Forbidden Realms

BLANE BRAMBLE gathers his cloak about him against the bitter wintertide, and steps forth into dark dimensions...

Whispers on the line tell tales and speak rumours that Christmas is on it's way once more. The skies are growing darker, and the air is beginning to hang heavy with magic...

Hopefully at some stage over the Christmas period there will be some form of quest being run on PARODY, although quite what this will be probably depends on which wizards turn up (and also on the state of inebriation that they happen to be in). Whatever happens, the plan is for a fun time, with a fairly sizable pool of points being handed out from the central reserve that will be made available.

When I spoke to THE VOlD's Dirk about Christmas events etc., he hadn't really thought about them. However, having mentioned the idea to him, he seemed to like it - and so there will probably be some seasonal festivities going on over the Christmas period (as well as maybe the addition of a few objects and mobiles to add a bit of flavour to the game). Interested players should probably keep an eye on the messages in the Void's message section, as that's the most likely place to find more information...

IOWA

After a short debate about new modems on the IOWA Mail system, Pip has gone ahead and ordered four modems supporting speeds up to 2400/2400 baud as well as MNP5, so at some stage in the future it should be possible to connect to IOWA at the faster baud rates. Whether or not the front end will need some conversion to support the new modems is not yet known, so for more details keep an eye on the Mail system. When I last spoke to Pippin about the modems he hoped to have the new modems installed within about 10 days, and at the time of writing that was a week ago, so they could be available by the time you read this...

Chaos

Well I said this issue I'd take another look at Chaos and report back on how it was doing, and what had changed. Unfortunately Chaos has had a few hardware problems (hard disks pretending they don't exist, the usual sort of thing), and so an older version of the game has been restored. At the moment, the entire Chaos code is being reviewed, and the game is being rethought out to introduce more ideas and more gameplay. Quite what the changes will be is unknown at the moment, a lot depending on what the players want, and suggestions are welcomed (leave them in the Chaos section of mail).

Parody

On-line location editing went into Parody at the last update (something that hitherto I had claimed was impossible, nice to be wrong occasionally isn't it?) The game is slowly being expanded on-line, but not as fast as possible mainly because of new developments. At some stage in the future I expect to supersede the current Parody system with a much more flexible version written in an entirely new language (StarLite), and running on a much more powerful machine (quite what has yet to be decided, but it seems likely it will be an Acorn Archimedes of some description). Hopefully the new version will be available in time for the Christmas rush.

THE VOID

Several new bits and pieces are planned, at some time in the future 'social points' will be implemented, which can be spent on: "enhancing the game (eventually rooms etc.) but for the time being (soon) they will allow you to purchase extra spells (at an exorbitant fee)". As well as this, once a piayer has been adopted (i.e. belongs to a realm), they will accumulate allocatable points which they will then be able to give to other players to increase the other players' social score.

At some stage a 'sexual trivia machine' [!?! - Ed.] should appear in the departure lounge, allowing players to gain (or most likely lose) credits in an attempt to prove how stupid they really are. No doubt it will be highly popular.

Stamina has been implemented, although because players don't get killed in the game, it is different from stamina in most other games: it will decrease slowly with time, and will occasionally need to be topped up by eating or drinking. If a player's stamina falls below zero, then they will begin to lose magic points.

Various other minor changes have been made; and note the phone numbers have changed as reported in last issue, so don't call the old number!

SYNERGY

Xchange

The old Amstrad SM2400's are slowly being replaced (Amstrad finally admitted the 1200/75 bug was their fault), and so life should become easier for users at that speed (you will actually be able to type commands, a useful advance). The new modems are (I believe) Miracom WS3000's, and so there should be few problems. A new version of the Xchange has been written, which should hopefully remove the invisibility problem that currently seems to crop up fairly often.

At the moment, Synergy is not available due to a hardware problem (the hard disk on the front end crashed), and until this is sorted out the system (obviously) cannot take log-ins. The system will be back as soon as the hard disk is working and a new copy of the front end has been installed.

Avalon

LAP OF THE GODS

TinyMUD

CONNECT/IBMPCUG

AberMUG

Just a few little bits of gossip, AberMUG (11) is still running on Connect. Sadly, although a new version is being written (AberMUG V I think), it won't be available via Connect. This is a shame, as the current version does look dated compared to more recent games

Daemon

If any of you out there where expecting a review of Daemon, then I'm going to have to disappoint you - the game is not yet available, and there does seem to be a little doubt as to when/if it ever will be. However, as soon as there is some more news available about the game, you can expect to read it in COMMS PLUS! (so if you haven't subscribed yet, you'd better do it now). [That's the spirit! - Ed.]

OTHER BITS AND PIECES?

Well, that pretty much brings things to a close for this icsue If for any reason you want to contact me, the best places are either the Owl Service BB (see the inside front cover or somewhere for it's number) - mail to Blane Bramble, or on the IOWA mail system - mail to Geolin. The only thing left to say really is enjoy Christmas, enjoy the games, and I hope you'll keep on reading through 1991 (got to earn money somehow, haven't I?).

BLANE BRAMBLE