First post in three years!  After nary a picture of JP in all these years, now we have a video!

I met up with Mana last night in San Francisco. We were shocked to realize how long it has been since we last met up in the Bay. My youngest son was a fertilized egg when we met up last (and he’s five now!).

We ate some expensive food, talked some shop, a little bit of Trade Wars (neither of us play, not much to talk about there!), and had a good time. We’ve decided to declare our get together The TradeWars Convention 2008. We’re sorry you all missed out.

With recent discussion of another possible TW convention, I decided to bring up an old gag I created a few years ago for TWCon2000 in Las Vegas. That year Mana Knight could not make it due to personal obligations even though he really wanted to go. So I took this group picture and inserted Mana Knight into it and this is the result, saying MK was cloaked the whole time and only recently did he have cloak failure, resulting in his appearance in the group pic. The gag had a lot of laughs.

Two legends of Trade Wars made an appearance in The Home Sector forums. The Last Starfighter AKA Fooman and RawHead Rex each made a few posts in the forums inquiring about the happenings of TW today. What’s funny is, Rex posted that he was surfing the net one day, thought about TW and popped into Eleq’s site. LSF did the same thing a few minutes later. What are the odds of two legends deciding they got bored and decided to check out TW on the same day? About as much as winning the Powerball lottery I guess.

Who knows, I would not be surprised if legends like Ripclaw, Darkhawk, Rolodex, Hellcat, Gaurdian, and most notably – Hosem all decide to make a return to TW in time for the BOTE.

I would like to suggest a slot be reserved in the BOTE named “Hall of Fame” for the legends to represent. I would love to see how these legendary players stack up against today’s players.

The Black Knights were one of the most dominating teams in their time. It is too bad I have not had the opportunity to play in the same game with them much other than the first WTC. But Artemis, Lord Chaos, and Maverick were in a class all by themselves with their dominating play.

Before I close out this post, I also want to mention one more legend – Cruncher. Her knowledge of the game was outstanding. Her beta testing helped make the TWGS what it is today. She is in a class all by herself and I am honored to have been part of her beta testing not long ago when we together helped run a beta server at Intergate.

Forgive me if I leave out anyone. Any ommisions are not intentional. These were just off the top of my head. Best of luck to any legends who decide to return to today’s game 🙂

This is my final installment of the Trade Wars Gazette update. I wanted to cover a number of subjects before I bring down this website for good. First off, I’m happy to announce, as many of you already know, that Eleqtrizi’T has brought the Home Sector website back up online. It was only perhaps last year that he took down the BBS and handed over the website maintenance to Fuseblown. But Fuse himself ended up a little busy to take care of it, so it looked like the Home Sector was gonna die for good.

Then Easy E put out a comment page on his website where people could post their thoughts on what he should do with the Home Sector and based on those comments, he has brought the Home Sector back online. I’m very happy about this. Trade Wars was never the same without E and when he left, he also left a big void in the community no one has not been able to fill.

Say what you want about Hardcoded or Coastgames, two of the leading servers today, but no one could hold a candle to the Home Sector TWGS/Stardock BBS. Games like the Title Game along with his other trademark games like Massive, One Love, etc. were ultra competitive and classic battles. Eleq’s edits were out of ths world and I hope the return of the Home Sector website also is followed by the TWGS or BBS soon.

Another subject I wanted to cover is the U S O. This year, for the first time in U S O history, Bad Girl is no longer the moderator and that in itself is a good thing. She has made way too many mistakes in the past which had a major effect on the games. I’m not gonna get into that now, but I just want to say I have 100% confidence this year’s U S O should be one of the best tournaments of the year. Silver Dragon should do all right with it.

Next involves the passing of two members of the community in the past year. As many of you know, Jackal lost a valiant battle to cancer early last year and late last year, Kitty Moon AKA Rave AKA Lisa Wilson-Cutler died in a car accident. My thoughts and prayers go out to the familes of these two individuals. River Rat will run Jackal’s Lethal Lotto game at Alien Base and I trust he’ll do a fine job with it.

I also wanted to say this to each and everyone of you in the community: I wanted to let everyone know I have no beef whatsoever with anyone in the community. This includes Space Ghost, Kemper, Prestone, both Doctors, etc – all players that I have tangled with in the forums. Trade Wars is only a text based game that sometimes can get out of hand. Many people have lives that revolve around TW such as having a computer on 24/7 and running a bot to guard a home base and have an alarm go off to wake someone if he is being invaded. If you have to do that, then you know TW has control of your life. It should be the other way around. That’s the nice thing about Cherokee’s “I have a life” game where there is a 45 minute time limit. Unfortunateley, even I didn’t have time to play that one though I wanted to.

