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| Sep 19, 2005 - 4:57 pm |
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First off, to everyone who has been bitching, moaning and whining to Tarnus and in the game shoutbox stop it, now, or something bad might happen to you. I am definately not as nice as Tarnus.
Now to why we haven't reset.
A little over a week ago Tarnus and I were talking over lunch about how we should probably do a reset with a version of the game without the module support that I have been having problems coding. We both though it would be a great idea and allow people to try some of the new things the game has had added over the past year. I thought, at the time, that it would be a fairly easy matter to strip out all of the module code and revert back to some of the old code. Honestly I need to have someone slap me for thinking that way. What with the amount of time I have been working on this new version I had forgotten how sweeping the changes were to the game code. Yes, I am getting senile in my old age.
I now have three different versions of the game and trying to hammer one of them into something that can actually be playable in some minor way. One is an old 0.21 that has some features hacked into it but is missing a ton of the really nice things. The second is a hybrid of the new module code with some of the old non-module class code. In otherwords a hugely gross hack that may end up being the one everyone plays. The third version is the 100% module version that has serious problems with the modules when it comes to all of the different forms of combat.
For the past week I have been working until 3 and 4 am trying to get something that will be workable. What I thought would be easy turned into a nightmare full of frustration. I am getting CLOSE on the second version mentioned above and I will reset the main game as soon as I have this hacked mess running the way it should be running.
Plus these past two to three weeks have been a complete disaster when it comes to real life. Tarnus knows about some of them and they have had me twisted in knots. So you can imagine how stressfull this has been lately.
Now you roll all this up together with the people whining , bitching and moaning in the games shoutbox, at Tarnus through pms/ims/whatever and in their blogs and you get one Panama Jack who wants to erase the new game completely.
I greatly appreciate everyone who has voiced their support for us and our game. Those of you who have stood behind us and supported us through everything will enjoy the rewards of our efforts. We do this because we enjoy the game and enjoy seeing people have fun with our creation. We thank you.
It is the whiners who think just because we offer a FREE game on our own servers that we OWE them something. Those people we can do without and I don't care if I piss them off and they leave. They are better off gone because it makes everything better for the rest of the community.
Bottom line...
The game is FREE.
We offer a server to play the game on for FREE.
We offer blogs for FREE.
We offer a stat tracking server with profiles for FREE.
There are only two of us working on the game. Tarnus has too many irons in the fire in real life when it comes to programming to be able to work on the game. I have completely rewritten almost all of the game from the ground up and Tarnus would have to spend a very long time learning the new game code so it is easier at this time for one person to work on it. So because of that we can MISS dates that we set for things. We are not a company devoted to creating games for a living. So give us a freaking break.
We give all this for FREE and don't really ask for much in return. Those of you complaining and whining about the situation should be completely ashamed of yourselves.
I am hoping to be able to reset the game sometime this week. I am not going to give a date or time for when this week because it will give the complainers something more to complain about.
And no... I am not a nice person right now.
_________________
PJ's Annoyingly Useless Blog
ADOdb Lite
Entry Edited 1 time - Edited on Sep 19, 2005 - 4:58 pm
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| Sep 17, 2005 - 11:43 am |
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Title: Gloating 101
Some people just crack me up. They pod you in a stealth while you were sleeping and then they tend to act like they should be nominated for some great killing prize, by gloating about it in the shout box.
So now the time comes to teach some of you the rules of gloating.
Rule #1 In the process of busting said sector, do not lose a ship in the attempt....should you lose that ship and then kill a ship of equal or less value, you have no gloating rights... they have now become null and void.
Rule #2 Shooting a players ship while they are offline should only be gloated about if that ship is worth anything to that player. A high level player would not regard a stealth as a deletable kill. If it were a Voyager or an excelsior, then and only then do you have gloating rights.
Rule #3 Shooting players while they ARE ONLINE opens up gloating rights. You can pretty much gloat anytime and for any ship you kill when the player is online. Primarily because there is risk involved with any online attack. And you just never know what will happen while attacking players online.
Rule #4 If you kill a player out of the game, you can gloat, but what good does it do you...thats like balking to a wall. Unless there are teammates in which case then you can gloat.
Rule#5 Gloating requires a sense of style... Do not use any other players methods of gloating. This just makes you another loser copycat. Gloating is a skill and doing it right with the right finesse will cause a player reading the shoutbox a little chuckle... the goal is to have fun, gloat to much and then you just look like an ass.
