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Zone Hosting / Advertising - Pirates!

Smong - Wed Jun 14, 2006 9:35 am
Post subject: Pirates!

Pirates! is currently up on PSS Pirates!.
Stats are at http://toktok.sscentral.com/pirates/stats.php

Essentially you want to get a good ship and amass a vast fortune in wealth. You can do this by finding treasure, pleasing the governors and attacking other ships. Should you be totally clueless how to go about this, the F1 file explains in more detail.

Screenshot:

Old stuff:

Quote:

I put my Pirates! zone on the UT slot, I don't know how long it will stay there.
Stats are available here http://toktok.sscentral.com/daws/

IP: 66.111.249.180
Port: 7205

Quote:

now on SSCI, stats moved to http://pirates.sszones.com/
IP: 65.111.166.54
Port: 7501

Bak - Wed Jun 14, 2006 11:39 am
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cool

Confess - Wed Jun 14, 2006 5:09 pm
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It looks really nice, that is a lot of hard work that you have done. Keep up the work!

D1st0rt - Wed Jun 14, 2006 6:35 pm
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It's really cool except it made me French

Protoman - Wed Jun 14, 2006 8:36 pm
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Holy crap im gonna play that when I get home! <3

Purge - Wed Jun 14, 2006 9:39 pm
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Nobody to play with.

Yoink - Wed Jun 14, 2006 9:52 pm
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really cool - i love it.

are the quests (tasks that the gov. assigns) chosen randomly?

suggestions:
-tax occurs way too often. it seemed like it was a % of your points, which is fine, but i think the % is too high
-after you leave - you lose everything! i spent an hour or so saving up for a frigate (i had lost quite a bit of money due to taxes, and trying out cannons / bought powder grain (does that do anything?)), and i wanted to see if it stayed. so i left and came back - to my sloop! no fair.
-i didn't know that i started off in a sloop. why offer the sloop to buy if you already have it?
-towns of other nations shouldn't let you in, or at least only in the tavern, where you risk "You've been mugged! The bartavender and his thugs stole XXX (50%) of your gold!"
-the bots are a bit buggy, how about, instead of telling them to go through walls, having them do a 180 and then execute whatever flight algorithm?
-thrust

- would just white lines do ? so when you're on water it looks like wake, but when you're on land it isn't horrible.
-exploding ships? There isn't a source of combustion on these (aside from the cannons)
-cannons should use cannon graphics

i'm sure i could give 10000 other issues too but i'll stop here

[/b]

Chambahs - Wed Jun 14, 2006 10:29 pm
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1) Last time i tested with smong, i think he put player persistants, if they arent in here, that can be done easily.

2) The fake players (not bots) are the first of their kind, smong spent a good time and hard effort on them, how about you make some, then you can share on how you made them not go through walls.

3) Removing the thrust gfx altogether would be better than any gfx.

4) Exploding gfx would look funny when you are walking on land as a person.

5) Make cannon gfx and donate.

Purge, you can play with the fake players.

Confess - Wed Jun 14, 2006 10:35 pm
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It is extremely hard to kill the "Fake Bots", however.

Purge - Thu Jun 15, 2006 12:39 am
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Not really. I killed the merchants a couple times then got bored.

Yoink - Thu Jun 15, 2006 1:29 am
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I took Chambahs' advice and made a bomb graphic -

Smong - Thu Jun 15, 2006 7:41 am
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Not bad, now how about some bomb trails?

I will add saving country, ship and upgrades to the top of my todo list. Taxes, I'll see what I can do about that, if I can think up more assignments then taxation will occur less often.

I am aware the bots can go inside the islands and get stuck there. So far I haven't thought of a good way to prevent this while keeping server load down.

Hakaku - Thu Jun 15, 2006 11:55 am
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Lol, the zone is funny. It's definately the merchants and the ship saving that I'd like to see fixed, and a slightly bigger map. And when killing a ship, shouldn't you gain more or the same amount as picking up gold? And gold sound effect would be nice.

Another thing, mind explaining the country men thingy? Am I not suppose to kill others with the same flag or what?

Smong - Thu Jun 15, 2006 12:50 pm
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Fix the merchants? As in making them easier to kill?

There will generally be more ships than treasure so I made kill points lower. Plus if a human has upgrades, a large crew and maybe on a kill spree, then they will have a large bounty.

The countries were originally put in so you could achieve pirate status by killing someone on the same country as yourself. When you are a pirate the game is slightly harder, for example more tax. It turned out the countries were also useful in the tasks the governor can give you. Currently there is no advantage to being a pirate other than you don't have to take care who you shoot at.

