What is the point?

[moomin]

Given the latest developments in the main forum, I'm getting the feeling that playing the game is kinda pointless. We've had too many upsets, to many outrages and too many strange incidents - all centered around the same person, too. Who is now to become some sort of Googlie assistant w/ game file access.

I know I haven't really been participating, but I have tried to keep up with events and point out risks and ideas where merited every now and then: kudos to those of you who have done the most - Archaic and GT.

However, since it seems our mysterious hacker and his friends have had access to our save games since the restart, I simply cannot find it in me to care much about all of this anymore. I will still pop in every now and then to cheer you on, but I'm basically out of what little participation I've put in so far: I don't think this game is honest, and therefor I don't think it's fun.

I hope some of you feel otherwise and wish you the best of luck.

[Mr. President]

I must admit that I'm a little suspicious of Tassadar too. He's too erratic for my liking - constantly posting topics while apparently stoned, and whatnot.

I'm gonna hang around, and see what happens - what might happen I really couldn't guess right now.

[Archaic]

We're all suspicious of Tass, and rightfully so. I already know that at least one other faction will be refusing to admit him to their forum, and two more are leaning towards that as well. The only people who seem to trust Tass at all are Googlie, and those in the Hive.

What really set off my danger signals....a newbie, for their first post, makes the topic about someone being a historian. Tass was the first to reply. The newbie hasn't been seen since. Anyone else think this is perhaps a little odd?

[Mr. President]

Hmm. That is unusual - to say the very least. Do you happen to have the link?

[AdamTG02]

I'm returning to this forum after a long absence. My apologies for simply disappearing; I had posted before that I might be unable to continue with my summer job picking up, but in any case I should have found the time to post that I was going on sabbatical.

It's my hope to have the time this weekend, due to the summer job's ending and classes not having picked up just yet, to update the technology thread. However, I openly admit that I will not have the time this semester to be an active DG member. Thus, I make the standing offer: If anyone is interested in taking the position of Chair of Pure Sciences, I will resign. Until then, I will post updates as time allows.

That said, this thread begs the question: Do people actually want to continue? If not, there would be little point in updating the science thread. If so, though, it's my hope to inject a little energy into a sluggish game.

For my part, I am willing to continue at my slow pace, if and only if others are interested in continuing. Worst-case scenario: Tass sells us out to the Hive, which runs roughshod over the other factions. That's if Tass is untrustworthy, which is possible but not certain. However, in that case, whsat have we lost? A lot of effort, certainly, but... It's not my view that the point of the game is the winning. If the game has value, the value is realized in the playing.

That said, I'm not the one who'd be putting forth the lion's share of the effort. Archaic, GT, and any other future turnplayers are. With that in mind, I think the decision to stop or to keep playing should be theirs.

However, my perosnal opinion is that we don't know Tass is untrustworthy, so we shouldn't abandon the game on that basis. If the game is abandoned, it should be because we, individually and as a group, have lost interest. And I know what that's like, having participated in my share of failed Internet games. My advice: Fight it. And I know I'm a hypocrite in this... But we can get back the initiative that we've lost. RPing in this forum would be a good way to start making things interesting; I have a few ideas in that regard, but I'll only have the time to get the ball rolling, if at all. The real question is, is there interest?

I'll let you all answer that question now; my spiel is done. Thanks for tolerating an AWOL Science Chair who just now returns and talks about reentering the fray. Whatever the decision, good luck in all you do.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by moomin
it seems our mysterious hacker and his friends have had access to our save games since the restart

I honestly don't know what to make of the hacker (Razor Blade) situation.

Current thought is that it's a one time deal - around turn 30 he got the Hive password, found where in the turnsave file the encrypted password lay, ran some extended dictionary-type tests to break the encryption and came up with a slew of possible passwords. Tested them and found five that fit (well 4 actually, as we are surmising that he knew the Hive one to start with, but it could just have been luck that he landed with it exactly)

As I said in another thread, we CMN's are fond of faction-linked passwords (eg rifle, gunbarrel, fort, etc., for Sparta, and so on) which make (made) it easy for a hacker to come up with password-equivalents

The question is; why did he do it? Was he put up to it by someone? By whom? Tass? Some suspect him 'cos he's been angling for all-forums visitation rights since the last "oops" incident. So getting a friend to hack the passwords and send them to him would make it impossible for him to continue as a Hive player, ergo let him be a member of all factions. (BTW, I support this as being the best way to muzzle Tass and stop those stupid "looniversity" posts) - I do think that he would be honorable and respect the secrecy of all factions

Others suspect Kody, based on the "Luke, I am your father" incident. But what's in it for him. He's a good enough strategist that he doesn't need to stoop to that, in my opinion

However, I have to say that in all my perusing of the private forums threads, there is no action being taken or contemplated that would indicate a level of knowledge greater than should be apparent from that faction's status in the game.

i.e. if there is persistent reading of the turns, then I see no evidence of this in the other factions' gameplay or strategy or tactical discussions

So I'd suggest that we continue. If there is indeed any evidence of snooping, then the game could be jettisoned, or else I could invest the time to exactly create the factions' situation as a new scenario (say it was decided in 2140 that too much was compromised, I could recreate the status quo as at 2140) and set new unbreakable passwords (gibberish ones that would mean that the hacker could still penetrate them but would need thousands more hours 'cos there wouldn't be any english language word leaping out at him - something like 71%f9/P3e`K - that would deter most hackers, common wisdom suggests

Sorry for being so long wnded, but in concert with most of you, quite a large part of our lives has been devoted to this game these past months and it'd be a shame to just see it wasted

Googlie

[Snowflake]

Well, at least we proved that tass is honest afterall, that he didn't sell you out to the Hive.