Fed Meet and Greet with Bella

December 23, 2003

Wolfyn taps on the microphone.

Wearing a badge saying Bah, Humbug! Bella has appeared with a shimmer of teleportation effect.

Wolfyn says, "Excuse me, pardon me..."

Greyspacewolf winces at the feedback on the mic tap

"Thank you ladies and gentlemen for coming to tonight's special edition of Meet and Greet...", says Wolfyn.

"Featuring Bella!", exclaims Wolfyn.

Drudge cowers as Bella walks amongst the mortals

Bella says, "seem to be a lot of people hanging around in the shadows..."

Art isn't hanging around in shadows. She's perched on a stool right up front.

"Thanks for doing this for us tonight, Bella. I'll just let you start off .. maybe with what's been happening in Fed... then take questions. Sound okay?", asks Wolfyn.

Bella says, "well..."

"I just got all the basic login stuff working, to the extend that you get into the meeting point", says Bella.

Bella says, "course, you can't talk or move yet - I'll do that tomorrow"

Wolfyn says, "This sounds like the Days of Creation."

Wolfyn says, "First there was the meeting point..."

"Back to the dawn of time.", says Art.

Racingnut says, "but i think itll take longer than 6 days"

"7?", asks Drudge.

Wolfyn looks to Bella. Six days enough?

"well all the maps for the solar system are there - plus a few new ones", says Bella.

"New locations in Sol? Any examples you can tell us about?", asks Wolfyn.

Bella says, "well I added an underground level where the workers at the spaceport live."

Bella says, "it includes a temple for a new cargo cult"

"aww, finally, we find out why the stevedores steal cargos", says Drudge.

"no - but the cult may well cause problems for the planet owners at a later date...", says Bella.

Bella asks, "do people know what a cargo cult is?"

Wolfyn shakes her head no.

Fancy says, "Sounds like a group of people that worship cargo."

"OK - let me explain...", says Bella.

Bella says, "not far off fancy"

Bella says, "in the 1920s there was a strange outbreak of new religions in the melanesian islands of the pacific"

"they all centred round the idea that the gods would send their worshippers cargos of food and drink so that the worshipper didn't have to work", says Bella.

"the cargo would arrive in either planes or on ships", says Bella.

Bella says, "so, knowing that the gods would provide, the worshipers slaughtered their cattle and feasted and didn't plant crops"

Bella says, "didn't"

Bella says, "some of them even built symbolic airstrips and wharves"

Bella says, "yes - needless to say the cargo didn't arrive, so the worshipers decided that..."

Bella says, "it had been intercepted and stolen by the colonial administrators"

"Cargo cults are revivalistic, in that the adherents expect the restoration of a golden age- sort of like Fed players?", asks Obeahcay.

Bella laughs

Bella says, "anyway - on investigation it turned out that the cults were derived from what the locals saw of the colonial administrators"

Bella says, "they didn't seem to work, but food and goodies arrived regularly by boat and plane"

"so the locals invented the cult to account for it", says Bella.

Wolfyn nods.

"anyway, the one in fed is that the Martians are trying to send goodies - medicines - devices to do the work etc", says Bella.

Bella says, "and the galactic admin is trying to keep the goodies out so they can retain control"

"so any planet that ends up with a cargo cult is going to suffer labour problems", smiles Bella.

"ok?", asks Bella.

Wolfyn says, "That sounds really neat, a new story line going."

"Did I hear something about Arena moving?", asks Wolfyn.

Bella says, "yes - fed space will be peaceful, but arena will be part of it, and that won't be peaceful"

Wolfyn smiles, "Oooo"

Gigawatts asks, "So a lost hauler could wander into arena space?"

"details of the cult are for you to work out later", says Bella.

Bella grins

"Any idea when Fed II will start opening for players to test?", asks Wolfyn.

"well - that's the $64K (US) question", smiles Bella.

Wolfyn exclaims, "Cheap!"

"I think it will be available as a chat room on Xmas day - but it depends on how well debugging goes", says Bella.

Greyspacewolf wants to know if fighting in fed II will be any different...special ship classes, new weapons, etc

Bella says, "well i don't have any plans to alter fighting at the moment"

Bella says, "I would sound one note of caution..."

"by the day after tomorrow I will have written about 4,000 lines of code.", says Bella.

Greyspacewolf cheers!

Bella says, "this version of fed has 120,000 lines of code..."

"so don't expect everything at once", says Bella.

Greyspacewolf has another question...what language are you coding in?

