Web Fed News Yearbooks - October 2000

THE MONTH IN BRIEF

Halloween was celebrated in its usual spooky style, with a special puzzle planet and many ghostly events. The puzzle was solved by Mind.

There was trick or treating, with Scaryghost visiting planets to obtain treats, and playing tricks on people who wouldn't oblige. A pub crawl was held on Bosky, the puzzle planet, and a special Halloween Scavenge Hunt kept players entertained. Kao was the special guest at the Halloween Meet & Greet, and told spooky stories to scare everyone.

Alsatian was so impressed with Raphael's reworking of his planet Visions that he awarded it a coveted Walrus of Merit. You can read Alsatian's review at http://www.ibgames.net/archives/fed/
webplanetreviews/2000/visions.html.

Alan wrote several articles during October. First, a heart-felt article about the problems of upgrading a computer. Stress and the Single Computer is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/society/stress.html.

Then a player mailed Alan and asked him some question about game design, and after he'd answered in some detail he put them on his web site at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/philosophy/questions.html.

And another player wanted to know how to become a programmer - so Alan wrote about that, too, at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/society/programmer.html.

GALAXY-WIDE FUEL PROTESTS THREATEN SHORTAGES

Experts fear fuel shortages could soon hit traders in Sol and other star systems, as protests about the price charged for fuel spread throughout the Galaxy. Demonstrators have set up blockades of fuel depots, and are threatening to bring the Galaxy's major planets to a stand-still if the Galactic Administration does not act to reduce prices.

Haulers from some of the largest interstellar freight companies have converged on the main fuel-producing planets and parked on the landing pads in such a way as to prevent tankers from taking off. Local police authorities, despite having a reputation for dealing ruthlessly with civil action in the past, seem unwilling to step in and deal with these protestors in the manner to which we have all become accustomed.

The protestors say that fuel prices should be reduced to make it easier for haulers to compete. They are particularly angry at the prices charged for fuel purchased in space, and feel the fuel companies are taking advantage of those in an unfortunate position and should show more compassion.

The shortages are likely to be more severe than necessary because of panic buying and hoarding. Professor Buzz Slipjerk, head of the Economics Department on Epsilon Eridani, told us that haulers are filling up unnecessarily. "They are topping up their tanks whenever they touch down and this is making the crisis worse. They don't wait until their tanks are almost empty, so demand for fuel has suddenly increased. Even worse, some irresponsible haulers are setting up alts, buying them ships with huge fuel tanks, and filling those tanks to the brim. This kind of panic buying can only add to the problems."

A spokesthing for the GA's Department of Energy said they were listening to the people, but had no plans to take any immediate action.

REAL LIFE NEWS: SPACE DECORATION

Astronauts who returned from the International Space Station last week are complaining about the decor. They say it won't be a true home until the first occupants add their own personal touches. Those pioneers will be blasting off at the end of October for a four-month stay.

The question is, how should they decorate the ISS? I am sure there are severe space limitations on the luggage they can take up with them, so the scope for tacky ornaments and tasteless pictures is probably limited.

I guess this is one time when we could really use the holo-deck technology featured on Star Trek.

THE RIGHT TO BANISH

The debate over Dukes making use of the ban rule has reared its head again, and with it comes a whole lot of confusion which I feel I ought to try and clear up. So, at the risk of provoking a mailbox full of hate mail...

Although the duchy ban rule was brought in as a response to the sudden increase in the use of powerful trading macros, it's not actually about dumping. It is about giving Dukes and Duchesses control over their own domain. There are many other reasons why a Duke might want to ban a player from his duchy. It could be because they don't like the player's trading methods, it could be because they just don't like the player.

But in fact, the Duke doesn't have to have a valid reason - or even an invalid one. The ban can be done on a whim, for no reason at all. It needs no justification.

If you think of a duchy as a Duke's home then it makes more sense. Why shouldn't a Duke be able to pick and choose who is allowed in his home? It doesn't matter whether it's about trade or not; it's the Duke's right to have control over his duchy.

I suspect that the confusion and resentment comes from the fact that there isn't a game mechanism for Dukes to ban players. If the Duke could just type a command and thereafter the named player simply couldn't enter the duchy, I don't think there would be so much controversy over this rule. Unfortunately, it's not possible for us to code that into the game at the moment, so we had to come up with another way to give Dukes control over their own domain.

S-L-O-W-D-O-W-N

An interesting bit of internet news this week.

A consumer report on Internet sites which has collected stats on download times has shown that the net is slowing down. The rather long-windedly-named The Keynote Consumer 40 Internet Performance Index monitors the length of time it takes to download the home page of major sites. An examination of the weekly figures shows that it's been steadily climbing over the last few months. Check out their graphs and charts at http://www.keynote.com/company/overview/
public_services/consumer/cons40_index.html (such a long URL I had to split it in half to make it fit!).

