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Hey man sorry for the uh, cryptic announcement. I probably could have explained a little better what’s going on.
Here’s the short version:
Life happened. I can’t develop the game any longer, so I called for backup. I didn’t want to hand over a half-finished project, so I rewound the maps and ship balance to about 1997. There was no clean (fair) way to carry the old scoreboard over, so I killed all the ships.
The long version:
A work situation recently came up and at least for a while, I won’t be able to fully support the day-to-day running of mtrek.com. I scrambled for a replacement and Mark was gracious enough to pick up my slack. Being an old player from the 90s, and because he’s familiar with our server’s infrastructure, he’s a shoe-in. In fact, he’s the one who first helped me get everything up and running here back in 2012.
Still- I didn’t want to dump an unfinished mess into our savior’s lap, so I simplified everything and turned the dial back to the mid-1990s. The balance (and misbalance) of CLP’s ship selection will be the most agreeable for the greatest number of people.
I’ve saved a complete copy of “version 6”, because I think there are a lot of cool things there, but I have to admit, v6 was still in rough form after 8 months of development. 2 of which were open beta testing, plus 3 months of production status… Balancing 38+ ship classes, while weighing nearly as many differing opinions, was -a nightmare-
There was also the half-finished “delta expansion” project and some ongoing player disputes to reconcile… I think the new guy deserves a clean slate, and I’d hate to hand over any more headaches than I absolutely have to.
Don’t get me wrong- I love all you guys and I think it’s awesome that so many people are so passionate about this game. I’m not stepping back as a result of any of burden or stress. To the contrary, I think things have actually been going quite well.
I’d like to keep the momentum going from our recent ad campaigns and the huge spike in player activity. You all deserve the best game we can give you, and I think for most of us, that’s the game we fell in love with in the 80s and 90s…or at least as close as we can get.
SUMMARY OF CHANGES:
Ships, quads, and devices have all been returned to Classic MTrek-style.
All of the ships in the database were killed, but not deleted. This means that you can still see them in the website boneyard, and that “Player Ranks” have been preserved.
Note: this is NOT the “Version 7” we were conceptualizing elsewhere in the forums and in the in-game chats. There are no upgrades, no “Easter eggs”.
The player’s guide has been updated to reflect these changes. Please let us know if you find any discrepancies.
SUMMARY OF NOT-CHANGES
We still have player accounts and fleet pages in the scoreboards
The ship ranks (Crewman Basic thru FLEET ADMIRAL *X*) are still “2016 MTrek”
esc-? still shows a list of commands
esc-@ still shows an in-game roster
We still have bots (~14 of them)
The bots still reduce spawning as more players log in, and then resume spawning when players log out
There are still various bug-fixes and non-game mechanics improvements in place, but I can’t think of them all right now
FINALLY
When I said I was going into “retirement” that wasn’t entirely accurate. In fact, when I get home this evening (and throughout this weekend) I plan to binge heavily on MTrek and beer. I’m going to be playing- (not adminning) but feel free to hit me up with questions if you see me on. From Monday, I won’t be online very often but when I do get the opportunity, I will set aside some time to enjoy MTrek and to answer emails etc. Sadly, that won’t be as often as I would like… But thankfully, all of this silly “work” stuff should prove to be a positive change for me and for my family. 🙂
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