Messages

Although the Empire machine is going down until January  I'm not exactly sure WHEN it will be offline.  I have to tell COX to cancel the account.  So I'm not sure if they will do it right away or will they let it ride until the end of the billing cycle.  If they tell me I'm going to be billed for the whole month anyway I'll tell them to let it ride.

So in the meantime I restarted EMPIRE1, it last 35 days and expires MON, NOV 11, 2024.

But like I said, it may get cut off at anytime, probably sometime this month.  It is a great time to re-learn the game because movement points accumulate every minute.

(All this to get port forwarding AND my web page back.)

To connect, use Telnet or VT to:  empire.game-host.org
The log on command is HELLO PLAYER.EMPIRE1
Game parameters are:
- 299x299 sector grid
- 10 islands, everyone starts at EDEN
- build and movement points accumulate every minute
- 99/255 starting time units
- ship movement is updated every hour
- 255 Player limit
- Player identification is created on first log on
- Game is always open, no sign ups required
- Normal information hiding
This message generated by a batch job on the Empire machine.

--
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
empire.game-host.org
BT







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Sorry folks the, EMPIRE game will be going down until January.

This is one of those customer service fiascoes.

All this time the EMPIRE machine has been on my COX home internet.  I attempted to switch to T-Mobile for Business.

#1  So I could get a static IP again.
#2  With port forwarding on port 80 so the EMPIRE machine could have a web page again.

Right know I only have #1.
With old COX to get a web page they wanted me to have a business account, which is hundreds of dollars more a month.
With T-Mobile a Business account is only 12 bucks more than a home Consumer account.

To make a long story short, due to miscommunication and misunderstanding the "Customer Support" in based in call centers outside the U.S. they misunderstood what I wanted and set me up as a Consumer account.

So now I have to wait 90 days before I can do a "migration" to a Business account.

(There are more stupid details than this, but this is the nutshell version.)

Currently with COX you can still get to the EMPIRE machine at empire.game-host.org, but rather than pay for TWO internet services at the same time for three months, I'm going to turn COX off.  I was hoping to do the transition smoothly.

This will last for 90 days.  It will take a few days before I turn COX off so you have a few days to play some of the short term text games like MILLBORN and ADVENT.

Connection:  empire.game-host.org

(not com)

Tournament game EMPIRE4 has been regenerated, it lasts 125 days  and expires SUN, JAN 19, 2025

The log on command is HELLO PLAYER.EMPIRE4
Game parameters are:
- 599x599 sector grid
- 99 islands, starting island is random
- build and movement points accumulate every 60 minutes
- 0 starting time units
- ship movement is updated every 6 hours
- 255 Player limit
- Player identification is created on first log on
- Game is always open, no sign ups required
- Maximum information hiding
This message generated by a batch job on the Empire machine.  

I've delayed starting EMPIRE4 the Tournament game, due to a number of external factors -- one of which is having a job in retirement -- I'll be restarting a new game in a couple of days.

Let's try Midnight (EDT) tommorow.

Also this year the EMPIRE machine has been subject to a number of DDOS and FTP attacks.  That's the risk I get for leaving this machine wide open on the internet.   Therefore I've been blocking the entire provider range the attack comes from.   Such users will get a "connection refused" message.  Oddly enough the day of the last presidential debate this week I got a large number of domestic FTP attacks, I presume they were to deface EMPIRE's web page, but my provider doesn't let me have a web page anymore which makes it even funnier.  (I need to change my provider again so EMPIRE can have a web page.)


To avoid refusal, use an emulator with NSVT protocol on port 1570.  If this is impossible, send me a note and I'll open up your provider's IP range back on telnet.  (Of course I'll have to know the your provider's IP range.)

--
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
empire.game-host.org
BT







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Normal game EMPIRE3 has been regenerated, it lasts 100 days and expires WED, OCT 02, 2024

To connect, use Telnet or VT to:  empire.game-host.org
The log on command is HELLO PLAYER.EMPIRE3

Game parameters are:
- 499x499 sector grid.
- 40 islands, starting island is random.
- build and movement points accumulate every 14.4 minutes.
- 99 starting time units.
- ship movement is updated every 4 hours.
- 255 Player limit
- Player identification is created on first log on
- Game is always open, no sign ups required
- Normal information hiding

This message generated by a batch job on the Empire machine.

Anyone know what happened to user much_guest? (Includes the underscore.)

Since this is a year long game and there have been only 18 games since 2000.  I think it may be too early to declare a trend.

Operator error, and shutdowns due to DNS, IP, and hardware changes are more frequent.

And you remind me, I need to restart the other four expired games.
​--

Tracy Johnson
​​Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/empire/
BT







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Due to agreement by all Players, they have conceded the game to HORSIA and declared HORSIA the winner.

High scores below:

Power Report

Rank Isl Sects  Populatn Materiel    Power Name
---- --- ----- --------- -------- -------- -----------------------------
  1. 240 66278 134866909 46527670 70870550 HORSIA[3]
  2.  44 10043  20681500 12279628 16277997 SCOTTLAND[2]
  3.  22  3182   5432730  1942790  2948168 SYZYGY[5]
  4.  31  1973   1896468   749784  1147104 SCHMUCK[1]
  5.   1     1     19997        0     2099 EISENHOWER[4]

It has been a couple of years since I discontinued the Yahoo group simply because Yahoo turned to crap.  I found a site called groups.io that behaves just like the old Yahoo groups, even older, it was designed by the guy that made onelist, the group service that got bought by Yahoo.  You'll find it at the site called empire@groups.io.

The original INVENT3K machine is back alive and kicking at INVENT3K.OPENMPE.COM, and the Empire games are running too.

As predicted all the games expired and they are all new games.  Standard game announcements will be made Tomorrow.

The domain name for Empire is back, you no longer have to use direct IP addressing:

http://invent3k.openmpe.com/empire/

Is there any room here for a migration of 300 or so users from a dissatisfied Yahoo group?

They're mainly looking to e-mail, and to be able to share their gaming files.

I got links from other sources:

Mocha Telnet Lite on the iPad:  http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mocha-telnet-lite/id286893976?mt=8

Zatelnet for the iPhone:  http://www.zatelnet.com/

Anyone try plaing Empire with zaTelnet on the iPhone?

BT
Tracy Johnson
Ye olde fashioned text games at: 198.212.189.111








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