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Saturday, September 28, 2002
The developer of Quest For Yap Bryan M. Krause aka PresBMK is working on a new project entitled QFY: Ground Wars which has a development site at: http://yapquest.com/gw Ground Wars is envisioned as an Infantry-style download game concerning futuristic combat on an alien planet. Of course, this is a project that will be chronicled here on the MPOG News-Log. More on the strange death of the SMR chump/lamer alliance the The Forsaken cut and pasted from the SMR Forum: Ardbeg Joined: 11 Apr 2002 Posts: 258 Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2002 9:20 pm Post subject: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ah yes, it is everyone else's fault that TF disbanded, not yours. I wasn't going to do this in public, but you leave me no choice. TF failed because your leadership sucked - you had one of the best teams ever assembled in SM(R) and treated them like a bunch of newbies. You failed, we told you you had failed, and now you are out for payback - and CM/DR/etc are only too happy to jump on the bandwagon so they can brag forevermore about how they took down HoA. Here's a thought - how about one of the alliances taking us on? I mean, we're supposedly so badly beaten now, that it should be easy enough. No? Don't think you can do it? Fair enough, just keep on with the gangbanging and give me a call when you actually want to play the game...... Friday, September 27, 2002
That previously referenced Space Merchant Realms help/locations site has been finished and is at: Wonks' NG3 Locations Site New Space Merchant Realms help/locations site in the works: http://dccmn.com/sm/locations/page/ships.html Thursday, September 26, 2002
The Evils That Hackers do: The following is cut and pasted from the Joystick 101 website which is dedicated to fighting cheating in online games: Joystick101.org: The Scoop on the Server Outage From the "what happens now" department. Friday, August 23, 2002 By Jon Goodwin For those that don't know, Joystick101.org is/was basically a "Mom and Pop" non-profit website. Both Kurt and I have real jobs and work on the site in our spare time. Our site was brought down yesterday by a hacker who ruined things for the rest of us. What follows is a quick and poorly written account of the problem. I really didn't know what was going on until about 12:00 on Thursday. Wednesday our server performance was erratic - but I didn't had time to check it out with my new job. At around 10:00 the next day, I noticed my logs had been deleted. After some snooping around I found that someone had hacked into the server and was trying to use it to exploit other machines in the IU network. Joystick was running on a linux server donated by IU's IST program. Lately our increased readership/traffic has drawn the attention of our sponsor who was already feeling some heat about the use of resources for the website. Anyway, a few moments after the attacks, the University's Tech Support team notified our sponsor. He pulled the plug on the machine and we were officially offline. To make matters worse our sponsor thought this would be a good opportunity to move joystick101 off of Indiana University. In short - we have lost both the physical machine Joystick101.org was running on and the free bandwidth we were exploiting. University policy is that we can't connect the computer to a network until we reformat it - so I'm not even sure how we'll get the large database off the machine before the University needs it for something else. We're working to find a new solution and see how much it will cost us. I'd like to keep the site open - but we're not sure how long we'll be down or if/how we can cover expenses. For now I'm running this text file off of my home computer. I'll try to get a mailing list together to keep you updated on our situation as soon as possible. Update: September 01, 2002 Getting a temporary solution together is taking longer than anticipated. We lost DNS service so we've had to locate a new provider and wait for the domain name and DNS to propagate through the net. The new plan is to set up a new server and move the site to MIT once we restore the old database and figure out how to integrate it with the new scoop code. Once again, thanks for being patient. Special thanks go out to Kurt and Henry Jenkins at MIT's comparitive media studies program for jumping to our aid. If anyone wants to contact us, the joystick101.org email is down as well. Contact me at jagoodwi@indiana.edu or Kurt at ksquire@mit.edu I've put up a temporary discussion board (sorry about the popup ads) at: http://216.12.215.215/users/jagoodwi/index.cgi Please bookmark it if you plan on using it - this domain may be up and down until we get everything figured out. Thanks, Jon Goodwin Joystick101.org PS. Regular contributors, we may not have your email address. Send me a note at my address above. "Blizzard" of Cheaters Banned: According to an article in Wired News , Blizzard has suspended the accounts of 14,000 WarCraft III players for 2 weeks for cheating. According to the article, "few firms have been hit as hard as Blizzard [by rampant cheating], however. Cheats granting players near-infinite abilities essentially melted online play of Diablo, the company's 1997 Dungeons-&-Dragonsesque hit."
