Dot Matrix's Xmas Bulletin No 1

Hello, it's junior assistant trainee newsdroid Dot Matrix here. The newsdroids have packed up and left the Fed2 Star office for their winter break, and Hazed has departed too, leaving me with a whole list of instructions of things I must do (for example: feed the office plants their daily ration of meat) and must not do (invite any of my friends into the office for an impromptu party).

I wasn't expecting to be called into action quite so soon, though! I've been spending my time tidying up the office, which does get a bit messy what with all those weekly deadlines to miss, but now I have to put down my feather duster and produce the first of these special news bulletins.

POWER OUTAGE CAUSES PROBLEMS

There was a power outage at the data center where the Fed2 computers live last night (Thursday) which took Fed2 and the ibgames web site down for about ten minutes just after 11.30pm eastern.

When the power was restored ten minutes later, and all the computers came back online, the time on the Fed2 computer had changed - it's now an hour fast, which you will see if you type 'TIME'! This means that today's reset happened an hour earlier than it should have, which came as quite a surprise to everyone in the game at the time. Bella will get on to the data center and ask them to sort this out.

As if that wasn't enough, Hazed then tried to change somebody's password by using the special in-game demi-goddess commands she has at her disposal, the accounts program (which controls account details such as passwords and so on) took exception and closed Fed2 down! This time it was a proper shut-down which won't have accrued any losses.

So, what actually went wrong? Well, we've been told that the power went out at the data center so the UPS kicked in and then the generator came on, as it was supposed to. The power company then sent some people out to find out why the power had gone off in the first place, and in the course of their work they managed to unplug the generator and UPS - leaving the place with no power whatsoever. Whoops!

All these shutdowns will have probably messed up cycle days for companies, so CEOs should check their accounts so they know what cycle day they are now on.

Because the power outage happened unexpectedly, the game just stopped without saving anything, so players may have lost some of the things they did yesterday. Hazed has instructed me to say that if you lost loads of groats you should send the details to feedback@ibgames.net - please put Fed2 in the subject line - and include your character name, and if possible a capture from before and after.

That's the end of my first special bulletin, and I think it's all come out as it was supposed to, proving that I am quite capable of holding the fort on my own, without all the histrionics we saw last year from Robby, who behaved like a complete amateur...

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