Representatives of more than 100 countries have approved a draft treaty to ban the global use of cluster bombs. Although the United States, China and Russia are not part of the agreement, campaigners hope they will eventually sign on. The world's three largest military powers, China, Russia and the United States, along with other countries that have used cluster bombs such as Pakistan and Israel, were not represented at the conference in Dublin. But Thomas Nash of the Cluster Munitions Coalition, an umbrella body campaigning for a ban on the weapons is hoping the Dublin deal will spell the end for their use. "We believe that this treaty is going to stigmatize this weapon so completely and so strongly that countries such as the United States, Russia and China simply will not be willing to pay the political price of using them and facing the public opprobrium that will come with any use in the future," Nash said. At the beginning of the conference, Britain was seen as one of the countries that would oppose a comprehensive ban. But during the meeting, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said his government had issued instructions in support of the ban of all cluster bombs. Mr. Brown said the agreement announced late Wednesday was in line with British interests and values, and makes the world a safer place. A U.S. statement said, "While the United States shares the humanitarian concerns of those in Dublin, cluster munitions have demonstrated military utility, and their elimination from U.S. stockpiles would put the lives of our soldiers and those of our coalition partners at risk." Cluster munitions are deployed from the air or ground. They release dozens or hundreds of smaller bomblets and grenades. Many of them fail to detonate on impact and become anti-personnel mines that will kill and maim long after the conflict has ended. The International Committee of the Red Cross is one of many humanitarian groups that campaigned for a total ban. The organization was represented in Dublin and its spokesman, Peter Herby, told VOA the ICRC has dealt first-hand with the consequences of cluster bombs in Indochina, Afghanistan, Lebanon and other places. "We simply have seen too much damage, too much carnage among civilians caused by these weapons and we have decided it was time to intervene loudly and forcibly to ensure that they are simply eliminated, that they become prohibited just like chemical, biological weapons and anti-personnel land mines," Herby said. The agreement brings to an end a process that began in Oslo, Norway in February 2007 when 46 nations agreed to prohibit cluster munitions. One-hundred-forty countries took part in subsequent meetings in Peru, Austria and New Zealand that saw the development of the treaty text. Countries, including some not present in Dublin will sign the treaty in Oslo, in December. After signing, countries need to ratify it, usually through legislative approval for the treaty to be legally binding.
Maybe time to remove'em from Netropolis too? (After all, who use them....) Article from Voice of America website
Do you remember Mr. Hide? Well, that needed an extra investigation. So this morning someone (lmao) decided that it was time to hit Philadelphia. Bombing started around 4 AM Netrotime, and soon the map went a mess:
Now here's a little detail of my investigation:
Bombing started ar 4.15
05.30 Netrotime
Who's online in this city now? Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Greenwich (bomber) Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Irvine (bomber) Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Louisville (bomber) Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Milwaukee (bomber) The Garden of Allah (landholder) Puddle of Mud (landholder) Dr Jekyll of Mr Hyde (landholder) The End of The Innocence (landholder) The Heart of The Matter (landholder)
STATISTICS
286) The Matter £-30057 289) Mr Hyde £-40990 290) The Innocence £-43086 293) Allah £-59776 294) Mud £-62436
06.15 Netrotime
Who's online in this city now? Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Irvine Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Louisville Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Milwaukee The Garden of Allah Dr Jekyll of Mr Hyde The End of The Innocence The Heart of The Matter
(Mud disappeared but belongs to the same set of companies...)
STATISTICS
287) The Matter £-60327 288) The Innocence £-66660 290) Mr Hyde £-70630 293) Mud £-77980 294) Allah £-81651
Here's a pic:
06.59 Netrotime
Who's online in this city now? Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Greenwich Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Irvine Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Louisville Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Milwaukee Philadelphia of Flyers007 The Garden of Allah Dr Jekyll of Mr Hyde The End of The Innocence The Heart of The Matter
STATISTICS
287) The Matter £-84230 290) The Innocence £-90084 291) Mud £-92402 292) Mr Hyde £-98161 294) Allah £-103844
and another screenshot:
*Note: PC clock is set on Italy time, that's GMT+1.