Another website of interest to all those who are interested in the future of mankind: Marshall Space Flight Center Here's a website that should be of interest to you: Chesley Bonestell's Space Art Remember to send News to: hftrex@graffiti.net Wednesday, September 25, 2002
And now for some Space Merchant History: The late, lamented game Space Merchant had a controversy-filled history. One aspect of the game's past was the corruption showed by the game's staff that, in part, led to SM's downfall. While it is true that, during this writer's playing days (January, 2000-late summer, 2001), the corruption was pretty much limited to the so-called Veterans Games, where less than 20% of the SM playership did their thing, the end result was to give SM a black eye that helped hasten its downfall. Here from the successor game Space Merchant Realms Forum is a post by one of the all-time greatest players and alliance leaders from SM's past concerning the corruption that eventually destroyed the game: fitch Joined: 16 Sep 2002 Posts: 14 Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2002 10:46 pm Post subject: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blum wrote: "Admin favouritism towards HoA? Where did you get that from? Do you have any evidence (except for HoA being better than whatever your alliance was) As for HoA having superior numbers that was true only for online numbers at specific moments. HoA, and other "Evil Empires" almost always had to fight groups that were at least twice it's size. BTW, fitch, who are you? What alliance were you in in the good old days?" I was Inspector Fitch back in the old days up until the Catronia Incident, after which I decided that the game was for the birds as long as the then-current staff was running it. I was with, at varying times with the Bounty Hunter's Guild, The Space Marines & Task Force Alpha aka TSM's recruitment/training alliance. What Blum says here about HoA's prowess in the past is all a self-serving myth. First of all, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse was really nothing more than The Unforgiven sans Dude Man and Elvis Fett and renamed to fit Montana_Mike's weirdo predilections. TU, it may be remembered, was the admin's favorite alliance. It was the outfit that Speef, Gir Draxon and Dover all played with. The TU was also the beneficiary of the admin's in-game actions. Speef would change the make up of the universe, moving planets and stuff around in the name of "improving" the universe. It always worked to the advantage of TU and to the detriment of its opponents. Speef would freeze the accounts of entire alliances in the name of an investigation supposedly being made into cheating, a classic example of shooting first and asking questions later. These freezes always came just before a TU attack. It was through such machinations that such major alliances as the Politburo and Willowstrance were destroyed. There were many players who saw through Speef's lies about how he was acting in the game's best interest, but just simply quit since they couldn't see anything that they could do to stop it. However, there was one player with the courage to stand up for that which was right. His name was Rat Fighter, one of the truely great all-time players of the old SM. He posted to the Webboard about Speef's cheatings on behalf of the TU and how it was ruining the game. The TU's leaders, Dude Man and Elvis Fett, were outraged by this courageous act and they rounded up over 100 of their puppets to post back against Rat Fighter and demand that he get banned from SM. In the face of this storm, there were only 2 SM players, Omega Prime and myself, who had the courage to post to the Webboard supporting Rat Fighter. Speef followed the dictates of his TU bosses and banned Rat Fighter from the game. In response, a massive boycott movement sprung up from the players and roughly 40% of the players quit playing SM in a very short period of time. This boycott forced Shareplay owner Jonathan Manton to step in and attempt to fix the problem lest the boycott lead to the destruction of his perilously financed company. However, he failed to fully fix the problem by firing the likes of Speef and hire honest employees. Instead, he decided to ban the admins from playing the game. This had the unfortunate effect of admins not knowing just what effect their changes had on the game, which from what I've heard worked to the game's long-term detriment. Another problem was that old habits died hard. Speef and his colleagues remained cheaters, but they were more careful in how they went about doing things. They turned a blind eye to TU/HoA cheating, but were quick to punish others for doing the same kind of things. Even when they moved against proven cheaters like Catronia, they would quickly backtrack. I left the game after it became clear that cheating would continue to ruin the game. I know of others who left for the same reasons later on. Eventually, all the cheating caught up with Speef and friends and their game eventually went kaput due to the lack of player support. Now, we have honest and impartial admins with Spock and Azool. They have learned the lessons of the past. Mark my words, SMR will prove to be a far greater game than SM ever was. In fact, to some extent it already is, and we have Spock and Azool to thank for it. Inspector Fitch Tuesday, September 24, 2002
Notes: Thardferr, a browser-based fantasy game is down for the time being so that its staff can fix bugs and upgrade the game. No word on when the game will be back up. Also, this project has a new email addy: hftrex@graffiti.net TDZK News: The following was posted to the game's front page: TDZK is running again. We lost several days of data, so any actions taken after 09/20/02 14:44:16 EDT will not have happened. Any new players will have to remake thier accounts, etc. We got a patch from the motherboard company that should stop the DB server from crashing again. We'll start doing daily backups to make sure though. (Posted 7:00 PM EDT 9/24/02) The mail should be running now, so registration and lost password recovery should be working. Monday, September 23, 2002
