[conquest] conquest etiquette part 1 - the VAX game of the past

[Almighty Tallest Cataboligne]

sheesh, I hate spelling that word.

Also this is more of a history lesson - you might find it boring, the
second part has my suggestions.

Well, we have all been in some fun games so far...this indeed brings
back many memories from my college days.

Most of those memories are some of the most fun I ever had that many
considered wastefull...not so I would say - what the spirit within
enjoys, the spirit without enjoys (cryptic, I know)

But some of those memories are very bitter.

The following were different in VAX conquest: there was no vacancy -
if you closed the program your ship got wasted...you could only cloak
around a class M planet - anything else and your fuel would run out
and you would uncloak...generally there was only 1 ship allowed per
user account - and most users only had one account.

Even before it was known that (some) players had access to conqoper,
there were many accusations in heated games about players having
autopilot.  You need to understand that back in that day, the robot
was considered well nigh undefeatable by one opponent.  Things like
kill count effeciency improvement and sudden turn torp blasts, and
detonating a bots own torps on top of it with your own were not yet
discovered.

If a player had auto and could turn it on at the right moment in a
battle, it was devastating.  Especially during high lag sessions.  And
any time there were over 10 - 12 players or a lot of students using
the system high lag abounded.

Once I had conqoper access I found out the only players that ever had
it turned on were other opers and thier friends - not very cool...

When it became known people playing had conqoper (some geek just had
to show off...) many rude words were said in raised voices and game
exe access was locked out by the system manager a few times due to
complaints by staff.

Following this were a number of discussions of what was and was not
cool amongst the players, some with the system manager.

In general these were our mutual agreements for play:

No one played with another users account (students werent allowed to
access others accts anyway) or any of the work study accts.  Anyone
caught playing on two terminals simultaneously was barred from the
game and had all accounts they used to access the game blocked.  (a
few opers that wouldnt respect this and kept enabling locked out users
lost oper access amidst some bitter feelings...)

If an oper was changing the U, expermenting etc. the game should be
closed - and when if was re-opened things should be the way they were,
or in an initial state.

An oper/player should not have a second term session with oper open
while they were playing live.  Slimy things like changing owning
teams, un-genociding races, reseting the U prior to a conquer,
targeting certain planets with the eater and others were strict
no-nos.  If an oper was caught doing any of that they lost oper access
permanently.

Serious abusive messages were also grounds for banishment from the game.

Most importantly if everyone couldnt get along, not shout in the lab
and follow the rules laid down by the sysmgr - the game exes would be
locked by access control.

In time things like autopilot became a mute issue - bots are just plain stupid.
Opers learned the hard way not to screw around - by losing oper privs.
In time everyone learned to play nice, and those that couldnt were
banned or shamed into quitting voluntarily...

Now there is a new era of conquest, and I feel it important to point a
few things out along the same lines - to be published in part 2, so
everyone doesnt have to wade through all this.

-Cataboligne-
-Cat-
-Z-
(sheesh, do I have enough nicks or what)

----------------------------------------------
        3
      4 | 2
       \|/
     5--*----> 1   Thing is facing this direction
       /|\
      6 | 8
        7