That's all for now folks if you come up with any additional gloating rules, send them to me and I'll add them to my list
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| Sep 16, 2005 - 12:03 pm |
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MSNBC
Updated: 10:33 a.m. ET Sept. 16, 2005
More than 500 cleanup specialists are working to contain 44 oil spills ranging from several hundred gallons to nearly 4 million gallons, the U.S. Coast Guard said in an assessment that goes far beyond initial reports of just two significant spills.
The assessment comes nearly three weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, and reflects the fact that the Coast Guard and other agencies are able to only now tackle environmental problems since the search and rescue effort is winding down.
The Coast Guard estimates more than 7 million gallons of oil were spilled from industrial plants, storage depots and other facilities around southeast Louisiana.
That is about two-thirds as much oil as spilled from the Exxon Valdez tanker in 1989. But unlike the oil from the Valdez, which poured from a single source, these oil spills are scattered at sites throughout southeast Louisiana.
The oil could threaten the region?s fragile coastal marshes, but three-quarters of it was not posing a danger to wetlands, the Coast Guard said, noting that more than 1.3 million gallons had evaporated or dispersed.
Crews had recovered nearly 2 million gallons and had contained another 2.3 million gallons behind booms and other barriers, the Coast Guard said.
The state's Department of Environmental Quality had previously reported just two significant spills, one in Meraux and another in Venice.
Below are the largest known spills, most of them along the Mississippi River south of New Orleans.
Major spills (over 100,000 gallons)
Bass Enterprises Production Company (Cox Bay): About 3.78 million gallons discharged, of which 960,000 gallons were recovered, 2 million gallons were contained and 982,000 gallons evaporated.
Shell (Pilot Town): About 1.05 million gallons discharged, of which about 718,000 gallons were recovered, 129,000 were contained and 105,000 gallons evaporated or dispersed. Some 87,000 gallons have not been contained.
Chevron (Empire): About 991,000 gallons were released, of which 983,000 gallons were naturally dispersed or evaporated, 4,000 gallons were recovered and 3,600 gallons were contained.
Murphy Oil Corporation (Meraux): About 819,000 gallons discharged, of which 305,000 were recovered, 196,000 gallons were contained and 312,000 gallons evaporated. Some 6,000 gallons were not recovered.
Bass Enterprises (Point a la Hache): About 461,000 gallons of oil discharged, of which half was contained and half evaporated.
Medium spills (10,000 to 100,000 gallons)
Chevron (Port Fourchon): About 53,000 gallons were released, of which 21,000 gallons were naturally dispersed, 26,000 gallons were recovered and 420 gallons were contained.
Venice Energy Services Company (Venice): About 840,000 gallons of potential discharge are enclosed in bermed and boomed area, but only 25,000 gallons were actually discharged, of which 4,800 gallons were recovered.
Shell Pipeline Oil (Nairn): About 13,440 gallons discharged, of which 126 gallons were recovered, 2,940 gallons were contained and 10,500 gallons reached shoreline.
Sundown Energy (West Potash): About 13,000 gallons discharged, of which 153 gallons were recovered, 2,000 gallons were contained, and 5,000 gallons reached shoreline.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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| Sep 16, 2005 - 10:39 am |
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I most definately hate when things are going to change. I must be a creature of habit because knowing that the main game is on it's final countdown is driving me nuts! So after doing what little I can think of to maximize my growth, I started cleaning out my message board. There I found a number of messages that brought a smile upon my face once again.
During the first part of the game, and during my short-lived membership with the Wolff Dragoon team, I was under attack by The Carpenter's Union, Big Balls Team and who knows who else!! Being the low man on the team I found I was the prime target to wreck havoc on to get back at our team leader, Craig.
Buried in my hole and tending to my wee planets, I received and opened what I thought to be a message. GADS!! to my surprise, it was the System Alert telling me I was being attacked. Now being the newbie I was, I flustered for prime seconds trying to decide what to do. Do I run, do I hide.....decisions, decisions.
I quickly changed ships to my stealth thinking I could sneak out the unprotected sector I was working in and then I peeked through the link. (like I said in earlier blog, Rampage taught me the theory of 'look before you leap'); At that moment I do believe that my heart exited my chest cavity and entered my throat because I could see two ships listed in the adjoining sector!! Under attack was an understatement!!! DANG!!
Being a female....we never leave without our purse, ya know.....I grabbed the money from the closest planet, clicked device and ewd out of there. Upon landing, I chose to leave my team and found a place to hide.
Totally put out that all my hard work was being pilfered and destroyed, I sent a message to the player that I remembered seeing through that link.
