**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 94.01.02 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> HAPPY NEW YEAR... ...to all Fedders. May 1994 be profitable and happy for you all, both in and out of character! **>> SANTA'S PARTY Yes. Well. The least said about Santa's behaviour at his party last night, the better! He really was off-duty for much of the night, revealing a side to his character that is at odds with the jolly Christmas-card image normally seen. Anyway, in between his drunken obnoxiousness, he found time to judge the costume contest and announce the winners of the limerick contest. Honourable mentions went to Amigan, for the following costume: You see a little blue person with with a strange white hat. He is carrying a picket sign which reads: 'Santa is UNFAIR' Obviously, Santa didn't give him a prize! Renard came disguised as a GroundHog, You see a nondescript person wearing nondescript clothes. (And I actually paid for this) complete with matching mood and behaviour. Freya shocked everyone with her outfit: Wearing a slightly baggy tweed suit, hair permed and neatly arranged, you suddenly realize this isn't Freya....Good lord! It's Margaret Thatcher! Amigan disguised himself as Santa, which obviously upset the real Santa! The prize went to the person with the best costume (and the best bribe) - Tabby: Tabby is wearing a red hat with a white pom-pom on the end, a red jacket, a red bikini-bottom, and thigh-high red boots. Santa's little... babe? Congratulations to Tabby. Her prize is a free copy of the new Idiot's Guide to Federation, which is currently being printed. **>> THE LIMERICKS Thank you to everyone who entered the limerick competition. Santa was very impressed with the high standard of the entries, and he read a few out at his party. Here's a selection of those that didn't win: A certain odd Senator named Glurg, whose sexual tastes are absurd, has caused quite a tizzy, with his donkey named Lizzy, who performs better than him, I've heard. (Crachcorr) Who is this winged horse no one will seek? Why it's St Pegasus, Protector of the Meek He wings 'round red Mars Amid the bright Fed stars And shoots poor innocent souls every week! (Perseus) There once was a swallow named Glurg All the contents in his stomach he'd purge Food all hairy with mold Milk a couple years old To vomit he'd pass on the urge! (Gemini) There once was a Rigellian named Bella She screwed three ladies and one fella With her big green arse (That was not really sparse) I would tell you more, but well ah..... (Anonymous - well, would you admit to that one?) Santa decided to offer two prizes for the limericks, because he really did think the standard was excellent. The second prize was a free day's play in Fed, and this went to Gemini for the following: Th ere oce was a Seantor na medOccy Hwo thuoght he was beeter than Bochi Wehn he watned to trade Twas Hell he wuold rade Makes yuo winder why Bochi's so cocky! Wonderful, how she has captured the essential Occyness of his style! The first prize, of a free weekend in Fed plus a copy of the new Idiot's Guide, goes to Craschcorr. The winner entry is: Now Oxcart's a cad quite perverse, Whose slept with men, women and worse, Large or small, short or tall, He cheerfully screws one and all, I hear some even came from a hearse! Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to the losers for trying. **>> BUG PROFITEERS Bella is working on a major new version of the game, expected in the next couple of weeks. We had asked her to write us a long piece telling us what would be in the new version, and also explaining what she is doing to try to alleviate the memory problems we've been experiencing recently. Unfortunately, she couldn't do this for us because she had to spend more than half a day dealing with the consequences of a bug which had been heavily exploited by some irresponsible players. Neuromancer discovered the bug. It enabled planet owners to make large amounts of groats when they offered jobs with huge bonuses. But having found it, she proceeded to make herself a small fortune - and then tell several other planet owners about it, who also exploited it to make themselves considerably richer. We won't name names - these people know who they are... The sort of money we are talking about here really does unbalance the game. Some planet owners gained almost half a gig through this bug. Consequently, Bella not only had to fix the bug, she had to spend a lot of time going through the log file, checking player balances to see who made suspiciously large amounts of groats. These sums will be removed! The exploitation may have made planet owners very rich; it has had the opposite effect on their Dukes. Large amounts of money were going out of