Ike

Well, 8 hours to go. While I maintain my "Yes" vote, I would be disinclined to grant the application based on a simple majority given the passion of the dissenters. Not that it appears that it will even be that close. On a side note, GoGo, have you heard back from esfan? If not, I think we should boot him. As previously mentioned, the account has been in (v) mode for a year-and-a-half and if we are concerned about security, THAT is a huge hole. For my part, I would be inclined to "boot" the other longterm (I) or (v) accounts. If/when they get players/time to play actively, we can re-add them. But personally I would be happier with 15 active members. Less clutter on the Online Screen and a leaner-meaner D.a.r.k. - Ike

So far things look pretty slick. The graphics are a little sharper and they added a ton of stuff. There are now craft recipies and crafting components, both of which can be found or bought. There are luck potions, new levels of health/mana/antidote potions, group potions, etc. Combat has also been cleaned up a bit and the effects seem a little clearer to me. I popped by the new Zone and there was not a lot there, although there are new quests, etc there. There is also a Player-vs-Player gate in each zone that allows you to go up against others. You need to download the new client off the website (it took me ~2.5 hours due to server stres last night). Remove the old client and add the new one. The new client is ~440 M. - Ike

Any ideas on what can be crafted? I have gotten some crafting items now and again, but wasn't able to do anything with them. - Ike

Posted on the oof.

I asked Beowulf about this, he said that Nish was planning to get a moon there. I noted it was an odd place to get a moon and he agreed. I asked if Gin and Yaga should be concerned, he said that he had not heard them mentioned, but that they should probably be wary. That is all the news I have to report.

But, but, but, where are the Colony Ships:) Awesome hits there Coops! I like it when people don't bother to check the stats before sending their fleets. 31 RIPs, clearly HE did not build them. - Ike

Amarillo (Texas)

re: Yaga - I absolutely understand your position and concerns. It is not that I don't remember Eleanor, who I was quite adament we NOT allow to join, nor that I have forgotten Blade, who never applied. I simply see differences between them and Borg. Eleanor was an absolulte unknown whose first post here was an application to join. Eleanor had taken over pug's account, and to my knowledge had never played oGame. The ONLY reason anyone was interested in allowing Eleanor to join was because s/he had an account with a ton-o-points. Blade (according to Blade) had some real issues with Crunchie from the start and that animosity was the reason Blade did not apply to D.a.r.k. He claims that Crunchie beat on some of Blade's friends--profitlessly as I recall, was warned, and then Blade crashed him. I have no idea if that is true or not. Could/should Blade have handled things differently? Probably. Certainly if he wanted to ever be trusted by us. But the fact is, he never did apply to join D.a.r.k. and if he had (rather than joining PAWNZ), and we accepted him, there is no reason to believe that he would have acted inappropriately. I would also like to note for the record that Eleanor is NOT the last person to join D.a.r.k., trd is. And there was not a lot of discussion about him despite the fact that to my knowledge he had never really posted here before. The main differences are that we don't know who trd's friends in oGame are (or at least I don't) and a few people here knew him from Sacred. But he built up an oGame account pretty quickly, so he must have some friends. My point, if in fact I have one, is that just because people have friends in oGame does not mean that they will share sensitive information to those friends. If it did mean that, then you should all boot me out immediately. Because as I mentioned earlier, I am pretty close with almost everyone in PAWNZ. I'd say close enough that I could ask ~10 of the 15 for help or favors and expect to get them without question. A couple of examples: Ban Dana got a message from a PAXXOR about the 80 RIPs I was defense-crushing him with, including exact return time (two actually as he did not know if I sent @ 90% or 100%). Ban Dana, who has a bit of history with GoGo and who was once allied with PAX, was inclined to hit the return and asked around PAWNZ. Nish told him (after talking with me) that I was running the account, so he did not launch and instead sent copies of the PMs he had gotten. Kiki the Killer is located in the same SS as my bait fleet so I asked if he could provide rec support (10K worth) and he has A) kept ~700K of deuterium ready for a month and B) given me his online times. Note that I have NOT given those times to people here, even when trd was sending 6 MM res one slot away from Kiki's moon and was concerned about being phalanxed. Why? Because I consider Kiki to be a friend and he gave me that information in order to help me. I would not betray that trust. So I don't think that the question is "with whom is Borg friends?" I think the question is, "is he mature enough and trustworthy enough not to share sensitive information with others?" I feel that he is mature enough and trustworthy enough. Remember also that when Borg first logged in here there were a bunch of questions about whether or not he was a Jin Roh spy. . . . - Ike