I haven't seen any commentary on why the net is slowing down, or how things might improve in the future. But speaking as someone who's been involved in online stuff for many years, I have noticed that speeds seem to go in cycles. Things slow down, so some people just stop using the services so often as it gets too frustrating to have to wait. This eases pressure on the over-loaded system. At the same time, telecoms companies work hard to increase capacity. Therefore, the problem lessens and things speed up again.

So then, more people start using the net, and it slows down again. Round and round and round.

OH... I FORGOT!

Funny how people get into a rut. You haul and trade for years, and develop habits, preferred ways of doing things. After a while, you forget that there are other ways. You pass your "rules for life" onto your accolates, and they forget the other ways too - if they ever knew them in the first place. Pretty soon, there's hardly anyone in the whole Galaxy that remembers that things can be different.

In the wake of the Federation Chronicle's report a few weeks back on the fuel crisis, I discovered that most players have forgotten that there is more than one way to buy fuel. With macros programmed to "BUY FUEL" everytime you touch down, why would you need to do it any other way? But just sometimes, you don't want to fill the tank right up, you just want to purchase enough to get you to your destination. So let me remind you that "BUY FUEL" can be modified with a number - "BUY FUEL 10" buys you ten tons of fuel, no more, no less.

Those of you scratching your heads (or equivalent), wondering why anyone would want to buy less than a tankful may have forgotten the other quirk of buying fuel. It costs ten times as much when you buy fuel in space as it does on the ground. The fuel companies have to ship it out to you; delivery tankers don't come cheap, and the cost gets passed onto you, the consumer.

So if you run out of fuel in space, buy just enough fuel to get to the nearest planet, then land and fill up in the usual way, to avoid paying the premium prices for space delivery.

CRASH, BANG, WALLOP!

In last week's run down of facts about fuel that players might have forgotten, I forgot one too. Ooops! It took Our Illustrious Leader, Bella, a figure not normally famed for her good memory, to remind me that in the event of a dry tank you can make an emergency crash landing on a planet with no fuel. As you would expect, your ship will suffer some damage from the speed with which it thuds down onto the landing pad, but at least you'll walk away safely.

Of course, this is only of benefit if you happen to be in orbit when you run out of fuel.

THE HIGH COST OF GAMING

You may think paying $10 a month for Fed stretches your pocket book, but be thankful you're not the Earthlink user whose just been slapped with a ginormous bill for excess bandwidth - $30,000, for posting a movie on his personal web site.

The movie is a copy of an advertisement for the game Halo, running on the 3D graphics company's hardware. The ad appeared in July, and the Halo-fan digitized it and posted it to his site in two versions: 45MB and 32Mb. Fans flocked to download the movie, and during September the traffic in downloads amounted to 4500GB (yes, four thousand five hundred gigabytes). His monthly data limit is 500MB. Hence the whopping great bill.

The news story I read about this didn't say whether the unlucky chap was an adult or a teenager, whether he works or is still at school, or whether he has any hope of ever being able to pay that kind of bill!

IMPERIAL NAVY SHIPS TO RUN WINDOWS 3000

The next generation of Imperial Navy warships will be equipped with computers running the popular commercial operating system, Windows 3000, a naval spokesdroid announced today.

"This is an important decision which will standardise the software used by warships, and enable them to run other programs which have been proven by their life in the commercial marketplace," it said. "Being able to use off-the-shelf software will also enable us to redirect our budgeting to other areas, rather than having to pay vast sums to develop custom software to control the ship's systems." The navy plan to install the operating system on all computers in their ships, including the ones controlling life support, navigation, and weapons systems.

Opponents of the Imperial Navy's plan point to the historic instability of all Windows programs. The code for the popular home version, Windows You, is alleged to contain over 4.7 million bugs, while the alien version, Windows Them, is notorious for crashing with its so-called "green screen of dismemberment". Professor Enid Spink-Mellotron from the University of the Age of Enlightenment on Auriga IV expressed her concerns. "Windows software is not designed for use in mission critical, high-stress situations. It's one thing for your computer to freeze up when you are surfing the Galactic web, or sending an e-vid to your semi-sibling; but imagine the consequences if the weapons computer were to crash during a vital peace-keeping mission. Why, it might end up targetting an embassy instead of a combat zone! It's unthinkable."

The navy droid dismissed such concerns, saying that Galactic Administration computer scientists had examined the options and assured the Imperial Navy that the risks were negligible, and far outweighed by the cost savings.

New ships using the software will be deployed in 3 years time, and current ships will be upgraded on a rolling basis, starting with the Solar System's ancient battleship.