Much like a premature ejaculation, the time between someone [asking for barefoot to be banned](https://eisonline.classictw.com/) and when he was [actually banned](https://eisonline.classictw.com/) was extremely short. Unfortunatelly, this leaves me in a bad position: I no longer have anyone left to make fun of. Therefore, I have started a campaign to get Barefoot back in the [EIS forum](https://eisonline.classictw.com/) for this reason alone. Don't just sign the campaign for yourself, sign it for me... the disgruntled college student. If you don't want to sign it, then your just lying to yourself! [Take a look at the current supporters....](https://web.archive.org/web/20000000000000*/https://titan.guestworld.com/wgb/wgbview.dbm?owner=goddamnkids_1&images=on) [For Godsakes sign it already!](https://web.archive.org/web/20000000000000*/https://titan.guestworld.com/wgb/wgbsign.dbm?owner=goddamnkids_1)

Game opened May 27th, 2000. The GBI will be recognized as reigning champions until the end of NEXT years game! The GBI is officially recognized by these sponsors... Cruncher's, Intergate TWGS, Deep South TWGS, Dragon's Elite, TradeWars.org, Hekate's TW Links, US Open Tournament, Haunted Halloween Tournament, The Home Sector. Teams that registered for the Year 2000 WTC: 1: Christmas Islanders [registered 2.22.00] - c3p0- CEO - Putnam - Chadwick - Maniac Max 2: Trade Warriors Alliance [registered 2.22.00] - Jean-Luc Picard - CEO (Good) - Black Widow - CEO (Evil) - Hairball - J0ker - Kavrozoomax - Everyone 3: Neo-Federation [registered 2.29.00] - Sexy Dixie - CEO - Mani - Gordon Gekko - Allie - The Borg Man 4: The Jedi Knights [registered 2.29.00] - Jedi Luke - CEO - Jedi Master - Billzillia - Renegade Warrior - Natash --=< Nav Haz Unltd.>=-- [registered 3.13.00] 5: DarkOne - CEO - Chunky - Fuseblown - Acid Reflux - Catholica - Cracker 6: No Name Corp [registered 4.23.00] - Solchar The Blue - CEO - McMatt - Reflect 7: USMC [registered 4.26.00] - Devil Dog - Blue CEO - Moldar - Red CEO - Quirk (B) - Hekate (B) - Oso (R) - Cheysula (R) 8: The Wolfpack [re-registered 4.27.00] - Jackal - CEO - Wookie - Zep - Prestone - Doodle - Stonewall 9: Red Thunder Industries [registered 4.30.00] - WildCard - Red CEO - Agent Orange - Octane - Ultimus - Blue CEO - Hollywood - Buran 10: Empty Threats Inc. [registered 4.30.00] - Coren - Blue CEO - Yuri Andropov - Sir Elliot - Stretch - Red CEO - Venom - Chuchillain 11: The Black Knights [registered 5.2.00] - Ripclaw - Maverick - Rawhead Rex - Lord Chaos - Last Starfighter - Artemis 12: The Good, The Good, The Indifferent [registered 5.7.00] - Good Girl - Co-CEO - Guardian - Co-CEO - Peacemaker - Mirkath - Atog - Hellbitch 13: Dark Skies Industry [registered 5.9.00] - Luke Skywalker - CEO - Red - Steal Talon 14: VIRII [registered 5.12.00] - Rolodex - HELLCAT - DarkHawk - Lord Talon - JacK BoX - Epicenter 15: The Coalition [re-registered 5.13.00] - Saint - CEO - Stinger - Latenite - Black Bart - Timberwolf - Saiyan 16: Puppet Masters [registered 5.14.00] - Night Stalker - CEO - Acid - Enigma - Animal - Cowboy - White Knight 17: General Products [re-registered 5.17.00] - Krank - Mojoe - Soylent Green - Space Ghost - Red CEO - Tweety - Kavanagh 18: Death From Above [registered 5.19.00] - Axewinder - Hawk - Homer - Hornet - Scooter - Speaker of the Dead 19: Tachyon [registered 5.19.00] - Minex - CEO - Ash - Merick - Gangien - Deaz 20: Death Corp [registered 5.27.00] - Killer Death - Death Machine - Doctor Death - Evil Death - Silent Death - Death Maker 21: Istari [registered 5.26.00] - Pax - Moxi - Kellie - Toad - Sting 22: The Huns [re-registered 5.26.00] - Attila - Banano - Dark Lord - Morpheus - Rand Al Thor - Sharkey 23: The World Eaters [re-registered 5.26.00] - kRider - Ceo - Nexus - Centurion 24: Starfleet Command [re-registered 5.26.00] - Kozak-- Blue CEO - Bigdog - Paladyne-- Red CEO - Sparkle - Exodius - Cruncher 25: The Last Minutemen [re-registered 5.26.00] - Barnhill - CEO - Ant - Curt - Sol - Maelene - Retaliator 26: Don't Talk to Me [registered 5.27.00] - Crumb - Lyquid - Omnip0tent 27: Corrupted Traders [registered 5.27.00] - Corrupted - John Sheridan - Flux - Leto_V - Entropy 145 Players Entered.