Confess - Thu Jun 15, 2006 5:55 pm
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I'd like to see a bigger map, and more things to do, but especially the saving of the ships..Also some more people

xsp0rtsfanx - Thu Jun 15, 2006 6:10 pm
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yea a bigger map would make the game awesome.

while i was playing earlier i came across this

i know you cant see it that well.. but its the merchant ship on an island..

Protoman - Thu Jun 15, 2006 6:44 pm
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I wouldn't mind seeing the merchants shoot back

Also would be willing to help with island gfx is you would like some.

xsp0rtsfanx - Thu Jun 15, 2006 6:58 pm
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haha merchant ships arent supposed to shoot back.. if you had "fake players" as pirates and then a merchant ship or 2 maybe have a person get an upgrade for killing a merchant ship and a lot of gold for killing a pirate ship.

Smong - Thu Jun 15, 2006 7:29 pm
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I don't want to promise anything because I made all this several months ago. But I am taking note of all the ideas just incase I get into a zone making mood.

Hakaku - Thu Jun 15, 2006 9:58 pm
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Smong wrote:

Fix the merchants? As in making them easier to kill?

Lol, I should have made that more clear. I already know it'll take a lot of time before it's possible, but the fact that they end up on islands and lag terribly when they go near the smaller ones is a bit annoying. Also, how do they not go to the edge of the map? If you can define that, then would it not be possible to define other things (e.g. islands)?

Cyan~Fire - Thu Jun 15, 2006 10:08 pm
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Smong, couldn't you have asss generate some sort of bitmap based on the lvl where bots aren't supposed to go? Like, when it first loads, have them "detect" the islands and then add a bit of padding to it, so they'll stay away.

It might be a little tough, but it shouldn't cost too much during gameplay.

D1st0rt - Thu Jun 15, 2006 10:26 pm
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Just padding their current pathfinding a little more might work as well. Also, what's with the price fluctuations for shipwright equipment? I check the price and it's 280, then when I have enough I come back and it's risen to 345

Smong - Fri Jun 16, 2006 6:42 am
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The problem with the merchants/islands is the diagonal tiles. A handmade bitmap should work well, but means I'll have to write code to read it in. I think making the diagonals double thickness might help, I'll try it later.

The upgrades cost a random amount, so just keep trying.

Bak - Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:55 am
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instead of a handmade bitmap use asss regions

Smong - Fri Jun 16, 2006 9:01 am
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I would if there was a decent editor, can't you add a "region tile" to clit? It would be fiddly to do irregular shapes with a rectangle tool.

I have now added ship and country saving. So if you buy a ship it should get saved if you quit and re-enter. I'm not going to add upgrade saving since they are a lot cheaper than a new ship. If anyone sees any bugs let me know.

Also I noticed upgrades generally cost 100 more if you're a pirate

Dr Brain - Fri Jun 16, 2006 11:23 am
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There is a tool in the scripts dir that will convert a colored bitmap into regions. I forget the name now, but I bugged grel until he made it.

Smong - Fri Jun 16, 2006 1:03 pm
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Well I just remembered it's the turning circle that is the problem. After x seconds the bots choose a new destination, performing a straight line collision detection towards the new destination. If it's clear it will start turning towards the destination while thrusting at the same time.

Everyone is having trouble killing the merchants with the "bronze cannon"/L2 bomb upgrade. Any ideas how to keep some sort of bomb upgrade and fix this problem?

Cyan~Fire - Fri Jun 16, 2006 1:28 pm
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It must be a problem with the drone's damage detection system, so I think anyone to answer your question would have to look at that.

You're using the proper radius formula to calculate bomb damage, right?

Smong - Fri Jun 16, 2006 3:52 pm
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Yeah I think so "damage = dist * - (i32)maxdamage / radius + maxdamage;", I got that off shanky.com/server faq somewhere. Any ideas how to bypass/sidestep the problem somehow? I don't want to code perfect ship movement as well as perfect weapon movement :/

Maverick - Fri Jun 16, 2006 4:08 pm
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Just visited the Pirates! zone for the first time and it was great to see ss working this way.
Great work, smong. I already had fun with the few players and the short time I was there.

It only needs some bug fixing and a bit of finishing here and there but then it would be even better then most zones (in its own way ofcourse).

Keep up the good work!

Btw, ask Bjorn (contact him somehow) about such specific AI questions, he already figured most of it out with his AI bot.

Cyan~Fire - Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:01 pm
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And you're properly adjusting the radius for bomb levels? Does it do prox detection?

Smong - Fri Jun 16, 2006 9:44 pm
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Yeah it does prox, and the enlarging radius for both splash damage and prox.

The only think I can think of is the player positions are taken from the packets, as in they are not being updated every tick. Still I can't see this having much of an effect since most people's aim isn't perfect and you have the BombExplodeDelay from the prox to help make the bomb explode closer to the target.

