FC has it right. The TWGS search Eleq and CBS did is an amazing thing. Once a server is signed up, it does the rest as long as the server stays online. And just in case somebody does not know of the site address, it is http://thestardock.com:8808/twgssearch/index.php

Right now 24 servers are listed the search, i've seen it as high as 27 I believe several months ago. If you play on a server and it's NOT listed there, contact the gameop and tell them to get on there. (free plus Eleq, heh and you don't even know me)

Earth has requested that I post an update of what's planned with JumpGate, so I'll see if I can clear some things up. First, I'll come right out and say that I've been focused on other projects for awhile now, and I continue to be. This is not to say that I have abandoned Trade Wars. In fact, the work I'm currently doing is specifically intended to open up new doors for future Trade Wars work. But that's a whole other topic.

I would probably not be doing much with Trade Wars at this moment if not for the problems we've been having with the forum and its hosting. While I'm not developing for the game right now, I do want to help maintain the TW community as much as possible, and the forum is a big part of that. So when it went down a few weeks ago, I had to seek out a new home for the servers. Initially, Eleq stepped up and offered to host the forum. But when he was unable to devote sufficient time to it, Earth and Vulcan offered to take over. So the forum was moved to its current home. And because changes were being made, I decided I wanted to take the opportunity to really shake things up. Mostly, I wanted to put more control in the hands of the community since I've clearly been unable to maintain a commitment to the site myself. But again, that's a whole other topic, and one that I'm sure will be discussed before long.

But the main point is, since Earth and Vulcan are hosting the forum right now, they've offered to also help with other areas of the TW community that have been on hold. JumpGate is a crucial tool for bringing the greater community together, so they offered to finally make that happen for me. So that's why now, all of a sudden, work is being done on JumpGate.

What is JumpGate? For those of you who have been around for awhile, you might remember Micro's Trade Wars list. He created the original automated game list. It would connect to BBSs and TWGSs and poll the games for information that would form his list. I worked with him to provide a set of commands in the game for gathering the relevant stats, but I decided that it would be much better to build a system in TWGS that would automatically post this data to a game lister rather than having the game list server polling the games. This way, anyone who is running a TWGS can have their game listed simply by selecting an option in the configuration area. This was the JumpGate idea, and while the TWGS internals were finished very early (which is why it has been in the software for years now), I have never been able to complete the web-side functionality. With the help of Earth and Vulcan, I am hopeful that this will finally change. In fact, Earth has made significant progress on it, and is just waiting on me to have some free time to bring it all together and get it live.

The functionality of JumpGate is intentionally limited at this point, because we need to get over the hurdle of bringing it online before we can start to think about what it can really do. Expect a list of active servers, with the ability to select a server and list its games, and then select a game to see nearly realtime game stats. I would also like to include a search function that will allow players to search for games that match certain criteria (for example, only Gold games, games with less than 5000 sectors, etc). I think players will benefit from being able to seek out games that match their particular tastes.

The game list that Eleq runs is very good, and I am grateful that he created this list to fill the gap while JumpGate remained on the drawing board. I'm not familiar with any other game lists, but any effort that is being made to support the community has my gratitude. I hope that JumpGate, when finished, will provide for this need, and I hope that the tradewars.com site can become a focal point for the community, not only as a place for them to gather, but as a place for them to apply their energy and creativity. I have always known that I cannot drive the Trade Wars community. I can only hope to avoid getting in its way and do what I can to facilitate it.

Thank you john, and you know me... I'd normally bash you for taking on a project that you don't have time for, however... I understand 100%.

With any small business, eventually, when it's well ran you encounter the problem of "time" I appriciate the fact that you accepted help when it was offered, as we all do. I'd also like to say, thanks.. again, you've done alot for us, with very little appriciation, espeically from me...

but your a good guy.... even if you did wreck garys van!

If no development is being done on TW at the moment, and none likely for the forseeable future, why not just release TW under the GPL and let the coders among us have a field day? I paid for the server and would gladly do it again, but this seems to me a good way of letting the community get the changes they want without overburdening EIS.

Uh, how would EIS make money under a GPL model? They'd need a new business plan, one with paid tech support and subscriptions very much like what Red Hat and other open source businesses use. Maybe have the Core Tradewars for free, and the Enterprise version with more features as the paid version. Much like Red Hat Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Server. Maybe have the basic TWGS server without Gold features as the Core version, and the Enterprise version has Gold features, plus a whole lot more to make people who use the Core version want to upgrade?

