It’s old news, but I have to post something here!
There’s good news for all of those people who don’t like the Resort theme of the current official game, Dragelet has decided to host his own game at http://www.starshiptraders.net
The games at this site will only be classic styled games (no Resorts in sight!) and all players have to take their ships through a ladder game before they make it to the full size mapped (currently running under the name ELF – Extended Last Frontier).
In an attempt to hinder cheating, the admins have added the ability to see what IP addresses players have been using. In principle this is a good idea, but in reality the determined cheaters out there will just learn to be more careful. It also makes it harder to run Indie/Spy ships, but not impossible.
The real bad news though is that the client port has been disabled. Even though there have been plenty of posts acknowledging that most bots work in telnet & http mode, the game administrators have decided that the biggest threat to the integrity of the games are client users?
There has been a big recruiting theme on the boards of both TLR & SST, and the radio logs of both games almost always seem to contain a reference to this new game.
My take on all of this? It’s kind of obvious, the current settings of TLR are a major hinderance, so a lot of players will be moving to the new game simply because it’s easier! The new game will also serve the task of being a training area for those players who haven’t been able to compete with the really skilled players that have been dominating the TLR universe!
I hope everyone enjoys the new game, and when they’re after a real challenge they just need to remember to visit ioresort.com!
Why can’t these “real skilled players” be really skilled with the new game? Have they tried? You seem to have some strong bias against this new game. How come?
Where has the admin of the new old SST server posted his claims about clients? I’ve never seen him mention anything of the sort. I’ve never seen anything he(?) has posted. Do you have URL for a board with announcements for the new game? I’m quite interested.
((Why are links and information on SST links/knowledge so decentralized anyhow?!))
Big A
Yeah, I may be biased, but that’s only because I’m a client user, and I’m tired of the whole anti-client theme. Clients are not bots, bots are more wide spread than clients, bots are available that work in telnet & web mode, and bot users hide their usage. The client users that I know of don’t hide the fact that they use clients.
And here’s a big surprise, client usage doesn’t guarantee an easy win… it can make some tasks easier, but it still requires planning, strategy and most importantly Reliable Teammates!
The only posts you’ll find are in the ‘Communications Menu’ of the current games (TLR & TLF). There’s the occasional anti-client & anti-bot outburst on the radio of TLR, but these don’t occur that often since the new (ELF) game was started.
For a game that’s been around for as long as it has, SST has a major shortfall of fansites and message boards. Bestark has been making an effort to archive as much information as he can, and now that I have this site up I’m willing to host any information that people want to send me.
Cheers,
KRY
I guess it’s official! I’m not welcome at the alternate site. Although I’ve never felt that I was welcome there, I was quite surprised to find, that I can no longer access that site. Until about a week ago, I’ve been following the growth of the alternate site. Unfortunately, it appears that won’t be longer possible. It’s still there, since I can ping it, it just doesn’t accept connections from me any more 🙁 I’m apparently now blocked from accessing it!
I truely hope that this was just a case of bad timing… as in the SST service was simply offline.
Otherwise the founding principle of the ‘alternate’ server has failed…. it was suppose to be a be a server that actively tried to prevent cheating, but the admins are now cheating by blocking a legitimate player for no reason?
If they want to prove that it’s not discrimination, I’d like to see them display a page listing users that have been blocked/banned, and the reason why they were blocked… shouldn’t the user base have the opportunity to see if their admins aren’t abusing their power?
Hmmm, I wonder if any of the admins will offer up an explanation? And how long will it be before I get blocked from logging in there?
Cheers,
KRY
Wouldn’t want to give the wrong impression. I can’t access the login history, but I can log into the actual game. It did take a little work to figure out which port was needed for the web connection, since game server port configuration is not necessarily standard. Not very obvious when you get connection failed message or unable to connect. If the intent was to actually block me, they need to go back to the drawing board, and I hope as you said, it’s just some server problem. I’ll just keep my fingers crossed and see what happens the next time my ip address changes 😉
Well I guess I owe the admins of the ‘alternate’ server an apology… I still think a banned page is a good idea though!
**mutters obscenities while dismantling his soapbox**
Cheers,
KRY
Good news! I’ve got full access to the alternate site again. Unfortunately, I doubt it has anything to do with the admin there. Today, I was assigned a new ip address. I’ll keep that last address in my notes, and see what happens should I ever get that number again. Addresses get assigned pretty randomly at my isp when you get a new one, but you can be stuck with one for a long time when it doesn’t change. At least they’ve got a couple hundred thousand addresses in the block to choose from.
Contraversy strikes again.
The login history page has been having problems…
Firstly Bestark was having issues accessing the site… which was looking very suspicious when it seemed to work correctly for me!
Secondly it was noticed that it only seemed to be working if certain types of browsers were used!
And now the final straw… after a tip off by Firefly of blatant cheating by a player who had exceeded the 16 ship limit, the whole login history page fails to work at all now!