07.33 Netrotime
Who's online in this city now? Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Greenwich Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Irvine Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Louisville Philadelphia of Flyers007 The Garden of Allah Dr Jekyll of Mr Hyde The End of The Innocence The Heart of The Matter
STATISTICS
286) The Matter £-89296 288) Mud £-92977 289) The Innocence £-94518 291) Mr Hyde £-97764 295) Allah £-116791
08.15 Netrotime Who's online in this city now? Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Greenwich Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Irvine The Garden of Allah Dr Jekyll of Mr Hyde The End of The Innocence The Heart of The Matter
STATISTICS
284) Mud £-82822 287) The Matter £-88519 288) The Innocence £-89537 291) Mr Hyde £-97870 292) Allah £-100836
Even if it seems that they started doing something, it's not the case: simply, many of their lands went deros, and Irvine started building stalls:
1) Hyatt Regency Irvine £42462 Company: Hyatt Regency Irvine Director: Hyatt R. von Dehn Holdings: £24,773,855 Percent map owned: 28%
09.05 Netrotime Who's online in this city now? Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Greenwich Hyatt R. von Dehn of Hyatt Regency Irvine The Garden of Allah Dr Jekyll of Mr Hyde The End of The Innocence The Heart of The Matter
STATISTICS
283) Mud £-70199 288) The Innocence £-80611 290) Mr Hyde £-87656 291) The Matter £-90289 293) Allah £-99812
Paris, saturday early in the morning. My map viewer shows me that someone is doing a great job in there, so could I have missed it?
I logged into one of my *cough* 40 or 50 comps in there. The bomber asked me to join the party, 'couse, he literally said "i smell 24/7 login ". So i dropped a few bombs here and there, nothing serious, but here's what interested me most:
05.30 Netrotime
Comps online:
Who's online in this city now?
broker of stocks (bomber) Producer of Hit Records (landholder) system of fsystemON (landholder)
Stats
1) HitRecord £98760
06.30 Netrotime
Who's online in this city now?
broker of stocks (bomber) Producer of Hit Records (landholder) system of fsystemON (landholder) VeniVidiVici (bomber - myself)
116) Hit Records £-162250
07.10 Netrotime
Who's online in this city now?
broker of stocks Bloody Butcher of Slaughter Haus (starts renovating/cleaning his lands) Producer of Hit Records VeniVidiVici (bomber - myself) Note: system of fsystemON liquidated due to the heavy bombing
117) Hit Records £-213638
07.40 Netrotime
Who's online in this city now?
Bloody Butcher of Slaughter Haus Everlasting of TheLastEver(starts renovating/cleaning his lands) Producer of Hit Records
116) Hit Records £-231603
08.00 Netrotime
Who's online in this city now? Bloody Butcher of Slaughter Haus Everlasting of TheLastEver Producer of Hit Records Avenging Phoenix of Forgotten Ashes
116) Hit Records £-197990
Note: some of its lands gone deros, now he loses less than before: no fire gone out, none of those not ruined have been renovated yet. Here's the pic:
08.20 Netrotime
Who's online in this city now?
Bloody Butcher of Slaughter Haus Everlasting of TheLastEver Producer of Hit Records Avenging Phoenix of Forgotten Ashes
116) Hit Records £-161220
Well, I could not spend all my life watching that blatant 24/7 cheat log in, so I went out for a little shopping. When I was back, around lunch time, it had just finished renovating/rebuilding. But it was 4 hours later. I did hit him a little bit, but had to go away. Will be back, I still have to visit Louvre and see if, at least there, a genuine player still exist.
Oh, Another player said to me that The Hit Record Producer is the same that promote his shit in some other places, as Olympus. I was not surprised. Chapeau, Muppet.
