Thankfully, MacAhan will *not* be pulling the plug on FEN anytime soon! He has also restored BOTE ’01 as close to its previous state as he could to the point before a lot of the players were CBY’d by an infiltrator.
MacAhan assures everyone that only himself and Supermom now have sysop access to the system.
BOTE ’01 will reopen on April 5th at 6:00pm Central time.
Gypsy has made a bunch of news updates over at the War Room web site.
Included in this is a very large update on TW Chess Round 3, an editorial by Gypsy about the FEN/BOTE situation, etc.
Many of you know that Bad Girl has now left the TW scene for good. Many are questioning what will happen with the Annual TW Convention this year. I’ll try to answer this as best I can…
I need to contact those people in the MidWest that were asked to help setup this year’s convention. If you are one of these people, please contact me via e-mail or ICQ (3863812). I’ll give Bad Girl a call and try to find out what information we currently have and work from there.
I’ll keep everyone posted as things get worked out!
The voting process for TW League Board members is currently under way over at the TW League web site! This process is open to *registered* League players and sysops, so if you haven’t signed up and want to vote on the new board members, get over there and sign-up now! Good luck to all of the nominees!
USO 2002 is now officially over! Corp [6] consisting of Xide (CEO), Gravdigr, Hekate, hELLCAT, Rave, and Speedy are declared the winners. RN: Bad Corp and Star Endeavors come in at second and third. Check the official USO 2002 site for official information!
Also, BOTE 2001 looks like it may end on a sour note as I’m sure most of you have heard. Someone managed to gain sysop access and proceed to CBY some of the players. MacAhan’s checking into everything, trying to figure out who did it. Either way, it looks as though the game might turnout to be the stalemate that some of the players wanted. FEN could be shut down for good due to this incident, but myself and many others hope that won’t be the case.
I want to express my views on time limits. Res Judicata thinks time limits suck. To me, if someone cannot do a 900 turn game in six hours, they have a serious time management problem.
Not all of us have 24/7 connections and the ability or know-how to run 24/7 bots.
Not all of us have the dedication or time to stay at keys to defend bases.
Not all of us have dedicated corpies to run bots or keep-alives as well.
Many of us, like me, still play on dial up, and it burns my ass to see someone run a photon bot defending their sector. Granted, if you know that person is not at the keys, you can devise a plan to drain photons from the photon bot then commence invading, but not everyone has the skills or coordination to execute such a plan.
I believe time limits should help put games on an even par with 24/7 players running bots and dial-up players who log in, run their turns and log out.
I believe if the BOTE had a time limit, it would be over long ago. As it is today, the BOTE is in serious danger of stalemating due to 24/7 defense bots.
For small games, time limits should be off, give players a chance to just sit and shoot the bull. But for the bigger games and popular games like, for example, TLTT’s Epoch game, I think there should be a time limit mainly to discourage defense bots and SD sitters/blockers. Player should run their turns, then run no-turn scripts like moving fighters from one planet to another or e-probe scripts, stuff like that, then log out.
As for a claim that offline killing takes no skills, it does take skill to find and locate the person. To me, a kill is a kill and it gets the enemy a day off whether he was online or offline at the time of his demise.
And in conclusion, time limits rule, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it 🙂
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)
as posted by Col Sanders, Silver Dragon, and Mana Knight in that order followed by one from yours truly:
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my pleasure to announce, the new location of the Chicken Coop BBS and TWGS, and the Chicken Coop web page on the domain, bawk.org!!! Thats right, if your DNS has updated, as I believe most have now, you can telnet://bbs.bawk.org to access the Chicken Coop BBS, and https://www.bawk.org to view the Chicken Coop web page!
To celebrate, I am prepared to announce a new type of game, opening January 4th, 2002, and running until February 8th, 2002. This game, I call, Battleship! This new game will be based loosely on TWChess of Coastgames.com fame. This new game, will start in much the same way, team starts on a nice planet, tries to conquer the universe in the allotted time. The edits will be based on my Battleship! game, which I ran recently, and had a few players look at. The edits are WACKED! You think TWChess has wacked edits? You ain’t seen nothing yet! This game will challenge you in ways you have never been challenged. It will make you flex regions of your brain you have never flexed! It will make your team work together as you have never imagined!
A taste of some of the edits involved:
Huge! 20,000 sector universe!
NO TWARP drives!
Only 2 ships with HOLO-SCANNERS!
I will of course post again about this game once I have a web page added to https://www.bawk.org detailing the WACKED edits! Also, will have a registration form on the website. In the meantime, the game will be limited to 6 corps, 4 minimum. 5 people per corp! (no more, no less). So start planning now!
-Col Sanders
The Chicken Coop BBS and TWGS, we don’t create new things, we make new things BETTER! (yes, I stole that from 3M)
Silver Dragon to open Player’s Creation Game as announced by SD himself:
Players Creation will be Planet TWs first display of its player showcasing. Send me a ship edit you want in the game. Please be very specific include a killer name. This was an idea run on stardock. Hellcat asked me to run it so here it is. This game will keep very detailed stats and the action covered on the Planet TW web page. I am
gonna look to start this game December 13th which is a thursday at 9pm eastern time. Check out the edits on the game settings page on planet TW. So send me them ship edits every one will be put in the game. And get ready for a fun game YOU created.