the planet treasuries and reappearing in their personal balances. The loss of the money from the planet bank account resulted in a loss from the duchy account (since Dukes get a slice of all transactions going into or out of the planets - positive or negative). When Bella removes the illgotten gains from the offending planet owners, she won't make any allowances for Ducal losses. It will be up to the planet owners to somehow mollify or pay back their Dukes. It should serve as a rather harsh lesson that everything is linked in Fed, and one cannot get away with exploiting bugs without affecting other players. **>> TAKE THE TOYS FROM THE BOYS My, aren't all you Fedders showing how adult and mature you are? Aren't you showing just how you can be trusted with responsibilities? See the above story for how you are rushing to exploit bugs when teacher isn't looking... Now Bella is going to remove a facility that was intented to be useful, because some players have been mis-using it. We're talking about one of the secret Senator commands: . This lists the objects that are recycling in the game and tells you how long until they reappear. It was intended so that if people complained about items being hidden, Senators could check that they really were somewhere in the game. But some Senators have been using this command, combined with their teleportation powers, to spot the exact moment the stat items regenerate and pounce on them before other players get a chance. Terribly responsible behaviour, we're sure you'll agree. Silly Bella, she assumed that by the time someone had worked their way up the ranks to Senator, they could be trusted with this kind of toy. For the time being, Bella is not going to remove the command completely; she's just going to remove the numbers indicating the recycle time for the objects. There is still a valid reason to know if something is out of the game or just hidden. We'll see how this works. If she decides it is still being misused, Bella will simply take the toys away completely. **>> GUESS WHO? Only one Fedder comes up with commands like this. Never using one word where twenty will do, he, she or it obviously eats a dictionary before breakfast each day! A token prize to the first person who can identify this mystery over-actor: Xxxxxxxxxxx smiles radiantly, waving his hands in a complex mystical pattern, a coruscating gout of cerulean puissance lashing the room in a vortex of incandescence, the chiaroscuro of sorcery incarnadining the stucco. (Is there really such a word as "incarnadining"? Is it anything to do with in-car dining, such as one would do on a train?) **>> GOSSIP AND SCANDAL Hypatia and Ramius' relationship has been a bit stormy of late, and we hear rumours that they've finally split. Even if they haven't, she is wasting no time in spreading her favours around; she's been spotted in passionate situations with Ciaran, Abdulah and Budwarp over the last few days. Maybe she's trying to emulate Marcia... Tabby, Mosquito and Gypsyrose are forming an all-girl gang with which to terrorise Fed Data Space. Perhaps this has something to do with the (+) signs that have been appearing in front of their moods lately? They say they will think up a name for the gang once more people have joined. We assume they are accepting appliations, but have no idea what the conditions for membership are. Perhaps there is some bizarre initiation ceremony: if so, we'd love to print the details in the news. Just why are there only two loos on Earth? Why aren't aliens catered for? How is a sexless being from Alpha Centauri B to decide whether to use the ladies or the gents? We think this discrimination against neuters should be ended now. The Galactic Administration is considering a request to upgrade the operating system on the DNI computer. They've been getting complaints that it's user-hostile, and would work better with a nice mouse-driven GUI interface. Actually we think people just want to be able to play games on it! It's open season on Barney, the lovable purple dinosaur. Hazed has offered a 10 meg bounty on his head, and many other players offered to match the price if someone will please, PLEASE, kill him and stop him singing that damn SONG! **>> FORTY MILES AWAY Silk's new planet, Fortymile, was linked into the game earlier in the week. It's a fascinating place, particularly for those interested in the history of the goldrush, because it depicts just that. The usual services are clustered around the landing pad, making it easy to trade on the planet. The spaceport bar serves very good pancakes, and the iceworm cocktails are delicious. Those unfortunate enough to wind up in hospital will be impressed by the glass ceiling, making sure the Northern Lights are visible to the patients. Leaving