Tradewars: Why It Died

You might be pondering why you never heard of Tradewars. In the late 80s, early 90s, TradeWars filled Bulletin Board Systems from Finland to Indonesia. Tournaments were being played and what happened on those servers was a matter of life and death.

By 1998 the game was virtually dead.
Why?
‘Over mechanization’.

At some point, it ceased to be a game, and became a matter of “Helpers“. ‘Helpers’ are subroutines which run scripts so repetitive actions could be handled by the computer i.e;
” N T E L T enter N 1 E L S enter ” would take the place of (N)avigate to (T)erra at (E)xpress mode, (L)and, (T)ake colonists, (N)avigate to 1 (my home planet) at (E)xpress mode, (L)and and (S) Leave colonists.

This seemed alright, after all, it was boring to have to make the exact move a hundred times. However, the “Helpers” didn’t stop there. More scripts were written until the “Helpers” played the game for you; not virtually, literally.

Purists would scorn scripts, after all, if one wanted to play Tradewars, one would play Tradewars, not watch Television while the computer amused itself. However, there was no way to win, to even survive if one didn’t use a script.

The Newbie who had just initialised his ship would be killed the second he or she ventured out of Fed Space. He’d log off in disgust, never to return.

The “Purist” would begin to play and be killed as the rawest Newbie. The message was clear; either get a better script or stop trying to play.

As bad as this was, it gets worse. Winning the Game overtook any possible enjoyment. Teams were created, scripts set, tasks apportioned. Players no longer played.

Hence we have a computer game programing its players.

Reading “strategy” advice from Champions is indecipherable. If I had not been playing the game from the days before the basic script existed, I would not understand a single word. Further, after the first paragraphs, I could see no enjoyment in a so called “game” in which every turn, every action, is scripted. Hence, Trade Wars, as we knew it, which had dominated the early telnet world, died.

Although going to thestardock.com will give you a list of games, on many of them are psychopaths. These psychopaths prefer to play alone.

Now it doesn’t take a Ph.D. in physics to appreciate than in multi-player games you can never win when you play alone. That’s like going onto an empty basketball court and racing to the home basket, then racing to the visitor basket. This isn’t a game of basketball, this is a nutjob in a fantasy world.

These psychopaths have chased more newbies from Tradewars than a fart in an elevator.

If you want to know what TradeWars is all about, search The Star Dock, you’ll find very popular long running games. Join them for practice, learn what you can, then, find low turn small universe games and begin to play. Hopefully, you’ll survive long enough to learn why Tradewars is so enjoyable.