THE MONTH IN BRIEF
POs were given the power to close their star systems and stop visitors from flying in through the link. And to open them again, obviously!
New command 'DI SYSTEMS' meant the lazy could get a list of all the star systems in Fed without having to leave the comfort of their favorite bar and actually fly to the link.
Bella started to implement the commands POs could use to manage their planetary economies, allowing them to look at the details of their exchange by commodity group, adjust the spread between buying and selling price, and change the stock levels.
The requirement that wannabe-POs should reserve their planet name first (by paying over slithy toves) was lifted, so there is now no monetary price on getting a planet (not in real-world dollars).
There wasn't much else that was visible to players, because Bella was beavering away on background code to do with planets.
Less than a month after her Halloween party, Diesel threw open the bar to Thanksgiving revellers, with party poppers and fireworks and free drinks. Another scavenger hunt was held with fiendish clues baffling contestants.
Catspaws formed the official Fed2 Role-playing Team, with the aim of teaching players how to cooperate in acting out role-playing scenarios.
Information about how players can help newbods was published on the web site.
Filbert released his very useful Fed Planet Sim program, that lets planet designers walk around their maps and spot mistakes before submitting the files to be put in the game. You can download it from the Workbench pages for Windows and the Mac.
BELLA CHANGES HER MIND
It was only two weeks ago that I wrote an article for the Fed II Star telling you about some new commands Bella was working on. The article went into considerable detail about how the commands should be used, and under what circumstances, and what the effect would be. The information in the article was the result of a long conversation I had with Bella, where I quizzed her about her plans for this feature, and got her to tell me exactly how she wanted it to work.
This was just fourteen days ago.
Now, the commands have been implemented into the game - and do they work as the article promised they would?
No. They don't. In the intervening fortnight Our Illustrious Leader has changed her mind, and just about everything I wrote in that article is now completely and utterly wrong.
I swear, she does this to me on purpose...
The truth is that you should never believe a word that Bella says when she is talking about things she is going to do. She is as changeable as a chameleon. You can't nail her down on anything. She might tell you how something's going to be, and honestly, genuinely believe that that is what she will do, but when she sits down to actually write the code, she will invariably change her mind.
That's why I am usually wary about writing about things before they are actually nailed down in the code. This time, I forgot myself, and I actually believed that Bella would do what she said she would do. Silly me.
ALL ABOUT BACKUPS
by Alan Lenton
Recently, a number of high profile losses of player data in other MUDs have prompted some players to ask how their Fed II data is looked after by ibgames.
There are two main problems that can cause loss of data - hard drive failure and inadvertent deletion.
We guard against the first problem by using a system known as RAID. There are two separate hard drives, each capable of providing a copy of the data, so that if one drive fails the other drive can continue without interruption. Once a faulty drive is replaced, a replacement image of the data is built on the new drive from the existing drive.
This system, of course, doesn't cope with someone inadvertently, or maliciously, deleting the data. For that we have a set of regular backups. The primary backup is done at the 8.00am EST reset. It is, in fact, one of the primary reasons for the reset. We need to take the game down so we can safely copy the player database for backup purposes.
At reset a copy of the player records, planet files, and all the associated data is made to a backup directory. This means that if something goes wrong with the files, we can restore the system to what it was at the last reset.
Once a week (after the Sunday reset) those files are copied over to a different server in the same rack, so that if both the RAID drives on the Fed II server fail we can restore everything to the state it was after the last Sunday reset. The backup server also used RAID drives, incidentally. These servers are in Parsippany, New Jersey, USA.
Finally, once a month, usually on the first weekday of the month, the backups are downloaded to the computer used to develop Fed II, which is in London. From there two sets of CDs are cut and kept in two different sites - one in East London, and one in West London in England. So, if the Parsippany data centre is destroyed by unseasonable weather, we can reconstruct everything on new severs to what things were at the start of the current month.
Of course, if a nuclear strike were to simultaneously take out all of London and New Jersey, we would be screwed. But in that case I suspect players would have things other than losing their Fed characters on their minds!
BELLA'S BIG BLUNDER
Bella realized recently that she made a big mistake when she designed the location editor part of the Workbench. She made it far too easy to use.
It's very intuitive, you see. Players who want to design a planet fire it up and think, sure, I can work out how to use this. And they can - mostly. They can start placing locations, setting directions, giving the rooms names and writing descriptions, and pretty soon they have the map all drawn out. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. No need to read the boring old manual.
And that's the problem. Because there are things that you are required to do to make your planet fit to be linked into the game, which are not so intuitive. Like what names you give to the map files, what title you give to the maps, and how you specify the shuttle pad and orbit locations. The game is very particular about these things, and if you don't get them exactly right, it won't load your planet into the game, or it'll be unable to let players land on it. And there is no way at all you could know exactly how the game wants you to do these things, unless you read the manual.
As the person who writes all the manuals for Fed II, I find it very depressing that nobody bothers to read my work. I have become resigned to it by now. But when it comes to using the Workbench, there is stuff you really do need to get from the manual. If you just can't be bothered to read the whole thing, at least make sure you read the last section - it's a checklist of the things you must do to get your planet into shape.
