First, please... can we keep the disappointed personal attacks and stereotypes down? Personally, I'm very
open to the idea. But if we go down the road of resorting to assumed stereotypes, we're just going to shut
down what little communication we've got and this won't get any further than it did in 2004.

Next, you're not seeing the whole picture here. When I say it makes planets worthless, I mean it. I mean
it makes them worthless in both ways. Why? Because when you lock down planet motion you mess with
the gridder-defender balance. That gives gridders a lot of strength, which means someone can probe
and grid much easier. That means your bases aren't very likely to get mobile, or to ever get to the point
where they generate revenue. With that in place, it makes much more sense to go red, probe, grid and
lock the game down than it does to build planets.

The problem between now and 10 years ago is that the fundamental forces behind the game's balance have
changed. The old balances don't work in today's world. You cannot return to a snapshot in time, the world
has fundamentally changed. Ignoring that will not help you return back to there.

When I say "that's impossible" to your suggestions, it's because those suggestions would not be enough
to change our style of play. In other words they would not help you achieve your goal. If you feel you have to
do it alone, by all means. But again, you'll just end up disappointed when the same crop of players masters
the new environment and nothing has changed. I'm trying to help save you that time so that you can
focus your efforts where they might do the most good.

And D... most cit killas don't actually re-enter the cit every time. They run multiple grab loops and then just
scan every X loops.

the thing is, tw2002 is like the only online game which caters to those who can run and write scripts. it has a niche- frankly, you wont be able to modify your code to have the thousands of simultaneous players some of these other games have, without losing much of your current base. i have enjoyed my return to the game a lot, because of the scripting- not in spite of it... of course im learning to write macros and scripts, and i can see how people who arent able or interested to do so would exit stage left...

just using the 'public' scripts correctly can make one very formidable. the game has a steeper learning curve than it did back in the 80s-90s. i dont know that id kill the goose to get the egg tho... the best way to accomplish what you want involves a rewrite and facebook it seems to me... which allows for the scripters to continue in telnet but lets you achieve your original vision with a broader new audience.

I think they hit the nail on the head when they were talking about taking out the global options. I mean it's almost impossible to have different levels of play with the some of the options that are global. The max commands per cycle is the main one that comes to mind.

"First, please... can we keep the disappointed personal attacks and stereotypes down?"

I'm not sure what that means. If I say you're more interested in keeping the game fun for you personally, that's not an attack, just an observation. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just a reality I have to face. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm basing that observation on your words. And I am frustrated by it. But so what. It doesn't say anything about you as a person. You have every right to your position about this game. I can't expect everyone to share my goals.

Yeh, but it's not an observation of me. It's an observation of your experiences before now, and you're looking at our
conversation via that lens. I haven't said a single thing that should make you think I'm against improving the game.
I just think you shouldn't waste your time on things that won't be effective. I mean it is your time, so clearly you're
free to waste it as you see fit, but I'd hate to see that given what could be accomplished with the right perspective.

"just using the 'public' scripts correctly can make one very formidable. the game has a steeper learning curve than it did back in the 80s-90s. i dont know that id kill the goose to get the egg tho... the best way to accomplish what you want involves a rewrite and facebook it seems to me... which allows for the scripters to continue in telnet but lets you achieve your original vision with a broader new audience."

Yeah, but all of that is a separate issue. My goal here is to allow people to experience the game that was once so addictive. I don't want to take anything away from this little niche. But I could sure benefit from the help of this group in doing it the right way. You're all masters at figuring out how to bend the current rules to your favor. Can't you put that same energy to work in figuring out what combination of rules would close off most of these new tactics and return the game to an earlier state? I think that's possible. If I do that on my own, I'll just be stabbing in the dark. With the support of this community, I could start to make some proposed changes, drop them into the community, and get quick feedback about whether or not it hinders script tactics or just shifts the balance, and adapt from there. Trying something is better than doing nothing, I think. But I have the feeling that any "success" I had would just drive away this community, and I'll be left on my own again. It's probably too much to ask for this community to help in dismantling the tactics that they themselves created.

If we set out a list of "new" tactics that have really shifted the balance of the game, then set out to introduce changes that would diminish the effect of those tactics, then play the game, see what new tactics step up as being dominant, address those tactics, repeat, I believe it would be possible to get the game back to the way it was played in the late 90s. But I get the impression that Sing and others don't think that would be a goal worth pursuing. True?

