I'm right there with you. I got out of the Tradewars scene after, oh, the pre-1.0 versions of the TWGS and when I tried to get back in several years later, the game had dramatically changed. All those strategies and build-up plans that made the game so interesting over the long haul no longer had any value. In fact, if you tried to get into a game that was more than a few hours old you were already so far behind that there was no real point. Chances are someone's bot would pdrop you and you'd be waiting another day to respawn and do it all over again.

A feature from one of the Trade Wars variants called Outpost Trader that would be beneficial for folks like me who use scripts to do the mundane tasks like trading is a toggle in-game to auto-haggle prices. You just port and trade and it randomly picks a value that's in the optimal range for 1-5 XP per trade. A few things like that would be like back in the day when I used {COMMO} power macros as a 'helper' to take care of that kind of stuff so that I could focus more on strategy tasks like mapping and building.

John,
Its funny I agree scripts ruin the game but am a successful active scripter, I don't blame the scripts as some other posters do, I blame the result. The result of complete reliance on scripts to compete and the lack of motivation of our player base to learn how to overcome said scripts. I appreciate that you want to fix the game to be more oldschool and sincerly hope your successful in your endevors. Food for thought a majority of the people complaining about said scripts havnt played in years and likely will not even after you fix it to your intended design. Its real easy to blame a pdrop or ptorp when generally the issue is niether of the mentioned scripts.

In the above cases, the problem is not scripting. The problem is your choice of game.

If you get into an unlim, what do you expect? The only thing that prevents unlimited
resources is either time or turns. Turns aren't an issue in unlims, so you're playing
against the clock. Don't expect to beat an established advantage.

In a turns game, things are a little different. If you get in a few hours late, you can
usually survive a little while if you're nimble. But even then, you can't overcome days
worth of turn advantage that established players have.

The key is looking for new games. Unlims at bang, or turns games within a few hours
of bang. Nothing JP does can prevent this basic fact of math. If you get in late, you're
going to be at a disadvantage. If established corps want to press that advantage,
you're not going to get very far. The mechanics of the situation don't matter, the
advantage is still there to be pressed.

I agree with this whole heartedly, "IF" everyone is of the same mindset. Major games to be certain will be made or lost in the first few hours.

Does every game need to be played as if it were a Major game? No. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

What as the TW Community can we do to help encourage people to play without making them space debris instantly?

I had suggested that Low Turns, Time Limits and some way to limit the times a player can log into a game daily will help discourage heavy script/bot play and help get the game back to original play. And for the record, I don't care for turn delay either.

"Player equilibrium" ... Each game is only as slow as the fastest player.

Case in point: Years back there was a "Space Lord Mothers" bang that's about a
week old. The other team is established, but not online. Piece of cake. It's a high
turns game, something like 10k or 20k, I forget exactly. We go in, 3 of us at first,
and go red and cash. 15,000 turns SDT or whatever. We make a lot of money, some
300m cash. Probe, find a few spots to grid, grid, find their base and invade. They
came in the day after and cussed a blue streak. Called us every name in the book.

Now they came into the game thinking "slow game" but new faster players came in
and changed the balance. The game is only as slow as the fastest players, and
that can change at any time. All it takes, then, is 1 player to completely upset that
balance.



Given the current game, very very little. It's being worked on, however. Read the
beta forum.



1. There's a TL bug that lets you rob others of their time.
2. There is no time limit for sitting at the menu and monitoring activity.

Low time limits... not such a perfect solution. This is why JP is working on an "old
school" mode. Without code changes, this is a hard arrangement to do. On my "old
school" edit I used very low time limits, very high login penalties and a handful of
other things. But... it's still not a perfect solution.

What we need is stuff like:
Configurable fig, limp and mine hit message delay
Per login time limit
Node limit per game (1 at a time)
etc

Check the beta forum.

OK, now I'm starting to get the idea of what you all mean when you say "fast game", "slow game". At first I thought you were talking about the turn delay.

I think there's been some assumptions and misconceptions about my dislike of scripted or bot games.

1) Too easy. If I put my mind to it, I could beat your bots. Why don't I... see #2

2) I play a game that allows multiple players (people) because I like to play games with PEOPLE NOT AUTOMATION!

