                       [ acrotsr v0.8.0 README ]
                         by Zachary P. Landau

[ description ]

  Acrotsr is an IRC game where players are given an acronym and the users
  have a certain amount of time to think of what they think the acronym
  should stand for. Then the people in the channel vote on which one is
  best. Other acrobots can be found in channels such as #acrobot on
  EFNet and some other IRC networks. (see history)

[ history ]

  Two of my acquaintances, by the nicknames elman and criscokid, repeatedly
  harassed me to play acro in #acro with them. They also somehow managed to
  convince my girlfriend to play. Upon playing we found a few things that  
  the acrobot did or didn't do that we felt the need to bitch about. My 
  girlfriend hated one of the problems so much she refused to play. So as
  a service to these people, I decided it was my duty as a friend, an 
  American citizen, and potentially a descendent of the homo erectus to write
  a version that we could customize and fondle. And so it was born. And so
  they are in debt to me. And so criscokid owes me a damn ice cream. And this
  README is getting less and less serious as I go on.

[ installation & setup ]

  You will need to get Net::IRC to use this script. Try CPAN. You'll also
  need Term::ReadKey if you use generate.pl. You may run the bot from any
  directory you please. Then you can set it up:

  There first thing you will want to do is edit the values at the top of 
  acrotsr.pl. Make sure you at least change the bot's nickname and channel.
  After that you may want to change some of the delays and suchlike. Note
  that the voting delay default is 25, but it usually only lasts about 15
  seconds. (See BUGS) So take your value, and add 10 or so. Experiment.
  If you want the bot to stay on a server and run all the time, run it with
  nohup.

  If you want to have html output with the top scores you will have to do 
  a few things. First, make sure $game{'scoreoutput'} is set to 1 (default).
  Then, load up parsescores.pl and edit the values in there. You may want to
  change what the outputted HTML looks like. Right now, it looks like crap.
  (See TODO). You'll probably want to put parsescores.pl in crontab. I haven't
  tested it but something like this should work :

  45 6 * * *       /path/to/parsescores.pl

  That should run it every day at 6:45. You will probably want to edit 
  nickalts.data. The first field contains a persons main nickname. The rest
  of them are alternative nicknames they use which will be translated to the
  first name.

[ how to play ]

  The instructions given by the bot should be sufficient for most of this but
  I'll explain here anyway. To start a game type !start in the channel. Anyone
  can start a game at the moment, and I'm hoping this won't be abused. Once
  the game starts it will give everyone an acronym. Then everyone /msgs the
  bot "acro put the acronym here". Then the various entries will be displayed
  and each entry will be given a number. Then people vote by /msging the bot
  "acro #". You cannot vote for your own entry. After that, the results are
  displayed and the next round starts. It will go on until all rounds are over
  or someone types !stop. (or not enough entries are submitted for 2 rounds)

[ administration ]

  It is possible to control and change certain aspects of the bot through IRC.
  The first thing you will want to do is change the password. The $password
  variable asks for the crypted password (including the two character salt in
  the beginning) You can use generate.pl and then paste that value into 
  $password. Make sure you change the default password, because it is 
  'password'. Then /msg bot .access [password]. Once you leave the channel or
  quit irc you will have to repeat that command. You may then /msg bot .help
  for a list of commands. 

[ contact ]

  URL: http://hypa.net/~kapheine/acrotsr/index.php
  Email: kapheine@hypa.net

Last updated: Thu Mar 30 01:15:53 EST 2000