The problem would be that all of the Tradewars secret formulas will be out in the open, and scripters will learn how to exploit those formulas and make game-play almost unfair for those who use scripts based on the secret TW formulas against those who do not. You'd have people whining on this forum about how unfair it was to release those formulas.

No, the business plan has been shareware ever since the Martins ran Tradewars, and I suspect it will stay that way for EIS.

Am I right, am I wrong? I'll let EIS speak for that one. I am just giving my two cents is all.

Rumor has it that v5 is going to be a graphical ver.
so i would think twars is not going to be released as source anytime soon.

Rumor has it that V5 won't be out anytime in the near future.

Version 5? Last i heard version 4 is next

JP himself said that he's not working on TW at the moment.
The only thing that prodded him to do this is because of the server issues.
If this game becomes open source, it will allow progress to be made- real innovation, not vague promises for future features. EIS already has our money, and nothing is being done to improve/enhance the game.
An open source TW would become more like linux- different flavors and features.
Everyone is either complaining that nothing is being done to develop the game, or to bring new blood to the game.
Open source TW is one way to do both.

Where the hell did v5 come from? We haven't heard Jack **** about v4 in months(near years now), The oldschool core addicts have moved on to a blizz product, and suddenly this mysterious v5 comes out to play?

Explain to me where exactly the change in ownership occurred that allowed such a drastic change to a near stagnant game?

you dont really think this game is not evolving do you?
do you really think its going to stay a txt based game forever?

in a word, YES

I'll believe it when I see it. But a year PLUS ago, JP was talkign about wanting beta testers for V4. Nothing came out of that. Why would we think anything different would happen? Now I have no prob with the game the way it is, and JP can do whatever he wants...do other projects and all, it don't matter much to me. But there is NOTHING to say that there is more happening, not until this ONE thread, over a YEAR after JP started talking about beta testers.

quote:Originally posted by Zentock

you dont really think this game is not evolving do you?
do you really think its going to stay a txt based game forever?


Google Trade Wars

you find 1 link to eis
and like 10 to screenshots of another game (silence touched on that) I promise you, the day tradewars is no longer a text based game, is when Grazhoppa starts playing MUD (I freaking HATE mud) so I'll probably just focus more energy on CounterCrack(Strike)

Whenever v4 has been discussed on this forum, the majority of feedback has been negative. I see this particular group as being strongly opposed to change, and that's why I have not made an effort to evolve the game that this group plays. It seems to me that the better solution is to attempt to keep the classic game active for those of you who continue to play it, and also attempt to modernize the game in ways that will make it more appealing to new players.

Some of you may recall the Trade Wars: Dark Millennium project that started in 2000 and died in 2002. For awhile, Trade Wars was being developed by a top level game publisher. The developers took that project down the wrong path, as far as I'm concerned, and the resulting game really had no business using the TW name. But the point is, a very real effort has been made to evolve this game, and even if you don't see much evidence of it, I continue to make that effort. I see little point in making promises of things that might not materialize (a mistake I've made in the past), so I'd rather wait until actual progress is being made before I present any news of future development.

The struggle to evolve Trade Wars has always been about team building. As long as I'm the only serious developer on the project, it's not likely to evolve beyond text (though my current work, as I said, is intended to improve my chances of doing a graphical game as a lone-wolf developer). What I've tried to do is attract other game developers to take on the project, which I did with Realm Interactive/NCSoft in 2000. I have a game developer lined up to begin work on a new Trade Wars this year, but until that actually begins, I can't make any promises. The game business is volatile. 99% of games that begin development never make it to the end.

All I can say is don't expect anything more than support of the classic game, but be aware that I love this game and would love to see it evolve.

As for GPL, Trade Wars is already one of the more common open source games. This Trade Wars is just one branch of a long line of Tradewars variations. This particular Trade Wars doesn't need to go GPL for others to develop TW-like games. Go to sourceforge and I guarantee you'll find a few games in the works right now, either based on TW directly or on Star Trader, the oldest ancestor of this game. Go get one of those codebases and have fun.

For some reason every time you post it's sooooo sexah... I don't speak for anyone other than myself when I say that evolution is NOT a bad thing. I just don't want to click on a box to trade... Not like that's not what I'm doing when I use zoc, but still

steff