**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 93.05.30 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Jade plus a team of ... don't ask! **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> MONDAY, MAY 31ST, IS A HOLIDAY! Tomorrow, May 31st, is a GEnie holiday. That means GEnie will be non-prime until 8am on Tuesday, June 1st! In celebration of Memorial Day, copies of HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE NEWSDROIDS, (c) 2001 H-by-A, will be not be given out to the first fifty people who log on to the game. **>> FIXES The new version is settling in nicely, and most of the problems have been fixed. There are only three major exceptions: 1. Disconnects: Those of you with longer memories will recall that towards the end of last year we had a spate of problems with people unable to log back onto the game after dropping carrier (or having it dropped for them). The problem was eventually located and fixed - but it has reappeared. Apparently the old version of the file got linked into the program by mistake. By the time you read this we'll have retrieved the updated version and re-linked it to the game, fixing the problem. Our apologies to anyone who got caught in this. 2. Game Slowness: It's still not clear if slowness is being caused by problems with the new version of the game, or the host machine on which it runs. We will continue looking into what can be done about the game's slowness, but can't take remedial action until we know it isn't being caused by problems at the host end. As a temporary solution, Bella took out the system-intensive 'SEND' command. Not to worry. Between manicures, she is working on a new version of 'SEND', and it should be ready on Monday or Tuesday. 3. Factories and TLs: Bella is working on the problem of factories not shutting down when the owner leaves, and has sorted out the descriptions for when you fire your lasers. Look for the fixes for these two problems to go in to the game on Tuesday. **>> NEW FEATURES Last week Bella magnanimously gave up her daily masseuse appointments to fix the crash and add these new features to the game: Planet owners: Factories in operation on your planet are now shown according to each factory owner's company name with a more detailed description of the commodity. Factory owners: When displaying your company, your factories are now listed 1-12, instead of the impossible-to-remember four-digit number. All: C CARGO will now tell you not only which planet the commodities in your ship's bays were bought on, but also how much they cost. A default for 100/Titan is set for goods bought before the command went into effect; all purchases made afterward will reflect this change. SHUFFLE is a new command that does exactly that; shuffles the bays in a warehouse, making it easier to trade and, for the more adventurous, give out jobs. SHUFFLE takes the goods scattered throughout a specified warehouse and automatically puts them in the top bays. **>> PLANETS A number of new and mini-planets are in the offing, but Bella is waiting to put them in the game until the new version is bedded down. If all goes well, outstanding mini-planets will go in during the middle of the week. Florence's new planet should go live at the end of the week, and others will go in the following week. **>> CONTEST ON ROOKERY! Condor is offering a 15Meg IG reward for solving the puzzle on Rookery! Cucamonga was the first to solve this innovative puzzle, and received a hefty bonus for his ingenuity. Don't miss your chance to make good groats and have fun solving this very creative puzzle! ---->>>> GOSSIP, SCANDAL, LIES ... (THE GOOD STUFF!) <<<<---- =========================================== **>> MY PLANET FOR A QUART OF MARS OIL! While last week's anonymous guest editor reported the newsdroids to be working like well-oiled machines, this week's editor disagrees! A sorrier bunch of mechanical lug nuts I've never had the misfortune to work with! (Hmph!) Every last one of the dratted newsdroids broke down on Monday morning. While repair droids were promptly called in to fix this dire catastrophe, not a single rusty joint is bending. Luckily, tapes of fixes, new features, gossip, scandal, and (our favorite) lies were rescued from the wreckage. After many hours, I was able to piece them together for this week's news. (Note to Hazed: Hurry up and come back, Pugwash! Your droids are misbehaving!) **>> WHO WAS THAT MASKED ADVENTEREUSE? From the very beginning, newsdroids were flooded with reports of Stone's -- ahem! -- antagonistic personality. While still a Groundhog, this feisty lady was daring players to shoot her down. Peggy and Monty were seen scrambling for Snark the instant Stone promoted to Captain. Rumors abounded that Stone was actually Becky in disguise, but those close to Stone deny this, stating that the roots of Stone's hair were NOT blonde. Alas, Stone's story has a tragic ending. According to rumor (the stuff of which we make our living!), in