the spaceport area, one is transported to a small mining town with extremely muddy streets. Make sure you wear stout boots, or you'll soon get bogged down! The scourge of the town seems to be one Soapy Smith, a nasty piece of work with a finger in every pie (and probably in your pocket, too). Leaving the town puts you on the road to the mines, where you will learn everything you wanted to know about mining (and probably a lot more than you wanted to know). This planet is very interesting and well researched. Definitely one to explore. **>> PLANETS AND DUCHIES A large number of the agricultural planets have advanced to mining worlds in the last few weeks, resulting in a new bunch of mini planets linked in, or expected shortly. Kimos' Starship, Tao's Rtyui, Amigan's Athens, Hypatia's Valcanya, and Gemini's Ssenmaerd have all advanced. Athens immediately went on to become an Industrial world. The current duchy situation is as follows: There are two Independent worlds, Oasis and Dahih. Niun's Ocean just has Dawn, and Jim's Crime has no planets at all (and we gather that if any planets join, he's just kicking them straight out again for some reason). That leaves the bulk of the planets split between two duchies - roughly polarised between the two "sides" in the ex-war. Zippo heads up one group, and his duchy of Oppiz has Starship, Valaria, Roissy, Mirai, Rtyui, Nautilis and Warp. Looney's Insanity forms the other half, with Source, Fremd, Paradigm, Links, Aytes, Mycenae, Ambetung, Addis, Sularin and Fortymile. It's just as well things are peaceful at the moment, because duchies that size are really not practical when defending against determined smugglers. There is a free duchy slot, which means that the next person to make Duke will not result in someone becoming a Senator. We have no idea who is currently building for Duke - Plantking and Topper seemed to be the likely candidates, but neither of them has been around much recently. **>> SPYNET REVIEW This is a bumper two-week round up of notable events in the game. There's been a large swell of new players, as you can see by the low-level promotions. The new Captains were Profile, Catman, Xeno, Vaxalon, Longshot, Risor, Alaric, Catman (again), Jariden, Seane, Condore, Jariden (again), Ran, Felinus, Ben, Dirtbiker, Conor, Kitty and Wayne (but not Garth). The new Adventurers were Subterran, Donal, Longshot, Deepvoice, Conor, Risor, Wayne, Catman, Jariden, Felinus, Alaric, Gregan and Zen. The Traders Guide has the following new members: Apollo, Barney, Lonehawk, Jariden, Wayne, Risor, Renard and Andros. Mara, Rai, Renard, Barney, Scarecrow, Budwarp, Regis and Perseus all made it to Merchant. The awesom JP puzzle was solved by Capt, Regis, Xxyl, Mara, Clairebourne and Tim; while the GM puzzle proved no match for Blackadder and Ciaran. Three new explorers will (we hope) be working on their planets soon: Blackadder, Ciaran and Sharp. Silk became a Squire as his new planet, Fortymile, was linked into the game. Kimos, Tao, Amigan, Hypatia and Gemini were all promoted to Thane as they advanced their planets. Amigan then went on to become an Industrialist. There were a large number of companies set up: Fletcher - Desert Delights; Renard - Sound And Fury Enterprises; Renard - Sound and Fury Enterprises; Akiko - Lodoss Corporation; Amigan - Greecian Delights; Rai - ORB Industries; Scarecrow - Cornfields consolidated; Crashcorr - United Opec Industries Ltd; Budwarp - OKIA WARP; Mara - Calypso Ltd; Regis - Caprican Traders, Inc; Amigan - Greecian Delights; and Perseus - Perstar Ltd. **>> CONTACTS The following information will appear at the end of every News Bulletin, so you don't have to read it if you already know it. In the event of a problem or question, you can: * talk to Hazed or Bella in the game * a message to Hazed or Bella * send GEnie mail with the Mail about Federation option from the main menu A front-end terminal program is available for Federation, for the PC. You can download a copy of FedTerm from the Federation libraries (option 3 on the main Fed page). The Amiga version is in beta-test. A new version of the unexpurgated printed Idiot's Guide to Federation is at the printers and will be available very shortly. Federation has several categories in the new MPGames RT. To get there, type M1045,1 from any menu prompt and SET category 13 (for information, instructions, questions and answers) or 14 (for general chat and discussions). The Federation Leader in the bulletin board is Oxcart (Mail ID: J.LONG29). There are also private categories for Explorers and the Sentate, run by Krell (Mail ID: K.HILLYER). The MPGames RT also has a Federation library in the files area, Library 5. Library 18 holds the Federation News Archives. **>> BULLETIN ENDS