The tradition of Hallowe’en weirdness continues on Star Pirates and SpyBattle.

Tricks, Treats for online players, and scary stuff are all part of the fun. Check it out.

Lots of reasons – we like to eat. We have bills to pay. We are obsessive with quality.

These are facts, but they are not the true reason we work our butts off. It’s because 98%+ of communication we get from players goes something like this.

From “Player Name Erased”
Date October 28 2009 17:47:08

Dear Sir:

I would like to thank you and all those at Snakehead for creating and maintaining a very entertaining and exciting game. As a side benefit, the community that has grown up around SP is as interesting as I’ve ever found anywhere.

The improvements and enhancements to the game that you continue to do are dynamic, and the access to you, the other Admins and CSR’s, Mod’s and Greeters is really great. I have enjoyed very much the game and the community.

Someday, perhaps I can be of service to the game in a small way as a Greeter or in other small ways, such as running a contest. I look forward to continue to grow in the game and look forward to the future of the SP and SB universe.

Just wanted to take a second out of your busy day and say thanks.

I love the game communities the players and we have formed together. I love my job.

AdminArrBilly

The SHG cats are hungry? Nope, instead all NOMs are now findable in
StarPirates.net.

“Huh?”, you say?

NOMs are Nano-Optimisation Modules. They are used, along with some other ingame items, to upgrade weapons, shields, engines and other equipment. They can be used to push items up to Mark V, just about doubling their power.

Now they are findable, we expect to see a rash of debris searches for those NOMs. And the fun part is they make every rare or very rare item even more relevant. The hunt to upgrade, is a fun one, and there are a lot of fun knock on effects for many parts of the game — for power players, and those who just dabble as a Star Pirate.

Want to learn more? Try the
free social game, starpirates.net now!

Arguably the top volunteer writer in the Snakehead community, Qilapid now has a blog outside it.  Check it out at: http://spwanderer.blogspot.com/.  I wonder if the WSN, SP’s best rag will make it’s way there.

If you are the owner of a blog, and have a page or two devoted to StarPirates, drop a line in game to AdminArrBilly.  You might see a free link to ya here…

Cheers,

AdminArrBilly

Starpirates.net exists to give a chance to have fun, and forget about the cares of the world.   Sometimes though real life can’t be ignored.

On the weekend we had another great of the game pass: Angua von Uberwald.  She was ill when she joined us, but she didn’t complain about the many chunks of ill fortune life threw her way.  She proceeded to be so dominant that she ended as  one of the top dozen most powerful players.  She helped many new players achieve their goals in the game – whatever they were.  She was a leader.

We have elected to add her to the Halls of the Immortals.  Immortals are those players who have had a genuinely powerful influence on the community before passing in “Real Life”.  Only 2 other players have been enshrined before; she rests in glory with FourFingers (FF), and Geoffrey De Lysander (GDL).  I miss these friends, as I’ll miss Angua.

Rest in Peace.

Players often as us how to help promote the game.  Well one player got creative and created a video.  The video outlines the game basics.

You can find it here on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQE0hBAyD1Y

In both StarPirates.net, and SpyBattle 2165, a new option has been added to player account profile – Forum Thread Notifications.

Players now have the option of being notified through real life e-mail (previously the only option), through in-game PM (in game private message) or both.  Players can also turn off all new post notifications if they like.

The notifications include links. Now the links are more precise bringing readers to the exact post; not just the forum as previous.

NOM NOM NOM – what’s this, LOLcat jokes in StarPirates?  No way.  More like a way for players to upgrade their equipment.

In StarPirates there is a limit to the number of items that you can equip on your ship.  So what’s a hardcore gamer to do?  Or even a new player who wants something a bit better than the fleet is willing to lend?  Upgrade your items – you can do that with NOMs.  These are findable item parts, that when used in conjunction with some cargo and Duct Tape can make your mighty items even mighter.  Shields protect more, weapons blast more, and other items are even better.

There are 5 levels of upgrades (for now), each of which is progressively harder to achieve.  The trade off?  Once upgraded an item cannot be traded away.  The NOMs are rolling out slowly but with player requests are about to accelerate.  In fact, in SpyBattle-2165, the more aggressive sister of StarPirates many AWEs (the SB equiv of NOMs) are already findable, even if they can’t yet be used.  A player vote is on to see if this will be rolled out to StarPirates as well.

Oh, and if you want you can trade any item for 5 AWES or NOMS — which is enough to upgrade to Level 1, but about 1/20th of what is needed for the 5th level of upgrade.

So what have NOMs and AWEs wrought?  Well they have cleared the markets of many surplus items. They’ve made every type of item relevant — after all even an unlucky, poor player can afford to upgrade a few items.  It’s given a lot more to trade and find, plus the excitement of waiting to see what item will be NOM’d next.

And most of all it’s fast, furious fun – which is what we’re all about.