Silver Dragon
Planet TW… The Tradewars Home World
Some of you may have been wondering what’s up with Tradewars.org. I haven’t abadoned it. It more or less abandoned me.
I say this because I came into my room about 3 weeks ago and for some reason it smelled like Febreeze. However, after realizing this smell was coming from my
computer case, I realized it wasn’t febreeze but MELTED PLASTIC. Thus, the computer I use to update tradewars.org decided to permanently melt it’s motherboard.
This set me way back in school since I needed that computer. I have a temporary one that lets me get my work done, but I only got that like a week ago. This has only
been agitated by someone in my group NOT DOING THEIR FUCKING WORK for the project. This leaves me with taking up the slack for the time being. Oh yea, finals are next week. crap.
Just a heads up on what’s going on. Sorrry about the french, but I need someone to take this out on and Soul isn’t around anymore.
The reason for this is the duct tape on the Diablo Server while Mephisto does not have one, frustrating many players on Mephisto. An announcement regarding the Pigskin Classic will be made very soon, hopefully by the end of the day.
Today, I’m having serious internet problems with great difficulty in maintaining a connection. So if I’m unable to get to BOTE updates later, you know why.
Can’t wait until I get cable in January.
Gypsy has outdone himself. The War Room is coming around in full force with many more additions. to the site. With EleqTrizi’T now in the Retirement Home, Gypsy appears poised to make the War Room THE premier web site of the Trade Wars community. Awesome going, Gypsy 🙂 The War Room will be added to my affiliates section on Friday when I have the day off from work to move some stuff around on the Trade Wars Gazette.
Lots of news yesterday while I was offline since the last post I did. Sit back and enjoy your coffee. This make take a while to read 🙂
I’ll make another hunt game when I’m able to get a hold of Macahan and give a few days notice of the rebang. I’m shooting for Dec 3 at 7pm CT.
“ok I feel I must announce this growing problem in our community. This is no way to put down TWX or discourage its use, in fact I am gonna help it. Several times I have had my users tell me someone has hacked through into twx and was able to either A-watch what they were doing and the most recent B-alter the standard twx scripts. This is caused by the server twx creates on the users desk top. It is my goal to stop this scum bag from ruining all tradewars games. I have a good idea who it is and man when I get enough to prove it youre dead man. I am going right to the police with this shit. He knows who he is. But for the rest of you honorable traders out there, there is an easy way to protect yourself from this type of attack. Go to www.zonelabs.com and download zone alarm personal fire wall! It is free for personal use and is one of the best out there. This will stop all inbound traffic to your computer halting the hacker and protecting yourself. Please spread the word for this hacking problem is growing. I have had complaints from Elite and newbies. If you already have a firewall please make sure the port twx uses is closed while youre using it. Any questions on this please email me. Also all sysops if you have heard of this problem please contact me so we can narrow down some suspects. Thank you for your time help me stop this low life scum!
Silver Dragon
(SYSOP Hardcoded TWGS)”
This is Xide’s response on what you can do to make TWX more secure:
“I designed TWX with this sort of thing in mind. If your worried about anyone hacking into it, you should take the following precautions:
1. Ensure you have the ‘Enable External Connections’ option DISABLED. Later versions should display a warning message if you have this turned on. If you absolutely have to use it, make sure you change the listening port to make it harder for others to pick up on it.
2. Make sure you have no trojans installed on your machine. Trojans are a popular way for hackers to tunnel connections through to gain control – its possible for them to use these to redirect connections into TWX as if they were connected locally. I suspect this is the method this person has been using. Good virus scanners will also guard against most trojans.
3. Install a firewall. Firewalls are great – they block people from connecting to your machine unless you specifically open a ‘hole’ for them.
4. UPGRADE YOUR TWX PROXY! Versions older than 1.07b may have
security holes in them. The network code was rewritten from scratch in 1.07b and a lot was changed. Earlier versions don’t give warning of the external connections being enabled, and may even have it turned on by default!
As for scripts or programs which modify the base TWX scripts to do nasty things to you, all I can suggest is that you be careful about running programs/scripts you get from other people. I know alot of people are coding extra ‘features’ into their scripts, and this worries me. The simple solution is just not to run anything from anyone you don’t trust – especially if the script is encrypted.
-Xide”
At the very least, the extra ‘features’ in the scripts can make you CBY, give away your location to your enemies via game message, subspace, hail, or fedcom, or make you p-torp yourself for example. And that’s just for starters.
So be wary of scripts you take from someone else – especially if they are encrypted and especially if the script(s) were unsolicited – that is – you did not ask for them but got them anyways.
For trustworthy ZOC scripts to download, check out the Reverend’s Script Site. The Reverend is the God of ZOC :). He is so good with ZOC, he has found a lot of ZOC bugs that eventually got him on the ZOC author’s ICQ list and is usually up to date on ZOC news such as the next upgrade release.
Oh, and my own ZOC scripts ain’t so bad either, if I say so myself 🙂
Mondays Are Blah [11/26 @ 3:45pm CT] – But at least there are some news for today as follows:
Log on fast and play TRI CON for bonus start cash too!
telnet://65.4.6.78
web site https://www.publicatlarge.com/tradewars/