3) Those who don't know the game, or are very new to it won't come back or try to learn it if they are space debris in the first few seconds. The only people playing this game now found it in the early 90's. We have no new blood.

4) I'm not wyning because your bot can kick my butt, I want competiton.. I've trained my competition. I've inspired those I've kicked butt to come back and be a better player. My mentor was Hosem, I worked very hard and very long until I actually won a game against him. He's in my humble opinion one of the greatest TW players this game has ever known. I was completly humbled when he allowed me to join his corp in the very first BOTE.

if people didnt stay when they got podded, i wouldnt be playing. you wouldnt be playing, by your own words you got podded a bunch by your mentor. and i dont think youd have like, 9 antibot&script threads if you could think around them.

right now, as we speak, the guy who wrote the game is designing a 'no scripting' mode. with the help of some of the people who wrote the scripts in the first place. i think everyone knows where you come down in the scripting debate. but think about this- if the game banned scripting all your hated 'script kiddies' will just go play something else, or run scripts anyway and get banned. this happens in like every other browser based strategy game. the idea that they would all come for help doesnt take into account that running the attack scripts is fun. podding people with scripts is fun. the game now is fun. and i know a few new guys playing.

the prevalence of facebook games has bled the potential player pool. games which you dont have to install, where you cant really 'die', where its easier to talk to everyone else playing, where the advertising is in a place people already go, and the games run from same said place. this is the issue, not if we script or not.

it is impossible to make a "no scripting mode game"; even if a sysop were monitoring me, I could write a script that would be impossible for him/her to prove it a script. Randomized delays, randomized typos with backspaces, all simple stuff. Mebbe non script writers who use scripts get screwed, rest of us nope, just a nuisance.

No, I never did say I got podded a bunch by my mentor. I don't recall he ever killed me actually, but I could be wrong. I began on a local dial-up bbs, 5k universe, 7k turns and played manually the first couple of years. The only competition was the sysop's son who used to emulate us and knew our locations. He would try to invade, but I caught on to him and sat in the citadel scanning the sector and adjusted the cannons at the appropriate time.



I know JP, if you own a copy of TWGS, please check the credits.

You're never going to be able to ellimate scripts, they are simply a string of keystroke commands. The computer does not know if you are live at the keyboard or running a script. He's working on some of the delays in the game that will discourage effective macro bursts.

Then no worries. Simply run the current version of TWGS instead of downgrading to the new one. 1 second ptorps will make invasions effectively non-ptorp invasion games in the new version. Just what the game doesn't need and the more I've heard, the more I think playing will be a waste of time. Kind of a risky venture seems like that will either make or break TW for good.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

TW is basically broke already. That's why they're attempting to do something about it. The 117 players that still play aren't paying anyone's bills.

if tradewars was broken we wouldnt be talking on a tradewars bulletin board, or playing the game...

To each his/her own. You all defend the style of play you like, unlimited time and turns and 20k Universes. You say you use bots to save time.

There's a whole bunch of TW players who don't like to spend a lot of time in the game either, but instead of automating with bot scripts we prefer low turn time limited games in smaller universes.

When's the last time you saw a game with 200 active (non-dupe) players? When's the last time you saw 50 players all logged on and playing at the same time? Those are the games I remember playing and there just aren't as many players today as there were then... or maybe there are? We're waiting in the wings for a sysop toggle to make the game "feel" the way it did when we first fell in love with it. You will still have your unlim games. We're just asking for a chance to play like we once did. Some of us old farts don't care to Mombot.

Fine, then play the type you like and let us play the type we like.



The reason why the game doesn't have 200 ppl anymore is because the game can't compete with
EVE and WoW. The big massive mega MMORPGs get the players, we get only a select few nerds.
Changing the game isn't going to make the game any more attractive to the millions that play the
big games.

When/if the "old school" mode is created, and provided it actually works, then you'll be able to
play slow games. I highly doubt it'll bring an end to scripted play, tho. Even in "old school" games.

That's my point, I don't have access any longer to the type I like.



And the reason we lost players to EVE was because of the changes made in 2003. My mentor Hosem, best guy you'll ever be podded by left TW for EVE. I know we can never put an end to scripting, I script myself, just not anything like you all do today!

Us Old School players are just asking for the chance to give this a try, and JP is willing. So, here we go!