Web Fed News Yearbooks - May 1998

CANCEL ME!
By Hazed

A few days ago, ibgames sent out a bulk mailing about the forthcoming free weekend in Fed. This was the third mailing we sent; previously we mailed everyone about credit card payment, and before that when we started to charge.

The bulk mailings are sent to all the accounts in our database, using the registered email addresses - ie, the email people typed in when they set up their account.

Each mailing has resulted in a flood of replies asking for accounts to be cancelled - although many of them seem to think cancel is spelt cancle!

A surprising number deny all knowledge of ibgames, and claim to not have an account. Either there are a lot of forgetful people out there, or someone gets a kick from setting up accounts using other people's email addresses. There's also a number of people worried that we were going to somehow charge them money even though they had never played, and had not given us their credit card details.

Some of the responses are in foreign languages, so we don't know whether they are funny or insulting. However, one letter was in German, with the only recognizable word being the Mother-F word. We took that to be a cancellation request.

Like that one, many of the responses to the mailings are far too obscene to be printed in the news, but here is a selection of the funnier clean ones.

Inevitably a lot of people do not approve of us charging for Fed:

Dear Federation, I am 14 so and i dont espesially dont want to pay. I think by starting to charge people you will have less.

I would like to know what kind of maths this 14-year-old is studying!

i quit fed a while ago. i hate it now and it sucks because you guys are too cheap to pay for the game yourselves. i think you should charge alot less or not at all

I told my car dealer he was cheap because he wouldn't pay for me to have a red sports car... he just laughed at me.

cancel my account, you evil, money-grubbing desk jokeys. you had to start charging when most of us loyal players have very little money. THANK YOU SO DAMN MUCH.

But my favorite was the following. Follow the train of thought... you can see the light dawning as he writes...

Umm, I don't play Federation anymore. I haven't played Federation in almost 1 yr now. Ever since you guys hit the web, I stopped playing Fed. My friend is the one using my character on his account. Wait a minute??? You mean all this time you have been letting people play for free?????????????????????????????????????? NO WAY! You losers! I quit cause you were gonna make us pay, and now I find out this! Thank you so much Interactive Broadcastings for being complete turds.

He goes on, displaying enough sour grapes to make a vat of whine...

Actually I would quit even if you were free. Federation is an outdated game. Your little tiff about Federation not being a game were you hunt "Orcs" and stuff and being a more realistic social experiment. Well thats totally wrong. Dragon Realms, while it does contain a medieval mythological theme, it is more of a social experiment as well. And its a lot more realistic then Fed ever could hope to be, because there are a lot more social verbs, and groupings. And a lot more things to do and wear. I think you might wanna play it for a while so you can get a feel for what a good interactive multiplayer online game is like. Then maybe you could bring Fed up from pitaful to the gaming rank of sucks.

Some people have real-life reasons for not being able to afford to pay for Fed:

As you may know, my financial situation is not so good due to Asian financial crisis. Please make it sure to cancel my account and not to charge any fees involved.

i would like to cancel the acount i opened deu to the rand dollar valeu = i can not aford to use this acount.

Some people have beefs about the way the game is managed:

hazed took away my planet and has been pretty damn hateful to me so i wont be playing federation anymore

Well, I have to keep Icedrake fed somehow!

sorry but your federation staff are horrible so i am not going to continue playing

sorry i wont be around when federation starts charging. the staff is corrupt and its not worth playing a corrupt game!

Some letters just conjure up strange images:

i quit long time ago cause game moved and had lag

It moved, and it had lag? Presumably that means it moved very very slowly.

I only played the game a few times. I wish to have my account terminated, and my ship and money donated to a worthy cause like "ships for slackers" etc.

How generous.

I won't use fed or fed biprouduct's

Makes it sound like we are producing toxic waste.

I'm sorry to inform you, but I do not recall having an account with Federation. If this has caused you any problems, I am sorry. Please cancel my account if there is one, and again let me apologize for any inconveniences this has caused you.

This is the kind of customer I like - we sent them mail, and they apologize to us!

I hereby wish to cancel all my accounts and registerd information (Including e-mail and name), and have them deleted in according to the Norwegian Information Privacy Act of 1996.

