Hi everyone, I just wanted to let you know that I've gotten the MSD's room maps fixed, and as part of that I've teleported everything in the entrance to the room directly above it (all 313 entities). Additionally the tool that is used to update room maps works again so we'll be importing maps for things that don't have one yet, in the coming days.

Edit: To clarify, the MSD is the Merchant Space Dock. I've also added a room to the Strike to make the other half accessible, but the proper updates to room types, etc. are forthcoming.  

Action timers are currently broken. Stay tuned for updates.

Edit: Timers are working again.  

After last week's removal of the Galactic Message Exchange, Erek, Banquo, and I assembled to develop a new roleplaying forum for SWC. The goal was to create a forum for players interested in more roleplaying opportunities that could serve as an intermediate step between the unmoderated freeform Meeting Hall and the highly structured long-term White Scenarios.

At the top of the RPG Centre, you will now find the new Scenario Hall. This is a forum in which anyone may create a new thread to run a scenario of their choosing.

Similar to the Meeting Hall, no particular structure is required. Players who wish to participate in freeform roleplay and chat in a cantina setting may do so, and players who would rather start a more structured scenario with a storyline and end goal may do so as well. You may create [Open] scenarios in which anyone can participate, or [Restricted] scenarios just for a group of friends or factionmates. The thread starter is entirely in charge of his thread and its direction.

Similar to White Scenarios, XP will be rewarded for participation, although this amount is capped at 500 XP per thread (averaging to no more than 20 XP per post, although posts will not be scored individually). XP will be awarded once the thread is requested closed by the thread starter when the scenario is concluded to his satisfaction, or once the thread reaches 30 days of inactivity. XP is only intended as a participation reward for roleplaying and contributing to SWC's IC environment, and attempts at using the forum to farm XP will be blocked.

Moderators will only interfere in instances of godmoding, rules violations and abuse, or if specific complaints are submitted, and will post an XP tally at the end of each thread. This largely hands-off approach will hopefully prevent the forum from accumulating an XP backlog as we have commonly seen with White Scenarios, and will give players the freedom to roleplay in the SWC universe as they wish.

A full set of rules (many of which will be familiar to players experienced with White Scenarios), a brief guide to scenario types and how to get started, and a sample scenario thread have been made available in the forum. Please read the sticky threads, and if any questions arise, feel free to ask any of the moderators or post in the OOC discussion sticky thread.

The Meeting Hall and the White Scenario board will continue to exist unaltered, for players who prefer completely unmoderated freeform RP or the greater commitment and XP rewards of WSs.  

Hi everyone, quick update for today. Because of some potential for people to park outside NPC shops, burn cash on the infinite supply of new player items, and then recycle them into experience and raw mats, we've disabled item recycling entirely as a short term solution to prevent abuse. In the long term (hopefully not too long...), we're working on a new room type (incinerator) that will allow players to destroy items free of charge, but with no experience or raw material return, in order to retain the ability to de-clog your inventory without littering. 

It has come to our attention that the new faction Hq 'Merchant Space Dock' are being taken out of factions and owned for private use. There is a bug with the system where the HQ does not autoprotect allowing the station to be made over. Please do not do this. The stations are meant to be only owned by factions and serve as their Hq.

For those who privately own a MSD, I will be contacting you about resolving the situation. Thank you and sorry for the confusion.

EDIT Year 15 Day 6: I am aware that some of you were able to build these outside of a faction. This is also an error and we ask you, if you can do it, to please not. Hopefully we will get that bug straightened out in time.

Arjuna Edit: Year 15 Day 232 Merchant Space Docks are still not to be taken out of factions. The code normally should prevent this but some of you seem to have found a workaround. If they end up in the inventory of characters it is via a bug. If I find them, they will get sent to Darkness and made NPC owned  

Some updates we've been waiting for for a while have been synced to the main server.

