Hi. I'm Caxis. I used to play TW a lot on BBS's in central Arkansas (USA) and then branched out to telnet games in the late mid 90s. Is there anyone out there that even vaguely remembers me?

Anyway, I've started to check out things. I had written my own scripts for the term program {COMMO} and using com0com and com2tcp, made it work over telnet connections. My biggest question is:

What all has changed in the past 10 years?

I remember TWHelper and TWATS and those helpers from the olden days. In fact, I think I fell out of things right as version 3 gold came out. I'm kinda lost!

What other old timers are on here . . . thats probably a stupid question given the nature of the game and it's age. I guess we are all old timers. But do Medusa, Cruncher, Budweiser, Gypsy . . . any of the people from evolution, or fament, or from Arkansas still around? I can't barely remember any names anymore

I do recognize Space Ghost!

Anyway. Hello everyone What a blast from the past.

EDIT: btw, where is the best place to play now?

Bruce
AKA Caxis, AKA Macbeth

Hehe, most of them don't play, no.

What's changed? A lot. Head to the site in my sig and read up on the tutorials and stuff.

Good luck! =)

Eek, tutorials? I was pretty good back when I played, I started on single node BBSs probably in late '91 or early '92 on TW v0.98.

What I mean to ask is, were there any new insane developments that surpass sst/stealdumping in money making--that kind of thing. actual new TACTICs.

Another concern of mine is how things have progressed in terms of scripting and helpers. Has it gotten insane with the scripts as opposed to back then? Is it still viable for a player to attempt to win a game without having a database of stuff assuming they can write their own fairly complex scripts?

Oh, and where is the best place to play these days?

I'm checkin' out the site now, thanks for the reply!

Bruce

No, against ppl w/ scripts it isn't viable to attempt to win a game w/o a database of stuff, but if you can write your own you'll probably do fine in the long term (once you get caught up).

Tactics have been refined. The overall concepts haven't changed a great deal but the implementation has, and that makes a world of difference.

I've seen numerous players that were awesome back then that quit because they refuse to adapt to today's style of game play. Like it or not, TW has changed drastically in the areas of speed the last few years. You do everything the same today as you did back then, only 100 times faster.

Geeezus. What an information overload, but such a pleasure to read and remember all the formulas and what not. But I've been reading stuff at The Cabal's Secret Hideout and I have never seen such a wealth of information all in one place. I mean, this was stuff I had commited to memory back in the day (such as the order of events when you enter someones sector assuming no photon, etc).

The fact that I knew these things and others didn't was perhaps the greatest contributing factor to my prowess during the mid 90s. Now that these things are so readily available, then it becomes a different beast entirely.

Especially with the level of automation I have been reading about, also there seem to have been strides taken in turn conservation for reds as these pages speak of common place usage of tactics that were once only employed by the very best. I guess this is natural considering it's a text based game and it's 10 years past it's prime--only natural that those who would stick with it would tend to be the highest percentile.

I'm just sad because I loved my little helper which I called TW Solace. It SST/Ms, PPTS, Colos, StealDumps, (haggles!), and does all your basics and then I crafted more specific scripts to do things on the fly as I needed. Even my friends preferred my mini-helper to the offerings of the day (awful TWHelp for instance) I never had to mess around with CIM and all of that (and what's this I hear about just pressing ^ now instead of the high-ascii sequence?) . This is terribly out of step with the times!

In fact, just the subtle differences between gold and mbbs are noticable, as my last games were on MBBS versions run on places like Fament (what ever happened to fament anyways . . . I secretly loathed that place, but now I look back on it affectionately. Seems like I even managed some malicious type stuff over there and got banned, got access to someones staff acct or something. I don't recall, but I digress, I've gone offtopic).

But, re-reading all of this...

Makes me want to play in a really good game, maybe join someones corp and become accustomed to things that were easily neglected in the old days, such as furbing . . . Weird for me given I was always used to being in a leadership role.

Does anyone know if they still play mutants? A door game for MBBS?

I am so nostalgic for the early days of the internet.

