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FED
MEET AND GREET with BELLA |
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FED
MEET AND GREET with BELLA |
Galinfenner says, "I think it's working." Wolfyn waves hello to everyone and turns on the microphones. Anseladams kicks Galinfenner "Ouch, darn droids.", says Galinfenner. Galinfenner limps back to his stool "Welcome everyone, and Happy Holidays to all of you.", says Galinfenner. Galinfenner exclaims, "Tonight we have the pleasure of meeting Bella, the originator, the creator, the one and only err.. big cheese of Federation!" Galinfenner says, "A few guidelines tonight..." "We expect a big crowd, so I really need you all to be as quiet as you can.", says Galinfenner. Bella smiles "And when we get to the questions and answer part, please be sure to TB me that you have a question. I will attempt to take them in order.", says Galinfenner. Galinfenner exclaims, "Ok, my first question is usually 'How did you find out about Fed' which obviously doesn't work tonight!" "I thought of it...", says Bella. Galinfenner asks, "So Bella, I was wondering if you could tell us how you came up with the idea of Federation?" "well it sortt of appeared to me in a nightmare...", says Bella. Galinfenner nods "like everything else creative I assembled existing stuff in a different order to what anyone else had thought of", says Bella. Bella sips some coffee and thinks about it Galinfenner asks, "Existing online text games?" "difficult to say really - the first program I ever wrote was agame", says Bella. Bella says, "no - mostly rpg type games, and single player early graphic games" Galinfenner asks, "Those type of games where there was a lot of hack and slash?" "there were a few graphics games very early on - of course the grafix were really crude in those days", says Bella. Bella says, "not really - you require quite a lot of sophisticated progrogramming for hack and slash games - letting people fire lasers at one another is much easier technically" Bella says, "early home computers didn't have the processing power for hack and slash" Galinfenner nods Bella says, "i wrote fed because I got fed up of drowning dwarves" Galinfenner grins Bella says, "that was in MUD (British Ledgends)" Galinfenner asks, "Where did Federation first appear?" Bella says, "in the UK on the compunet network" Bella says, "well strictly speaking..." Snowlily grins Bella says, "it first appeared in the Croydon Public Library - where it ran for 20 min before it crashed" Bella says, "running on my Atari ST with two players" Galinfenner says, "20 minutes is respectable for a first run I'd think." "one of whom later became known as hazed", says Bella. Galinfenner scratches one of his questions Fancy raises his eyebrows at Federation first running on an Atari machine. "yes - it was about 10 times longer than anyone else managed at their first outing\", says Bella. Bella grins Bella says, "i once wrote a program that ran first time..." "Why did you choose the language C to program Fed?", asks Galinfenner. "just once", says Bella. "wow.", says Galinfenner. Galinfenner could never do that. Ditzy is impressed. Snowlily chuckles "well C was just taking off - it is a very powerful language", says Bella. Bella says, "it's very much a programmer's language" Galinfenner nods "and while a lot of other languages seem more powerful,", says Bella. Bella says, "that is only the case if you don't allow humans to interact with the programs" Galinfenner chuckles Bella says, "programs get very dirty when humans are allowed to intereact, and C is a language that allows you to cope with that" "of course, the more powerful a language is,", says Bella. "the easier it is to shoot yourself in the foot", says Bella. Readerboy giggles. "that's why C is still the language of choice for writing operating systems", says Bella. Galinfenner says, "This is true. It allows you to do many things that other languages don't." Galinfenner nods "I seem to recall that you taught yourself how to program? Is that true?", asks Galinfenner. Bella says, "um..." Bella says, "yes - first basic, then forth, them pascal, then C, then Delphi and C++" "well, I also know a bit of Python and PHP", says Bella. Galinfenner grins Bella