Well, there is an "H" in SHEEP. Perhaps you could do something with that, let's Salsa, Humor, Elderly . . . - Ike

In my mind there are four questions . . . 1. Are we accepting new members (or capping at 19)? It sounds as if, although we are currently at 19, esfan may get booted/leave if he is not actually planning on playing, or that other (I)/(v) accounts could be removed pending active players to play them. 2. Do we like Borg enough to grant him admittance? For me the answer is "yes." He has been on the forums here for a long time, has been helpful, posts regularly, etc. Just the kinda person with whom I would like to play oGame. 3. Does he play regularly and competently? Again, I think that the answer is yes. His account, not handed to him, is well ranked and he has previously been in leadership positions in a couple of reputable alliances. 4. Can he be trusted? I believe that the answer is again "yes." He did not just show up on the forum last week and apply days later. He has been here for a long time. That he comes from Jin Roh is of little enough consequence to me, and does not suggest that he is dishonest. For all that many people have had run-ins with Ban Dana, I have never gotten the sense that he is not honorable. I see no reason to think that Borg's reationship with Ban Dana or Blade (who I gather is returning to U9) suggests that he will leak information, either intentionally or inadvertantly to PAWNZ. If we agree that he should be admitted, based on our views on the questions above, then he should be treated as all other new members are treated. If that is a 30-day probationary period, then fine. But I would not do anything differently. Either he is trusted/acceptable and is admitted or he is not trusted/acceptable and he is not admitted. So, uh, I vote YES (assuming we do not venture into the 20s in membership). - Ike

Nice BS count . . . he, he, he, it is funny to think of less than 100 BS being a lot. Anyway, nice hit. Wonder if he'll know what to do with the moon? - Ike

HAPPY BHJDAY!

Re: Yaga - I have been chatting with Borg for some time and I gathered that he was interested in joining D.a.r.k. or PAWNZ after he and Ban Dana left Jin Roh a few weeks ago. I am pretty sure that the Jin Roh-wing thingy is just a coincidence. For the last couple of weeks he has been asking the kinds of questions that one would ask about an alliance if trying to decide whether or not to join. Borg has been on FDM for a long time and I think he has been pretty straight with us. He was a lot of help with resources when I first took over GoGo's account a month or so ago and offered assistance with other things as well. Obviously, I have no inside information as to what happened with Jin Roh, but it looks like a lot of the old alliances are falling apart (Revenge, TLA, Jin Roh, to name a few). I think with the shrinking roles, a lot of people are ditching for what they perceive to be closer-knit and stronger alliances. For my part, I am not concerned about Ban Dana or PAWNZ. I have been friendly with Ban Dana for about a year, and I am on good terms with most of PAWNZ (Beowulf, Nish, Ban Dana, ThE DiO, Kiki, Lord Tiago, Mika, Anestty, Ince, etc.) and never get probed by them. I absolutely understand that much of D.a.r.k. does not have similar experiences, so I bow to your apprehension on that score. Re: Myles - Aurora was using my account ("Aurora," then "backspace," I took it back in August after it went (I) and GoGo is now running it as "The Borg Entity"), and I do not believe that she is still playing. My concern is more with the number of people currently in D.a.r.k. than with Borg's character or fitness, which I feel he has proven. - Ike EDIT: Ah, that explains those accounts. I always wondered who they were when I looked in the Alliance tab. Glad that Toret is still here, I was beginning to worry.