Rules
- Updated the NPC Rules to clarify custom NPC hiring and correct the NPC skills information.
- Updated the Support the Combine instructions.
- Restored the equations on the Production Rules.
- Restored the equations on the Station Construction Rules.
- Restored the equations on the Recycling Rules.
- Restored the equations on the Bacta Creation Rules.
- Restored the equations on the Cybernetic Operations Rules.
- Squading ships will auto assign the person as pilot.

Features
- Added "Kick Passenger" button to position interface when in the cockpit, along with a passenger listing, for the pilot of the ship.
- Horizontal Images can now be uploaded for facilities to allow for different aspect ratios.

Bug Fixes & Tweaks
- "Joined in the last 24 hours" list will now show all characters created within the past 24 hours.
- Now anyone who is assigned commander/pilot [or whatever those names are] of a city can modify roads (todo: add this to rules).
- Deflection will now only give FXP once per session.
- Protected entities can no longer be recycled, with the exception of HQs. Rules page updated to reflect the new requirement.
- All faction types are now allowed to assign the Security Authorisation privilege to other members.
- Hidden races no longer shown as an option for custom NPCs (ID: 3431)

Art
- New systems and planet art uploaded.
- New rules images for: G-1a Transport, YT-2400, and Barloz-Class Freighter

Edit: There were a few issues with the kick button not appearing, and some breaking issues with changes to the way item boxes were drawn; these have been updated as well. 

After a number of IRC services difficulties today, a backup of the IRC services database from earlier this year has been restored (and this time nicks won't all drop spontaneously; I promise). Any channel/nickname changes that occurred in the past few months will need to be made again. This includes nick registrations and channel access changes. If there are any necessary channel transfers to be made or anything else requiring an oper's intervention, leave a note in #swc-help and Selatos, ETJ, and I will take care of them as soon as we can.

Supes Edit (reflecting official opinion of the SWC ASim Team):

Friends, countrymen, please stop entering your Merchant Space Docks. Please stop putting things in your Merchant Space Dock. Please stop docking inside your Merchant Space Dock. It is one of many entities falling victim to the death of the Room Tool.

I have teleported one of you three times now. It reminds me of House, M.D. (semi-relevant picture below).

Thank you.

A few months ago, NPC skills were updated for each NPC type for balance purposes (detailed in the linked post, for those who missed it). The promised HP update to NPCs level 10 and higher has just been completed by Zhao, so HP values are now accurate for NPCs that are unable to level further. Wounded NPCs have also been healed to full in the process. This only affected max level (or higher) NPCs.

Lower level NPCs that have not leveled since the NPC template changes may experience automated HP adjustments when they level. That concludes this series of NPC updates and there are no plans to make further template changes at this time. In the future, some of the less useful or redundant NPC types may be merged with other types, but nothing has been conclusively decided yet.  

Ladies and gents,

I have taken the liberty of resetting the hirable NPC population. You should now be able to hire NPCs at your leisure. I have also fixed the bug causing the automatic reset at the end of every month.

As an added bonus, I have also fixed the code that was causing taxes on facility income to not be distributed.

Have a good day!  

Checks were completed on Day 142 as promised; factions not meeting the requirements for Membership/Assets were dissolved. In doing so, we accidentally fixed the counters that run automatic dissolution. Faction leadership is now getting accurate dissolution data and the relevant warnings should be heeded. Rewards for those who helped with the checks have been paid out.

As for the bill, please click HERE.

Faction Leadership should send their payment to Ghost by Day 150.  If you do not, assets will be seized to pay for the fines. Please keep your factions in order. Thank you.

Clarification: The violations were recorded when the initial check was announced. The Day 142 Deadline was for the factions at risk for dissolution. It was not a deadline for you to avoid a fine. The "at risk"  designation was to let leadership know that its issues needed to be addressed; the fines were already determined by that time. I understand, after reading several reactions to the initial announcement, that there may have been some misunderstandings. The fines were for failing to have maintained a professional appearance at the time of the announcement. Correcting the errors by Day 142 was required, but does not erase the fact that your group was unsatisfactory on Day 136.