There’s been a lot of bitching lately that everyone needs to lighten up and realize it is only a fricking game, not something in real life to bitch about in the forums. Trade Wars is simply a game, nothing to get worked up over. I think all the fights is why a lot of members like BG, Guardian, Eleq, Cruncher, etc have left at one time or another. To sum it up, debates are nice in that conflicts can get resolved, but when you have turds like Res Judicata come in the forums and start crap, that’s another thing and we don’t need that.

Finally, this domain is going down for good very soon. I have until this fall to decide if I wanna let it go or renew it. Trade wars is addicting enough that I could very well bring the site back online later this year. Right now, I’m just not interested in Trade Wars to warrant maitaining the site though Eleq’s return did inspire me to write this final article and perhaps even tempt me to bring TW Gazette back online for good, but common sense won out and I decided to write this one final article.

Peace out – Timberwolf

Every Tuesday, I’ll be doing editorials with my opinions covering a variety of subjects, whether it is Trade Wars related or not. Today’s topic is the departures of many long time TW players such as EleqTrizi’T, Cruncher, Bad Girl, Guardian, and Hekate. Let’s start with EleqTrizi’T. This man was a legend in the TW community and is still a legend. He provided a kick ass game server along with an awesome website. Eleq was never satisfied with his machines hosting the TWGS, always upgrading them so that it provides fast and reliable connections for his players. Let me tell ya, I have heard very few reports of lag except at maybe tournament time and even then lags were minor. If there was a problem, Eleq was quick to respond.

Eleq also was a very intelligent man and the only thing matching his intelligence was his ego 🙂 Eleq would write all sorts of programs inluding dupe catchers as well as an entire BBS and teleconference chat and many other small programs. Eleq probably is the only man who could match Res Judicata in artistic ability on a computer, though I have to admit Eleq’s images can be sometimes disturbing 🙂 Eleq was also the owner/moderator of the World Trade Wars Championships, the only tournament that had practically no rules – anything goes.

But late last year, Eleq had enough of the pissing and moaning by ungrateful players and shut down the Home Sector and Stardock BBS (both later taken over by Fuseblown) and left the community. Last I heard of Eleq, rumor has it he bought a house and I believe this is the same man who once told Cruncher he would never buy a house. I guess having an ever growing family can change a guy’s mind. My best goes out to Eleq and his growing family and wish them well. I still hold out hope that one day he returns with a vegeance and some new fresh ideas.

Speaking of Cruncher, she is still around, talking to a few select people in the community. She is just not as active as she used to be. She still has her website online that contains photos of many individuals in the TW Community. If you want to update a photo on the site, simply send her an updated photo. Best of luck to Cruncher..especially when tax time rolls around 🙂

As for Bad Girl and Gaurdian, both left after USO ’02 for the same reasons Eleq did. This page explains the reasons for their departure. Both Bad Girl and Guardian will be missed for one main reason: their work with newbies. They were always willing to let a newbie play with them and show them the ropes. Best of luck to Bad Girl and Guardian.

And finally, Hekate. I was unable to find out why she left. If anyone knows, contact me. For the time being, Liquid Chaos has the twlinks site and is currently waiting to get a hold of Hekate for DNS transfer so he can put it on a new server. Best of luck to Hekate.

To sum it up, I want to commend the community for stepping up and taking over many of the responsibilities of the individuals I mentioned above. Fuseblown runs the Home Sector website and TWGS. Rave is working on the Beta team in Cruncher’s place. Silver Dragon now owns the USO and should do a very good job of it from what I heard of how he hosted USO ’02. And Liquid Chaos has taken over TW Links site. As the saying goes, the show must go on.

I met Jon (Jackal) in my third Tradewars game on a small board. We didn’t say much to each other he knew I was a newbie..gave me some pointers and we went our separate ways. Many games later we met again and played and flamed each other mercifully for about a year on the bbs Evolution. Then we struck up a friendship. We found out we graduated from the same university and a kinship evolved. ( GO UCONN Huskies). Jon had a strong personality but the kindest heart of anyone I every met. If someone was in need of anything..Jon was there for them, no questions asked. But Jon had a hot temper and could flame with the best of them! (was on the receiving end of those too). I will miss the phones calls Jon made to Guard and I. He would call just to check up and make sure everything was ok.

Yeah I haven’t played in awhile, but here is an official retirement.  I hereby retire from tradewars, sure I’ll prolly be back, but I got to straighten my life out.  I now realize that life is short, in the past 4 months 2 of my best friends have died.  

Including last night.  On Monday I was in a car heading home from school with him.  The car stalled in middle of intersection, and a speeding, off duty cop car hit him going 85 mph in a 50 mph zone.  I have sustained minor injuries but unfortunately he had shattered most bones in his body, and had massive internal bleeding.  2 other friends were in the car, 1 had a broken pelvis, and the other had minor injuries. I know it wasn’t my time to go because if I had gone a few more inches forward my head would have gone right through a sharp metal pole.  I know that I have to get my life on track, it is too short to goof around.  So now I leave u, and I will probably be back in a few months, but for now PEACE OUT!

