Agt upgrades home page
9-27-99: Agt the Walker reports he's upgraded his home page. It now contains discussion on a proposed ranking system, map algorithm system, and information on his SC project. There's also pictures of himself and friends, along with information about Agt's life. He invites all to come visit, see his improvements.
Hart posts page
9-26-99: Del Hart has posted a page with an index for Yahoo Club messages. These messages vary in content, but together they are a very valuable resource for players. The site also includes a history of a Yahoo Tournament game, with map, and a short FAQ on v3.0.
One more week until Tool time, maybe
9-24-99: Sir Dagonet wrote to Yahoo Club that the Tool server, which was hosting the team tournament, was restarted with an upgraded operating system. But the computer crashed and refuses to reboot. He says the tournament may return next weekend.
Keep those game ideas coming
9-16-99: Regensburg continues to grow in the number of games available for players. Those with ideas for games should contact administrator Wolfgang Röckelein using the following criteria:
Update Time, Weekend updates, updates from to (hours), first update delay, alliances/trade/truce: yes, no, only trade & truce, player max, min systems/player, max systems/player, tech mult, min wins, max wins.
Phantasmorgias cheats at PressEnter
9-11-99: Apparently the admin at PressEnter has not figured out how to fix the name cheat, which was used this morning by Phantasmorgias.. He did not like the fact that I and others have accused him of cheating in SC. Well, he proved our point quite soundly for us, by using the name cheat. Those in the game as witnesses were Horny Tits, 13th Warrior and holywar1999. 13th Warrior nuked tits, who left, and holywar.
Regs back Monday; game suggestions sought
9-10-99: Regensberg server should be back, with bugs fixed on Monday, reports admin Wolfgang Röckelein. Unfortunately, all currently running games and the series descriptions are lost. However, the user database was converted and is running.
Wolfgang also wanted players to submit parameters for games to be placed on the server. If any parameters are missing the request would be ignored. The parameters, to be sent to Wolfgang, include Update Time, Weekend updates, updates from to (hours), first update delay, alliances/trade/truce: yes, no, only trade & truce, player max, min systems/player, max systems/player, tech mult, min wins, max wins.
As to Reg MKII, Wolfgang said there were problems. But he'd have more on Monday.
Three major announcements
9-7-99: Wow, people have been busy over the holiday. Three major announcements were made, including:
- The Lugdunum server has changed its url over to what was being called the reserve server. Please take note of the new URL for the only server still operating with a full slate of games, including the popular v2.8 games. The new server dumps its database in a speedy 11 seconds. (The old server was 3-30 minutes). Expect one more URL change when the game gets on its new home within two weeks.
- Second, gamma.net initially reported it was going off the air this Friday, Sept. 10. A way was created to continue the area, though interest in icq is down since players can contact each other directly using ICQ.
- Finally, Masque started a new Stellar Crisis web ring. Seems the old ring was not working right anymore.
Almonaster challenges you to fine a cheat
9-1-99: Max Attar Feingold (aka We) wrote that as a result of a conversation on IRC (Hey Max, that empire I made last night is no longer in your database, hehe) in which I claimed that my Almonaster server was virtually immune to the various cheats that plague classic SC, I have decided to start an Almonaster cheat competition.
Any player who manages to cheat on Almonaster and who publicly posts the algorithm for verification will be rewarded by displaying his or her name prominently on the front page of the Falcon server, in the guise that he or she chooses and within the standards of common etiquette.
Yes, I know it's a lame reward. I'd like to give away better things, but electric bills don't pay themselves, and I'm not making any profits from this little adventure. If you live around my area (Seattle), I guess I could buy you dinner, but that's about it. Feel free to suggest better rewards.
So for those of you who fancy yourselves as SC hackers or crackers, this is the perfect opportunity to show your stuff.
Accepted cheats will be those which give the cheater an unfair advantage over his or her fellow players. Building higher BR ships than one's tech would allow would be one example, as would be sending a private message in a game that doesn't allow them. And so on.
Cheats that don't count are those that don't involve the Almonaster code specifically. A denial-of-service attack on the Falcon server would be an example of a cheat that doesn't really count as such.
If you do something strange and the server stops responding, then it only counts as minor credit if you managed to crash the server. If you just caused the debugger to assert a condition of strange data, then that's not really of much value, because a bug hasn't been exposed. I'll start removing assertions if we keep hitting them during this competition.
The Falcon server is at http://mfeingol1.olywa.net/ Have fun.
Max Attar Feingold
maf6 at cornell dot edu
http://almonaster.netpedia.net/mfeingol/
|