First of all: that you believe or not, I am not against anyone, nor i have been in the game. Sure, I sometimes went pissed off with this or that player, like anyone else. But nothing that could not be managed via the game board. I was recently accused to point my finger toward a group of people, without having any proof or at least with the aim to make dirty reputation to this or that player, or maybe to have an advantage from this in the game itself.
So i'll try now to tell you a story.
I will provide pics and videos, and try to explain what is running in Netro. Then I'll try to expose my reasons. Make your own idea, trying to start from this point: once again, I am pissed off, but not for my comps destiny, or my game goals.
It has been months that i am investingating netro maps. Game is a bit stagnant, and even before last minireset, it did not take that much time to look after my lands. So I started looking at those places that seemed to have more matters. What I have seen for months, I will try and resume with the most recent events, happened in Olympus. How you can see even now, that map it is more than half ruined/empty. Yesterday, I noticed that heavy bombing was running in there, and above all i noticed a message on my mapviewer:
So i logged into a comp I have access to in there, to follow things.
There was a long fight, but bombers were more persistant than current landholders, so the map went 100% deros as shown in the following picture.
I went out to lunch, and when i was back, after 30 minutes, most of the map had been reclaimed, with 3-4 comps building Hot Dog Stands. "Damn, they're fast", I thought, so i decided to have a closer look. The following video (it's really poor, and map was really really slow - I can guarantee I am really at least triple faster in loading pages) shows you what was happening: there were 3 comps building hotdogs at the same time. Hot dogs were built row by row on 7x7 square basis: two comps always left to right, the third from right to left. Each plot was built one by one.
Again, I am aware of the bad quality of the video, and how partial can be what it represents... it was impossible to do a better job, so take it as it is, a partial view of a more complex situation.
A couple of personal considerations: any experienced player, having to reclaim bombed lands fast, would not build one plot by one, expecially concidering they were not buildin properly. And we were in a height, so do not tell me they're newbies. Anyone else, would build 10 plots at a time. Second fact: it is just odd that one player uses that technique, but having three players doing the same thing at the meantime, it not doubious, it's 100% a script.
Ok, let's go on. Map was rebuilt the way i said, and comps went briefly offline. I decided to grab a coffee, and when i was back, the 3 comps were back online. I zoomed in the map in various sectors, and what i saw is that they were changing all the hotdogs into proper building. It was done again in the same way: always in the same direction (left to right), always in 7x7 blocks. Suddenly, one of the bombers came back online, they had to stop, and the map was massively bombed again. So i took a look at the way he bombed, above all becouse i knew that comp: i bombed it years ago in Manchester to help Ashley. For what I could see, the bomber was working the right way: 7x7 blocks, left to right then right to left for alternate rows, sometimes top bottom other times bottom up... in few words, it was 99,9% working manually (for what you can witness looking from outside). He did a nice job, it took him one hour to wipe the map again. While he/she was bombing, I went to action a comp in Valhalla, and i found out that there were 40 new comps. Few of them had thrown a few cherries, a friend had helped, so I took back my lands, sorted what had to be sorted, and looked to the sky 'couse i understood that this was related to Olympus... even becouse all comps, both in Oly and in Valhalla, belong to the same player/ group of players.
I left the game in the late afternoon, went home, dealt with daughters, ate some food, washed dishes, then i logged back into the game to find out the same scenery i had seen in the early afternoon: landholders in Olympus were building again hotdogs in the same way they had done in the afternoon. They had done half of the map when some new bombers came online and started wiping them again! After a few minutes, i had the idea to take a look in Valhalla and.... There were some of the new comps online, prolly actioning, but not using one of my plot... So I asked a friend to give a look at Midget's comp events and.... They were fireouting an undeveloped plot (that's the first cheat). My friend had the idea to take it over, and change to a HTC. Next serie of pics shows you what went on.
