WEB FED NEWS YEARBOOKS
Earthdate January 2003


INSIDE SCOOP


FED FUNNIES


OFFICIAL NEWS
by Hazed


What was in January 2003's Official News:

THE MONTH IN BRIEF
RECAP ON DUCHY BANS
HOW TO ANNOY OTHER PLAYERS: PART 479 - TRIGGERING TRIGGERS
ON THE WEB: LOCATION EARTH DOG TAGS
FED PLAYERS "SURVIVE" A NEW EVENT

 

THE MONTH IN BRIEF

Happy birthday to Fed, happy birthday to Fed, happy birthday dear Fed... yes, Federation was 15 years old in January 2003. It was on January 10, 1988 that the game first opened its doors to the paying public, on the UK network Compunet. Things were very different then: we thought the game was busy if there were 5 people playing at a time. You can you read about what it was like in those early days in the Fed archives.
http://www.ibgames.net/archives/fed/compunet1988/firstyear.html is an account of the first year of Fed.
You can read other archive material, including the very first Fed news bulletins - called Line Noise - at
http://www.ibgames.net/archives/fed/index.html.

The usual special events were held in Fed over Christmas. Bella appeared as a very special guest in Meet & Greet; you can read the transcript of the session at http://www.ibgames.net/federation/events/duchyreview/2002/bella.html.

The Christmas puzzle planet, Toystore, proved a great success - entertaining to explore, and with a puzzle that had people guessing. The first to solve it was Cruise, who won a Fed t-shirt.

The most successful player-run event, Fed Survivor, returned for a fourth contest. Players were marooned on a planet and forced to undergo tough challenges. You can read a report of the event, and find out who won, here.

RECAP ON DUCHY BANS

Duchy bans may have been extremely unpopular with a small, but vocal, minority in Fed, but there are many Dukes and Duchesses who use them as the only way to keep unwelcome guests out of their duchies. After all, when a simple request to "go away" won't work, something stronger is obviously needed.

Here's a reminder about how the bans work, for the benefit of the banning Dukes and also the banned haulers.

It is a Duchess's absolute right to say who can, and cannot enter her duchy. There doesn't have to be a sensible, reasonable or logical reason; it can be done on a whim or in a fit of pique. It makes no difference why the Duchess wants to ban somebody - if she wants to, she can.

In order to start a ban against a player, the Duchess needs to tell the player, by TBing them and telling them they are banned from the duchy. That's all it takes! By informing the banned one, the ban goes immediately into force, with no arguments and no appeal.

The banning Duchess then needs to type TIME, to create a timestamp, and clip the TB message and the timestamp and email it to feedback@ibgames.com. Don't forget to say in the email who you are, and give your duchy name too. This means the ban is logged with the authorities - me!

Sometimes, a hauler who is TBed a ban won't get the message because he or she is afk, or running a macro. If when you TB them, you don't think they got it, then tell me in the email. I'll then drop some mail to the banned person to make sure they know. But I will only do this if the Duchess tells me it's necessary; I don't automatically mail everyone who is banned.

Because the onus is on the Duchess to tell the banned person that they are banned, it means that you cannot issue a ban on "unnamed persons". You cannot ban "Charles and all his alts", or "all the members of Cornwall duchy". You have to TB each of the people you want banned, and mail me the clip for each one.

And if you are on the receiving end of a ban, if you get a TB from a Duke or Duchess telling you that you are banned from the duchy, you should leave the duchy immediately and don't go back there. Don't argue or complain, just go. There are plenty of duchies where you will be welcome.

HOW TO ANNOY OTHER PLAYERS: PART 479 - TRIGGERING TRIGGERS

I am sure I have said before that I am constantly amazed at the ways people in Fed find to annoy one another.

Here's a little story that doesn't really reflect well on either party. So the names have been changed to protect the guilty. We'll call the protagonists Squire Wallace and Squire Grommet.

Now, Squire Wallace had himself a set of triggers that did all kinds of clever things to make his life easier. In particular, he had one that would protect him from dying dead-dead. The trigger responded to the words:

-* DON'T FORGET TO RE-INSURE YOURSELF! *-

by selling Squire Wallace's ship, travelling to a safe planet, re-insuring and buying a new ship. Very useful when there are bandits about, and you don't want to pay attention to what you are doing.

But Squire Grommet knew about this trigger. And he knew it wasn't a very clever trigger. He knew that the trigger could not tell the difference between the game sending the "don't forget" message, and the message coming from somewhere else... like a TB. So he thought it would be a laugh to send a TB that included that message to Squire Wallace, and see what happened.