As I said earlier, a fig decay rate would do this. If 10 figs vanished from each sector over the universe,
then people would have to drop a lot more figs. Say, 600 figs. That would last 60 days. 5k * 600 = 3m.
3m figs aren't cheap, you either have to buy them or build to get them. In either case, you change the
balance a little from gridding to building or cashing. 3m figs * 160. That's 480m in cash. That's a lot of
cash. The alternative would be to regrid over time, but that's very turn expensive. Basically it makes
grid, which is the primary vehicle for pdropping and ptorping, much more expensive.

To balance that further, have an option to increase the bust rate based on the number of steals/robs
made in the last X amount of time. That would reward slower cashing, and make current red scripts
more expensive.

There are some slight tweaks like that which would help. Making it impossible to drop figs in the MSLs,
for instance, might help too. Not that it would matter much outside of that, but it would at least let ppl
get to dock and buy a scanner.

Some things tho, like delays, are likely to end up as stop gaps only. In the games I've played, move
delay has done nothing to hurt scripting.

You could also have dock "run out" of certain things like gtorps, ptorps and eprobes. A "max number
in stock per day" would be a cool option.



I don't think it's the tactics that have really shifted the balance of the game. I think it's 24/7 broadband
internet that has shifted the game. Time limits do help correct that a little, but there's a big bug in TLs
right now that makes them impossible to play. Fix that, and yea... I've got a few TL games that have
attracted attention. My "old school" edit gives players 90 minutes, 15 minute login penalties and slow
planets. Tack in a few extra options, that'd be pretty sweet.

The goal is fine. I just doubt the effectiveness of some recommendations. I don't think you could get it
all the way back, but you could definitely take it back a few notches. I'm skeptical on the "change stuff,
see what happens, then change it more" approach... mostly because it's been several years since the last
release and there's still bugs that need worked out. But, I would like to be proven wrong there...

Edit: Thought: Find a way to make exit-enters free to relog penalties, but logins from the main menu
do cost a relog penalty. This would make relog penalties more useful.

J.P., I think it is an excellent goal. But I do see what Sing is saying also. The scripters today will find ways around just about any changes you can make. I also agree with you, this needs to be done one step at a time and tested to see how it works, or IF it works. I've made games that are easy for new players to get started, but like was mentioned earlier, with some of the more important options being global, you can't have more than one style game on one server. You either cater to the veterans or you cater to the new players. It would be nice if we could have games for both at the same time. I think there are several things that have been mentioned that may work and with a bit of discussion, time, and testing, I think they could become very good chantes to the game. I don't believe you will be able to make multiple changes drastically without proper testing and make it work tho.

Oh, another thought: An option to give starter ships a holoscanner. That way ppl can
see what they're walking into.

Edit: Increasing the max colo regen from 65k to something bigger would rock. Right
now that's a hurdle to building a sustainable building game.

when i started playing, computers were different. i had an atari 800xl, and a 1200 baud modem. i couldnt play the game now like i did then. the advent of scripting was like an event horizon... maybe you could set it up so that certain games are a true classic stock- but could also have the 'new' funner system. and thats the key, i think its ten times funner now. its just a question of reaching your target audience... programming dorks in their 30s and 40s

Well, no matter what happens, the first step is to clean up the game right now. Get those globals moved like they should have been, fix the time online bug, fix the Darn mail bug. Minor things, really. I assume there are a number of critical bugs that have come to light over the years. If that list isn't too outrageous, I should be able to get them fixed quickly. Basically, I've committed to spending a day a week on classic TW. For a few months now, I've been spending all of my time on it, but I needed to put that time into building up the TW Museum because we needed that for other reasons. Now that it's pretty well established, though, I can shift my focus to TW coding, which is why I'm having this conversation. I may have a few more weeks full time, but I will continue to spend a day or two per week on it after that. That's my goal. I haven't done that since 2004.

Sing, those ideas are interesting. I like the idea that fighters have a "desertion rate".

Another thing that would be awesome is a way to schedule and rebang games at a set time
without having to shut down the server. As it is now, the op has to bang each game by
hand. It would rock if I could have an unlim rebang automatically every 3 days, or every
week. That way if a new player came along and got killed they could just wait till the
rebang to get in. More frequent bangs means more starting chances.

What's crazy is several of the things you're asking for I've already done. But for a number of reasons, the code is just sitting drawing dust. Well, I'm going to dust it off and let's see what we can do.

The mail bug fix is definitely one on the top of my list.



The ability to rebang without shutting down the server is another good idea. However, some of us have written applications to facilitate rebanging automatically, and shutting down the server is just a "requirement" we had to work with.