Now. Olympus is still ruined with plenty of free lands. This would never have been happened in the good old times: lands would have been grabbed by many many people trying to get their little piece of Heaven, and there would have been war for weeks. Ok, the place is a rathole and so easy to bomb that many of us do not have the courage to face a daily cheap bombing, but it is still clear that this is not the only reason. Let's be honest: why shoud anyone go to try and grab lands that are managed by poor people blatantly scripting without any self and others' respect?
What pisses me off, is that in this low Era of the game, with no competition at all, or very few, there'd be "no need" to use scripts! And even if a script is a script and there's no real excuse for those who use them, i can still "justify" and try to understand if it was used in a particularly critical situation, with boss at work stressing you with less important things than your lands, or your lover who wants more when you ran out of condoms.
I hope you can believe me: that's a set of scripts, the same witnessed in so many places and exposed in my previous posts, used by the same people who come here and anonimously posts ridiculous comments about me scripting. Or that writes silly speeches in temples, trying to offend me (their italian is as low as their moral...) To those I want to say few things: I will go on denouncing your activities, and trying to make your life not so easy at least until I will love this game the way I love it now. I will do this here, on MY blog, where I post and share MY ideas, with MY name signing each and every post. I wonder how poor people you are, blatantly cheating and scripting in a game. Supposing you will succeed in making all players leave (won't be easy, the microcosm experiment was successful, after all...), what will you do when your wonderful tools will let you manage all Netro?
To those who have the gentlness to read my bad english: I know that we should only speak about how great is the game, trying to make it look unique as it is. But enough is enough. My denounce has no different aim than to fight the plague. Removed it, the game will be cured.
A prayer to the reps and above all to Tiscali and Alex: I know it seems that it does not worth a single penny, but I know it would not take so much time and effort to implement a serious anti-scripting policy. With this, you could discover the gold mine in the game and its honest players (there're so many out there...)
People will never learn. So I am starting a Name And Shame Campaign on this blog. We had few examples in the past few days, and I will try to keep infos updated on a regular basis.
Location: Melbourne Comps scripting:
Its Just The Start of YOURPROBLEMS01 Its Just The Start of YOURPROBLEMS02 Its Just The Start of YOURPROBLEMS03 Its Just The Start of YOURPROBLEMS04
Few days after more than 20 maps went free, Netro life, goes on as usual, more or less. The week started with Chicago on Fire
and after a busy strike day in Austin, we had a couple of interesting landscapes: in Quito
and above all in Sydney
The most interesting situation was in Philadelphia. The map was torched starting around lunch time. A couple of comps have been continuosly online, in particular
Dr Jekyll of Mr Hyde
It is still online, and here is a screenshots of its lands at the moment I post:
It is losing
268) Mr Hyde £-58129
but while other landholders are slowly trying to sort their stuff, that one stays there, continuosly logged. Shame!
Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) is one of the world's most famous graphic artists. His art is enjoyed by millions of people all over the world, as can be seen on the many web sites on the internet.
He is most famous for his so-called impossible structures, such as Ascending and Descending, Relativity, his Transformation Prints, such as Metamorphosis I, Metamorphosis II and Metamorphosis III, Sky & Water I or Reptiles.
(Click To Enlarge)
But he also made some wonderful, more realistic work during the time he lived and traveled in Italy.
Castrovalva for example, where one already can see Escher's fascination for high and low, close by and far away. The lithograph Atrani, a small town on the Amalfi Coast was made in 1931, but comes back for example, in his masterpiece Metamorphosis I and II
M.C. Escher, during his lifetime, made 448 lithographs, woodcuts and wood engravings and over 2000 drawings and sketches. Like some of his famous predecessors, - Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer and Holbein-, M.C. Escher was left-handed.
Apart from being a graphic artist, M.C. Escher illustrated books, designed tapestries, postage stamps and murals. He was born in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, as the fourth and youngest son of a civil engineer. After 5 years the family moved to Arnhem where Escher spent most of his youth. After failing his high school exams, Maurits ultimately was enrolled in the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem
After only one week, he informed his father that he would rather study graphic art instead of architecture, as he had shown his drawings and linoleum cuts to his graphic teacher Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita, who encouraged him to continue with graphic arts.