says, "and I know XML" "Very amazing.", says Galinfenner. "but that's more of a data format", says Bella. "I would have liked to have had XML available when I wrote Fed", says Bella. Bella says, "but it wasn't invented then" "For a frontend in a browser?", asks Galinfenner. Bella says, "well, I could do I suppose, but I was more thinking of the secondary data files" Galinfenner nods Bella says, "like the planet files" Bella says, "it wouldn't work on the persona files , because" "they have to be loaded in and out of memory too frequently", says Bella. Galinfenner asks, "You have moved Federation to quite a few different mediums. Can you name them?" Bella asks, "'platforms you mena?" Galinfenner winks and says, "Yes, platforms" Bella says, "well..." Bella says, "I originally wrote it on a real-time operating system called OS-9/68K" "that was on the Motorola 6800 ghip", says Bella. "chip", says Bella. Haeger laughs and remembers "then we moved it to interactive Unix - that was running on the 286 at the time", says Bella. Bella says, "next we moved it to Vax VMS - that was amazing" Roslyn is amazed by any operating system. "AT&T gave us this machine to do the port on - it was too big to go in the elevator", says Bella. Galinfenner chuckles Bella says, "so the movers had to tote it up to the 4th (5th in the US) floor by hand" Haeger laughs again Ditzy winces... "it was ported over the winter and the thing generated so much heat they didn't switch the heating on all winter", says Bella. "Oooo....muscle men", smiles Roslyn. Galinfenner winks and says, "A dual purpose machine" Bella says, "it was about as powerful as a 486" "Summer must have been interesting with that machine.", says Fancy. "they got very annoyed because they discovered that when they got X25 packets from us there was only one character per packet - and 511 nulls...", says Bella. "heh", says Galinfenner. "and they were paying by the packet", says Bella. Galinfenner nods "then we brought it over to the States - to GEnie", says Bella. Bella says, "that was an interesting port - I've never seem a 34-bit machine, before or since" Bella says, "also the compiler wouldn't compile programs bigger than 1 meg - so we had to break fed up into several programs" "each talking to the other", says Bella. "after we'd been at GEnie a couple of years Linux reached version 1.2 which was the first really stable version - so we moved on to that", says Bella. Bella says, "we were one of the first people to use Linux for production work" Frogfur gasps! Roslyn blinks. Cartman chuckles Bella says, "then we moved it onto AoL's machines - they were using HPs at the time" Galinfenner nods Snowlily widens her eyes Frogfur spits and sputters Roslyn didn't know that. "we still developed on Linux and just recompiled for the HP at that time", says Bella. Bella says, "when we moved to the web we kept stuff on the HPs because we weren't given much time to move" Galinfenner nods "but new stuff is developed on Linux", says Bella. Bella says, "you could call it a long and winding road" Bella says, "with the exception of AoL" "everone went bust after we left", says Bella. "I guess so.", says Galinfenner with a wink. Bella says, "it was like turning the lights out as we went each time" "they all shot themselves", says Bella. Bella smiles "I guess that about covers it", says Bella. "Ouch", says Roslyn. "Today, the game is pretty stable. What plans are there to make changes or enhancements?", asks Galinfenner. Bella says, "I'm not really planning to do much more with this one - the game is in technical terms ar the end of it's life - it's not that it won't run, but" "it's been changed so much over the years that it's getting into a state when it's dangerous to tamper too much", says Bella. Roslyn sighs. Esperanza pouts Galinfenner nods Bella says, "in addition" "we have to have another game to split the burden of the costs", says Bella. Frogfur kisses his sweet princess "at the moment Fed is covering all the costs of IB - and it's not really taking enough to do that", says Bella. Galinfenner nods "a second game would enable up to split the costs of the overhead", says Bella. Bella says, "we keep the servers in the states because that cuts down on lag across the atlantic" "but that