Sir Lancelot
Jay Mitchell

This section of the web site is dedicated to those that have directly contributed to Trade Wars 2002, the Trade Wars Game Server, and the Trade Wars Community. Whether it be hosting a server or web site, participating in the beta testing team, etc.; It will be posted here. This is our thanks to those of you that have helped this game get to where it is today! Keep up the good work!

If you have contributed to Trade Wars in anyway and do not see your name under any of the lists below that you belong under, please do not be offended that I forgot to add you. There are many people that have contributed to the game we all know and love, it’s hard to remember them all off the top of my head. 😉 Contact Fuseblown and we will get your name up there ASAP.

The complete teamEIS staff has yet to be announced. We will add more names as we receive them!

John Pritchett (EIS Owner/Lead Programmer)
Rick Mead – Gypsy (Project Leader)
Agustin Rivera – EleqTrizi’T (Webmaster)
Cruncher (Beta Testing & QA Leader)
Craig Castle (Technical Documentation & Support Lead)
Bil Simser (EIS Development Team)

Beta Team
https://tradewars.fament.com/Cruncher/Beta.htm

Names Taken from “About” Screen from TWGS v.43

Lead Beta Tester: Cruncher

Beta Servers:
Aitvo – Intergate BBS (No longer Active)
EleqTrizi’T (Agustin Rivera) – Stardock BBS/The Home Sector
Hekate – TWGS.TWLINKS.COM
Vid Kid (David Pascarella) – Vid’s World

Beta Testers:
Abraxus
Artemis
Bad Girl
Dark Rider
Fuseblown (D. Cohenour)
Gypsy
Hekate
hELLCAT
Hosem
J.T. Kirk (Bob King)
Jackal
Kavanagh
Krusty
Luke Skywalker
Master Time
Kage Noir (Vince Pangelinan)
Kidder
Mojoe
Mussolini
Nazwes Chaiwind
Neo (Jeremy Gates)
Night Stalker
Paladyne (Dean Griffith)
Peacemaker (Dan Klonsky)
Pixie
Retaliator (Michael Gentry)
Ripclaw
River Rat
Satan (Scott S.)
Silent Storm
Soylent Green
Space Ghost
Speedy
Stonewall
Timberwolf
Terminator (Kevin Pascarella)
Tweety (James Goudie)
Wookie

Game Operators

Abraxus (Alpha Prime)
EleqTrizi’T (Stardock BBS)
Fuseblown (Stardock BBS)
Hekate (Terra)
Hiawatha (The Pisces Network)
Kidder (Alien Base)
MacAhan (Family Entertainment Network)
Res Judicata (Public At Large)
River Rat (Alien Base)
Soul (Silver Wings)
Space Ghost (Boo! inc. TWGS)
Stonewall (The Deep South)
Vid Kid (Vid’s World)

Web Site Operators

Bad Girl (Bad Girl’s Trade Wars Page & Tradewars.org)
Big D (Silver Wings)
Cruncher (Cruncher’s Trade Wars Page)
EleqTrizi’T (The Home Sector)
Fuseblown (The Home Sector)
Guardian (Dragon’s Elite)
Hekate (TWLINKS.COM)
hELLCAT (hELLCAT’s HomeBase)
Kidder (Alien Base)
Kitty Moon (Kitty’s Playground)
Lady Ice (Lady Ice’s Lair)
Mana Knight (Tradewars.org)
Micro (www.tw2002list.com)
Res Judicata (Public At Large TW Game Server–Res has also designed many free TW sites for people in the community)
River Rat (Alien Base)
Stonewall (The Deep South)
The Reverend (the reverend’s tw page)
Timberwolf (Trade Wars Gazette)
Tweety (Boo! inc.)
Wookie (3rd Annual TW Awards)

Official Trade Wars League
https://www.twleague.com

Board Members:
Devil Dog
Guardian
Moldar
Stonewall
Vid Kid

Trade Wars Helpers

Doug Underwood (TWAR – DOS & Win)
Earth (ATTAC)
MacAhan (SWATH)
Stein (SWATH)
Xide (TWX Proxy)

Trade Wars Radio Operators

Soul – WEJL Radio
Space Ghost – Boo Inc. Radio

Trade Wars Tournament Operators/Founders
I know there are more people to be added here, please contact me if you should be listed. Thanks.

Bad Girl (United States Open)
EleqTrizi’T (World Trade Wars Championships)
MacAhan (Battle of the Elite 2000)
Space Ghost (Haunted Halloween Tournament)

I have gone through many revisions of what I wanted to say in my head, and finally came down to only having a few last things to say..

Logging off,
Agustin Rivera
Premier/EleqTrizi’T
June 1991- November 2001