Spyed - Thu Jun 22, 2006 10:32 am
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Ohh, this looks good.

Before I come and look please can I know the nationalities.

Chambahs - Thu Jun 22, 2006 11:28 am
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I believe nationalities are listed on the news.txt.

Dutch, french, english, spanish, and i think thats it...

Maverick - Thu Jun 22, 2006 12:26 pm
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Chambahs wrote:

I believe nationalities are listed on the news.txt.

Ah, I was wondering about that aswell

Yea, I opened the news.txt, it's in the FAQ:

Quote:

Q: Which ship is Spanish?
A: Ships flying a yellow flag are Spanish. French are blue, Dutch use striped flags and English have a red cross.

No worries though, Smong told me he would make a cheatsheet

. I guess that would be a ingame picture that always shows.

Smong - Thu Jun 22, 2006 12:39 pm
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Yeah the cheat sheet is at H9, but I'll attach it here:

Oh and incase anyone is wondering ship saving is in and the merchants now die more easily with bronze cannons.

SpecShip - Thu Jun 22, 2006 12:46 pm
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OMFG this is so cool.
How come I only now saw this?
*rush to check zone out*
(here's hoping the sets won't suck like a super-newb-zone)

xsp0rtsfanx - Thu Jun 22, 2006 12:48 pm
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the settings are really nice and even. its smongs zone what would you expect

SpecShip - Thu Jun 22, 2006 1:49 pm
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Awesome zone.
Just need to keep it a bit more balanced versus the RPG aspects (either that or chambahs abuses FCs

) and it's mint.

Smong - Thu Jun 22, 2006 6:55 pm
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Death+ and Gameplay have given me a slot on SSCI so I moved the zone there. The points and stuff should still be saved. Also the stats moved to:
http://pirates.sszones.com/

Yoink - Thu Jun 22, 2006 7:40 pm
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It's just SSI-A, apparently. It's not SSC.

Smong - Thu Jun 22, 2006 8:03 pm
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Yeah, there's still no billing.

Maverick - Fri Jun 23, 2006 2:10 am
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Congrats Smong

newb - Fri Jun 23, 2006 5:41 am
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Nice job Smong!

Spyed - Fri Jun 23, 2006 6:47 am
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I want to come play this soon when I have time :D

Killerbot NL - Fri Jun 23, 2006 7:41 am
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very nice

It made me dutch ^_^

Spyed - Fri Jun 23, 2006 2:05 pm
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Killerbot NL wrote:

very nice :)
It made me dutch ^_^

Ah, how convenient considering you are from NL!

I hope if I go it makes me English :twisted:

Purge - Fri Jun 23, 2006 3:27 pm
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Where the hell is America?

Yoink - Fri Jun 23, 2006 6:19 pm
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Purge+ wrote:

Where the hell is America?

One might think that this is pre-colonization.

Muskrat - Fri Jun 23, 2006 6:42 pm
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Or, better yet, pre-Americanization of the Caribbean. The way it is now looks like colonial times.

Spyed - Sat Jun 24, 2006 4:01 am
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This looks really good, I must find the time to come :(

Do bullets and bombs shoot from the sides of ships?

Smong - Sat Jun 24, 2006 6:48 am
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No, you can't shoot out the sides of your ship.

Spyed - Sat Jun 24, 2006 10:51 am
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Ok, I came and played. It was fun but Gravitron was there :-P he owned me a bit! :?

It made me Spanish :mad:

phong - Sun Jun 25, 2006 1:46 am
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smong, I loved the concept of this. Just an idea..

make the players/ships/chars smaller. Also reduced the move speed majorly.. this would make the world seem much larger. Also if you had 10 people on a freq in the see it would look like an armada if they were all moving slower and would require more skill to fight like armada vs armada .. a bit more realistic than speedy ships flying around launch cannons.. if you get me.

slower gun speeds on the ships to make it more like real cannons, very slow health regen.. as ships shouldnt repair on the fly.. or make them have to doc to repair. etc

also why cant you shoot out the sides? the terrier in trenchwars does.. no way to edit that?

would also be more rpg like.

Chambahs - Sun Jun 25, 2006 1:54 am
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You show me a terr in TW that shoots bombs out the sides, and ill quit SS and call you god.

phong - Sun Jun 25, 2006 2:37 am
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oh yea good point.. i dont play trench that much

Chambahs - Sun Jun 25, 2006 3:48 am
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Quote:

also why cant you shoot out the sides? the terrier in trenchwars does.. no way to edit that?

Quote:

oh yea good point.. i dont play trench that much icon_sad.gif

im lost...explain plz Kthx

Spyed - Sun Jun 25, 2006 5:31 am
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This zone is really amaizing, i was very impressed. Smong, how do I check my gold?

