**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 94.10.23 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> NEWFED IS HERE! We can now let out the breaths we've been holding in anticipation for so long, because NewFed opened for business on Wednesday - and the conversion to the new system was remarkably smooth! Many thanks to the players who helped us to beta-test NewFed the night before it went live. They spotted a few potential problems, which were fixed the next morning. The beta-testers were rather bemused to note that the homicidal winged horse came in two flavors that night: one that fired on you immediately, and one that spoke to you first and then fired! There are a number of differences you will find between the old and new versions. The most striking difference is that NewFed is much faster and runs more smoothly, and doesn't have the memory problems of the old version, so no more mini planets! NewFed defaults to not echoing the commands you type. If you want the game to echo your input, select option from the Fed shell menu. There are a few other differences in the game interface, and over the next few weeks we'll be tuning the interface and tweaking it here and there - so beware if you run macros that rely on game output being in an exact format. Dukes bids for Senatorship have all been put back to 100 meg, so if you want to try to become the next Senator you will need to put in a new bid. The duchy display and planet displays now show the name of the Duke or planet- owner. One minor problem: the clock seems to be about 10 minutes fast, so when you ask for the time it won't be accurate! We'll see about getting that fixed. **>> MISSING MILLIONS There were a few things that had to be fixed after the switch to NewFed. As the conversion routines were run on the persona file, people who had very large balances found the last couple of digits lopped off! If you lost money, and you haven't yet had it replaced, you need to put in a claim for your missing millions, using the claim form at the end of this News Bulletin. Most of the claims that have already been submitted have been dealt with. There are a few outstanding that didn't get done before today's reset; they will be dealt with tomorrow. In some cases, groats may not have been replaced in the same place they were originally; extra-large amounts have gone into planet treasuries, in the case of planet-owners, and into Senators' slush funds. Dukes may find they haven't had all their groats back yet. For the time being, please do not keep more than 2 gig in your company or your personal balance. If you do go over that figure, your balance may become corrupted. This limit will be sorted out shortly. (Just to clarify: a gig is a thousand million, it has 9 noughts on it: 1,000,000,000 is one gig.) **>> THE DAILY RESET It is intended that the daily reset, which lets the game do its housekeeping, will be done automatically each morning at 8.05am eastern. For the time being, Bella is doing the reset automatically, so she can put in fixes as necessary. The reset now only takes about 45 seconds, so if you are knocked out of the game by the reset, just go and make a cup of tea and you can come right back. Ignore the notice you get that tells you it takes 10 minutes! **>> THE EXPLORERS' WORKBENCH Planet location files were all converted over to NewFed, and some people have already changed their mini-planets back to full-size ones. The ones we know about are Chance's Chaos, Silk's Fortymile, Dierdre's Cove and Tantras' Vertigo. Tantras sent us a press release about his brand new world, see below. Other planet-owners who convert back to full should let us know if they have used the same planet as before, or if they have got a completely new planet, so I can publicise them in the news. The conversion only worked on location files, so agricultural planet-owners have to re-input their object/mobile and event data into the new workbench. The planets will probably not load until the data has been typed in, because the locations may call events that the game cannot find! Romana was quick off the mark, taking advantage of the beta-test period to type in her missing files so her planet loaded ready for the opening of new Fed. Pagrah, Roma, Conception and Advent are the other agricultural planets that have made it back into the game, but there are still a few outstanding. If you are an Explorer working on a new planet, you should have been given access to the new workbench. Use this to input your data, unless you've already done a substantial amount in the old workbench. When you are finished, give us the usual details, and you can join the queue of new planets waiting to load. If you have a mini-planet and want to turn it back into a full planet, you can use the new workbench to make your changes, but the game will load in your changes at each reset, so you will need to finish it up in one day. If you want to take longer, you should either take your planet offline, or input the locations into the old workbench then ask us to transfer them across. We've had reports of a couple of problems with the new workbench, and we'll be fixing them in the next few days. Meanwhile, there are workarounds you can use - we've posted the information in Cat 43, Top 3 of the MPGames board on page 1045. There are a number of new planets waiting to be linked, and they will start to go in during the coming week. Speaking of Cat 43: this is currently a private category for players of Explorer rank or over. We are considering making this a public category so any player can access it. Please let us know what you think of this idea by posting in the Suggestion Box topic in Cat 13. **>> NEW PARTY HOSTS We've changed the Party Host system and would like to introduce you to some new faces, whose purpose in life is to help new players, answer questions, and make fun things happen. Say hello to Lyrynna, Redqueen and Caterpillar! Mira remains a Party Host, and there'll be a few more along in the next few weeks. **>> SPECIAL SPOOKY PLANET Halloween is coming, and we've got a scary, spooky planet ready to make you shiver in terror! The planet Dust. A small little known planet off the beaten track. Little used except for refueling space ships that managed to get lost. Nevertheless it has a nice small town thriving around the spaceport. But all is not what it seems... Rumours abound of unexplained disappearances, of hesitant or even nonexistant police investigation, of police investigators that themselves disappear, of strange and bizarre activities, strange and inexplicable wailings in the night, strange and inexplicable wailings in the day!! This planet is a ghost town. Quite literally! And these ghosts aren't the quiet type, they're the ones that go