WHY IS THE GAME SO PICKY?
Fed is a computer program, and programs don't have the ability to guess what you really meant to do like a human being does. If a computer program has been coded to expect something to happen in a certain way, then you have to conform to that exactly or it won't know what to do. So if the game expects that your space map file should be called "space.loc" then it won't know what to do with a file called newstarspace.loc.
There are a whole lot of things you can do wrong when you design a planet. Some of the mistakes you can make don't matter - at least, they matter to players, but they don't matter to the game. The game doesn't care if you have typos in your descriptions, or incorrect movements, or locations that nobody can get out of. It doesn't care if you forget to put the bar property on your bar, or neglect to give a description for a room (in that case the Workbench will put some Xs in as a placeholder). Those are things you need to fix, of course, but they don't affect the underlying stability of the game.
But then there are the more serious screw-ups you can perpetrate. These are the things you can do wrong that the game really won't like. They either mean that your planet won't link into the game, or - more drastically - the planet will load but it will make the game crash. Right now, when you submit your files to Bella, she goes through them and checks for all the nasty little things that might cause problems. If there are only a few, she'll fix those problems and send the corrected files back to you. If there's lots of nasties, she'll email you and tell you to sort your files out yourself and re-submit them.
DEALING WITH SMART-ARSES
And then there are the problems caused by people being smart-arses. People who deliberately do something that they know is wrong, just to see what happens. Like trying to put two exchanges on their planet, for example.
The rules in Fed II are very simple. Being able to design your own planet is a privilege, not a right. That means it can be taken away again. We will revert your planet to one of the stock designs and you won't be able to have your own design again until you promote to the next rank. This doesn't just apply to people who break the game rules when designing planets, by putting things that are not allowed in their descriptions - vulgarity, insults to other players, copyrighted material and so on. It also applies to those who act like jerks by trying to do something they have been told not to do. Like trying to put two exchanges on their planet, for example.
To the person who was shocked when told this could happen, because we were never this mean in classic Fed - this isn't about being mean, it is about protecting the game from twits who abuse the privilege of being able to have their own chunk of the game real-estate to play with. Classic Fed's planet-loading mechanism had a whole bunch of checks and safeguards built in that would prevent you doing anything dangerous to the game, and planets wouldn't load into the game if they failed the checker. These were added over time; whenever a player came up with another way to do something we didn't want them to do, the checker was extended to catch that too. Eventually Fed II will have similar automatic checkers, but until then, Bella has to check the files manually, and anyone who deliberate makes more work for her by doing stuff they have been told not to do will make her a very unhappy bunny indeed!
STAR CHAMBER: HOW MUCH IS FED II WORTH TO YOU?
by Freya
I've been thinking about this for a while, mainly because the IBgames coffers are really bare after paying the last Nac Net bill. And those bills keep arriving every month so in those immortal words, "something needs to be done". Because Fed is very important to me, to you, to all of us. It's not Just-A-Game. It's a genuine part of our lives, and a special experience for us all. Federation II is our community, our home in DataSpace. You know it is.
The friends we make in Fed are real friends. Many have met their spouses and partners in Fed. Some play here with their children. It's family and friends for many of us. So what is your community worth to you?
And if you've played Fed for a long time, and many of us have played it for years, you may not have thought much about how reliable Fed really is. Yes, we've had the occasional game crash, but that is just the playing stage part of the game. In all the years since Fed started in 1989, we have never, and I do mean NEVER lost our player database records on any of our games. We've never had to have everyone start over with new personas because our records were destroyed or corrupted beyond use. There's no magic to this; it's the result of careful planning and quality equipment housed in a superior data center. You may have read details about this in Alan Lenton's recent article on game backups. We put a lot of time and work into setting up and running the processes and equipment that support the game so everyone can play, confident that their work won't be lost.
But high quality and reliability comes at a cost. We have to find a way to meet the monthly hosting costs of Federation. We don't want to go back to subscriptions and we won't. We made a commitment to you the players that Fed II would be free. And we intend to keep that commitment. So we ask players - if Fed is important to you, if playing it gives you pleasure, think about what it is worth to you, and donate some of that value to support the game you love. We'll give you Slithies when you donate. Slithies can be used to buy you all sorts of nifty things in Fed II. And they don't expire - so you can store them up like a sort of savings account and have them ready to use as we install new and niftier objects and features in the game. Some plans for slithies coming up soon are - Ship Registries and a special sponsors page on the website with a private sponsors lounge in the game. But most important of all, the funds raised by Slithies go directly to support hosting the IBgames network.
I really, really want to keep Federation II free, so please support the development and maintenance of Federation II by donating at http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/pay/T3LQMNY7XN6AIB.
STAR CHAMBER: WORST PLANET THEMES
by Freya
As more player planets appear in Fed II, the time arrives to complete our tribute to the dubious glories of...
Worst Planet Themes - part 2
6. Dungeons & Dragons & Magic, Oh My!
Yes, we know you really wish Fed II had magic. And princesses. And elves. And Celtic mythology you made up by yourself. And princesses. And dragons. But nice dragons, that talk, and are toilet trained.
