Senator -- Interest Assessment and Announcemnt From: richard@genome.wi.mit.edu (Richard Resnick) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 1994 13:28:00 +0000 Greetings friends: A year or so ago, I ran a game called Senator, which is similar in nature to the game "Nomic". The idea is very simple -- there are no rules to begin with. The players propose and vote on rules, and the game is shaped according to their whims. Thus at the beginning, there is no way to win, yet winning is certainly a thing that can be defined and implemented, according to the majority of the players. The game was played via email, and it turned out to be a good deal of fun. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to do the things that I _needed_ to get done, and I had to stop the game before it formally ended. With more time on my hands, I'm going to be starting up a new game! This time, things will be slightly different. Instead of email, the game will be played via an internet server which I am currently coding. Thus, all players must have access to telnet. I expect the initial coding to be done in 3 to 4 weeks. In the meantime, I need the following: o Players. Up to 50 players would be acceptable. Requirements: about 30 minutes a day (or more if you are zealous); a machine connected directly to the net so that you can telnet to the server; an excellent attitude; a sense of wanting to see things to their end; a good sense of humor; a creative imagination. o Testers: Up to 5 testers. Testers will directly test the server, trying as best as they can to crash it, by any means possible. You can be both a tester and a player. Requirements: 30 minutes to 1 hour every few days; A sense of what makes programs crash because of unexpected user input; A machine which can telnet to other machines on the net; Some previous testing experience preferred, but not necessary. o A co-implementor. Only 1 co-implementor position available. I am wary about sharing this post with someone else, but I want to make very sure that I have enough resources to meet the needs of the game as it develops. If you are interested in being a co-implementor, I'll send you an application over email. Requirements: 30 minutes to 1 hour a day, sporadic 2 to 3 hour programming tasks; a sense of justice; a good sense of humor; knowledge of Perl programming; a machine which connects directly to the internet and has telnet. o A machine. I am able to run the server on my machine only at nights and weekends, and even then, I will likely be causing people some difficulty. Since the server needs to be up all the time, I need a machine and a person with an account on that machine to be able to handle the day-to-day server issues. This person can also be a player, a tester, or the co-implementor. Requirements: a machine which connects directly to the internet; An account on this machine; Explicit permission by the system operator to run the server on the machine; Basic working knowledge of UNIX; Perl experience would be a plus, but is not required. Please direct interest in any of the above needs to me, at: richard@genome.wi.mit.edu Please make the subject line out as: SENATOR Senator is starting up again! Richard Resnick Up