means we have to pay for space in a co-location facility", says Bella. Bella says, "I mean I could put the servers in my bedroom..." "Get rid of peace locs.....especially in Sol", smiles Ron. Roslyn grins. Galinfenner laughs Haeger remembers walking past the building that housed the server... next to Battery Park Cartman chuckles ... any chance you could just reset this thing and rebalance? "tho they're a bit noisey", says Bella. Galinfenner asks, "Probably not quite as warm as the VMS machine?" Bella says, "no people would be very unhappy to lose their personas" Snowlily exclaims, "Absolutely!!!!!" "Ok, let's take some questions from the audience. Please TB me if you have a question.", says Galinfenner. Roslyn pulls a pair of ear plugs from her pocket and offers them to Bella. Galinfenner says, "Jamel has the first one." Bella smiles Cartman asks, "perhaps launch a mirror at ground zero then?" "do you think population and newbies will increase ?", asks Jamel. "it has been increasing slightly-", says Bella. Roslyn looks at Red and grins. "i mean to attract real newbies", says Jamel. "of course at the bottom line that really depends on how they get treateed by other players", says Bella. Violator laughs Solmars agrees. Bella says, "if you treat newbies as dirty when they come in, then they won't stay, of course" Bella says, "and equally, if you don't" "i havent seen any but alts", says Jamel. Ron says, "Just give em tons of groats and a life membership in Aries and they will be fine" Bella says, "tell other people about the game, no one will find out about it" Violator says, "since Fed has moved from AOL a number of changes have resulted from the shifting user environment, most notably the lack of interaction between ranks" Violator says, "due to lack of players, I was wondering about your thoughts on this one" "well that goes back to what I just said - if you want people to paly you have to help them over that first hump -", says Bella. Bella says, "it's always difficult when you start a new game" "and no - that doesn't mean showering them with gifts", says Bella. Ron likes humping Haeger agrees with Bella Roslyn grins. Bella says, "they want to play a game, no immediately rush up the ranks" Zyphr considers puzzle answers to be gifts too... ;) Zyphr winks at Galinfenner... Bella says, "one of the reasons for less inter-rank interaction is because people are given no chance to stay in the lower ranks" Bella wait Violator smiles, "it gets repetitive" "Ok, the burning question of every duke and duchesse's mind... Will there ever be a Martian Invasion?", asks Ditzy. "hmmm...", says Bella. Haeger remembers waiting night after night in line for the beaker to appear Roslyn does too. Bella says, "realistically, probably not. There's to much danger of screwing the whole thing if I tried to put it in" Bella says, "i had hoped there would be, but after reviewing the code when I got it back from Crypto, I wouldn't be happy tampering" Bella says, "the Invasion will have to wait for a new version" Ditzy sighs, "Oh well." Redspice winks and says, "Do you wear boxers?" Galinfenner snorts Snowlily laughs Thulium chuckles :) Wolfyn chuckles. Wyldcat laughs Roslyn nearly falls off her seat laughing Ron burps Esperanza braces Bella raises an eyebrow Redspice shrugs...and smiles... Snowlily watches carefully "company secret", smiles Bella. "well..its a simple question..", smiles Redspice. Galinfenner chuckles Ditzy would turn palem but isn't equiped for it. "What a coup, Red!", exclaims Wolfyn. Esperanza thinks Bella ducked that one neatly...and Redspice won't be adding to her collection tonight :) Redspice chuckles... Snowlily thinks she might have a plan.... Thulium rummages around in his fanny pack and finds a loaner thong from Thorus that might be suitable "Well Bella, you just mentioned that the Invasion would have to wait for a new version and that this version of Fed is nearly at the end of it's life. Is there indeed a new version in the works that we can look forward to?", asks Rasal. "There's always a next time Red", smiles Roslyn. "this is very difficult to explain... but I will try", says Bella. Bella says, "yes - there will be a new version" "but I suspect that most people who play this version will not