The oppertunity of winning an unspecified prize has enticed users from all across the community to put their hat in the ring and have their discriptions displayed to the many thousands who play OGame.org on a daily basis.

Entering into the contest came with two basic requirements; one that you were serious about writing all of the descriptions  and would not use the oppertunity to flame or in other ways take away the competition’s credibility and two that you (obviously) don’t mind your work going up onto all OGame.org servers.

Whilst prizes are still being discussed, it is widely expected that some form of commander will be given for the winner with other prizes still undecided and completely unknown.

A preliminary list of entrants can be found here.

The accounts, which were deleted several days ago, had all been inactive for a long period of time and had very few posts, inflating overall user numbers and cluttering various member lists.

The total number of forum accounts has been steadily climbing since OGame’s inception, but the deletion has reduced the number from 82 to 72 thousand. Similar deletions are planned in the future.

The new reduction in member numbers is expected to create a more usable forum service, which itself has seen problems until only recently with server speed.

Sorry about the recent inactivity guys, I’ve been busy with schoolwork and real life recently. I hope to be back up to speed soon, once I return from my holiday. However, if you wish to help contribute to the blog and provide news stories to the community, then please e-mail me on galacticnewsnetwork@googlemail.com. Trust me, it’s really very satisfying.

His new roles will give him both administrator powers on the forum and ingame to monitor cheaters and help improve  the game for the community.

The player came to fame after researching the highest levels of weapon-related technology ever seen in .org, including level 18 shielding technology. This had made him a popular community figure and much trusted by existing staff.

In fact, it is so serious that a (as of 4th of August) 27 page topic has been created in the General OGame area of our board, with most posts complaining about how such a change in the latest version could ruin the very spirit of OGame. Add to that that many players have already quit over the debacle, some at GameForge fear this could become another ‘Officers’ incident.

The change is simple, the activity stars that display fleet activity on a planet has been changed so it appears whenever there is any log in or click on any planet by the player. This new change, which itself is bugged, could force ninja attacks to be rendered impossible and change a fundemental aspect of the game, say critics of the move.

The previous status quo has been called a bug by GameForge, who’s attempted and blundered fix has caused outrage with many already quitting the game after being presented with three very poor poll options and the brains behind the outfit showing very little will to return to the previous system.

I wonder, does that mean all players who’ve ever ninjad a player should be banned for bug using? Afterall, it was indeed a bug was it not? GameForge’s logic again seems flawed to this reporter – I shall continue report as news comes in.

Regardless, the hunt is on again for more staff willing to wear the orange stars, but as always there are certain requirements. One is the boring legal stuff, which is that you have to be over eighteen to take the job. Other advanages for a potential applicant include being able to take criticism and the ability to work in a team, as well as thinking before speaking and other maturity-related aspects.

Applications must be a minimum of five hundred words long describing various aspects about you as a person and why the applicant would make a good operater in one of .org’s 30 or so universes. The matriculation requirements have increased recently following a spate of unacceptably short applications or forms that lack the detail required.

Those wishing to apply should see this thread for details.

Much of  the blame by the uninformed will be placed firmly in the Turkish corner, with many universes seeing Turkish alliances rise and a general trend of nationalism among the players. Such believers should be reminded that you often see British or other national alliances spring up amongst the other more accepting clans.

The page went live before the staff at .org were informed so as a result the page went up with missing areas and language errors as staff had predicted more time to complete translations. In fact, it was like a running job to fix many of the errors – even as the page was being viewed updates were already happening, particularly in the ‘advanced’ areas.

The new tutorial included updates to items like officers and the battlecruiser, but also to changes in previous releases.

If you’re wondering why there’s no link, well the answer is I can’t find one. I’ll keep looking though.

Now for these excuses I’m sure you’re eager to here;

The first is the fact I’ve been partaking in a NAGTY project called The Big Deal, where teams are given ten weeks to produce and develop a business plan to win a trip to New York City. Unfortunately, I didn’t win but it did entail many hours of solid typing, research and communication which has resulted in having very little time for this amazing blog.

Second is that I’ve had PC problems for the past week with my motherboard failing and front bezzle braking on my Hewlett-Packard machine. This has since been remedied and I’m now good to go on the ’net front, so I can get back to this.

Later today I’ll post the updates I’ve missed in my absence so you’ll all be up to speed. Take care and best wishes.

- alliance statistics fixed
- pillory index fixed
- ingame player search fixed
- logout link fixed
- email-address can’t be changed ingame without password
- rapidfire values sorted for the death star
- no login without (*) possible anymore to hide online status

The final one may end another way of playing, as many other players use the exploit of activity on a planet to help avoid crashes and perform ninjas and related activities.

Perhaps as a future improvement, the GA/staff could tell us what was wrong in the first place, for us to better understand the work done by the programmers.