| It's been absolute chaos in the Fed2 Star office. So much for a quiet time over the holidays! It's more than I can stand - I never expected life as a newsdroid to be like this. No wonder all the other newsdroids were so keen to push off and leave me to cope on my own.
It's not that there's been a lot of news. No, that I could have coped with, it's what I am programmed for. The problem was the workdroids.
I think I mentioned at the end of my last bulletin that someone was coming in to mend the holes in Hazed's office floor. Well, they have been there since two Christmasses ago, when the dumb droid left on duty decided to redecorate and managed to glue itself to the floor. Why Hazed didn't insist of getting the missing planks replaced before now I have no idea; she's not normally known for her forbearance when things go wrong nor for her toleration of anything that doesn't come up to her high, some would say perfectionist standards. But for some reason she didn't make it a high priority, and so it's only this holiday season that she got round to organizing some workdroids to come in and fix the problem.
It should have been straightforward. I know a little bit about maintenance because one of my good friends is a construction droid who worked on the Galactic Administration HQ building. Now that was a major project! All this bunch had to do was remove the remains of the broken floorboards, replace them with new boards, sand them so they were level, paint them, and lay new carpet. What could possible go wrong?
That hollow laugh you hear is me.
It started to go wrong almost from the off. They removed the broken floorboards as instructed, but in the process, some of the perfectly sound boards fractured. What were two medium sized holes in the floor, became one bloody great big hole. So there was a delay while they got extra boards to fill in the larger than expected space.
They got the new boards laid, and discovered that there were a different thickness from the old boards. The joins were completely uneven - the new boards stuck up about an inch which would have created a very dangerous tripping hazard.
Not to worry, though, they had intended to sand the new boards and ensure the joins were completely on the level - they just had to do a little bit extra sanding, that's all. Well, can you imagine how much sawdust this produced? It went everywhere. Hazed's office was completely coated with it, of course, but it also made its way out into the main office and is now all over everything, including the plants. I even got showered with the stuff myself, and it got into my sensors, inside my vents, and I am sure there's some clogging up my waste outlet - it really itches.
They've finished the sanding now, and the boards are nice and level, but they've said they won't do the painting until all the dust has been cleared up, and that means waiting for a cleaning droid. Until one of those shows up, I have to sit in amongst the piles and piles of sawdust. Is this what I was programmed for? No, it is not!
And amidst all this chaos, I am expected to produce another bulletin full of all the things you absolutely have to know now, this very instant. So here goes.
AND THE PRIZE GOES TO...
A little later than promised, Hazed is pleased to announce that the winner of the Christmas Tree Decoration contest is... (drumroll please!) Tenabutter with this lovely ornament:
Tenabutter's ornament
Hanging from a silver silk thread you see 3 blown glass balls made into a snowman. Its vest is made of bright nanofabrics with 3 buttons of gold. It has 2 eyes made out of biochips and a munition for a nose. A laser has etched a smiling mouth where you see it saying the Merriest Christmas to all and a happy New Year.
Honorable mentions go to Meijerman, whose entry also impressed the judges, and Fancy who made us smile:
Meijerman's ornament
It is a snowglobe that, when shaken, pictures Santa delivering presents to all the Fed planets. On the side of his sleigh are the words: AK deliveries, when it absolutely positively has to be there overnight.
Fancy's ornament
You see an angel atop the tree. For some reason, the angel seems to have an expression of discomfort, even pain on its face. You wonder if you're hearing things, but you could swear you hear a tiny voice singing, "Who put the stump up my rump-bump-bump-bump-pump..."
All three of them will be receiving a special prize, so look out for them and ask them to show off what they got.
NEW YEAR CHARM ADDS TO YOUR COLLECTION
Gallaghers of Earth is now selling a new charm for the new year: a miniature moon which waxes and then wanes as it goes through its phases. This delightful piece will be a marvellous addition to any collection of jewellery, and is designed especially to be clipped to your keyring.
It is available from the up-market shop for 1 slithy tove. To purchase it, 'BUY MOON'.
Last month's charm, the snowflake, has officially been withdrawn from sale, but we have heard on the grapevine that if you have 2 slithies to spare, the assistant will still sell you one if you 'BUY SNOWFLAKE'.
PREPARING THE WAY FOR TELEPORTATION
Following interest expressed at her recent Meet and Greet session, Bella has moved work on one long-awaited feature to the top of her list of stuff to do. That feature is: teleportation.
Pause for cheers!
That's really exciting news, for anyone who remembers the good old days - like Hazed, who never stops droning on about how things were different when she was a young demi-goddess, and how she resents having to walk everywhere when she should be able to pop instantly from place to place...
It is too soon to give you all of the details of how teleporters will work, and Bella has ordered me not to even speculate about when we might actually see them in operation, but there is some preparation work that all planet owners need to do. That is to start thinking about whether there are any locations on your planet where you do not want people to be able to use a teleporter, and erect a teleport shield which will stop people from teleporting in or out of the location.
You add a teleport shield to a location by setting the No-Teleport property using the location editor. This property has been there all along, so you could have already set it if you were thinking ahead.
There are lots of different reasons why a location might need a teleport shield, and here's some of places you will need to consider putting the property on:
- Expensive shops, private offices, bedrooms, and anywhere else that would logically have a teleport shield to stop intruders from avoiding security.
- Locked rooms, ie any location or set of locations that cannot be reached without an object, or a password, or by doing something else.
- Any location or set of locations where entering or leaving triggers an event that makes a change, ie removing an object or setting/clearing a variable.
- All puzzle areas.
- Half-finished areas on the map which currently don't have any physical link to the main map.
- Dummy locations.
- Storeoom (location 0).
We will give you all a week's notice before teleporters are put into the game so you can erect your teleport shields, but please don't leave it to the last minute - Bella is not going to want to deal with 75 new planet maps all needing to be linked at the same time!
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Finally, since this is the first bulletin of 2009, Hazed says: Happy New Year to all our players, and a big thank you to everyone who supported us throughout the last year by buying slithy toves to help pay the game's bills, by joining staff to help out in the game, or just by playing and being part of the Fed2 community.
From all at ibgames, we wish you the best 2009. See you in Fed2 DataSpace!
Well, I am sorry if there was sawdust on the bulletin. I did my best to keep it clean, but you know what sawdust is like; it clings.
Now if only that cleaning droid would show up and do its job.
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