want to play it...", says Bella. "oh?", asks Thulium. Esperanza asks, "Why?" "why is that I hear you ask...", says Bella. Bella sup a hand to her eyar Rasal grins. Bella says, "ear" Galinfenner is all ears "why? bella", says Wyldcat. Ditzy listens intently. Bella says, "because of the amount of time you have invested in this one" Zyphr isn't entirely convinced with that argument... "a mew version will not be exactly the same and because of that it would devalue the skills you have from this version", says Bella. Roslyn fears she would have to dd if her duchess goes to the new one. "to digress a bit, if people don't mind?", asks Bella. Ron hands Bella beer "Digress away" Thulium will certainly beta-test FedII :) Esperanza can't wait for a new/old Fed version Roslyn would love to see those newbies Bella says, "this is also a problem with changing this version - we know for bitter experience that people want new stuff, but they also moan like hell when anything is changed" Wyldcat wonders if it'll be called second federation. :) "because it upsets their current way of doing things", says Bella. Galinfenner winks and says, "Change" Bella says, "it's a no win situation" Wolfyn winks and says, "Most of us worked through this version, I think we're expandable." Bella says, "ironically, changing things is the second biggest cause of losing players" "At least people would be moaning because they couldn't figure something out... not that they weren't challenged!", exclaims Zyphr. Roslyn nods in agreement with Wolfyn "and the first would be?", asks Jerden. "i just miss spying on newbies", says Jamel. "I'm not sure that you want to know that...", says Bella. Bella says, "tho if you are desperate to know..." "yes!", exclaims Snowlily. Jerden smiles, "too late, now I'm curious" Cartman smiles Sirglec mumbles something about price increase. ;) Ditzy is all ears "we are, we are.", smiles Wyldcat. Ron belches "is it Ron's belching?", asks Jerden. Bella says, "it's fed meets - partners find out who their other half has been fooling with and put their foot down" Galinfenner chuckles "Really?", asks Esperanza. Jerden grins, "Now that one I wouldn't have guessed." Roslyn says, "Your kidding" Cartman is roflol so hard he falls UNDER the floor Snowlily laughs Bella says, "absolutely true" Wyldcat laughs Ditzy giggles. Sirglec looks at Wolfyn. "I'm going to have to go to a Fed meet then", says Jerden. Wolfyn shrugs. "i think the most at once musta been move to the web", says Jamel. Rasal winks and says, "Trust me folks, they're not that lurid." "why not start a mirror Fed .. from ground zero, a fresh start. If it fails .. turn it off, but perhaps the original draw to the game would be reborn there. There ARE lots of players, and alot of folx who quit, who would welcome a new start-up", says Cartman. "wouldn't work - you would have two games, neither with a critical mass", says Bella. Cartman thinks the new would soon kill the old Roslyn thinks it's happening anyway "what about a matrix system where there is a federation game inside federation", says Violator. Cartman says, "face it .. the challenge (except making alts) is basically toasted in the top heavy thingy" "in addition, this game is tuned for maturity - the tuning would be entirely different with no high level players", says Bella. "if I may ...", says Cartman. Violator says, "i take that last comment back, too much ale" "I think it would create the ultimate challenge for fedders .. old and new alike", says Cartman. Solmars asks, "Yes, I was wondering at any time have you ever had a census, or poll of some sort? Perhaps to really see what types of people play Fed and what their interests are? Maybe it could help in the development of a new game?" "I would need another HP to run it one - and there are two problems with that", says Bella. "money and obselete machines", says Bella. "no - we keep very minimal information about the players - just their email address", says Bella. Bella smiles, "that way there's litle to interest hacker" Bella says, "little to interest hackers" "What did you originally plan Martian Invasion code to do?", asks Fancy. Haeger says, "I can answer that Solmars... 