More Ph4t l33t will given to the winners of this year's [Battle of The Elite](https://web.archive.org/web/20000000000000*/https://tradewars.fament.com/bote2000.html) thanks to yours truely. I will be adding my Tic Tac Toe program written in C++ for Solaris to the prize pool. (Est. Retail Price: $29.99) This will be given to the winners.

For a week or two, I thought that Barefoot might become aware that he is an asshole and might [stop being one.](https://eisonline.classictw.com/) High Hopes are shattered easier than low ones. [Sigh.](https://eisonline.classictw.com/) I thought about replying to his [latest holier than thou fest,](https://eisonline.classictw.com/) but decided against it. He's going to be banned anyway so there is really no point.

The Battle of the Elite's website can now be found at [https://tradewars.fament.com/bote2000.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20000000000000*/https://tradewars.fament.com/bote2000.html) Two traders you may be familiar with will be the gameops, [Hosem](https://web.archive.org/web/20000000000000*/https://tradewars.fament.com/Cruncher/Hosem.htm) and Monday. One of the prizes already announced is a free copy of SWATH for the winners. But [ATTAC](https://web.archive.org/web/20000000000000*/https://www.tw-attac.com/) and [EIS](https://eisonline.classictw.com/) are also supporting, which could mean even more free l00t. All software authors are asked to help contribute, which includes myself. Look for my prize to be announced soon!

I'd post something new that's happening, except nothing is. If you've been wondering about the coherency of my last post, it was inspired by Captain Ebolter who I linked to at the end. His use of the English language was so profound, I had no choice but to adapt it. Did I also mention it's finals week here at UL? Did I also mention I had to take a hard test? I certainly know I didn't say that I also slept 16 hours yesterday.

i log on to homesect0r and stuff this weekend and im all ok lets go to sd and whatnot so i kill some aliens in msl and get a commish thingy and i get iss.boom.i see guy fighting ferrengi out sd and im all woo follow up behind him cause hes gonna die and such and i hit him.he call 911 zyran say no like.im like wtf.so i see he got like 12 fig left so i figure ah what the heck and cast photon on him and i get this error message saying could not photon sd.wtf wtf wtf.then i get mad and leave and see eleq in space so im like Interdictor biznatchio and i get error message say sysop hate me.im like wtf again.eis the game is broken fix this stuff asap [and what not.](https://web.archive.org/web/20000000000000*/https://lum.xrgaming.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/003467.html)

