Fed II Star - 2005 Review of the Year

JULY

Summertime... and the living is easy... not much new stuff was added to the game in July because Bella's computer blew up, which rather cut down on her ability to work! Rumors that she deliberately manufactured the hardware failure so she could spend her time sunbathing are completely untrue.

Still, once she got her new machine set up to her liking, she did provide us with some new features. CEOs looking at their company accounts suddenly found they only got to see the current cycle's details, rather than the five cycles which had been introduced in June. The reason for the change is that it's only Financiers who need to see historical data, which they could now do with 'DI ACCOUNTS companyname' or 'DI ACCOUNTS playername'. The test team were pretending to be Financiers in order to try out this new stuff...

The amount of groats that bankrupt Manufacturers were left with when they reverted to Industrialists was increased, to make it easier for them to claw their way back up the greasy pole.

Dilapidated factories and depots started to collapse, and in the first week that this new code was in, there were 23 collapses, showing just how lax the owners had been in maintaining these shoddy buildings. Never has so much accidental damage been done in so short a space of time.

A variant of the 'WHO' command was added to let you get a list of all those in the game at a specific rank - 'WHO RANK'.

The mini-zoo on Earth put bags of food on sale so you could feed the inhabitants, as well as pet them and in some cases, pick them up and cuddle them. Awwww!

And speaking of food, the bars in the Solar System started to eschew their customary pizza and offer special food for sale. We can particularly recommend the gorgeous seafood in Godot's Snacks on Earth. It's a real experience!

Diesel threw one of her famous parties, this time for Independence Day on July 4, complete with fireworks that players could fire off from the roof garden, and a barbecue offering a range of treats, including yummy marsrat kebabs. And free drinks, of course!

The Paradise shopping mall opened for business near Venus.

We started to publish the QuickStart Guide in foreign languages, to help those for whom English is not their first languages. We also provided printable versions of the Sol maps - black on white, rather than white on black, not to elegant but more practical.