Hello folks!

I wanted to play TradeWars 2002 again after, well, a long time away, and I saw that there were still some active servers, so I did some research over the last few days, figured out to use TelNet, and more. I noticed that some servers had been up for a very long time, and figured that my newbie esque self should play in a new game, so I found one less than a week old that I figured would put us all on even footing.

Now I saw that a lot of Bots and Scripts are common here in the forums or on the daily, but I was hoping to just, you know, play the game. I've always been against that sort of thing, like using the Bot for Angband and such. I want to play, not to just set it and leave. I enjoyed that. This is TradeWars, it's about trying to eek out a living and a game and often trying to beat others while doing so. That's the point of the game.

I'm happy losing. I'm happy being destroyed. That's okay. But a few minutes ago, after trading and spending about 2 hours in the game so far, I ran into a script-ed player who had advanced so much in the first five games that clearly, my low number of fighters, shields, and still in my first ship, were an easily destroyed speedbump.

Now again, I expect to die. That's the game. No whining here. I enjoyed my 2 hours before death. But, I would prefer to die going up against a real person who played, who sweated, who outplayed me. Not someone who grabbed a bot on day one and turned it loose.

Is there a place to be successful in the modern TW metagame without Bots or Scripts? Are there servers that prevent them? Thanks for any help!

Abe Sargent

Welcome back!

While there's no way to totally prevent them from being used, I do have some settings on my server that take the "bite" out of some of the most aggressive scripts.

#1 Rule - no matter what game you play, DO NOT kill an enemy fighter while they are online.

Check out some of the games on my server. I even have a solo game that's like the old single line bbs days. Only one player at a time can log in, so that's as close as I can get you to a script/bot-free zone to play in.

Hint: Stay out of game K. That one is much too difficult to play for anyone just returning.

Happy Trading!

yeah i guess we should have put a warning on K

I would also recommend game A on my server theres alot of people there who like to help new/returning players....

sk

Good information, specifically for returning players, here:

http://www.navhaz.com/tutorials/