**I've heard that Nintendo has tried to talk you into making "Pokemon 2002" where you trade through the galaxy for Galactic Pokemon. Any truth to this?** I don't expect Pokemon to be still around in 2002. I know this is radical thinking, but I base it on my market research and the precedent set by Pogs (tradable disk game for those who don't remember). That's probably just wishful thinking, though :) **Any chance you could tell us a few of the things planned for the real sequel?** That's so wide open at this point that I wouldn't want to pin it down. The opportunities will largely dictate the form of the project. If it's possible to interest a game publisher in the project, then the sky's the limit. If I'm forced to continue developing as a "lone gunman", or with a small team, the scope of the project would be severely limited. That's not to say that it wouldn't be an enjoyable game. Just that it would likely be another small market game, hopefully a slightly bigger step in the right direction than Trade Wars 2002. Things are at a very early stage right now. There are two other individuals involved with the project, and a third being considered. The two I will name are Bil Simser and John Glynn. Bil has been around the BBS scene for awhile, and was involved in the MBBS version of LORD (to name only one project). He also authored the CDX DirectX toolkit, and is publishing a book on DirectX RTS game design (yes, there WILL be graphics :). John is a very talented musician (music too!). He has a web-based recording business, Lead Mine Pond Productions (https://www.leadminepond.com), an eclectic musical style, and for some odd reason, a desire to score computer games. Our plan is to put together a working prototype game and shop that around to some publishers. If anyone takes an interest, we'll forge ahead with a full-scale adaptation of Trade Wars 2002. If not, that won't deter us. We'll simply scale back on the production and plan to release the game TWGS-style. Regardless of how large the production becomes, it is my goal to continue to release the game for hosting by small gameops just as Trade Wars 2002 always has been. **What lies in the future for Tradewars 2002 and the Tradewars license?** My view of Trade Wars 2002 is that it's a part of computer history and was a classic before I ever started poking around the code. My goal is to leave the current version of the game in a highly playable state so it can continue to be enjoyed in a spirit of nostalgia well into the future. As for the license, the name has a great deal of recognition value, and I'd be crazy not to attempt to utilize that. If I don't, somebody else will. There are already several other "Trade Wars" game projects out there :( **Speaking of that, there have been quite a few games lately that make use of the "space trading" genre that Tradewars revolutionized and kept alive all these years such as the upcoming Freelancer and the now canned Privateer Online. (Thank those bastards at EA for the later) I've seen a lot of articles about these games that keep saying how they wish Tradewars was still around. What do you think both players and webmasters can do to tell people that Tradewars is still alive?** I have personally been quiet about the current project. I want to have TWGS running smoothly before giving it any major push. It has come a long way and I think it makes a pretty good impression at this point. But with only a little bit of serious play, the game bugs start to show up and many people will not stick around long enough to see them fixed. Once I'm satisfied with the stability of the game and server, I'd want to try to get word out to the over 17,000 people who registered Trade Wars 2002 since 1990, and the untold number of players. The best way is probably word of mouth. The game server tends to get its own word out, as shown by the number of people who have registered over the last year despite the fact that I have never advertised. Actually, if and when that time comes, the two best approaches that I know of will be news reports/interviews in relevant online and printed publications, and exposure through the major shareware download sites. A mention on any one of those sites can get the word out to thousands of people who will be at least curious about what's going on with Trade Wars these days. **Is EIS planning to hire any interns soon? Uh.....a friend of mine...yea that it, who goes to school and yells a lot on his webpage he does on the side said he'd be really interested. He said he'd only work for McDonald's Hamburgers.** Actually, that's a tough issue for me. One of my highest goals right now is just to reach a point where I can HIRE anyone. I have far too many things that I'd like to accomplish, yet I'm still too small to properly compensate anyone for their help. I'm constantly being offered help in many forms (except money, of course :), but volunteers can't provide the kind of effort that I need. I need people who can take the lead in various projects, and you simply can't ask someone to do that for free. Actually, the first thing I need is someone who knows how to run a business, and then perhaps the rest could follow. I have my nose too much in the code to do what needs to be done to keep EIS moving forward. Maybe I should have gone for a business degree instead of engineering :( **What do you plan to add to TWGS in the near future?** There are so many directions I need to go. Security needs to be improved (ie, added). I want to rewrite the server in two parts, a server core and an administration client, so the efficient server core can run in the background, even as a service, and the admin client can be run only when needed, local or remote. I want to add a feature to broadcast game information from TWGS sites to an EIS game list server, and provide a web site where players can search for their next game (similar to Micro's automated Trade Wars listings). I want to generalize the server so that it serves Trade Wars games, but can also serve other games designed for it (I'm working on rights to port Legends of the Red Dragon as the next title). There are many other smaller goals, and I'm always receiving valuable feature requests from customers. **Will Barefoot ever stop talking about "fixing" tradewars 2002? (You don't have to answer this :D)** No comment :) **What kind of games to do you play?** I enjoy all kinds of games, but I try not to play them too much because I can waste a lot of time there. On the other hand, it's important to keep up with developments in the industry. I recently played and finished Homeworld, Age of Empires II, Myth II, and Baldur's Gate. I'm most interested in strategy games, which tend to be RTS these days. **Favorite Breakfast Cereal?** I never stick to one brand very long. Variety is the key :)

Graz "I'm not a dupe...no really!" Hoppa recently announced something: [https://www.egroups.com/message/tw2002/15143](https://web.archive.org/web/20000000000000*/https://www.egroups.com/message/tw2002/15143) "tw.tradewars.org will host it's first major series of tourneys.. there is a practice game already in progress.. the tourneys will be a series of 5 games- ... The tourney will be hosted on a DEDICATED 550 processor with a little over 1k ram-" That's right, apparently this "little over 1k ram" tournament will be run on an **overclocked TI-85 Calculator.** Graz later corrected me by saying it was really 1 gig of ram which was "given" to her. That's roughly $700 worth of ram. **How the hell does that happen?** Does she have some sort of secret benefactor like Pip does in *Great Expectations*? Furthermore, when will people learn that ridiculous amount of ram make no diffrence in performance? Granted, [Ultima 9](https://web.archive.org/web/20000000000000*/https://www.dailyradar.com/reviews/game_review_441.html) might actually be playable with that much ram, but I'm more interested who in their right mind actually gives out $700 dollars worth of ram when only $120 is needed at most. **Interview with John Pritchett Part 2 now up** [Part 2 of my interview with John](/post/1155) is up. We talk about the Pokemon inspired sequel to Tradewars and find out how John gets his vitality in the morning. It's also proven to whiten your teeth! [Read part 1](/post/1154) if you haven't. Still have questions? [send them in!](mailto:mk@tradewars.org) I'm looking for questions from people to make up part 3 of this interview. I've gotten a few in already. The interview will be archived in the Articles section.