Maverick - Sun Jun 25, 2006 5:59 am
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Spyed wrote:

how do I check my gold?

news.txt wrote:

Q: What's the command to see how much gold I have?
A: There is no command, your points and gold are the same thing.

Spyed - Sun Jun 25, 2006 10:49 am
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Hey mav, You said you quit SS and only view SS websites? Yet, you would have to go in-game to see this :p

And as we all know I'm hardly someone to keep my work about leaving either.

SpecShip - Sun Jun 25, 2006 3:49 pm
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ASSS could be modified to make ships shoot bombs sideways, problem is, design-wise, since the game client doesn't support a mouse (or otherwise) controlled turret, there is no way to allow the player to choose from which side to fire.
As such, the fire must take place simultaneously from both sides...not really a good practical gameplay.

My best, closest solution would be to append guns and by using the multifire angle variable to create very short distance slugs coming out from both ways and have them set on a (s)low RoF.

I don't know about smaller ships, but in an effort to make this closer to the original/proper/SVS, I'm definitely in favor of slowing the ships down somewhat.

When the zone grow large enough in population to allow larger map and more than a single person per freq, it could create potentialy some really awesome 10 players vs 10 players armada battles or the such.

CypherJF - Sun Jun 25, 2006 3:56 pm
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ASSS could modify the packet to change the location of the bomb when fired; but it's my understanding the local client would be drawing the bomb just fired incorrectly, but would be corrected to the other players. Basically, the client doesn't draw it's own packets (except maybe bricks, and ship when mirror is on)?

Dr Brain - Sun Jun 25, 2006 7:52 pm
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There are ways, but it's easier to use bullets than bombs, because then you just fire out both sides. You can alter the multifire so that the central bullet stays in place and leaves a "bullet mine".

Spyed - Wed Jun 28, 2006 5:48 am
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Well I have 1000 points now so I'm 5000 off a galleon. SMong, someone was in the zone yesterday and bought the ship costing 4000 pts by accident and wanted their pts back and were quite cross, they wanted a galleon just so you know.

Oh yeah, and I'm no longer a Pirate, I fight for the English and protect the English merchants, yarrrr :P

This zone is alot of fun btw :D

Spyed - Mon Jul 03, 2006 7:14 am
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Well, I can't play here anymore. Death+ decided to ban me from this zone and 4 others on SSCI for no reason.

Moondance - Mon Jul 03, 2006 9:57 am
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I wanted to play this zone, but it moved to SSC, so i got banned :\

Moondance - Mon Jul 03, 2006 8:09 pm
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Cool zone, similar to Sid Meier's Pirates

But u need more people. And fix that spawns - merchants bots sometimes will spawn inside land, and they cant get out xD

gj again.

Chambahs - Tue Jul 04, 2006 1:56 am
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http://pirates.ggson.com/forums/

Become a part of the community!

SpecShip - Tue Jul 04, 2006 4:20 am
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Nice forum software.

Who owns the ggson domain?

Maverick - Tue Jul 04, 2006 6:57 am
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SpecShip wrote:

Who owns the ggson domain?

Mark McKenzie

Chambahs - Tue Jul 04, 2006 2:29 pm
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Long story short...Pests.

SpecShip - Tue Jul 04, 2006 2:33 pm
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Pests?
Care to elaborate?

SuSE - Tue Jul 04, 2006 4:36 pm
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Pests

Chambahs - Wed Jul 05, 2006 3:25 am
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Ex-Sysop of RS, a Subspace player...Just because you dont know him doesnt mean hes not supposed to be known, idiot. You say it like i said "ethejtkhnaekjtnhekjnth owns it"

"Pests? I dont know him, he must not be anyone"

SpecShip - Wed Jul 05, 2006 3:50 am
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Pests sounded generic and obscure to me.
It could've meant a player, real pests problem with some weird story to it...hell if I know, and yes, I don't know who he is and never heard of him.
Regardless, I wanted further explanation and I asked for it, and I got it.
There was no ill will intended, I've said nothing bad about him.
So get off your high horse cham, and take some pills for these inferiority complex feelings-induced lashouts of yours.

I was under the impression that PMS is supposed to be females-only?

Confess - Wed Jul 05, 2006 5:01 pm
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Please stay on topic.

Smong - Thu Jul 05, 2007 9:16 pm
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It's back

Hosted on PSS Pirates! thanks to Doc Flabby.

tcsoccerman - Thu Jul 05, 2007 9:29 pm
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i don't see it...is it up yet?

Smong - Fri Jul 06, 2007 8:17 am
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It probably would have helped if I loaded the directory module

Solo Ace - Fri Jul 06, 2007 9:35 am
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Wow this seems really nice. Missed back then I guess. I might even play this.