the end Stone decided that her trusty Arix army knife was preferable to the advances of Menace. (We can hardly fault her for that!) **>> SPEAKING OF MENACE... How many women in Federation DataSpace haven't been the recipient of this pirate's, er, charms? Before the newsdroids went belly- up (or equivalent thereof), they were compiling a list of Fed women who'd escaped Menace's attention (they decided that, considering the crunch on system speed, this would take less bytes than a list of those who hadn't). Names confirmed: Jade, Bella, Freya. This week alone, Menace was seen romancing Melacha, Flamin, Hazed, Zodiac ... drats, the list is just too long to print and still have room for other titillating news items. Inquiring mechanical minds want to know when Menace has time to run the newly promoted Xhit so efficiently! **>> OUR HORSE, WHO ART IN HEAVEN [This story was in the memory banks of one of the broken newsdroids:] While chasing Peggy through the solar system, Tellurian met with an untimely death. With a look of rage in his eyes and superiority in his tail, the winged horse shot a bolt of lightning from his hoofed foot at the Dimweeper, blasting Tellurian to ... well, the hospital on Earth, whereupon Tell "saw" a vision so awe-inspiring that it changed his entire outlook on both his and his new clone's life. Tellurian went immediately to the altar in the Martian ruins to seek guidance and wisdom from St. Pegasus, Protector [cough! -- Ed.] of Newbods. There, he found true peace in becoming a follower of St. Pegasus. Obviously the newsdroids were rustier than we'd first suspected! If this tape is accurate, the account of Tellurian's rebirth would make Glurg a holy man, since he is the son of St. Peggy. We suspect that, due to their already fragile state, the thought of Glurg in a collar blew a series of gaskets and fridleys in the already overworked newsdroids, causing their collapse. Glurg? Holy? As if that isn't enough, the newsdroids also report that Ishmee is the Mother Superior! **>> SUGAR AND SPICE AND ... KRELL??? While on their way to CDs, our about-to-break newsdroids ran across a sight permanently imbedded in their memory banks: Krell. Naked. Sprawled upon the bar, her body smeared with mustard (Grey Poupon), daring onlookers to lick it off. As if that weren't frightening enough, the mistress of the Voodoo soon found herself covered with sugar and honey. Details are sketchy, but apparently Krell somehow ended up with ants and maggots crawling all over her body. A few long-tongued chameleons appeared and used their long, sticky tongues to zap a few maggots, among other things, and... No, we simply can't report the rest. Why, Krell? Why??? **>> SARAN WRAP BONDAGE What do you get when you add ample amounts of saran wrap, whipped cream, vociferous elf, and an anything-but-monogamous redhead? In this instance, the newsdroids got covered in whipped cream as they snuck up to capture the newest adventures of Altasren and Emmi! What they found was Emmi bound to Alt, who was himself bound to a chair, with whipped cream shameless smeared ... everywhere! Sitting on Alt's lap, Emmi obviously was trying to free herself from her constraints because she would not stop wriggling around. Alt must have found their predicament humorous because the newsdroids report to never have seen a bigger grin on any elf. Better wipe that silly smile off your face, Alt! We learned that not only does Emmi prefer Hazed's British Love Secrets, but she also prefers Tellurian! (Who NOEs about this? And where, we wonder, does this leave Maxwell?) **>> HAIR YE, HAIR YE Inquiring mechanical minds want to know why Occy was wandering around Fed space carrying Bikini Line Hair Remover. More puzzling still, why was Destiny spotted running out of a spyproof room, screaming, after Occy appeared there with it? As soon as the newsdroids are repaired, they'll be scurrying to get the bare facts on this one. **>> A MODEST PROPOSAL? Speaking of Occy... Rumor has it that he is proposing to Jade. (We refuse to speculate exactly what Occy is proposing; the newsdroids are in bad enough shape right now!) Our most reputable newsdroids (Oh, hush, of course we have one that is reputable!) knees and begging. We suspect this sight was what broke that poor newsdroid, because at that point the tape suddenly became garbled and unreadable. Was Jade hiding his rubber boots? Had she stolen his hair remover? Are Occy and Jade Fed's newest couple? Does Glurg know? Has Destiny's unsightly hair line been removed? Let us know if you have the answer to these and other burning questions! **>> AN IMMODEST PROPOSAL! >Jim says, "just so long as Glurg ["does" or "doesn't"? The tape is garbled and fuzzy here -- Ed.] kiss me again." Last but by no means least, the ^^^ preceding tid-bit was captured and sent to us by an anonymous source. We doubt its accuracy, but if true, this could be yet another explanation for the newsdroids' unexpected breakdown. **>> BULLETIN ENDS