Shareplay Newsletter #1 May 14th 1998

No. 1, May 14th, 1998, Thursday

Dear SharePlay Newsletter readers,

With the startup of the SharePlay service, the Panumbra Newsletter has been renamed to SharePlay Newsletter. It will continue to cover Panumbra, but it will contain news of other SharePlay games as well. I hope you will find the new content interesting. If you wish not to receive the newsletter anymore, send an e-mail to Majordomo@shout.net with the following line in the body text (subject line will be ignored):

unsubscribe pannews <your email address>.

I restarted the newsletter numbering, so you are reading the SharePlay Newsletter No. 1. I also apologize for having the wrong date in the last newsletter, it should have been dated April 29th, 1998. 

In this issue of the newsletter you can read about:

1. SharePlay web site launched

2. Space Merchant and The Magellan Conflict beta announcement

3. Panumbra Version 2.1 development update

4. Panumbra Version 2.1 features update - IE 4.0 will be supported

5. Panumbra Demo instabilities 

6. Panumbra web site changes

1. SharePlay web site launched

We have the new SharePlay web site up, consisting of four different parts:

- the SharePlay site at http://www.shareplay.com has links to all SharePlay games and the newsletters.

- the Panumbra site at http://www.shareplay.com/panumbra continues to be your major source for Panumbra info. You may want to update your bookmarks and links, but you can still get there through a link from the SharePlay site.

- the Space Merchant site at http://www.shareplay.com/spacemerchant now has a story and a description of the main features. We will keep the beta news page updated.

- The Magellan Conflict site at http://www.shareplay.com/magellan has similar info than the Space Merchant site and will be updated with beta news when they come around.

I hope you will find useful info in the new sections of the web site.

 2. Space Merchant and The Magellan Conflict beta announcement

These two games are completely HTML based, you only need your browser to play them. We are looking for beta testers for both games. The beta sign-up forms will be posted on the "beta sign-up" pages of the web sites around end of May. We need a little time to come up with the software for beta registrations, so please don't try it yet. We will keep you updated on beta sign-up dates.

Space Merchant is a space trading game, where you trade in the universe, upgrade your ship, fight... and you can become a council member of the Seven Races. It will go into beta test end of June, 1998.

The Magellan Conflict is the name we chose for the space strategy game. Your task in the game is to manage your resources, use technology to your advantage, colonize planets, and of course, combat with other players... beta test starts mid-July, 1998.

You can read more information about the games features on the web site (see URLs above).

 3. Panumbra Version 2.1 development update

Version 2.1 is currently under integration test. This is the test when we hook up the client with the server and make sure that all components work well with each other. We hope to go to system test (internal alpha test) on Monday. Right now the development is one week behind schedule. We cannot tell the release date yet, we may make up the time in system test, or we may slip more. We hoped to get the system test done before we all go to E3 (May 28-30 in Atlanta, GA). We will keep you updated.

 4. Panumbra Version 2.1 features update - IE 4.0 will be supported

I hope everyone will be happy to hear this: Panumbra 2.1 will work with Internet Explorer 4.0 and 4.1, and both Java 1.0 and Java 1.1.

 5. Panumbra Demo (2.0) instabilities

We experienced connection problems lately, especially through May 12th and 13th. Our ISP is having trouble with their lines. This caused the client hanging, or the message "The server has been shut down" or "Connection to server lost". I received a mail today from our ISP saying they resolved the problem, so hopefully it will not recur.

The current version of the server has bugs which cause character lock-ups and server crashes. We have stopped supporting it due to the imminent release of the new version. Massive parts of the code have been rewritten so it is likely that we will have different problems in the new version. Thank you for your understanding.

 6. Panumbra web site changes

The home page has been changed, as mentioned before, so check your links. The look and feel has been changed, too: now we have a parchment background and a text-based navigation bar, hopefully it will help you finding things easier. The web site's look is by no means final, we are constantly debating how it should look, but right now we don't have the resources to do it the way we would like it so expect it will stay like that for a while.

The Paladins of Panumbra have taken their place on our web site; you can read about the history of Paladins, their role in Panumbra (written by Brian) and you can fill out an application form to join them. The Paladins are also developing their own web site, which should launch in a couple of weeks.

We have a new items document, with examples of the kind of items you may find in version 2.1. The Jump Start page replaces the old tutorial. It is based on the Tips and Hints compiled by PAL-Lutra and PAL-Myst and now includes a quick screen reference.

The Triumvirate now accepts all races, check out their web site from the Players corner.

Thank you for reading our newsletter!

Regards

Marta Gabnai 

and the SharePlay development team