On the same note, professionals that do not implement effective debugging procedures don't deserve users.

BTW, these are NOT rumors OR vague bug reports. I just chose not to spend my time using detailed debugging proceedures on a version of Tradewars that I didn't ask for to begin with.
I suggest that instead of wasting your time on this "weapon M", (which seems to be going nowhere fast), that your time would be better invested by put a "beta testing team" together to help JP discover what is causing these bugs in v2. Until something like that is done then you can expect Tradewars to continue to lose players and sysops just as quickly as it has over the last 2 years.
Look around, v1 servers are down to almost nothing, and v2 servers are disappearing at even a faster rate.

If v2 is so bad, why are the v1 servers disappearing?

v2 needs some serious debugging done to make it playable. v1 is somewhat stable but still has known bugs that need to be repaired. In general, ALL servers are shuting down because the players are leaving. The reason players are disappearing is because we don't have a functional version of Tradewars to play today. JP comes back after all those years and instead of fixing the bugs in v1, he gives us another version that has even more bugs. I'm sure many of the other players are asking the same thing that I am.
"Will there ever be a stable version of Tradewars?"

I find attitudes like this very demotivating. I expect JP does as well. If you wanted to do something for this game that you love, I'm confident that the most efffective thing that you could do is to adopt a postive attitude. Edify other players and sysops. Edify the developer. I assert to you that nothing gets a developer more motivated than a fan. And nothing is more demotivating than an unconstructive critic. If you don't like something that he's doing, don't talk about that. Talk about what you do like. Positivity. People will be far more interested in what you have to say then. And hey, if that doesn't come naturally to you, then fake it. I'm not naturally positive and upbeat, but as the president of a company, I know the benefits of praise. Try it and see what happens.

+EP+

Trade Wars is disapiering for many reasons. but Id say the least of them is the "issues" they people have with the software. xbox, playstation, and other game consoles are a big factor. the young generation doesn't want to play some "boring old text game" that's a direct quote from my 15 year old sisters kid who I tried getting into the game last year. He said the only games he likes its the ones that he can run around and kill other people with all the grahics and stuff. I would guess that most of us are around 40 now or over. when were are gone so is tw.

sk

I have also tried to recruit friends and family. It just isn't possible when there are so many more visually stimulating games.

I was invited to join a bunch of IT techs at a "Geeks Do Lunch" meeting. When it was time to introduce myself, and prove my worthiness of attending such a lunch, I told them I ran a TW server. Just about everyone is the room had at one time played this game. There were some mentions about the fast script play that drove them away, but must just simply "grew-up". Jobs, wives, kids... adult responsibilities don't leave time to play a game like TW.

I'll admit, I'm a die-hard TW addict. It's how I start and end my day. Growing old is mandatory, growing up is not.

I take a pretty dim view of humanity, and even I do not think that everyone is entranced by pretty graphics. There are plenty of rants out there about how the old games were so much better, and it's not just the old gamers ranting. TradeWars should still be extremely interesting to programmers and mathematicians, at the very least. They just need to find out about it.

As for my helper... I still hope that it will make the game more accessible once I'm happy enough with the platform to write all the essential scripts. If it appears to be "going nowhere fast", that's because I wrote it in three months and then got busy with work and completely stopped working on my personal projects for most of this year. I've been working on v2 for about two months now, and with any luck it'll be ready by Christmas.

For one, I really couldn't care less about what your dim view of my attitude is.
For another, it's hard to have a positive attitude when many of us veteran players have waited close to 15 years for JP to release a version after v1.03 that had the bugs fixed in it.

BTW, I've taken many psyc & human resource courses too. I find that most of them are just a waste of time. Most people with any comprehension at all can see right through the BS. It's best to just express what you really mean, get things out in the open, and then move on to the next problem.

The problem is these people aren't going to find out about it when you have servers dropping like dead flies in a window on a hot October day. Just as an example, UTW ran by Sage shut it's doors within the last 2 years. That server was attracting more than half of the player base in this game at that time. Where did these players go? Well they sure aren't on any of the current servers today. Now I ask you, why did Sage shut down that server? Let me give you a hint. He was running version 1.03 when he pulled the plug and publicly stated that he would never run v2.

Those would be the reasons that Tradewars isn't attracting new players, but nothing to do with the existing players and sysops leaving this game. I do agree with you that attracting new players to this game is next to impossible, but my question is why would someone want to alienate the existing players base?

Another reason people are leaving is they are tired of the fighting that is going on here. As a community we need to support each other and the developer to help make this game what it was intended to be. JP has done a good job of trying to keep the integrity of trade wars as well as putting up with all the crap that is shoveled at him. How can we attract new players or keep our veterans if we are fighting with each other? Can we agree that this game should be like chess or not? I get a move, you get a move. Can we agree that it is in everyones best interest, and the future of this game to except that changes have been made in the spirt of fair play and not to piss people off. I think Jp is doing the best he can and all of us would benefit if we would give him all the positive feed back, and negitive feed back we can, but do it with respect instead of attacking him because we dont agree?
That being said I don't agree with everything either but, I enjoy the challenge of change and this game either way.
Thanks for listening to my venting, I dont want feed back, this is only the opinion of a veteran that has been playing this game for around 20 years.
Ill shut up now.

After those of us that wanted the bugs fixed in v1.03 get our 1st move I'll let you know. So far it's been ALL moves toward making changes to the game and ZER0 moves toward reducing the bugs in the game. Sort of one sided wouldn't you agree? There were many more new bugs introduced in v2 than there were old bugs repaired from v1.03.

Exactly.