The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: September 28, 2008

Official News page 3


A CHARMING MAN

by Hazed

Alan has finished converting all of the old charms from flags into solid, physical objects that you can drop, pickup, store or give away. The conversion was done in three batches during the week, and all the charm objects were placed in your ship lockers, provided there was room. If you had left too much junk in your locker and the charms wouldn't fit, then they did not get converted.

The flags that were the previously indications of which charms you owned have not been turned off yet, so you can compare the charm objects with the charm flags and make sure everything got converted - type 'EX ME' to see the charm flags on your characters. The flags will be going away in a couple of weeks.

For those of you who are new-ish players and who don't know what all this business with charms is all about, here's a quick explanation.

Gallaghers, the snooty store on Earth, sells a keyring which - among other things - has the key to the executive washroom on it; a very valuable perk which allows you to use the facilities in the Galactic Administration's HQ building. Yes, you can shower in the luxurious surroundings normally reserved for the Government's top bureaucrats. The shop also sold a series of charms, intended to be dangled from the keyring, as exclusive accessories. Each charm was on sale for about a month, and then withdrawn; they cost one slithy tove each. If you failed to buy a charm during the month it was available, then you missed out and lost your chance forever. Therefore, having a complete set of charms became something of a status symbol. When you looked at a player who was wearing a charm, you'd see the description of the charm - the player could choose which charm to display using the 'WEAR' command.

But Gallaghers was not the only place selling charms. Diesel had an arrangement with a local craftsman, and when she threw a party she'd often invite him into the bar to sell a special keyring charm. This made Anton Gallagher, the owner of the store, furious - since he had exclusive rights to sell the keyring, he considered that he should be the only person allowed to sell charms, too. Diesel disagreed and refused to comply to his demands; his attempts to sue her failed miserably; and in the end, he gave up selling charms in a snit.

(Actually, what happened was that we ran out of flags that could be used for charms!)

Now that charms are objects instead of flags, Alan will rework the 'WEAR' command so it will work with objects - all objects, not just the charm objects. And Anton Gallagher has got over his sulk and decided that he will sell charms again, starting soon with a very special item to launch the new range. Personally, I reckon he misses the steady flow of slithies the sales generated...


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