Bella says, "the current version is mixed C and C++, the new version is C++"

"incidentally, there is a limit to the length of time I can program at several hundred lines of code a day", says Bella.

Greyspacewolf nods...will you eventually create new front ends for Fed II as well?

Bella says, "yes - i would like to do a graphical FE and a basic FE for Fed II"

Racingnut wonders what the workbench is going to be like..if its going to be the nightmare the present one is

Bella says, "incidentally, you may not be able to use fedterm for the first few days of Fed 2 - until I get all the bits it needs in"

"you will have to dig out a telnet client", says Bella.

Fancy wonders if planets will be bigger, with more things that can be done on them.

Gigawatts wonders Fancy's wonder as well.

"ah yes - planets...", says Bella.

Freya says, "I used a free client called PORTAL to get into Fed II"

"you may want to get a copy and try fiddling with it to get familiar with it", says

Freya.

"you actually get a star system with a planet to start, and then you get extra locations as you promote", says Bella.

Greyspacewolf looks at Freya...can we use PORTAL with current fed to get familiar?

"Ooooooh...", says Fancy.

Freya says, "sure"

Felina asks, "when you first start? or when you first get a planet?"

"later on in the PO ranks you can use some of those extra locs to build a second planet in your system", says Bella.

"let me get a URL for it", says Freya.

Bella says, "when you first get a planet"

Freya says, "http://www.gameaxle.com/cgi-bin/index.pl"

Greyspacewolf raises a paw...for eventual duchy type planets...will we get to have 2 links? one for traffic from out of the duchy and one for traffic inside the duchy?

"the puzzle stuff in Fed II is much more sophisticated - I brought over the technology we developed for age", says Bella.

Freya says, "Portal is for windows"

Bella says, "possibly Gswolf - i haven't worked out the details yet"

Bella says, "there is also the question of having more than one orbit/landing pair on a planet"

"It's likely that the planet tools will be like Genesis", says Bella.

"the planet location designer is already written - we used it to do the solar system stuff", says Bella.

Fancy suddenly gets a thought regarding Genesis. "Will there be a Mac version of Genesis?"

Greyspacewolf raises a paw...will it be possible to port a current planet into fed II using a gen file?

"only if someone buys me a mac...", says Bella.

"no but ive heard ftl might be unusable in fedII", says Racingnut.

Bella says, "you'll have to use a windows emulator for the time being"

Gigawatts asks, "Can you give us an idea to how the ranks will change? Will their be change in the number/roles of the ranks?"

Bella says, "the main change is that I'm thinking of adding a rank about duke -

grand-duke"

"but I haven't decided yet", says Bella.

Bella says, "the promotion requirement will probably change"

"but you can wait to find those out", smiles Bella.

Bella smiles, "i have one or two surprises - the first one at the captain->adventurer level"

"star systems join duchies", says Bella.

Hook asks, "can they have a unified link? that can be closed?"

"Earlier you mentioned Martians... are there plans for "Martian Invasions?"", says Gigawatts.

Bella says, "oh - and you won't have to ask planet owners for permission to build factories on their planets - but they can nationalise them if they don't like them"

Bella says, "this is set a couple of hundred years in the future - the Martians have finally been driven out to the edge of the galaxy"

"I guess until there are player planets in the new Fed, players will have to build on the solar system's planets.", says Fancy.

Bella smiles, "no formal invasion, but strange thing happen out on the rim"

Bella says, "yes - they will"

Bella says, "no - if you nationalise - the fac goes and you get half the value in your treasury"

Bella says, "I'm sure I can think of a way to make it very expensive for people would try and exploit loopholes"

Bella smiles sweetly

Freya smiles blandly

Bella says, "I am looking at how money is held"

Fancy thinks it would be very expensive for the Merchant to keep building factories where they aren't wanted.

"the current system sort of grew like topsy, it need cleaning up", says Bella.

"ship registration will work properly", says Bella.

Bella says, "planets will get an economic bonus for the size of their merchant marine"

Bella says, "but duchies will be able to ban commerce with other duchies, though"

"and that will include ships registered in the banned duchy", says Bella.

Drudge asks, "will you be making it easier or harder to transfer groats to planets?"

"well transferring groats is about to become much more difficult", says Bella.

Bella says, "for instance..."

"but I'm sure you don't want to know about that", says Bella.

Bella puts her notes back into her pocket

Fancy guesses we'll find out when we play it.

Bella says, "(what has it got in its pocketes...)"

