release by Jeff in September
1998, Exult has finally reached a level of maturity and playbility which
we believe warrants its release as an 1.0 version.
What does the Exult Team mean by 1.0 ? We mean that you can play both
"Ultima VII: The Black Gate" and "Ultima VII part 2: Serpent Isle" together
with their respective add-ons "Forge of Virtue" and "Silver Seed" from
beginning to end, with no plot holes. This does not mean the experience 
is perfect: we are not aiming for a precise replica of the originals
(use a low-end 486 with DOS 5.0, a SoundBlaster and a Roland MT-32 for
that). There are many things where Exult behaves differently (party
formation, combat, stealing, etc.) but we don't think these detract from
the fun and enjoyment of playing these great games. We've done our best
to add improvements which we believe add to the game, and give it a more
modern feel. Most of these can be disabled and enabled at will.

During the Beta phase, no new features have been added to Exult and we worked 
exclusively on stabilization and documentation. Now that we are satisfied 
with stability on all platforms, we are releasing Exult 1.0. Exult development
is currently branched in two: a stable branch, to which only bugfixes are 
applied, and from which subsequent 1.0.x releases will be made, and a 
development 1.1.x branch which focuses on new features and especially on 
getting ExultStudio and the other tools working. The differences between the 
two branches is listed further down this file in the Appendix.

If you have used Exult before, you should really start new games for both 
BG and SI as previous versions may have generated incorrect savegames. If 
you experience problems with old savegames, you are on your own.

Please read the documentation and the FAQ very carefully before
reporting problems with Exult. 

If you want to report bugs, use the bug tracker on our SourceForge project 
page http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=102335&group_id=2335&func=browse
Provide a good description of the bug, a way to reproduce it, a savegame
immediately before triggering the bug, and a description of your
computer's configuration (OS, CPU, soundcard, videocard). Remember:
Exult runs on many platforms, not just yours.
As usual, we are available on our forum
(http://exult.sourceforge.net/forum/list.php?f=1) and on IRC (#exult on
irc.openprojects.net) and we will try to help as much as we can.

Have fun

The Exult Team


APPENDIX: Differences between Exult 1.0.x and Exult 1.1.x

As 1.0.x is only for bug fixes new features have only been added to 1.1.x.
These features are:
- Exult Studio works only with 1.1.x now
- Only the 1.1.x branch has been ported to the Zaurus
- Keyboard movement
- Digital music as better sounding alternative to MIDI music
- FM Synth emulation, another alternative to MIDI music
- Gumps now optionally pause the game
- Combat with the Spellbook works now
- Bookmarked Spell is saved and restored
- Using "evil" spells can now get you into trouble with the guards
- Feeding also uses drinks now
- Avatar always uses the correct bed now
- Experimental OpenGL hardware-accelerated support
- More support for weapon/ammo powers
- A "--nomenu" command-line arg, that gets you directly into the game
- Partly fixes problem where two combatants rush towards each other but keep going after they meet