**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 93.06.27 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> MANY THANKS... ...to Tellurian for being last week's Guest Newsdroid. We already have our guest lined up for July and August, but we're not going to tell you who they are until the week before they do their stint, to give them a chance to collect gossip incognito! **>> IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT GENIE'S PRICE CHANGE As you all know, GEnie's rates change on July 1, and the price of playing your favorite game will be halved to $3.00 an hour. The following information explains exactly what will happen when the change takes effect. Please read it carefully. 1. New rates will go into effect at 12:01 AM LOCAL TIME on July 1st. 2. If you are online at midnight, you will have to move from where you are to somewhere else on the system for the new rates to kick in. This means if you in Fed you must leave the game, and go to some other menu page. Staying on any of the Fed pages will not trigger the change, and you will still pay the higher rate. Of course, you can avoid this by logging off the system early on June 30th and logging back on after midnight your local time. 3. While the rates are changing at midnight, the menus can't be changed until 8 AM of July 1st. Therefore, between midnight and 8, you will still see the [*] next to item choices that used to be part of Basic (for example, MPGames BBS). These will have no effect after midnight, so pretend you don't see them. Following the rate change, we expect all of your to spend at least twice as much time in Fed Data Space as you do presently. That's an Imperial Edict! **>> SYMPATHY NEEDED You may remember that Christmas before last, Bella had a bit of an accident and had to spend some time in hospital, which resulted in her having a steel bar implanted in her leg (which triggered security alarms whenever she tried to fly anywhere). Eighteen months later, it's time for the chunk of metal to be removed. She will be going into hospital on June 30, and will be out of action for about a week. While she's away, Hazed will be in charge, so please contact her if you have any problems (GEmail FEDII.2). We'll tell you how Bella is getting on in next week's news. **>> AT LAST! Finally, Our Illustrious Leader discovered the problem making the game crash and fixed it. Thanks to everyone who supplied information about what they were doing when the game went down; particular thanks to Occy, whose data was the crucial piece that Bella needed. There is still a problem with large items of sendmail, so for the time being planet owners, Dukes and Senators will not get building reports or other information through sendmail. This will be fixed when Bella comes out of hospital. **>> STOP PRESS! As we write this bulletin, GEnie appears to be having a Bad Hair Day. The system has been taken down several times, and at other times the cluster that Fed runs on has gone too. We hope things will be back to normal shortly; meanwhile, there is no need to report what you were doing when the game shut down, because it's not a crash. **>> FACTORY DELAY When you buy a factory, you will not be able to operate it straight away. It will not actually appear until you next log onto the game. If you want to start tampering with it immediately, you need to log out and in again. **>> DOCUMENTATION UPDATED Hazed has been sweating this weekend, overhauling all the online documentation for the game. She's making a fundamental change to the way the information is presented. She has split the Idiot's Guide into three sections: the Newbod Guide, covering the ranks GroundHog to Trader; the Intermediate Guide, covering Merchant to Explorer; and the Advanced Guide, for Squires upwards. You will be able to download these three separate files to read offline. The three sections together will make up The Complete Idiot's Guide to Federation, and there will be an interactive version which you can refer to online, reading just the section you are interested in. First you will see the updated Newbod's Guide. This will be uploaded in a few days so keep an eye open for a notice on the main Fed page. The other two downloadable options will happen soon, followed by the interactive version. More details in future news bulletins. **>> PLANETS AND DUCHIES Tellurian's long-awaited planet was linked into the game last Friday, and our newsdroids have never seen anyone quite as delighted as he was! Nemesis is a planet run by a radical religion, which worships Pegasus. Yes, they worship the homicidal winged horse, and they insist that he is gentle and good and nice and all that. Obviously they've been drinking too much of that sacramental wine! However, deep beneath the cathedral lie dark catacombs, wherein is hidden a sinister and shocking secret! We were very impressed with Tellurian's planet. This one is well worth exploring. Tellurian has asked us to tell you that he will be changing the event that stops those with a strength of less than 50 entering the school - currently it kills you; from Monday it won't. Nemesis has signed a treaty with Freya's duchy, Vitro. **>> GOSSIP AND SCANDAL We're sorry, there are some things we just won't write about. This is supposed to be a family publication, so we cannot possibly run the story about the donkey. Absolutely not! If you want to know why Hans turned down 30 meg, you'll just have to ask Glurg. Gemini and Tellurian are planning a marathon pub crawl - with a difference. As well as drinking in every bar in the Solar System, they intend to make love in every bar! Possibly even ON every bar!! Our newsdroids will be following their progress avidly (and the pictures will go on sale shortly afterwards). After a whirlwind courtship (we're talking minutes here, not days) Galimos and Lurana got hitched on Nemesis. Tellurian presided over the sudden wedding. **>> BULLETIN ENDS