Bella says, "there will be a limit on what you can give another player within a 24 hr period"

"OK?", asks Bella.

"probably in the region of not more than 1K groats a day", says Bella.

"Are their plans to monitor the flucuation of Fed's Economy? Will the value of an IG change thus making ships, spybeams more or less expensive?", asks Gigawatts.

"also we will link events planets straight into the solar system so low level players can join in", says Bella.

Garrick asks, "will spying change?"

Bella says, "the groat will be devalued by (say) 10%"

"well if you get too many groats, it rolls over and goes negative", says Bella.

Bella says, "for all ranks - everyone loses 10 per cent of their money"

Gigawatts asks, "Will Ming be back?"

Bella says, "well the other alternative is to increase the cost of everything by 10 per cent -"

Bella says, "reducing the groats is easier"

"not really - it is very difficult to get anyone who can play ming properly", says

Bella.

Bella asks, "OK - so what else did people want to know about that I can refuse to tell them?"

Art says, "I want to know how spybeams and such will change"

Chamberlain says, "Will there be more for a new commander to do than just haul and pay off his ship? It's hard to get people interested in fed because they use their two free hours up trying to make captain."

Fancy asks, "Will dashes and spaces be allowed in player names?"

Drudge asks, "also, will it ever be possible to 'break the bank' of a Sol system

exchange?"

"no space - but you can have spaces in your race", smiles Bella.

"unlikely, drudge", says Bella.

"Assuming Spying goes back into the game - will their be a return of a Spy-Proof room?", asks Gigawatts.

Bella says, "spybeams I'm thinking about"

"no spy proof rooms", says Bella.

"they completely distort the way the game works", says Bella.

Bella says, "commanders - I am still thinking about that"

Bella says, "but jobs will not be the requirement at captain level, so there you get a break from hauling"

Racingnut asks, "will check price commodity all be brought back or some equivalent?"

Bella says, "I'm in two minds about check price"

"oh - the channels are different too", says Bella.

Bella says, "they have names not numbers and everyone is just joined to the 'general' channel"

Bella says, "new channels are created on the fly"

Bella says, "no - puzzles aren't for promotion, but you gain honours by doing them"

"honors? will you pin a medal on us?", smiles Felina.

Bella says, "eg Baron Hook KGB, DSO, OBE"

"I thought that would show the people who do do the puzzles, but it wouldn't penalise people who aren't interested", says Bella.

"When planets go back in will the Walrus and Carpenter awards be programed in as well? Will they be listed in the planets display?", asks Gigawatts.

"they plan to keep the Walrus and Carpenter", says Freya.

Freya says, "they're working on a command that would display names of winners"

"ah yes - walrus & carpenter...", says Bella.

"I think we will have some system for finding what walrus & carpenter planets are on-line at any time", says Bella.

"also I'm thinking of making changes to the way the TTTTT works", says Bella.

Bella says, "at one end making it more of a handicap system - if you win one day it's more difficult to win the next day"

"and changing the value of it so it gives the planet's economy a boot rather than just a cash award", says Bella.

Bella says, "a bit like golf handicaps"

"well - i guess that's about it for the time being", smiles Bella.

Gigawatts asks, "Will the mythical place three south of mercury and behind the sun be programmed in?"

Fancy bursts out laughing.

"definately not!", exclaims Bella.

"ahh the solar ATM machine?", asks Racingnut.

"it's already there", smiles Bella.

"Already there?", asks Gigawatts.

Freya says, "it does- the ATM isa right there 3 s of mercury"

"I know, I 've seen it", says Freya.

"It takes time to programm and debug something of this complexity", says Bella.

Bella says, "it's not just a few lines of basic"

Freya says, "I installed several lovely ATMs in Fed"

Freya says, "3 s of mercury, under the alter on Mars"

"in the Mines behind the locked door", says Freya.

Freya smiles sweetly

"And don't forget, in the middle of a nuclear reactor", says Fancy with a wink.

Bella says, "well - it's gone 3am over here, so i'd like to go..."

"Thanks Bella!", exclaims Gigawatts.

"thanks a bunch bella", smiles Racingnut.

Plank says, "Thanks Bella"

Art smiles, "Thank you for your time Bella"

"thank you so much for being with us tonight Bella", smiles Felina.

"Thanks for coming, Bella. Fed II ought to be something to see", smiles Fancy.

Bella waves goodbye to the assembled masses

Wearing a badge saying Bah, Humbug! Bella has just disappeared.