In the past one and a half years in Fugitives From Fate, and the past several years as a T-Warrior, I've seen lots of good times and lots of bad times. I have seen tournaments, and I have seen flamewars. I have seen pods given, and I have seen pods taken. And I have seen players join the community, but I have seen many more leave.

Since I left for Rolla about four months ago, there have been many changes in my life. Suffice it to say that I have found other things here that are worth doing, and I cannot— and will not— devote the time that is necessary to this game. I also refuse to play in half-measures since it would not be fair to either my teammates or my enemies. Because I am no longer playing, I no longer have any ambition or drive whereas TradeWars is concerned. Thus, effective immediately, I hereby resign as leader and member of the Fugitives From Fate permacorp.

I regret to inform the TradeWars community that, in light of my resignation, the remaining Fugitives From Fate members have voted overwhelmingly to disband. Although we were once a force to be reckoned with, a lack of both interest and time have slowly taken its toll on our members. Here ends the Fugitives From Fate name; another chapter in the constantly-vanishing history of TradeWars has closed. Farewell, reader.

More than anything else, this site is the legacy that we are leaving behind. Feel free to mirror its contents, as it will not remain up forever. The following is a list of articles which, upon review, have caught my eye for some reason. They might be worth reading if you haven't already.

BG3: Corp 2 Surrenders
BG3: The Troubled Tournament
Vader Interviews Cbs
Season's Greetings from Fugitives
No More Unenforceable Rules!
Who is Ent._Editor? Cbs Investigates.
Special Report: Effective Rule Enforcement for TWGS?
Humor: A Guide for Evil Ferrengi Overlords

Message sent on Federation Comm-link.

Over the past few weeks, there has been nothing significant to report in the world of TradeWars. Since September 26, the majority of posts to TWGS.org have concerned another online game that was mentioned in this thread. Although between-tournament slow periods have produced some interesting threads, this is the first time I have seen TWGS.org hijacked by another game. Have no fear: TW's current slump will most likely end around October 31st when a tournament-related controversy hits the wire. Will it be a bigger flamewar than BG3? Someone should start a betting pool.

I am pleased to report that the TWGS Search system is functioning well, indexing approximately 100 games at this time. Since its inception, TWGS Search has been visited 940 times by 358 unique visitors, making it an accepted addition to the TradeWars community. If you are a SysOp, please take the time to add your server to our automatic game listing service.

I am finding that college and TradeWars are mutually exclusive pursuits, so I will not be playing in any non-major game any time soon.

There are hundreds of TradeWars servers scattered across the internet, each hosting a multitude of games. Yet, the designers of the TWGS software have failed to include a way to search them all. Until now, no one has bothered to assemble a single comprehensive resource of TradeWars games.

In lieu of such a system, EleqTrizi'T and I set out to build one. Powered by PHP, PostgreSQL and Perl, the new TWGS Search launched today with listings from select servers.

Every night, Eleq's search program connects to all of the TradeWars servers in the database and refreshes the list of games. This allows us to index a massive number of games without any (human) effort required. The search engine website, coded by me, allows game searches based on 17 different game settings. Several sorted views are available. An extended display, which lists all of the information about the game, server, and other games on that server is available, including the raw telnet session converted to HTML.

Before this system even gets off the ground, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: We are not in the business of rating SysOps or servers. Our goal is to provide open access to all SysOps and interested players, not to be a TWLeague. We will not take action against cheating SysOps or refuse to list sub-par systems. This decision comes after thorough consideration: We do not want this system to die a controversial death or become so embroiled in TW-politics that it does not function as intended.

Interested SysOps may submit their server for indexing on this page.

While I am a bit late with this article, since I don't pay nearly enough attention to the EIS forums, it is better late than never. (right?)

At the beginning of the month, on August 4th, John Pritchett reported that the commercial game he left the TW community to work on, TradeWars: Dark Millennium, has become vaporware, and its parent company, Realm Interactive, has been bought out and liquidated in a corporate raid.

Fortunately, the raiders were not interested in the TradeWars name or, for that matter, the domain name. Control of tradewars.com has reverted back to Rick Mead of teamEIS, and www.tradewars.com now redirects you to the EIS website.