Supes EDIT (again)  

UPDATE (Day 145): BE ADVISED, AUTO-DISSOLUTION RE-ENABLED, ONE WOULD BE WISE NOT TO IGNORE THE WARNING EVENTS

It is that time of year!  The administration will be checking factions to make sure they are in line with the requirements listed in the rules.  This includes the faction status in membership and bankruptcy.   Information will be gathered over the coming week, with the 'deadline' for meeting all required standards falling on Year 15 Day 142.  If your group does not meet the required standards, it will face fine/dissolution based on violation.   Fines will be 1,000,000 credits per violation of the following requirements:

• Horizontal Banner (468 x 60 Pixels)
• Vertical Banner (60 x 468 Pixels)
• Logo (70 x 70 Pixels)
• Faction Description (150 words in length)
• An Active Leader (Last login less than 14 days ago)

If an owner/ leader needs assistance with the checks or has any questions, please feel free to find a member of Administration on IRC or by DM.  If you feel your group cannot meet the requirements and wish it to be dissolved before the deadline, also contact a member of Administration.  

Clarification: Factions falling below the minimal requirements for capital and membership will be dissolved.  Governments will be evaluated based upon Government Requirements, not basic faction Requirements. 

UPDATE (Day 137):  The initial check on factions is complete.  There are 44 factions that currently do not meet the minimum requirements to be considered a faction.  There are also several governments that are below the minimum requirements.  I will be rechecking periodically throughout the week.  We recommend you do what you can to get your factions in order to prevent dissolution.  Dissolution is set for day 142 on the factions that do not meet requirements.    If you have any questions about your status, feel free to DM Ghost or find him on irc with any inquiries. 

Also, if you notice a factions banners, logos or descriptions violate the rules, feel free to DM Ghost with that information.  CPs will be awarded for the first received report of violation.

UPDATE (Day 139): There has been some confusion on this, so I will make it clear, regardless of "days left" on your event warnings,  all factions who fall below the line and who do not correct it will be dissolved on Day 142.  I was not going to publish any sort of list, as I saw it as a way for people to get information on the status of factions that they would not normally have access to, but since there has been such little work done by the factions still under the limit, I decided that the most fair and best practice would be to publish a list.  This way no one can claim they were not notified or were unsure of their status.   You can ask to have your faction manually dissolved before that date. Click Below to check if your faction needs to contact Ghost.

UPDATE (Day 145): BE ADVISED, AUTO-DISSOLUTION RE-ENABLED, ONE WOULD BE WISE NOT TO IGNORE THE WARNING EVENTS

CLICK HERE FOR DOCUMENT

If your faction has a Rules Violation reported that will result in a fine, it is also listed as "Needs Attention"

(Edited to correct Dissolution date.  It is Day 142)  

The earliest-made account of each group may request to return to SWC after one month.  

Multi-Registration null and void. Three week ban.  

Multi-account registration now null and void.  

It's been a while since someone got banned for this, so I arbitrarily picked some names from a hat.

On a more serious note, the Team would like to applaud those of you that turned away from the involved tempting intel once you learned that it broke the rules.

Anniasha, Blot, and Jaria have recieved a 6-week ban for knowingly receiving and/or distributing rules-breaking intel from a deceased character.

Slicer has received a 3-month ban for breaking the spying rules (specifically the first two bullets); a ban I have requested be extended to the IRC server.

---

This ban is for the knowing reception of illegal intel. Upon their return, if the intel is to then be used, any and all parties involved will recieve a permanent ban.

Thank you for flying Air Justice, please take your immoral actions with you as you depart the Combine, and we hope you've thouroughly enjoyed your trip.