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH TDZK DEVELOPER/ADMIN JERLE: The following is the edited transcript of a just completed ICQ interview: Chuck: (7:55 PM) What caused the DB server to crash? Jerle: (7:57 PM) Motherboard issues. Apparently Intel provided the wrong specs to Tyan initially on how to initialize the IDE controllers, so they would occsionally do wierd things. Tyan sent us a patch, so that shouldn't happen again. Jerle: (7:57 PM) I believe I've restored the DB up to fairly recently, but I'm not sure how recent the copy really is. Jerle: (7:57 PM) I'm testing it out befor eI let people back in. Chuck: (8:06 PM) How much progress have you been able to make in recoding the game in light of all the problems keeping it up? Jerle: (8:06 PM) Not enough. Chuck: (8:27 PM) What was the mailing problem? Something about how you couldn't believe that so many players leave their passwords on autocomplete. Jerle: (8:28 PM) The flood of mail about that was amazing. :P Jerle: (8:29 PM) Basically, we'd has some problems getting the mailserv set up since the DNS hadn't fully transferred yet. It still hasn't, but we got it working anyway. Jerle: (8:30 PM) I put that comment up on the front page so some people would hopefully rethink the wisdom of leaving it on autocomplete. I must have gotten 50 emails, not to mention all the IRC messages. Jerle: (8:44 PM) Anyway. Game's back up. Closest I could get was 09/20/02 14:44:16 EDT Chuck: (8:44 PM) Pretty good. Chuck: (9:00 PM) What does it mean by leaving it on autocomplete? What's autocomplete? Is it relying on the browser to put the password in for you without keeping a record of what that password was? Jerle: (11:35 PM) Yes. Most new browsers have a feature built in that will remember your passwords for the sites you visit, unless you sepcifically turn the feature off. Chuck: (11:38 PM) ok...thanks. TDZK Update: The following was posted on the game's front page: TDZK is running again. We lost several days of data, so any actions taken after 09/20/02 14:44:16 EDT will not have happened. Any new players will have to remake thier accounts, etc. We got a patch from the motherboard company that should stop the DB server from crashing again. We'll start doing daily backups to make sure though. The mail should be running now, so registration and lost password recovery should be working. Centauri Prime News: The following was cut and pasted from the Site News page of this interesting looking game that's still in development: Date News 2002-04-16 Finished the planets part of the admin system. Included the ability to edit and delete planets. Since the server will be based locally, uploading is not needed so i replaced the uploading with a file add subposition. 2002-04-16 A few more things done: :: Wrote the story :: Wrote the rules and privacy policy :: Updated the admin section with password, signup status and motd parts. 2002-04-12 Loads more things done: :: Combat finished +updates +ground combat +captures (might still be a tad buggy though) :: Upgrades done + incoroprted into new orders :: Fixed a problem with the research / construction / upgrades not properly doing their resources subtracting when it was started :: Fixed problems with the APC not subtracting warriors when ordered :: Corrected an oversight where if a fleet was completely destroyed it still existed :: Did the technology tree graphics for the manual :: + 1000 other things i can't remember.. ta ta 2002-04-09 Updated loads and loads: : Combat code for ships working : Combat code reported into news correctly : Resigned index page : Re did screen shots : Redesigned title and footer graphics : Fixed a fleet movement bug in the ticker : Fixed a problem in the training which stopped it minusing population : Finished the reference guide : Redesigned the player manual and started inputting the data : Finally sorted out the instant update news / incoming / mail indicators + 1000 other little things. Main thing was the combat code though, which only written for ships so far, seems to work fine and take every eventuality into possiblity, including multiple fleets from same + different planet and all the rubbish. 2002-03-10 I introduced a new idea which are planet images. As well as the commander being able to set the message of the day, and the planet name, he/she can also now set a planet image. There are only a few choices at the moment, but that choice will increase when i create more planets, and add the ability to upload them into the admin section. I can't let people upload their own pictures because it's a security risk, and going to external addresses would just lead to oversized images and would screw up the layout totally. The planet image is displayed on the planet screen over the planet listings. 2002-03-10 Ticker is now working as it should be. I haven't yet decided a reliable method for the game ticking, but nevertheless the php will be the same, and it works. It ticks research, construction, upgrades, orders, fleets and then updates all the scores. It seems to work as well, after a few errant results in the resources. I'm just using a simple html meta refresh to run the ticker at the moment, but i think i may do some system clock checking at some point, because meta refreshing isn't the most accurate ticking scructure, and does require the ticking page being open all the time. 2002-03-10 Lots of small updates done recently, lots of big ones as well. Ordering pages now work perfectly and are completely in-sync with the research/ construction/ upgrades stuff. The only thing that needs to be done on this part now is to introduce the reduced travel times for the upgraded structures. I can't really do this untill i decide what upgrades to introduce. I may just cop out and do reduced build times, as i wouldn't like to have to add changed ship stats into the combat, because that would be a nightmare to say the least. I haven't 100% bug tested the system yet, but it seems to perform as it should, and he values returned seem good. I'm slightly worried about the length of the code though. Some of the order segments are 1200 lines long, and thats a big thing to parse. I might have to split them into single ship orders and parse them through includes, or even put a some functions into the more commonly used ordering methods. We shall see though. 