"Dear CrashnBurn: It saddens me to see you destroy my lovely home. May acid rain fall upon your ship"
His reply:
CrashnBurn 2005-06-29 19:37:46
Captain of the Silencer
Subject RE: Satan
Lol well it cost me 104T to repair the acid rain
hehehe *big smile*
Post Date: Sep 14, 2005 - 10:57pm | Comment - 0 | Report Abuse
Learning...
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| Sep 16, 2005 - 10:24 am |
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message by tempest
The people of Earth had always been confrontational. They had always felt the need to have more than their fellow man. When they could not achieve their goals using normal peaceful means, they inevitably turned to violent actions. Many suffered, many died, and a few prospered. It was early in the 21st century when the middle class was almost wiped out, leaving only the very poor working class, and the very rich, who called themselves the Elite. It was not long before laws were passed declaring the poor to be a lesser species, called Workers, and as such not worthy of the protections that human rights laws would have otherwise afforded them.
Life, as always, continued. The environmental groups of the late 20th century and early 21st century were proven wrong. Man was not destroying the planet, as no matter what happened to the ozone layer and the rain forest, there would always be life that continued. What man was destroying was his own habitat. By the start of the 22nd century huge factories covered most land masses, processing the ores and minerals that the workers mined and harvested. Food was grown in vats, and on greenhouses on Mars. Space travel had become a regular means of transport and travel to the mining colony on the moon, and the agricultural colonies on Mars. Workers made up the grand majority of the population, and were bred for the needs of the Elite. The strong were bred to the strong, to produce Workers more capable of bearing the harsh climate of Mars and to work in the ozone-depleted areas of Earth. The intelligent, logical, and smart were also interbred in order to produce Workers more capable of researching and developing new ways of making the Elite's lives easier, increasing their wealth, and entertaining them.
By the 24th century, the first colony in the Alpha Centauri galaxy was populated with twenty million of the Workers bred for strength, who had begun calling themselves Musclers (me-you-sklers), and ten million of the Workers who had begun calling themselves Genii (jeen-y-eye). A strict hierarchy was maintained such that appropriate Workers would report to the Elite back on Earth of mining, resource utilization, and how much wealth was being shipped back to earth.
Near the end of the 25th century, nearly all of the Elite were living on Mars, which had been terra-formed to resemble their old home on Earth. The Earth had unfortunately since been decimated by microwaves and solar winds since the collapse of the ozone layer a few decades prior, and only automated machinery still operated the mines and factories that produced the luxury items that the Elite desired. Nearly all of the Workers were moved to what the Elite considered the Barbaric colonies of Alpha Centauri.
Over the centuries that the Elite thought the colonies were doing only their bidding, the Workers of the colonies had been very busy. The reports sent back to their Elite masters on Mars were all modified, and at least half of all resources being produced were kept locally. Research projects that had been completed decades prior were slowly and carefully made available to the Elite, and only enough that would prevent them from becoming involved in the day to day operations of the colonies. Unbeknownst to the Elite, the Genii and the Musclers had been interbreeding in their own specially developed genetic manipulation program, such that their children would have the strength and stamina benefits of their Muscler parents, as well as the intellect and reasoning abilities of their Genii parents. By the middle of the 26th century, almost all Workers in Alpha Centauri were of the new race who called themselves the Ration, after the rational way by which they had begun securing their freedom. Half of the ships that were used to transfer resources from the planets to the space processing platforms were converted into fighters. The giant hauling ships that brought megatons of minerals and processed materials to the factories of Earth were converted into carriers, and the Ration prepared themselves for the day that they knew was coming.
The timing of that day could not have been better for the Ration, as most of the Elite were intoxicated or asleep due to the use of mind altering substances that were frequently used during their celebrations, when the Ration armada disabled their stealth technologies and made themselves known. While the Ration hated the conditions that they were forced to undergo throughout their lives, they knew that these Elite were not the ones who caused the strife of their ancestors, and so let those who wanted to leave occupy a large transport ship, and begin a long journey towards reaches of space that had not yet been explored. These Elite swore vengeance on the Workers, but it would be almost a millennium before they were heard from again. Those who chose to stay, and there were very few who did, were sterilized so they could not bear more Elite children, and were permitted to live out their lives in a small community on Mars.
The days of the Worker revolution were a turning point in the civilization of the people whose ancestors came from Earth. Many of the technologies researched over the past decades had been prepared to help change the planet Earth from the disgusting polluted mess that it had become, to a planet of lush greenery and prosperity that had never been known before. Factories were moved to unpopulated planets that could not otherwise sustain life, and the Ration began what is referred to in history books as their Golden Age.
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