----

EDIT by Dreighton (Y15 D156):

After serious reconsideration and investigation the bans are changed as follows:

The bans on Anniasha Shair and Blot Hlidskjalf are removed. The bans on Slicer and Jaria Feri are reduced to three weeks. We could not prove that any information was exchanged by any of them against the spying rules, but we can proof that Slicer and Jaria Feri considered the option and tried to raise interest in the material. There is no indication whatsoever that Anniasha or Blot were involved in this.

Now we usually do not punish intention, but Slicer's and Jaira's behaviour was causing quite a commotion and actually prompted Erek to act quickly. Thus it caused quite a bit of trouble for game administration and innocent players. So this is a clear warning to act sensible and considerate. It is also a warning, should anyone be tempted. Just because we can't proof now that any material has been traded yet, doesn't mean we may not go after you later, should you behave suspiciously in the future.

---------

Update by Dreighton (Y15 D158):

Someone came forward and provided me with evidence that was withheld from me earlier. After consulting the evidence, Slicer and Guinar Ndengin, it has been established that Slicer issued threats OOC to Guinar Ndengin and this is why the three months ban is reinstated. As this may cause some confusion I want to stress that this is not about sharing intel, but issuing threats OOC. I want to thank Slicer and Guinar Ndengin for helping me to solve a difficult situation.

I noticed that some saw my action as an attack on Erek. It was not. Administration received complaints about the ban and as one of the administrators I looked into the situation. I found that there was not enough evidence to support the bans in the form they were issued. Still Erek acted quickly in a situation that called for swift action and I am not criticising him for it. We need assistants who are willing to take action when necessary, but we also need an administration that takes another, more careful look at things, if this turns out to be necessary.

This has been settled now, you can go on with your lifes.  

Vance Anson, Tray Collins and Tso`Hen Hito have been banned for being unregistered Multis.  There was an additional account(s) created that refused to open a support ticket to get registered as mulitiples.  We asked them multiple times to stop submitting names and open a ticket.  They did not.  This is not only illegal, but very very annoying.  Since the new accounts refused to follow our simple request of getting register, all accounts on that IP have been banned for 3 weeks.  They can create a support ticket in 3 weeks time to request the ban be lifted. 

Multi-registry status voided, 3-week ban. Oldest account from each player may request to return.  

Spice Girls?? Anyone??

Anyway! Xantos Nightshade and Gib Drestle has been banned 6 weeks for being the same person.  The player was using both accounts actively and benefiting from it.  All assets gained through cheating will be seized.   After 6 weeks, Xantos can create a support ticket to get unbanned.  

Gregory Nautillus and Gloter Indoxtro have been banned for being the same person.  After the ban time, Gregory can open a support ticket and ask to be unbanned.  If the account holder feels he has been unfairly banned, he can look to his multi registration ticket for an explanation and evidence.  Thank you.

EDIT:  OH and I almost forgot!

Dani Red, Zeth Farlander, Sien Dune and Corsair Quadrix have all been banned for 1 month for logging into each others account.  Their Multi Registration has been voided.  I have evidence that they could very well be the same person.  As such, only the original account shall be unbanned.  If the player thinks this is incorrect, they can open up a support ticket and we can discuss, at lengths, the rules and how not to violate them. 

As for the rest of you, please feel free to report any suspicious players to a member of administration.  We are happy to investigate and sometimes reward those who assist us in our duties.  Good day!

Edit: Sorry.... I will try to handle all my business at once in the future.  Just had alot of work to check and keep stumbling upon these things.

Andrew Keyes and Walter Watts have been banned for 3 weeks for being illegal multis.  As with above, it is likely that they are being played by one person.  The original account can open a support ticket in 3 weeks to get unbanned.   

These guys are pretty much permabanned, because they are a repeat offender and they are still trying.  

Due to violation of the rules, Luke Miller has had his handle changed to Santor Spaxi. That is all.   