7. My Little Town
A reproduction of your home town. Only all the boring parts are left out. Whoops! There's nothing left. So you build a different home town. No one who actually lives there would recognize it.
8 Yo Ho Ho, Arrrgh!
The bright and shiny pirates with all their teeth and ships with plumbing and a tropical paradise to harbor in.
9. Creatures of the Night
Only nice sexy attractive celebrity vampires need apply.
10 Square Peg in a Round Table
The chivalrous renaissance that never was. Beggers and lepers need not apply. Everyone bathes in this version - they have hot tubs! I bet you never knew they had hot tubs and central heat and hot & cold running water in the renaissance. Everyone has a canopied four poster bed, in front of the fireplace, with a fur coverlet.
11. S&M dungeons
They never manage to get this right. It always turns out to be a bad version of Anna Rice.
Read the first part of the Worst Planet Themes here.
STAR CHAMBER: COMMON SENSE - A PLAYER'S GUIDE
by Freya
There are times when we all yearn for a nice hefty clue-by-4 to beat people over the head with. You know those times, those "how could he say that" and "how could she do THAT" moments. Are people really that clueless or do they just not know the line between the unacceptable and common sense? Or perhaps they don't realise that even in a game there are consequences for everything we do? A brief Guide to Common Sense in Fed II follows.
Hoof in Mouth syndrome on the Comms
We've all seen this one, someone just has to say it on the comms. It's usually something way too real life personal that we really didn't want to know about you. Or it's something extremely graphic, crude, and sexual or insulting and rude. Or an explicit violent threat. Whatever it is, you know it's not allowed on the Sol Comms. Doing it in front of game staff is simply stupid and the consequences will be swift. But you're not safe even if there aren't staff in the game because you are sure to have annoyed someone with your dubious cleverness who will send a log to feedback. The end result is losing your comm unit. This is a limited situation because if it's repeated the next stop is lockout station.
Things in the game may be larger than when seen in real life
DataSpace is not real life. Whew, who'd a thunk it? While in-game behaviour does reflect real life character, actions and situations are often really just role-playing no matter how real they seem. That torrid romance usually is just a great giggle to the players involved. The outrageous feud is usually just an excuse to exchange witty banter. It might be real but it's dangerous to assume so because usually it's all pretend. Don't end up creating upset and unhappiness for everyone by taking things you see too seriously.
Who's in charge here?
It's worth your time and effort to know who the various staff are. Check the Fed2 website or ask in the game. (I'll be updating the Fed II staff info page on the IBgames website, which has details about who is staff, what teams they are on, and how to join Fed2 staff, in the next couple of days.) If Game Staff tell you something, it's common sense to take it seriously. When in doubt, email feedback@ibgames.com.
Be careful out there, it's a big DataSpace.
CATNAPPERS NAB FERRERI'S CAT
by Catspaws
Ferreri's cry of "You can't have my kitty!" was heard over the early morning comms. Was Fed II's first official catnapping in progress? Who had absconded with the infamous feline who has swatted at passing ships, hacked up hairballs onto shoes, and generally purred her way into everyone's heart? It wasn't pirates who did the dastardly deed, but Freya herself, who recruited the paw-licking feline for a new team - the role-playing team. And, like soldiers going to war over the centuries, the feline answered the call. She signed on the dotted line and became the newest member of Fed II staff.
In the days since the public enlistment of Catspaws to the Fed II staff, one question has popped up repeatedly: "What is the role-playing team?" Role-playing itself is at the core of Federation. You see it everywhere - in player descriptions, in planet descriptions, and yes, over the comms. It is what adds the spice to everything from hauling to parties to socializing in Diesels.
One purpose of the role-playing team will be to establish a special channel for role-playing purposes. This will allow players to role-play to their hearts' content while leaving the comms free to provide help and guidance. (Watch out, the kitty litter missiles are coming back!)
If it were simply the case of setting up a new channel, staff wouldn't be needed. But the role-playing team will do much more. They will support and encourage role-play, as well as run classes and discussions on such topics as themed planets, creating and developing a character, and basic role-playing skills.
In the days and weeks to come, keep an eye out for new and exciting things to come from this new team.
REAL LIFE NEWS: FOUR YEARS OF HOUSEWORK
Can you imagine spending four whole years doing the housework? Non-stop dusting, hoovering, cleaning and tidying. What a nightmare that would be!
Believe it or not, but the average person does spend that much time on housework throughout their whole life. Just not all at once, thankfully! And it is balanced by five years eating and drinking, and more than 24 years sleeping.
This "life by numbers" breakdown is the work of researchers in Germany who added up the time spent in all those snatched moments of everyday activities, to figure out much time they take up over an average lifetime of 78 years. The results came from a study of national statistics, and from personal questionnaires, and were published in German science magazine Geo Wissen.
Some more of the results:
- Watching TV - five and a half years.
- DIY projects around the home - five years.
- Time spent at work - seven years.
- Commuting to and from work - nine months.
- Kissing - two weeks.
- Playing computer games - four months.
I feel sure that if the same data was taken from Fedders, then that last one would be a lot more than four months!!
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