"one night while playing Lemmings he had been playing some strange, text-based game on a BBS." For those of you that don't know him, John Pritchett is the current programer of Tradewars 2002 and also heads Epic Interactive strategy. I've never heard of the guy, but I guess he's pretty important if I'm interviewing him. He also owns the rights to some tradewars 2002 game. I think he was on that "Who wants to be a Millionare?" Show also. **My first question is, what do you do besides program Tradewars? I've heard reports from someone that there's a John Pritchett working at a local McDonald's in Fresno, CA.** Yeah, that's me. And I'm also an editorial cartoonist in Hawaii, and I occasionally show up on TV credits as a sound technician. Actually, I considered changing my name because this one is way too common :( Seriously, though. I actually do this full time. Because of my wife's career, we need to be pretty mobile, which means I can't really spend too much time with any one company. So we decided that I would take a shot at building my own company on the Internet so I can carry it with me wherever we decide to go. My work with Trade Wars has been very helpful in this way, because it puts me in contact with people who are active in the gaming industry (it's amazing how many people have played this game). Trade Wars isn't my only project, of course, but most of my other projects are still in R&D.; I'm currently in Oklahoma City, but I expect to be in a small town in Nebraska within a few months :( Not a lot of game development going on in that neck of the woods. Some of you may know of the last company I worked for. It was Multi Service, the company that runs Metropolis BBS on the side. That's where I met the Martins. That's an interesting story, actually... **Care to elaborate on this story?** Certainly :) I might as well give an overview of my history with Trade Wars, if you don't think it's too long-winded. It was always my dream to be an independent software developer, or more specifically, a game developer. But I always believed it was a long shot, and I didn't focus my efforts on making that happen. I got a degree in a non-computer field, and when I graduated, I looked for work that was focused on my field of study, yet computer related. I ended up going to work for Multi Service out of college, back in '94. I worked in the billing department (their primary business is a fuel credit card for fleet customers). This was not at all interesting to me, but I chose the job over more interesting jobs in other areas (including a job designing control systems for satellites) so I could stay close to my then girlfriend, Angel. After about 6 months at that job, I was driving to work and I rear-ended a green minivan at a stoplight. The occupants were very understanding, and as we discussed what we should do, it became obvious that we all worked at the same company. They introduced themselves as Gary and Mary Ann Martin, and they said they ran Metropolis BBS for Multi Service. I had no idea who they were, or that Multi Service even ran a BBS. Later that same day I requested to begin working part time in that department, and ended up doing projects for Gary. One morning while analyzing the BBS audit trail, Gary casually mentioned that he was a game author. This caught my attention, obviously. I asked for details, and he told me about Trade Wars 2002. I had done some BBSing in college, though very little, and I had heard of the game. Since my exposure to BBS doors was very limited, I was impressed by this. He then mentioned that he needed someone to handle bug reports because he and Mary Ann had become too busy lately. He said that he had been reluctant to bring anyone in on the project, but that he was confident of my skills and judgment (a decision that I'm sure he came to regret ;). That was about TWv2b5, and I worked a few hours a week for awhile doing minor bug revisions. The first revision that many of you will recall was the Type II TransWarp drive. This went on for awhile, and after I had been at Multi Service for two years, I decided to propose a deal with Gary and Mary Ann. I knew I wouldn't be staying in Kansas City for much longer, and that I'd be traveling with Angel (who was my fiancé by that point), and I decided to take a chance on a career path that would be more portable, not to mention more enjoyable. The Martins agreed to provide a small but guaranteed monthly salary if I would take the lead role on an online game project, a sequel to Trade Wars. This was very exciting to me, and I decided that with the small amount they offered, and my savings, and by moving back in with my mother so I could live rent-free (she's always been supportive of my crazy dreams :), I could give it a go. Well, obviously, things went off track. Not long after I had designed a game proposal, Gary and I agreed that it would not be acceptable to release a sequel to a game that was never complete. Gary had been selling registrations to a game that was never bug free. We agreed that in order to avoid alienating our prospective market, I should attempt to fix a few of the serious problems. One of those fixes, unfortunately, was multiplayer interaction. I set out to design a multiplayer solution for the game, and the result was TWv3. In hindsight, this was the wrong move, because the logic of the code was just not suited to multiplayer. I had little time for anything but TW revision for a very long