Tradewars

#1 Hahaha... Funny you found this... You know that they are making a full game out of this?

I forget where I found it but if you google "TradeWars 2000" you'll find it.

I thought about writting a web-based version just to brush the dust off of my skills. This might be a little more incentive. :)

Good find.

#2 Oh my - this takes me back serious. I've always wanted to get back into some Tradewars. It was the first real MMO style game I dug my claws into back in the BBS days. I'll be joining up as soon as I get back from Eugene (going to spend a week at the GG offices - woot!). This is very cool.

#3 I could dust off my Telnet BBS again also. I've got L.O.R.D, BRE and about 6 other games

#4 Great thing about it, my old BBS reg code from 12 years ago still works on the new version.

#5 Tradewars is still one of my favorite games. My very first 3D game project was to do a super simple 3D version of Tradewars (show the ships, planets, and firefights in a 3D view while keeping all the rest of the info in text + buttons for common actions). I got about halfway through the project before moving on to something else and I still occaissionally think of going back to it (maybe a GID ;).

Last year I actualy implemented Tradewars in an Access database to re-familiarize myself with Access and to give myself something more interesting than Northwid to work on =)

Last I heard "Trade Wars: The Dark Millennium" was canceled (I believe this is the TradeWars 2000 you are referring to). They had lost sight of the game anyway (it went from a space trader to a first person pseudo rts).

Someday, I'd love to update Parsec (a very nice space engine with weak netcode) with TNL (both GPL) to re-create Tradewars with pretty graphics but keep the gameplay spot-on to the classic.

#6 The current owner of the Tradewars license and myself have been kicking around a "real" update to the franchise. Torque was discussed at some point (he's also a license owner) but it's been more around how to bring Tradewars to a MMO type game while retaining the old gameplay that we know and love. TW:Dark Millenium was just a bastardization of the name and they lost the original concept of the game long ago.

#7 Most of these old BBS space games just don't translate well into an 3D (and sometimes even a 2D) environment. The simplicity of the interface allowed for a much more complex game. When you go to a 3D environment, the complexity of the environment means you have to reduce the complexity of the game.

Earth and Beyond was basically a 3D MMO Tradewars, and we see how well it did :)

#8 Small problem with the server, give me a day or two and I'll have it back online.

#9 Phew, thought it was just me :) Gimme my Tradewars back!

Hehe, just kidding, thanks for bringing back this blast from the past. Now if only someone could find Empire...

#10 Empire? As in the game with the tanks/planes etc..?

I've got a copy of that on 3.5" I'm sure.

And kudos to the TW2002 stuff, I used to run a BBS on Fidonet with all that stuff ;)

#11 Heck, I'm *still* writing new (and updated) text based strategy games like empire, conquest, etc. for BBSes. The difference is now that multi-player is a breeze and you can have live, real-time messaging between users on a telnet BBS running a few dozen lines (also you don't need a lot of bandwidth, horsepower or expensive phone lines).

#12 No, there was an empire, medieval type. Had your castle, attacked other folks, etc, etc...

#13 See... now I am going to have to dust off my Telnet BBS (again) and find more doors to add to it. If only Torque supported ANSI...

#14 Yeah, but a command line version of Torque, while interesing, just isn't the same...

Welcome to the Torque Demo Fresh Meat.
You are standing in an open field west of a small orc village. There is a campfire here.
n
n
n
w
w
fire crossbow
You hit Kork for 10 points of damage
fire crossbow
You hit Kork for 10 points of damage
Kork is killed
You see Kork's dead body here. There is a healthkit next to him.
get healthkit
You pick up a healthkit

Too many memories of wasting hours on the VAX system at the University, coding corewars with punch cards.

#15 Man Tradewars was a good game. Though I preferred Galactic Warzone do to the enhancements it had.

@LabRat: I think that if you where to plan it out right you could pull off a great 3D implementation of Tradewars or any other space door game.

I will be checking this out tomorrow.

#16 Sorry for the delay, server is up and ready for public abuse.
For all the linux users out there, I find that gtermix handles the ansi correctly.

#17 Woowoo! And off we go. Thanks David!

#18 C'mon folks...I need some competition :)

#19 @Chris: I'll get my telnet client installed again (no helper here) and meet you in fedspace for a showdown.

Great, more time sucked up to playing games... ;)

#20 I'm in too - just started mapping my space...