Well, *I* waited for your real birthday . . . HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

We are currently at 19 members, which is where I believe we were capping membership. Don't know if anyone has any thoughts on trimming our current membership . . . Member List (Members: 19) ID Name Rank Points Coords Joined Inactive 1 BlackThorn Raider 2.596.093 [1:218:6] 2007-06-05 06:32:21 0d 2 Blumpy Raider 2.835.122 [1:61:8] 2008-03-11 23:58:28 0d 3 Crunchie Sensei 3.516.888 [3:111:10] 2005-12-10 18:53:09 0d 4 cyclops Raider 1.862.602 [3:1:10] 2005-12-11 00:54:28 0d 5 Cygnus Jade Falcon 3.392.759 [3:387:6] 2006-07-09 16:52:29 0d 6 DarkIndy13 Ringmaker 3.107.666 [2:306:8] 2006-02-22 19:54:48 0d 7 esfan38 Master Miner 523.696 [1:333:10] 2006-07-18 05:23:05 1d (v) 8 Exile Raider 839.327 [2:287:6] 2007-06-14 19:29:33 10d (v) 9 gintukas GreeN 2.638.221 [2:30:8] 2006-02-08 07:49:58 0d 10 JaFoste Raider 1.905.975 [1:378:12] 2007-05-28 17:21:14 0d 11 Llama8 Bean Counter 4.874.525 [2:497:7] 2006-09-29 20:30:56 1d 12 locutus Raider 3.478.385 [1:225:12] 2006-04-07 08:24:28 0d 13 Master of the nuts Egg Painter 2.283.720 [1:212:6] 2006-04-07 08:24:34 6d (v) 14 Myles Raider 676.350 [4:76:5] 2007-06-14 19:29:29 0d 15 OMGSTUFF Raider 1.710.230 [2:342:9] 2006-04-07 08:24:46 0d 16 The Borg Entity Ovine Herder 837.875 [3:433:7] 2006-12-06 23:42:22 0d 17 toret Raider 378.295 [2:412:12] 2007-05-28 17:21:09 10d (v) 18 Yaga Egg Painter 6.196.694 [1:26:10] 2007-05-28 16:53:58 0d 19 yarasa Raider 861.252 [3:229:12] 2007-06-30 18:21:51 6d (v) Toret got banned for IP Check Activation 10 days ago, got unbanned at some point, but has not logged in since. Esfan38 has been in (v) pretty much continuously since I joined in late 2006. I have no idea who Exile or BlackThorn are. I don't think I've ever seen either of them on FDM. - Ike

And tack on for ABMs. The real problem is who else is in the area. With the increased range of IPMs, anyone within ~50-60 SS can hit you, although the IPMs will take a while to arrive. So partly it depends on who is around. Also remember that someone with enough ships will blow right through them, especially heavies, which will take few if any losses.

Submitted.

Nope, sorry, anything less than 1 Billion TD or 100 MM profits is just kinda so-so, ya know:) A big CONGRATS on a bg HIT there Coops! Enjoy the res! - Ike

Greetings, salutations, and generally welcome! - Ike

Apparently this started a month and change ago, but I just noticed it. Anyone interested, go here, entries due in the next couple weeks. - Ike

El Paso (Texas)

OK, I had a couple minutes . . . and I mean that literally. So I present a couple of celestial Geckos . . .

Let's see, 10 X £2,000,000 = £20,000,000 you just scored! Congratulations! Are you still going to hang around here now that you are a multi-millionaire:) Sounds like a pretty basic advanced-fee scam. Perhaps I'll write up some of the other Internet scams I've seen. Hmmm . . .

Hmmmm, e-tazer, hmmmm, gotta talk to the FBI and see if I can get my hands on one of those. As for other Cyber-undesireables, I've got a plea this morning in an identity theft case and I have a couple of child porn cases that are wrapping up---one who pled last month and another that will probably plead in the next couple of weeks. Most of the rest are still in the investigation stages, so probably best not to discuss those yet.

That is cool, GoGo. Looks like another account name change . . . He just probed my bait fleet. So perhaps he will make it his mission to score a big First HoF.