Yes, well, we sure wouldn't want to break any Norwegian laws!

This one is just cryptic:

bill my dead brother

His brother Bill is dead? Sad.

Here's someone who wants to stop communicating:

THIS IS XXXXXX'S MOTHER. HE IS 16 YEARS OLD PLEASE STOP ANY COMMUNICATION WITH HIM.

And someone who wants to start:

Dear friends, thank you very much for notice about the games status, but I am not going to play those games because I am just a new user in the Web, a curious russian physicist-theorist. But curiosity killed the cat. By the way I am looking for an american friend (may be a physicist - to make joint investigations in the area of quantum elctrodynamics as applied to photonics, or anybody interested in the subject and general chat). With best regards. Vladislav.

Finally, I must report on the battle of the auto-responder... when someone sends mail to Feedback, the mail server sends them an immediate response, so they know their mail has got through. However, one AOL user did not realize the responses were automatic. When he received a response to his cancellation request, he replied, saying "don't mail me again". On receiving the response to this mail, he wrote again, saying "STOP IT!!!" with lots more exclamation marks. This of course would have produced yet another auto-response... by which time he must have cottoned on because he didn't mail us again.

TOP TEN SIGNS YOU'VE BEEN FIGHTING IN FED TOO LONG
by Krose

10.	You have 26 pirate kills on your hull.
9.	You've killed every Duke and Baron in the game.
8.	You decide to play Blood Zone with a Mag Gun.
7.	You challenge someone to a duel in a Fleet Class.
6.	You've killed Vega and Xerxes so many times your reward is 1 gig.
5.	You challenge the hosts and hostesses to a duel in Arena.
4.	You consider Pegasus target practice.
3.	The ink has worn away from your F-Keys.
2.	You have to remind yourself that your car is not a spaceship.
1.	You wonder, "How can I lure Ming into Arena space?"

TOP TEN WAYS TO TELL IF YOU'RE TIRED OF LIFE!
by Detros

10.	Even harassing GroundHogs seems just a little too much like hard work.
9.	You give money to beggars just to stop the noise.
8.	You have spent time polishing your Swiss army knife.
7.	You are sure that harassing Crypto would a "real laugh".
6.	You are in the mood to snog a zlitherworm!
5.	You haven't even got the energy to whinge about the Duke puzzle not being ready.
4.	You're sitting there watching your computer macro.
3.	You've just created your 117th alt so that you can have the fun of hauling jobs in Sol.
2.	You're sitting watching a build and the dominant image in your mind is a large clock shaving seconds off your life and moving you a fraction closer to the grave.
1.	You have created an entire menagerie of paper clip animals to decorate your monitor waiting for someone to speak on 9, but haven't said a word yourself.

TOP TEN GOOD THINGS ABOUT A DD FROM PO

10.	You can buy wares on other planets again.
9.	Trying to beat the company promotion speed record.
8.	You were tired of your old planet name anyway.
7.	New planet - new review from Icedrake!
6.	By the time you're a Baron they'll have the Duke Puzzle put in!
5.	This time around you'll have Genesis to play with.
4.	You can make up a story to blame your DD on someone you don't like.
3.	No more fiddling with those nasty digests.
2.	You get to visit Diesel again.
1.	Three words: Free office space!

TOP TEN BAD THINGS ABOUT A DD FROM PO

10.	Workboard jobs in Sol run out on your last 200 IG of debt.
9.	You've spent so much time out of Sol you've forgotten where everything was.
8.	Pegasus keeps shooting you down just for kicks.
7.	Channel 9 won't quit laughing at you.
6.	The guy you laughed at last time keeps TBing you asking "How'd it feel Smarty?"
5.	The TELEPORT command won't work for you anymore, making you actually walk to find someone.
4.	It's impossible to win the fight events with a level 4 computer.
3.	Some jerk took your name, so you had to use a different one.
2.	A spybeam is practically worthless now.
1.	You really miss your mobile cat Fluffy.