bump in the night. There'll be plenty to explore... if you dare! Dust has been written by Fed's favorite vampire... Maxwell. The planet will be in the game from Friday October 28 to Tuesday November 1. **>> VERTIGO VISIONS DISCOVERED Scientists on the planet Vertigo were proud to announce a discovery just made--a phenomenon called Vertigo Visions. As you may remember, the planet Vertigo had a series of natural timefields that blanketed the planet, merging past, present, and future into one garbled mess. The timefields were finally tamed when a magical heartstone was fused together, and have been under the control of the planet's overlord Tantras ever since. It seems that when the natural timefields intersect with the magnetic fields at Vertigo's two poles, space and time somehow bend away from reality--and into another dimension. Each pole now houses a gateway that can bring you to some new fantastic world. Vertigo now offers shuttles that will fly you through these gateways so you can explore them yourself. Currently, two Vertigo Visions are open. If you crave fun and relaxation, the land of Nautica Labi is available at the North Pole, where you can ride waterslides, swim in lakes, and get away from it all. If you crave adventure and danger, the bleak city known as Necropolis is accessible through the South Pole. The first person who solves Vertigo's new puzzle will gain a 75 megagroat reward, the second person a 50 megagroat reward, and the third a 25 megagroat reward. All future solvers will receive 20 megagroats. If you solve the puzzle, contact Tantras in the game to claim your reward. **>> MUCH "I DO" ABOUT NOTHING Like most matrimonial events, the wedding of Alana Skye and Maha was to have been a pious one performed by the High Priest Tellurian. However this being Fed, the event quickly became a PIE-ous one as the joining of husband and wife was followed by nearly all guests joining in on a wild food fight. Tellurian had scored the first hit with a lemon meringue to Maha's decidely sour puss. Maha's lemony expression gave away the fact that he had intended to engage Alana in a fair fight of pie and pun. Maha was furious after the vows but seemed quite taken with Alana when her gift for punning was revealed as the newlyweds together drove the patrons of the Ritz crazy with car puns. Unfortunately for the young couple, their marriage may be full of nothing else as Maha revealed that he has taken a vow of celibacy as part of his faith to The Winslow. And Alana left FedSpace before proper consummation of the wedding to pursue a film career, having been offered a part in Charlie Sheen's newest flick "Terminal Velociraptor." **>> THE LAST ONE TO LEAVE FED TURNED OUT THE LIGHTS It was the Twilight of an Age, the power of Fed was waning and already denizens and planets had faded into the void. The Mighty Bella had devised a scheme to transport the citizens of all worlds to a parallel universe, one similar to Fed and perhaps even better. Many had made the Great Exodus already when Tellurian, High Priest of the Last Church of Pegasus (a Faith itself that was fading long before then) gathered the Faithful to Mars to commit suicide rather than leave voluntarily. But alas, Tellurian proved less than imperial as he abandoned his flock to attend to other business never to return. Speculations abounded that he had chosen the Exodus offered by Bella, denying the very Faith he had built a now False Church upon. It was to the abandoned flock that Senator Topper, looking very Churchillian with a hand resting in his vest pocket, appeared. "Let us not go into that Great Void, cowering in the approaching Darkness, " spoke he in great tones. "I shall not abandon you in this Our Finest Hour...yes, finest because I have a plan." Topper approached the Great (and allegedly former) Champion of Fed Paladin with a plan to fling back the Darkness by joining the Power Station on Mars with the energy plants on all remaining worlds. Paladin committed himself to the Project out of love for the Federation and his Undying Devotion to Lady Galena. With the aid of the fellow Knights of Restoration Perseus, Laserbait, Mira, Devon, Scott, Jim, Psychochicken, Topper (and possibly others), Paladin and Galena stood side by side, gazing into each others eyes as together they triggered the power grid on Mars. And there in each others arms, alas, they perished in a white hot light as bright as their love along with the other Knights. A firestorm greater than any which ever consumed Snark swept across Fed...thus their gallant attempt went unrecorded by the destroyed Fed computers. The Knights returned as GroundHogs (most of them advancing to Captain except for Devon and Topper) following a reset of the dataspace to party in the Earth Cantina and to discuss where things went wrong. Rumours that Gemini's hair dryer caused a short in the electrical circuit have been unconfirmed. **>> GREEN-EYED MAN Devon is known to be one of Fed's great lovers, but now he has a rival. He's suffering fits of jealousy at the moment because Skurge is stealing all the women from under his... nose! We would have thought there were enough women for the two to share, but obviously male macho possessiveness has reared its ugly head. **>> SPYNET REVIEW The SpyNet Review, in which we round up all the promotions and deaths of the past week, is taking a short holiday. Once the tools are back in place to collate the Review information, we'll start telling you about important events again. -------------------------------------------------------------- CLAIM FORM Persona name: Log-on ID: Type of balance (i.e. company, personal, treasury etc): Old balance (i.e. what it should be): New balance (what it ended up as): -------------------------------------------------------------- **>> 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. The current Federation Party Hosts are: Mira, Redqueen, Caterpillar and Lyrynna. Their function is to answer questions, help new players get started, and make fun things happen. In the event of a problem or question, you can: * talk to Hazed or one of the Party Hosts in the game * a message to Hazed * 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 and Amiga. You can download a copy of FedTerm from the Federation official libraries (option 3 on the main Fed page). The third edition of the unexpurgated printed Idiot's Guide to Federation is now available, price $15.95. Type ORDER from any GEnie main menu and buy one. Or more! Federation has several categories in the 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). There are also private categories for Explorers and the Sentate, run by Krell (Mail ID: K.HILLYER). The MPGames RT has a Federation player library in the files area, Lib 5. **>> BULLETIN ENDS