14 yr olds to 70 yr olds" "have an invasion", smiles Bella. Galinfenner grins "But what would the invasion do?", asks Fancy. Snowlily thinks maybe even from 11 yr olds "well it would have meant defending your duchies against outside attack", says Bella. "and what was the original intent of security builds?", asks Jerden. Ron thinks we have been invaded by maladjusted teenagers Snowlily giggles Galinfenner looks at Ron Snowlily giggles again! "I figured you were one of them", says Galinfenner with a wink. "no security is about keeping the populace in line...", says Bella. Ron is over 21...honest "Right!", exclaims Snowlily. "beat em senseless (moreso) with a bourbon bottle Galin", says Cartman with a wink. Ditzy nods Snowlily laughs "i had quite a liot of ideas", says Bella. Bella says, "bio-engineered plagues - attacks on installations - attacks on shipping" Jerden says, "nice" "Naaah..you institute an invasion and most Dukes will get pissed and try to ban them", says Ron. Snowlily shivers in her boots! Thulium piques.. hummm.. plagues.. sweet :) Zyphr chuckles Roslyn laughs. Redspice chuckles.. Ditzy checks her shot record Rasal welcomes everyone to the Ron Forum Hour before getting back to the regularly scheduled meet. Bella says, "but one of the other problems is that after so long of safety people would be unhappy to have their work undone" "kinda like Ron clone wars? Too late Bella ... Star Wars beat ya to the punch", says Cartman with a wink. "Hell with fighting.....you're banned!", exclaims Ron. "So as Dukes, we would try to counter such plagues, terrorism, and piracy.", says Fancy. Thulium pulls out the calculator and determines that a plague on most overpopped leis planets might be a pretty good thing :) "yes - and you would lose stuff if you failed", says Bella. Esperanza asks, "Re the question of the rank rushing...it seems mean to keep people at low ranks when there's nobody for them to play with there. But how about banning macros in general? So people would actually have to play the game?" Snowlily nods! Snowlily nods to Thul's comment "we don't have control of people's computers - so we can't stop them", says Bella. Wyldcat says, "could ban all groat trading for that matter" Snowlily asks, "Hey! Has anyone thought about how many of the folks are returning players?" Ron loves the macroers.....great targets Thulium chuckles :) Jamel says, "geez i could never type fast enuff to trade" "I suppose you could take them to court using the DmCA - everyone else uses that to stop things they don't like...", says Bella. Snowlily asks, "who don't need to go through it again and again?" Wyldcat asks, "you mentioned other games in the works. what can you tell us about them?" Bella says, "well the next one to come through is probably going to be age of adventure - roll playing in Victoian time" Bella says, "then I guess Barbarossa, a strategy war game - those two will give us the flexibility for me to take some time off to work on Fed II" Bella says, "which will use a lot of the code developed for Age" Cartman perks all this stuff Graphic intense . .or basic like fed? Bella says, "you see, one of the key problems with fed" Bella says, "is that everything in it is hard coded" Thulium ruh-rohs... smells like a Windoze front-end will be needed for Fed2 Roslyn loves softcode. Bella says, "whereas Age is a game system, and everything in it is generated by script files" "which makes it a lot easier to change without having to recode it", says Bella. Roslyn will be 99 by the time Fed II is developed and won't be able to see the screen. "no Fed II will be text, tho i might put a grafix option in - if we can figure some way to do the pics on a low budget", says Bella. Thulium nods and whews :) Bella says, "the killer for grafix games is not the coding, but the high cost of grafix" Galinfenner nods Esperanza loves the text...so much more flexible than any graphics game "if you look at the credits", says Bella. Thulium nods to Lady Espie "for something like might and magic, for instance", says Bella. Cartman has bought you a Bandwidth .. the more you drink, the higher your bill!! "you'll see that there is one designer, a couple of programmers and about 20 grafic artists", says Bella. "it costs literally millions to produce a graphic game", says Bella. Ditzy prefers text anyway Jerden