The Zap Command: The Z key activates the zap player command. The zap player command is used by the sysadmin and gameops. to delete all traces of players who violate one of the three simple rules we have here:

1. Play only your own characters, only the number of aliases explictly permitted, and never, ever share accounts! The current limit is 8 players per person.
2. Use no profanity or personal verbal obnoxiousness anywhere here. This includes the radio, the message base, and graffiti.
3. Violate no applicable law in your use of this system.

General: Gameops are trusted, regular players who have been promoted into a higher level game, have demonstrated that they understand the game, and have volunteered to be gameops of lower level games. They can help newbies get started, answer questions about the game, and keep obnoxious players in line. They may log in as a gameop as often or as infrequently as suits their schedule. There should eventually be enough gameops in each game to allow frequent gameop visits.

...

All gameop accounts start with the six letters "GAMEOP" and may have any text, numbers, or allowable special characters after that. For example, GAMEOPJOE, GAMEOP-JOE-000, GAMEOP JOE JONES, and GAMEOP_JOE are all valid gameop names. When you register a new account starting with GAMEOP it starts at access level 10 and cannot do anything until it is upgraded. This is to prevent bogus gameop accounts from being created by regular players to confuse others. It is recommended that you pick a gameop name that is based on a well-known name that you have used in regular games -- and may still use. Unless you are a gameop in the second level games or above (game040 or above) and explicitly creating a gameop account for lower level games, do not upgrade any account that starts with GAMEOP.

...

A gameop can have several accounts (one in each newbie game, for example) as long as the "conflicts of interest" clause below is honored. If you are willing to be a gameop in other games, go ahead and register the gameop account and leave me a message (somehow -- this hasn't been worked out yet) and I will upgrade the new accounts. In the future, gameops in the second level will be able to create (and delete!) gameop accounts in lower level games. Ultimately, the grand plan known as the Pyramid Scheme will have seven levels of games, culminating in a single game at the seventh level. A player who gets promoted into that game will be eligible to be a gameop in all other games.

Messages: Gameops can currently read restricted messages. I'm not sure that it should be that way, but it is for now. You can also delete any message that you feel is inappropriate with the K message command. Gameops can send messages to EACH -- which will send a personal message to each player. EACH messages appear to be personally addressed to each reader and show up even if they read only their own personal messages with the Y command. Use it when you want to get everyone's attention. Note that it can be confusing since some players will think you are talking only to them.

Miscellaneous: The Registration Period and Gameboard Memberships options of the outer menu command (1) are obsolete remnants from an old scheme of letting players be members of multiple games permanently by membership and temporarily by access level. Gameboard Memberships let a player be made a permanent member of "members-only" games and Reg. Period could let you register a player in an "access level" game and automatically revoke access when the game was completed. These bits of code have not been completely removed from the game and might cause problems if those items are changed. It *shouldn't* cause problems but don't save any changes in there just in case. ;)

Multiple accounts: Currently, players are permitted to use up to eight different player accounts. That is, they are allowed to log in using eight different names. The system enforces this limit by allowing only eight players from any particular IP address (an IP address is the network identifier that all Internet-connected computers have). There is a problem with this scheme, however. Some IP addresses are shared between multiple computers and, sometimes, two people from the same household share the same computer. If you reasonably believe that a player is getting the "IP limit exceeded!" error even though they are not playing more than eight players, you can raise the players access level who are receiving the error. You must raise the level to 61 to prevent the automated lockout. If you are not sure that a player isn't simply running more players than the limit, you can still upgrade a few of them but make sure they have no more than 8 players in a single game. That way, if they have fooled you into giving them extra playable accounts, they cannot gain an unfair advantage by playing more than 8 ships in a single game. (Note that the limit of eight players is a systemwide limit, but it doesn't cause much of a problem unless a player has more than 8 in a single game.)

Obnoxious behavior, profanity: As a general rule, boot (the first level of the Z command) obnoxious players to give them a warning and so that they understand that you *can* do things to them. If they persist in vulgarity, etc, even after warnings and booting, you can use the second level of the Z command; delete their ship and all their resources. Caution: if a player has nothing to lose, this will actually *help* him by giving him a new ship with a new load of fuel! If you feel that deleting the ship is not enough (or, if you thought it was but they prove you wrong ;), lock the account by setting the access level to 0 with the outer menu (1) command. Note that a player has to be logged off for you to successfully edit their account with the (1) command so boot them first if they are logged on. There currently isn't a way to go immediately to the outer menu from inside the game (where you have to be to boot a player) without a TradingPost so you may have to log in a second session to do that. (Gameops can have multiple sessions open at the same time -- but only log one into the game.)

...

One more caveat on booting players: a new player who is still reading the introductory story appears to be in the game but can't be booted. You'll get a "can't lock record" error when you try to use the Z command. In the case of players who log in with a really vulgar player name, you might encounter this. If it happens, just wait a few minutes and try again. Due to some code problem I was unable to quickly fix this when I last tried... I will get back to it eventually.

Time limits: Gameops are subject to the same 4-hour timelimit as regular players but with one difference... it is four hours per session, not per day, so if you run out of time and log back in you will have another 4 hours.