EDIT: Big D: I can see how it would be intimidating, but you have to progress with time--I mean, settling for SST when you could be dumping mid game for instance, I fail to see how progressing with the tools is any different other than for the sake of nostalgia, which I must admit, is quite strong for some including myself

Are the new helpers freeware these days? I guess I COULD go check em out--but I'm not quite done reliving the old days in my old terminal program just yet--I joined a couple of rather inactive games (or ARE there? Who knows by today's standards) just to get an idea of things and remember just what does what and why and all of that...

Still wanna know where the best games are!

Bruce

I have a website available that has most of the recent links with the exception of correct twgs addresses. Check it out. You'll find the latest places to download helpers and scripts under the "Files & Scripts" link.

Swath does cost, but twx (a proxy) is free and zoc is free. You can use twx proxy with any helper and there are many scripts available for it free of charge.

http://sw-links.com/

Try the link above to find more TW related sites.

You're going to find that the disparity still exists, it's just changed form. Today it's no longer not having the info, it's not knowing where to get it... or not caring enough to read it. Despite the fact that all of this is publically available I've run into a lot of players, some that post here and are classed as "good players," that still don't know large chunks of this stuff.



Hit ^?, you'll see a list of things you can pull-up via CIM. Automation has advanced a lot. Especially regards to gridding.



Furbing was neglected? Hehe. That is something that's definately changed, ya.



Depending on the level of skill, the starting phases of the game are usually more optimized. A decent team gets on w/ a plan, PPTs for starter cash, gets reds going, colos where appropriate and in a matter of a day or 2 can be running a teamSDT or setting up for megarobs. Megas used to be considered a bug, not anymore. Very well-used cashing technique. Since these tools are so widely available it's now about using them more efficiently than your opponents.



Yea, TWXproxy 2.04 final is free, it's in my downloads area. Zoc is free, Swath is like $30 to register.



Well, at the moment there aren't a lot of them. But check eleq's site, thestardock.com, it has a TWGS search that can find games.

I just now finished reading about gridding. Wow. Big changes. Altho, honestly, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

I also find it comforting that you say the disparity still exist in at least some form.

I thought mega-robbing didn't work in Gold versions and that most games were Gold versions now?

Would you say there is even ONE TW game with thirty+ active? twenty?

EDIT: What are gold planets?

Correct, MBBS only. But I doubt most games are gold, it's probably 50/50



No, there isn't, at least not long after the first few days. Even truce games, most ppl just log off, then die when truce ends. Most games end very quickly now, far too quickly to gather that kind of active player list.



Edited planets w/ different names, cit times, production levels and capacities.

the 'best' place to play will depend on what you think. here's a brief list of active servers:

bluelobster.dyndns.org 2002
http://www.ultimatetw.com
merlinskeep.dyndns.org
ice9-tw.com 2002
twgs.dcsol.com
abyss-tradewars.tzo.com 2002
runawayproton.dyndns.org
202.151.82.243 2002
rivercitytw.dlinkddns.com 2002
rev.podzone.org 5023

However. Goto http://www.thestardock.com/twgssearch/index.php and search for specific game type(s) that interest you.

GL.

[edit]
No Mater what I do, the Darn forum keeps pre-appending the 'http://' to the ultimatetw[DOT]com addy

Welcome back! I'm from Arkansas myself. Medusa disappeared about 3 years ago and another good player was from West Memphis, but he left TW too. And there was Barnhill but I haven't seen him in a long time either.

[quote="Caxis"]Would you say there is even ONE TW game with thirty+ active? twenty?[quote]

Ice9's building games each have over 70 players, and I would say about half of them are active (log in and play turns several times per week), and the games tend to last several months. It is not everyone's cup of tea, but, not to toot my own horn, they are pretty popular.

Vader: I still talk to Barnhill here and there as we were sort of a permacorp in the old, OLD days. He logged more hours testing my "helper" than any other player besides myself, in fact. He's doing alright, still doing online games but moved on to all the new MMORPG and Starcraft type of things so far as I know. He'd get a kick out of being mentioned

Medusa disappeared eh? That's a shame. I wanted to track her down. I haven't talked to her since I was... a kid really. Used to love her BBS (Global Gateways).

I may check out the building game V'Ger--but what exactly does that MEAN? I mean, what is and isn't allowed?

Bruce

Usually they're a no-script truce game where everybody holds hands and sings in harmony as they fight to suck every last colonist on terra to expand their already enormous, 6 month old, bubble full of cannon planets.