2002-03-09 Started on the new admin system today. Decided to make it very basic and text based, so i'm not using any graphics what so ever on it. This should make it not only faster loading, but easier to use as design asthetics are no longer necessary. It's a combination of greys and bright orange, and it looks fairly cool. It will take a few days to completey re-do all the old admin system, and i have some new features that i have to add to it, such as planets, multi detection, and other things to get me brownie points. 2002-02-27 Created the ground forces page, which allows the player to order ground units depending on what they have researched. Also added the ground units tab to the status page to give a readout of what units they have. 2002-02-27 Combined the orders tables together & the quantities tables into two big tables to encompass all they types. ie ships, units, defence, scans, etc. This makes it much more efficient and easier on the database. Although its really not gaming oriented, Too Beautiful, the blog has quite a bit of neat content and links to interesting sites. Well worth a look. TOP WEB GAMES NEWS: The following is the complete text of the Top Web Games E-Newsletter, TWG Weekly News sent from: noreply@topwebgames.com : Greeting Top Web Games Members! This is the Top Web Games newsletter for the week of Sunday, September 15, 2002 through Sunday, September 22, 2002. Here's what's been happening in the last week. You will need to click here once each month two continue receiving TWG emails. Alternatively, you may log in to your account on TWG. Recent Gaming Articles Secrets of War Upgrades Connection (9/17/02) Game Additions The Fast and the Furious (9/17/02) That's all for this week! If you would like to unsubscribe you may do so by logging in to the members area. Sunday, September 22, 2002
Tibia News: The following News items have been cut & pasted from the game's News page: 20. September 2002 - Next step to disburden our servers Today we have moved some tasks of our web server to the old server of Antica. As mentioned in the last news we are working on further improvements of our servers in the next time. Therefore some public game tests will take place next week. Just watch these news for more details. 17. September 2002 - New server for Antica and maintenance of the other servers Tomorrow, the 18th September, all game servers and this web site will be down for maintenance work between 13:00 CET and about 16:00 CET. The game world Antica gets a new more powerful server and the old one will soon disburden the web server. This is the first step of several improvements to make our game servers and the web site faster and able to handle more players. We will soon replace the game server of Nova, too. Moreover several optimisations of the game server code will be done in the next weeks to reduce the lag. Have fun in Tibia! Your CIP Team 14. September 2002 - Reset of all game worlds Unfortunatly we were forced to reset all game worlds because several players have heavily abused a bug to dupe items in the last days. The accounts of the dupers have been deleted. The earlier on a game world has been duped the farer we had to reset it: Premia to 01.09.2002 Antica to 08.09.2002 Nova to 12.09.2002 We are very sorry for the reset but at least we could keep your levels and skills. Therefore only the map, your belongings, and the houses have been reset. Please note that the item reset is necessary to avoid illegal items and incredible amounts of money that would ruin the game. Please check your houses and guildhalls as well as your depot for any warning letter as the house rent could be due. If you have problems with your house or guildhall write an email to premium support. 28. August 2002 - Update to Version 7.0 We proudly present the new Tibia client, version 7.0, which provides a redesigned layout, a revised graphics library, and several new features like a chat system with different channels, a safe trade system, a VIP list, and an installation program. After a long public testing phase, in which hundreds of players helped us detecting bugs and refining the new features, we are now switching the regular worlds to the new client. Please download the new client from the download section. Have a look at the revised manual for more information about the new controls. If you have any problems with the installation or with the new client, see the FAQs for help. Furthermore if you can't get the new client to run on your system, you can also get the new version of the old client from the download section. However note that the old client does not contain all new features and that we do not ensure support of the old client beyond April 30th, 2003. Finally, we want to express our thanks to Mantus and Lord Ariakas, who have re-drawn and animated dozens of creatures; Mantus even provided us with a wonderful new title picture. Moreover we say thanks to our gamemasters and counsellors for testing the new client and discussing the new features. Have a lot of fun with the new Tibia client! The CIP-Team 27. August 2002 - Final bugfixes for the new client Due to your helpful comments we were able to fix several bugs you have reported. Simply login with the new client to activate the autoupdate. If you had the "A client is already running!" problem you need to download the latest version from the manual page. Please report if the new version fixes this problem on your system. If no more problems arise we will soon officially release the new client. Stay tuned! |