After finishing school, he traveled extensively through Italy, where he met his wife Jetta Umiker, whom he married in 1924. They settled in Rome, where they stayed until 1935. During these 11 years, Escher would travel each year throughout Italy, drawing and sketching for the various prints he would make when he returned home. Many of these sketches he would later use for various other lithographs and/or woodcuts and wood engravings, for example the background in the lithograph Waterfall stems from his Italian period, or the trees reflecting in the woodcut Puddle, which are the same trees Escher used in his woodcut "Pineta of Calvi", which he made in 1932.
Escher became fascinated by the regular Division of the Plane, when he first visited the Alhambra, a fourteen century Moorish castle in Granada, Spain in 1922.
During the years in Switzerland and throughout the Second World War, he vigorously pursued his hobby, by drawing 62 of the total of 137 Regular Division Drawings he would make in his lifetime.
He would extend his passion for the Regular Division of the Plane, by using some of his drawings as the basis for yet another hobby, carving beech wood spheres.
He played with architecture, perspective and impossible spaces. His art continues to amaze and wonder millions of people all over the world. In his work we recognize his keen observation of the world around us and the expressions of his own fantasies. M.C. Escher shows us that reality is wondrous, comprehensible and fascinating.
Another artist, that seems to follow Escher's footprints, was yesterday in London...
It seems there's an amazing way to count how many Headquarters are spread on a map. Someone tested it in LA this morning, and few lines below you can see a screenshot of its result.
An amazing place to have. Great security and amazing police. It was MI6's before the previous liquidation, then it went to Syndicate. When Marco left, he gave it back to me. Few tried to annoy in there, with no chance...
WARSAW
I cannot even remember how it came to have part of it. Nice place, and nice ppl to share it with. Now gone for good, but who knows...
SALVADOR
I had no real interest in that place, i had enough lands to deal with at the time. Previous owner massively used 24/7 login scripts, though, so i went pissed off and took it after a few bombing. No one went to seriously reclaim, as too often it happens in the contemporary Netro...
PHILADELPHIA
It went free after last MI6 minireset. Mariners, or someone managing their comps, tried to take it, but we soon took it back. Quite impossible to attack it, expecially when you have 100+ banks to save you ass...
PARIS Another place that long time was MI6's. It seems i took it off Ashley/Matty eons ago, not a great security/police, and strike day can be a mess... if anyone has balls to come and hit you!
NEW ORLEANS
The place was blocked for long time when there was the 500 comps per city limit. When it went free, it had 150+ banks on 46 mills protecting it. DDog decided to take it over, and obviously he succeeded in. Most of banks were forced to hero, another DD Style Mission!
MOSCOW The place declares amazing security and police stats. It's false, they're not so good! Having a part of it was enough...
GALWAY
This wonderful UK city was long monitored for the scripts abuse running in there. A DD mission to take it was successful, as usual. Previous owner tried a spare counter-takeover using their wonderful tools, but the day after lands were back in our hands.
EDINMBURGH
What a wonderful place to live in!. It was Administration's, we took it over with no bombs a couple of times before Rigerz and Fran left it. Deano is visiting it daily trying to discover not-existant scripts. He is a moron, but this is not a great new!
DALLAS
A little piece of my heart. It was conquered several years ago, when the Game was the GAME. There were so many good players sharing it! I remember Copper, Midget, James.... And remember when Zippy helped me to bomb it on a hot summer night, drinking wine and building the way she builds... Dallas was blocked with 500 comps for long time, the experiment to have 100% comps in there was successful till the limit was removed. Reading what other players posted at the time, on Tiscali forums, it seemed it would have become a rat hole just after the limit was removed. None came though, and it was a wonderful place till today. Will miss it, despite its not so good security. So long, Dallas!
