Federation Yearbook

THE MONTH IN BRIEF

Federation opened its doors to AOL internals for testing in late May. The first ever AOL news bulletin was published on June 3, and was Hazed's first attempt to wrestle with the complexities of publishing text online. As such, it was very short! Thereafter, news bulletins took on the more verbose style you know and love today.

The first player to kill another was the evil Telluruin, who caught C0ldChill unawares near Saturn and blew him out of the sky. He claimed it was an accident... his lasers just went off in his hands or something. A likely story!

On Wednesday June 21, Fed went into open beta, allowing paying customers into the game for the first time. It wasn't publicized or linked to any other areas on AOL, but word soon got around and players started poking their noses in to take a look at the first new game on AOL for years. Our Game Hosts started to appear, to answer questions from new players. (Everyone was a new player back then!) The names of the Hosts back then were WaitDroid, Zabrien, Lyrynna, Motherkins, Bogos06770, Icedrake and MagsT1000. Some have left us, some have changed their names, some are still with us...

Tyreseus became Fed's first JourneyPerson by solving the awesome puzzle, followed closely by CptnWrack and XenXheng. (What puzzle, you ask? In those days, there were separate puzzles for the promotion to JP and to GM. Now they are rolled into one fiendish puzzle for wannabe GMs.)

When Fed first opened, there were seven player-planets. Yes, just seven! They were all written by Game Hosts or Staff. See below for a list of the seven - some of them are still there today for you to explore!

AND FOR DINNER...

Icedrake, the 25-foot long winged and clawed serpent who sits in CDs, decided he was ready to sample human foods! (A disaster in the making, needless to say.)

First, Freya bought him a 16 oz can of Pepsi. Icedrake obligingly gulped it down - can, soft drink, the entire thing. He said it was "a little too metallicy" for his tastes.

Then, Jurre offered Icedrake a danish. After explaining to him that NO, it was NOT a person from Denmark (Icedrake loves to eat them whole), Icedrake agreed to try it. At first he thought it was a defective one ("there'sss only gunk on one half of it!"), but persuaded to bite it, he seemed to like it.

A little later on, though, he showed his true taste... tongue! Don't stick yours out around him, or he might slice it off and eat it! Yikes!

MAROONED!

A hapless player sold his ship, intending to buy a shiny new one with which he could haul mucho cargo. Sadly, he'd failed to look at the price list first, and found himself without enough money to purchase his new vessel.

Foolish enough, but then he compounded his mistake by visiting the casino on the moon, hoping to make up the difference on the roulette wheel. He was left completely penniless, and had no recourse but to whip out his trusty Swiss army knife and end his life!

R.I.P.

COMMENT OF THE MONTH

Your comms unit crackles with a message from Beckables, 'I've decided I'm never getting out of this maze - I'm going to homestead and charge rent to all that pass my way:D'

UNUSUAL PAYMENT

Such is the competition for jobs that Poor People have been willing to haul goods for payments other than groats. In fact, one Captain was heard offering to work for peanuts!

FOR EXPLORATION AND TRADE

In Federation, players who have reached the rank of Explorer can design their own planets to be linked into the game, which other players can visit and explore. On AOL, there are no players that have reached that level yet, so our Game Hosts have written some planets for you to explore, and also so you have somewhere to trade, providing a balanced Galactic economy.

There are seven player-planets linked into the game at the moment: Deep, Cabbage, Outpost, Brittany, Heliopolis, Starfinder and Arabia.

Deep, owned by Pugwash42, is a watery world inhabited by artistic folk. There's a puzzle for you to solve with a reward for the first person to bring music back to the planet.

Cabbage is owned by FedRabbit and, as you would probably expect, is inhabited by rabbits. The planet was written especially to demonstrate the different things you can do on a player-planet, but as well as this worthy intention it's also written to entertain. Take a ride on a snail, visit with your favorite rabbits, and hang out with your friends in Jessica's Bar.

Helipolis is the planet belonging to the Pharoah Ameneph... Amenmen... Amenhpem... well, you know who I mean! The planet is a desert world ruled over by the Pharoah, and your explorations will take you deep into the desert, to an island, and into a slave camp where you will be put to work building the pyramids.

Arabia is another desert world, this one owned by Tyarra. The centre of the world is an oasis, with a large palace for you to explore. Make a point of visiting the bar, The Quantum, courtesy of Jurre.

BggWow's planet is Starfinder, which is not actually a planet at all, it's an old ship. You can dock your ship to the Starfinder and explore.

Outpost, owned by Telluruin, is a planet in a strange region of space, where you can slip through into alternate realities.

Finally, Melinda's planet Brittany takes you back in time to explore the Ancient Celtic lands.

FED ETIQUETTE

Fed is a society and on AOL it is a very young society that is slowly evolving its own idea of acceptable behaviour. There are, of course, rules imposed by the game itself, and there are the general rules of the AOL Terms of Service, but in between there is a vast area of behaviour that the players themselves will regulate, deciding what is acceptable in the society of Fed DataSpace and what is not.

There are many things the game will let you do... but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to do them. An example is the <SLAP> command, with which you can express your disapproval by slapping someone's face. But just because you CAN slap someone, it doesn't mean you SHOULD do it! In Fed, you have to take the consequences of your actions, good or bad. In the society of Fed, players form alliances and friendships and over time every persona develops a reputation that will stay with you and effect the way other players react with you. Getting a bad rep may affect your ability to get the help you need to advance in the game.

Similarly, just because you CAN fly into the sun, doesn't mean it's the recommended way to get a sun tan!

A couple of points of etiquette you should note: don't hoard objects, carrying them around for hours unless you intend to use them. Either use them or let someone else have them.

Don't <VOID> jobs that another player has given you. If you do, they lose the goods completely, and that means they lose money, and you in turn might end up with some rich and powerful enemies!

BULLETIN ENDS