What happened was as you would expect. The trigger was triggered, the ship was sold, and so on and so forth. Much amusement all round.

Except that having pulled that trick once, Squire Grommet decided to do it again. And again. And again and again and again. Over and over and over. Causing Squire Wallace to lose a large lump of groats.

You might ask, why didn't Squire Wallace do something about it? The reason he didn't put a stop to it before he lost a fortune, was that he was afk. He'd gone off to bed, leaving himself logged into Fed, without disabling the trigger. Silly Wallace.

When he returned and discovered what had happened, Squire Wallace was very upset. First he complained to a member of staff in the game, then he emailed feedback to complain. But he didn't get much sympathy from the host he spoke to, or from me when I read his plaintive email.

So, what do we learn from this little tale? Many things.

First, if you're going to use triggers that can have a drastic effect, or that can be triggered erroneously, don't leave them enabled while you are afk.

Second, if somebody does something to annoy you, the first thing to do is to ask them to stop. Rushing for the help of staff right away is not necessarily the best thing to do. Sometimes people do things they think are funny, without realising they are annoying, and all that is needed is for you to point out that they are being a nuisance. Of course, if asking them to stop doesn't make them stop, then of course that's when you can call for help.

Third, Squire Grommet doesn't come out of this well either. Triggering somebody's macro counts as disruption. Doing it once can be funny. Doing it more than once is not funny, it's annoying. Sure, Wallace was silly to leave his trigger enabled, but it's still wrong to take advantage of it.

Fourth, the ways that people find to annoy one another are endlessly inventive. If only that creativity could be put to more positive ends!

ON THE WEB: LOCATION EARTH DOG TAGS

I can't tell if this web site is a spoof, or if it's a really cynical attempt to extract money from the gullible...

It's a site selling dog tags inscribed with the location of the Earth using several different methods. You wear them in case you are abducted by aliens and stranded somewhere in the Galaxy. An alien pilot can then use the information even if they don't speak your language, to figure out how to get you home again.

And hey, it comes with an Alien Abduction Money Back Guarantee! I guess this means that if you get abducted, and the dog tags don't help you to get back home again, you can get your money back.

Anyone stupid enough to think this is necessary can buy a set of dog tags for $12.99 at http://www.earthbounddog.com. And then, maybe I can interest you in this protective device I have invented to stop aliens beaming evil thoughts into your brains...

FED PLAYERS "SURVIVE" A NEW EVENT

Last Sunday night, one question plagued all of Fed... Would it be Blirish, Darkensi, Embrionic, or Phedre?

On that night, the thrilling conclusion of one of Federation's largest unofficial events ever took place. Federation Survivor: Jungle Fever, (also known as FS4), was one of the most ambitious of the Fed Survivor series, an unofficial set of events produced by a team of people lead by Macnbc.

In the game, 10 Fed players (Artscrafter, Blirish, Cruise, Darkensi, Embrionic, Gangleri, Kewlness, Paladin, Phedre, and Tiki) were stranded on the planet of Bimbukwa, designed by Jazir and reviewed in last week's edition of the Chronicle.

These players were left with none of the features that other Fed players took for granted. They had no online planets, no money, no ship, and most importantly, no comm units.

The week-long event began on Monday, January 6. Every night in the game contestants were forced to undergo immunity challenges. These challenges varied from everything including mazes, and an event that mimicked a fox hunt, to events such as The Newlyteamed Game (a version of The Newlywed Game) and other quiz games.

After the immunity challenges, the contestants were sent to tribal council, where one player in the game would be voted out.

On the final night, four players were left. After a series of challenges and councils, they were narrowed to two; Blirish and Phedre.

These two were then judged by a jury comprised of the previous seven people voted out of the game. The jury asked questions of the contestants before voting on who would be the game winner, the Sole Survivor.

After a close vote of 4-3, the winner was revealed as none other than Phedre!

As winner, Phedre received one gigagroat in funds, Blirish, who came in second, received 500 megs, while Darkensi and Embrionic, who came in third and fourth, respectively, won 250 megs.

Unfortunately, game creator Macnbc has decided to move onto other projects, so there are no plans for a fifth Fed Survivor game.

If you want to read the full day-by-day accounts of the game, you can visit the Federation Survivor: Jungle Fever website at http://fedsurvivor.has.it.

The site features a nifty Flash intro designed by Fed player Vlad, as well as contestant profiles, game rules, and transcripts of all the action that took place during the week.


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