CHEYENNE
Another place affected by 24/7 logins. Was not that hard to take, and no reaction received. Our last goal, till today at least. Amazing police, but be careful with fires... especially since today :P
BOGOTA
The place was Tony's and he left it to me when he left. I hope he will not be angry with me to have liquidated it, but I will help you take it back whenever you want to, mate!
AUSTIN
Old Aack's reign. Long time we had lands there, recently we took over what was bedi's (I think) and that went suddenly free.
ABERDEEN
That place is a rat hole. I did not have any particular reason to take it over, i can only remember that i made their saturdays really hot before they gave up and let the lands go.
First of all: I never had a copy of it, nor asked to have.What stated below coming from daily experience, looking at several maps on fire.
Simplest way to detect Zeus at work
Let's have a map on fire. Suddenly you see fires go out very very fast, and no comp online: this means that landowners are cleaning fires, and they do all at the same time. If it took one hour to torch the map, you will see fires disappear quite completely in 10 mins or less. I say 'quite' and not 'completely' couse you can notice that last column (on the right) and last row (at the bottom) of the map are still burning: this is the second trace that Zeus and its users leave behind: Zeus works on 7x7 squares (I am not that Tech Guru, so maybe not correct) and this does not allow to deal with those parts of the map, that have to be sorted manually. Just after fires are out (again, except last column and last row), you will see all landholders pop online, clean manually what still burning, and then starting the renovation task, Zeus aided, obviously. All will take, again, 10-15 mins.
What else Zeus can do? This a good question. It should be able to log comps 24/7. And according to some private infos, he'd be able to do tranfers for you. But I think these are different scripts. I have witnessed fast building according to optimized schemas. Easy to detect: just take a look at the way they build free plots or bombed plots and see that they do in a way that none, playing manually, would do. And above all, always the same way: one plot by one. Another feature should be the one to have a comp monitoring the map, and able to auto put out fires as they are lit. Easy to detect too, fires go out in the same order that they were lit. Being different comps to be fired/firestartered, they cannot say it was done from events ;). About bombing, i have studied some logs from Galway that, few weeks ago, was screamed to 10% and completely CTOed by ten comps working at the meantime. Last column, and last row, again, not treated as the rest of the map. So it seems evident that the tool can be used to attack too.
Some of them were liquidated, others changed owner, some more could have been affected but i have no evidence. When this post is blogged, Zeus is running in Melbourne again ;)
All the above, again, simply coming from experience.
Another sad day for the game. Scripts run, and the game seems to be abandoned again. Rumours say that Tiscali is selling whole or part of its business, and the future of Netro is darkest than ever. When few hopes remain, all semms to go lost when you come back and find that a good amount of lands has been liquidated. The lil slideshow below just shows another sad day in Netropolis.
Thanks everyone, we built a nice roadside HQ on InternetMap.info...
>go on clicking to upgrade it!<
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Quincy's World Of Netropolis
My Name Is Franco. But Most Of Netro People Know Me As "Quincy" I Have Been Living In Netro For Many Years, Enough To Achieve Some Decent Results In The Game But, What Count Most, Enough To Gain Maybe Some Respect. And Many Enemies For Sure. Yes. In Netro, You Can Make Friends. And Enemies. And More, Your Worst Enemy Can Easily Become Your Best Friend. And Viceversa. What An Amazing World Is Netro. You Will Spend Sleepless Nigths In Trying To Defend A Little Block Of Land. Or To Get It From One Adversary. You Will Spend Hours At Work Watching A Red-Blue Squared Map, And Won't Answer To Any Phone Call If Something Is Happening In The Place(s) You'Re Watching. Oh. You'Re Here. So You Know Damn Well How It Works. I Will Simply Try And Show You Things From A Different Perspective. I Will Show You Some Secrets, And Reveal Some Unrevealed. Maybe. Or Simply Will Share With You, One By One, My Common Days In Netropolis, The Best Online Game That Was Ever Created. C'Ya, Mate. ---Content and views expressed within this site are not necessarily endorsed by the Netropolis games team or Tiscali.---
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