When I approve multi accounts, I always encourage/remind players NEVER to log into each others accounts.  Blade Starsprinter and Lu`zuck R`Qrygg have been banned a month for opening a false multi request and logging into both accounts.  The multi registration is void.  The original account can create a support ticket in 30 days to ask to be unbanned.  To prevent abuse, the second account will not be unbanned.

In this case, when I came to the player about the offenses, he was completely honest about it.  He told me everything, which is why I was lenient.  Things will always go better for you if you tell the truth and admit your mistakes.  Better to deal with the slap on the wrist and come clean then feel the full weight of the ban hammer.   If you have an illegal account, or break the law, you will be found.... one day....  

Registration in Multi-Account Registry null and void; ban lessened by one week due to their acceptance into the registry being almost entirely administrative error on the part of the ASim approving them.  

Two updates for you all this evening.

The first is that the easter eggs/presents have finally been converted into CPs. For your entertainment, here are some statistics on the results:

Total eggs: 158799
Homeless eggs (unclaimed): 147824
Claimed: 6.911%

Top ten egg collectors:
#1: Steve Sphinx with 365
#2: Xrati Zee with 253
#3: Bancho Curr with 250
#4: Guenther Netzer with 250
#5: Xakic Jix with 159
#6: Bossive Ketwol with 156
#7: Dac Kain with 150
#8: Kal Djin with 142
#9: Ellias Aubec with 134
#10: Emanon Klatoo with 131

You may also have noticed that you received two CP events. This is because I screwed up the first time while distributing rewards :(.

The second is that we've posted two new bounties in the "Work for CPs" forum: the first deals with improving the way CSS files are organized and updated, and will probably be a relatively lengthy project; the second deals with NPC template skill representation on the rules pages. If you'd like to contribute to SWC but don't know how to program, these are good opportunities that do not require extensive experience, and hopefully you will be satisfied with the reward/effort ratio.

Edit: The egg removal caused some problems with certain containers, but this has been fixed.  

New round of the Deathmatch. There are a selection of new grudge matches as well for you to vote on.
   

Well, I finally got around to refreshing the Deathmatch. So, go vote for your favourite players. We also have a selection of new grudge matches for you to vote on - remember, we always need more so submit a new grudge match now.  

Especially those of you who are actively contributing to the Holocron have been waiting for a voting process to be implemented for the monthly featured article. You can now suggest articles and vote for them on the talk page of the "Featured Articles" page. It is all quite simple. Everyone can support one article, article with most votes wins. If you do not have a Holocron account yet, you will have to create one and have it unlocked to vote. Please remember to use your exact SWC handle for your Holocron account.  

Due to Keir, I will be retiring as ASim.

Just kidding.  But on a serious note, after however long it's been on the ASim staff I would like to announce that I will be stepping down from the position and returning to in-character status.

It's been a wonderful time and i've thuroughly enjoyed my time working with the Administration here in SWC and doing would I could to support the players in the development of this game.  I will not be gone entirely, as I will be joining the Universe Team and devote my development efforts to the in-character and roleplay development of the Combine.

Thank you all for your support and for keeping me in-line when it was necessary and I will look forward to working with the players in Universe development and playing alongside the community once again.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Love,

Arete

On behalve of the SWC Administration, please let me wish you a Merry Christmas.

And of course, Christmas would not be Christmas without an adeqate Christmas Tree. Let me present you mine for the occasion.

--
Veynom  

Well, the Deathmatch advances. Do you choose the ever present winner Asa, or bow to our god of coding, Zhao? We also have a selection of new grudge matches for you to vote on.

Edit:
This holiday the ASIMs should...
I'd love to see what you think we should do, I personally think throwing Loki into Asgardian prison is good enough, but how about you --Gav (Yes, I'm alive)  

As you should all be aware, we mandate that all players in this game limit themselves to a single account. However, we are aware of the fact that things sometimes happen, such as people losing access to their account, or not being totally familiar with the rules.. As such, we are offering any holder of a multi-account to come forward now, and be provided with amnesty. Any player who currently has a multi-account (whether created accidently, or purposely), will be given the next two weeks to create a support ticket, outlining their illegal multis, and which account they wish to keep. The other accounts will then be banned and their assets seized.