TOP TEN REJECTED PLANET PUZZLE IDEAS

10.	A full-size Duckhunt game.
9.	Theme: Solving physics equations.
8.	Catch Pacman and feed him to the ghosts.
7.	Federation's take on Russian Roulette: six sequential locations, a death trap, and a teleporter.
6.	An object's name is a number between one and a billion, you guess what it is.
5.	Matlock - you're Matlock.
4.	Fail to defeat the evil demon Jerden - you die. Defeat the evil demon Jerden - you die. Don't even bother trying - you die.
3.	If you don't DD, you win!
2.	Theme: Help Farmer Bob keep Ronny Rabbit from eating all the carrots.
1.	Scale model of "Where's Waldo?"

TOP TEN WAYS TO TELL IT'S THE FREE WEEKEND
by Lottery, Industrialist of Chance

10.	Navigators have to remind people to stay off of Sol comms.
9.	People talking on channels other than 9.
8.	Trendiest fashion: Hospital gowns.
7.	There are more GroundHogs than POs.
6.	One word: Snerts!
5.	There are more than five people in the Cantina at a time.
4.	You're in a battle with your friends to see who can stay awake for the longest period of time to play Fed.
3.	You don't have time to write #3 on your top ten list because you're too busy emailing long lost Fed friends telling them about the free weekend.
2.	You check out Scaramouche's Planet Advisory for places to go for a fun DD.
1.	You can hear the echoes of ibgames execs laughing maniacally as more and more people get addicted to Fed.

QUOTES OF THE MONTH

Your comm unit signals a tight beam message from Bajaslady, "oh...my little ship is getting engine cramps...".

Halen asks, "What planets did you do?"
"One doesn't talk about carnal conquests of planets in public...", says Icedrake.

"this is federation, not fedEx, nothing happens fast", says Riolobo.

Your comm unit crackles with a message from Sabin, "maybe if i go to Oz and tap my heels together and say, "there's no rank like thane"..."

Your comm unit relays a message from Danny, "I'll do a build when I win the Walrus of Merit and get all those hours. All I need now is Genesis...".
Your comm unit relays a message from Danny, "...and a talent for making planets.".
Your comm unit relays a message from Danny, "Or I could always hire someone to sleep with Icedrake...".

Your comm unit relays a message from Susan, "Fancy..wagering all of his 7 points answered, "What are the gadgets and fittings"".
Your comm unit relays a message from Susan, "This is correct! Leaving him with 14 points.".
Your comm unit relays a message from Susan, "Wogg wagered the same...answering the same..leaving him with 14 points :)".
Your comm unit relays a message from Cyto, "Jaime, unfortunately, answered "What is a jelly doughnut?""

Sachi exclaims, "i would try the bang command but...........he might get the wrong idea!"

Your comm unit crackles with a message from Merlin, "I'm telling you, tacos should be an agri commod.."

Your comm unit signals a tight beam message from Tbar, "umm .. I was just wondering ... can I be Emperer for a day?".
(Reply from Bella)

tell tbar unlikely I'm afraid - unless you put 'cheat' on a macro!

Your comm unit relays a message from Elin, "tb olias these people dont have much sense of humor do they".
Your comm unit relays a message from Elin, "tb olias heheh".
Your comm unit relays a message from Olias, "tb Elin I think your tb is broken.".

Annabegins smiles, "It's tough being single"
Annabegins smiles, "But, I've got a 6-pack of Snapple, so I really can't complain"

MOODS OF THE MONTH

Don't mess with Mothernature has just arrived.

Porting into only God knows what, Alaina has just appeared.

AFK more than you'd ever believe, Pintomike has just gone north.

CLOTHES OF THE MONTH

ex merlin
You see a giant taco covered in hot sauce.. he's got big chunks of meat covering his body, with cheese and lettuce for clothes

ex good
You see standing before you an S3X. A Droid capable of pleasing a woman with the naughtiest of Imaginations. Batteries not included.

SHIP OF THE MONTH

Ex Yoda's ship
Before you is a small meteorite with a saddle strapped to it...

COMPANY OF THE MONTH

SPYNET REPORT: Subject Evilzoot
Rank: Merchant Reward posted: 0
Spaceship class: Harrier
CEO of I'm not dead

BAR POSTS OF THE MONTH

210872:747 - Maia: ~~ Yard Sale on Anixi ~~ Come on by and pick up some cheap stuff!
210872:756 - Jpinfv: Everything is cheap and cheesy on Anixi