asks, "this might have been asked, but if so I missed it... any regrets in regards to how Federation has evolved over the years?" Bella ponders "not really - of course it never took any direction I expected it too, but", says Bella. Bella says, "one has to be prepared for that when other people are involve" Jerden nods. Galinfenner chuckles Galinfenner winks and says, "Darn users can't stay in the domain" Bella says, "if we hadn't employed crypto to look after it for a few years I would probably have kept a closer eye on its development" "if I may cut in real fast, what direction did you expect Fed to take?", asks Violator. Bella says, "left at the lights" Galinfenner grins Jerden chuckles. Wyldcat chuckles Roslyn shakes her head "Bella, I have a million questions I could ask but I settle for when would the new version be available, ie timeline?", asks Ford. Bella asks, "two weeks?" Bella asks, "Xmas?" "in due course...", says Bella. "LOL. yeah!", exclaims Ford. Ditzy says, "Soon." Wolfyn chuckles. Ron winks and says, "In the fullness of time" Bella says, "there is only one of me" Galinfenner says, "The famous timeline." Ditzy points Bella to a cloning center. Wyldcat recommends cloning. :) Ford says, "Yeah, but your insured right? Clone." "it will be done by Christmas.", says Galinfenner. Bella says, "one thing I have learned over the past five years is that I can't parcel bit of it out" "I did try with Age, and that didn't work", says Bella. "without wishing to seem arrogant - the difference in quality between my work and other people's is massive", says Bella. "Actually I don't see how you accomplish as much as you do being the only programer.", says Ford. "All questions aside about new fed or old.... What do you think about auto-haulers in fed?", asks Haeger. "incidentally, in fed alone we have one failed Mac Front End for each year of feds existence!", exclaims Bella. Galinfenner winks and says, "There's a question for Fed Trivia" "really?", asks Thulium. "no way, we all know the answers", says Violator. Bella says, "yes all volunteers - i don't have a mac" Bella says, "auto-haulers..." Ron loves to shoot em Ron gets another beer Bella says, "I have no problems with people who pay to have their computer play mine = tho personally I would have thought they could find better things to do with their money" Violator says, "yeah I was pretty cheesed off about not being able to get a non sol hauling job back at captain/adventurer" Bella smiles, "and at the end of the day - i'm probably a better programmer" Bella smiles sweetly Galinfenner chuckles Ditzy laughs Thulium chuckles Galinfenner says, "Ok, thanks so much for coming tonight Bella." Esperanza says, "That's the other reason its tough on poor people these days. Nobody has anything for them to do" "One more?", asks Haeger. Bella smiles, "s'OK" Galinfenner grins "Up to the boss.", says Galinfenner. Esperanza applauds Bella Thulium stands and applauds... thank you for taking the time, Bella Bella says, "depends what it is" Rasal winks and says, "Show me a player that can haul and I'll show you an unused hauler program." Roslyn laughs. Jerden smiles and hands Bella a beer... Redspice applauds Wyldcat applauds Wolfyn applauds. "Thank you Ma'am." "Yearsa ago there were Duchy wars... was that good or bad for fed?", asks Haeger. Bella says, "only the players involved can really answer that" Galinfenner nods Zyphr perks, "Onyxian/FreeRain - That was cool" ;) Thulium chuckles.. a most excellent answer :) Bella says, "it's an option - fed is for entertainment -" Ron watches the question get adroitly sidestepped Bella says, "if you aren't entertained by that then it's not fun" Zyphr winks and says, "We could have more if we'd ban the Ban rule" Redspice whispers to Bella..."sorry, I thought you were a male...forget about the boxer thingie...I don't wanta know...:)) Haeger was an Onyxian.. and proud of it Galinfenner says, "Ok..." "Thank you all for coming tonight. I hope you enjoyed our show.", says Galinfenner. Ditzy applauds "Thanks.", smiles Solmars. Thulium winks to Haeger.. .ahhh.. you missed the Great Onyxian DD Fest in 2000 ;) Wyldcat waves and sneaks out Wearing a badge saying Bah, Humbug! Bella has just left the room. |
| FEDERATION | ||||||||
