Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Server is being formatted today

My son assures me this is the DOD format - wiped clean, no way to recover any data.  :) 

Ordered more ram for it yesterday as well.  Well, actually the new ram is for my workstation, the workstation ram is getting recycled into the server.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Welcome TWarriors!

I've played this game, studied this game, enjoyed the company of real people who also play this game... some would call an addiction. I prefer to call it a hobby.   I began playing in 1994 on a local dial-up bbs, 9600 baud modem, 486 with 8megs of ram...  Bing, bong... bing, bong... I kind'a miss this sound. :)

Over the year's I've guest game-op'd on various servers and the time is right to put up a server of my own now. It will be interesting to see how this goes, there may be more public servers than players today.

But, I have a feeling there are a few who may enjoy playing this game with closer to classic type settings, with low turns and time limits. The challenge has been with the automation or highly scripted play that's enjoyed by some players. It's my goal to provide a place where players can come and enjoy a casual game of TradeWars and the company of like minded players.

The new network and file server is up and running at the office.  My old office server was turned off and unplugged today.  Soon it will be formatted and ready to go. 

While the new TWGS will give us some interesting settings to play with, but there are still no settings that will guarantee that aggressive script play cannot be used.  The games here will always be low turn, time limit games.  I have some thoughts as to how to setup games casual/competitive players will enjoy.  But, when it comes down to it, the only way to ensure like minded players get to enjoy the game, we may have to close the games once they're 2 weeks old.  After two weeks its difficult for most to join an active game in progress, so we'll close the game, no new additions allowed after the game is closed.

If there's enough interest, I can open a new game every month, keep it open to the public for 2 weeks, then close that one.  So, at the very least, you'll have to wait 2 weeks to get into a new game. 

I have Zero tolerance for rule breakers - break a rule and you're outta here!
#1 rule - NO using planets as weapons!  Get caught pdropping and you're out!
#2 rule - NO sitting at the menu prompt gleaning information from the High Scores list - refresh will be limited.
#3 rule - NO bug use!
#4 rule - NO buy downs of any sort!

The games here will NOT be easy, no truces, NO SD next to fed space, NO Fed safe sectors beyond 1 - 10.  Scripting is allowed as in trading, hauling and colonizing.  PvP attacks cannot be stopped, so be careful when your enemy is online.  Sometimes games will have photons on, some will have mega rob off - TWGS mode with MBBS battle odds and 32k ports.  And some games will have Gold Aliens running around grid busting.  I hope to keep the games unique, interesting and closer to classic style.

I hope you enjoy!  Stay tuned for the latest news on the new game server.