time, and hopes of starting work on the sequel faded. After awhile, it became clear that I could not continue working under the current arrangement without bringing in more revenue. I designed the Gold upgrade as an attempt to continue funding my efforts. Gold has sold at a slow, steady pace since it was released, but it never generated the kind of revenue spike that we needed to proceed, and a few months after Gold had been released I was forced to leave Martech. In an attempt to forge my own path without completely ditching everything I had done and was doing, I conceived the game server idea. I formed my own company around the general concept of persistent, multiplayer game design, and started development of TWGS as the first step toward my goals. Luckily, TWGS has done well enough to allow me to continue working full-time on these projects. v1.00 was released the same month I married Angel, and the revenue has been enough to keep her from shutting me down ;) At this point, I'm trying to turn my focus to the online game server concept in general, and perhaps to other game designs. In order to free up more time, I have chosen a programmer who can continue Trade Wars support in my place, in a role similar to my earlier role with Martech. Trade Wars will continue to require a good deal of support in the near future, and I want to provide that. But the reality is that I can't continue to focus so much of my time on it if I want to make any real progress with EIS. **There you go folks, John got a job by getting into a damn traffic accident! If only that opportunity landed into MY lap when I crash someone's car. All I get is higher insurance. :/ But you threw in there that Gary didn't approve of your judgement. where didn't you see eye to eye with Gary and what was it like working for him when you were on contract?** It really was an unusual set of coincidences that led me to this. The coincidences go even further. When I was in college, I published two cartoon strips, one at my college and one at the college my friend attended. He was an editor at that newspaper, and the managing editor was a guy named Ed. I spent a few late nights at the staff offices playing Lemmings with the guys, including Ed. About a year and a half later, after I graduated and interviewed at Multi Service, one of the interviewers seemed oddly familiar. It was Ed from the newspaper. And as it turns out, this was the same person who had approached the Martins about 6 months earlier with the idea of bringing their BBS, Metropolis, to Multi Service. He had convinced the owner of the company that there was a future in online entertainment, and was made the head of the new Metropolis BBS project. In hindsight, I can remember one night while playing Lemmings he had been playing some strange, text-based game on a BBS. He explained briefly what it was, but I wasn't very interested. This was about two years before I met Gary and Mary Ann. But getting to your next question. It wasn't so much that Gary didn't approve of my judgment, but that I added a great deal of complexity to the code. It wasn't a simple task to convert the game to multiplayer. It would have been much simpler in hindsight to rewrite the game with a true multiplayer model. But to continue working with the original code, I created a complex file sharing system. After Gary looked it over, he commented that I had created a nuclear warhead to hunt a rabbit :) I honestly believe it would be impossible to do what I set out to do in a simpler way. The mistake was in not doing a rewrite in the first place, and that was a mutual decision. We had no idea what we were getting into! If we did, I doubt we would have undertaken the project at all. What has kept me interested in the project for this long is R&D.; Quite a bit of what I have put into TW and Gold has been in the spirit of experimentation, and will be useful in future projects. But this was not a feeling that Gary shared with me. It was always clear that I was looking toward a bigger picture and Gary was just interested in finishing Trade Wars. This was never more than a hobby for the Martins. Despite our disagreements on the way the project should have progressed, it was always great working for Gary and Mary Ann. I appreciate their willingness to let me take such a controlling role in their game. I honestly wish that things had progressed as we first intended, because I would love to have written a game with Gary. The TW sequel design we collaborated on is one of the most interesting game concepts I have conceived. Maybe it'll see the light of day yet :) **Now that Gary has sold you the rights to Tradewars, he's pretty much out of the picture in this industry. Why do you think he wanted to leave?** I wouldn't presume to speak for Gary about that. I do know that he loves gaming. But as I said before, he has never allowed himself to view it as more than a hobby, and at this time there are more important things in his life. I believe he could work up a project in the future if he decides to put his energy into it. He has turned down opportunities to work with game companies in the past. I wouldn't say this is the last we'll hear of Gary in the online game industry. In a way, having Trade Wars out from under his control opens him up to consider completely fresh projects. He put a lot of years into Trade Wars, and it's no wonder that he reached a point of burn-out. **[To Be continued....](/post/1155)**