Please Note: This amnesty assumes that your assets are now frozen on your illegal accounts. Anyone caught trying to move assets off of these accounts before or after coming forward will lose all the assets moved, and will be fined a sum to be determined on a case by case basis.

I would also advise that any player currently sharing a connection with another player, register their status through the support base, to avoid unwanted attention.  

The White Scenario team is looking for new moderators and trainers!

To those of you who would like to see more roleplaying in the Combine and less godmoding in the Meeting Hall, now's your chance! If you have a lot of RP experience, enjoy reading other people's creative writing, and/or know how to earn over 100 XP for a post that isn't your first in a scenario, then we could probably use your help. At this time, we need both WS Moderators and Trainers:

- WS Moderators score the posts in scenarios; awarding XP for players and CPs for GMs.

- WS Trainers take new roleplayers through a ten part training curriculum to prepare them for Meeting Hall and White Scenario roleplay. We have recently moved our training forum to the RPG Centre, with hopes of eventually running scenarios there, but we desperately need more staff to meet the demand.

These positions are awarded a generous salary of CPs every month for time spent reading and evaluating the posts of other Combine players. Prior participation in at least one White Scenario (WS) is strongly recommended, but not required to apply.

Please visit the Moderator / Trainer Sign-Up thread for a full list of requirements and application details.



(Not sure what a White Scenario even is? Check out Legend, the most recent scenario to reach completion.)

~On behalf of the WS team.

Arete's P.S.: This is also the place to go for those of you I have/will banned from the IC forums and directed towards the WS pre-scenario training.  

Edit: Year 14 Day 325

Thank you for all those who applied, my email has been pleasently beeping at me all hours of the day and night. We'll be reviewing candidates and be getting back to applicants over the next few days.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With the need for more members of the administrative team, we're once again looking to the players to find new Assistants to help with the day to day work of keeping the combine "functional" ( >_> ).


Job description: Assisting and resolving players problems requiring manual help, using admin tools. Must be knowledgeable about the Combine and how it works. Willing to set aside previous IC relations, and be willing to take strong player criticisms.  Specifically would be working with; Ticketing system, join applications, multi-accounts, #swc-help, and player assistance.  This position will require you to drop your character, and remove yourself from the IC universe.

If interested, please email to Arjuna@swcombine.com and include the answers to the following questions:

Combine Questions

1. How long have you been with the Combine?
2. What is your Combine handle?
3. What have you done IC so far? What are you doing at the moment? What is your position in your faction?
4. Did you complete any tasks for your faction that could qualify you for the programmer team? like doing a website, setting up a member's DB or anything like this?
5. Could you name two people that have been in the Combine for at least two years who worked with you and may be willing to give a testimonial for you?
6. Why do you want to help us?
7. What do you think you can bring to the team?
8. Are you involved in any other online games, or RPGs of a similar nature? If so, please specify your position in them.

Real Life

1. Where do you live?
2. How old are you?
3. What do you do IRL?
4. How much time can you spend on the Combine in general and helping in particular?
5. Were you involved in any projects that would qualify you for the position?

Feel free to email/DM any questions.   

So, another round of the Deathmatch, another round fo voting. We also have some new grudge matches as well for you to discuss. We do need new suggestions for grudge matches, as always, so go submit them.  

Hi.

I'm not going to be active much over the next couple months (except for spurts and spouts) due to college work piling up, and actual work taking the rest of my time away from me. I thought it would be curteous to give some sort of notice rather than ignoring your DMs for a couple weeks and then only getting back to you.

Chuck anything Arjuna or Jesfa's way until Arete returns (hopefully in the next week or two), and then I return! Apologies for late replies and such on my behalf so far, and I aim to get back to you!

Cheers..