Tiny Empires Down?

 

Things have been a little frustrating for the fans of Tiny Empires in the Sunweavers, the community in which the Newser has it's office. For those who don't know, "Tiny Empires" is a HUD=based game in which players slowly gain land, gold, and rank over time. Although the game has been around for many years, it still has a following. 

 

Unfortunately, something is wrong with the game. Sunweaver leader Rita Mariner informed the Newser the HUDs haven't been working for a few days.Taking a look myself, they were stuck in "connecting," with no information about acres or gold or liege sworn to.

 

This sounds similar to another failure in 2012, which was eventually resolved. 

 

As of the writing of this article, Tiny Empire creator, and Emperor, Ultralite Soliel, has not been online for several days and is unavailable for comment.  

 

The Tiny Empires game, and Tiny Empires 3000, are available at: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Kitster/147/41/54

 

*Addition* On Monday afternoon, the servers finally came online and the game was on.  

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Reader Submitted Picture: Tiny Empires Queen Memorial

 

 

 From Kamida Delec, from when Tiny Empires Queen Julie Apocalypse passed away from cancer and a tournament was held in her honor,  "Remembering a victim of Cancer. Tuesday ‎19 ‎May ‎2009, ‏‎19:17:04 (CET)"

 

Tiny Empires Game Not Working With New Last Names

image from Liska Fuchs

Yesterday, Linden Lab announced that residents (with Premium accounts) could have their last names changed after paying a fee. But while the Lab has been trying to work out the bugs with how residents interact with objects and Marketplace, there are still problems with things outside the Lab's direct control. For instance, some resident-created games may not recognize the new names. In one group notice inworld, there was a warning to players of the game "Tiny Empires."

For Tiny Empires players:

LL has reinstated “last names” effective today as a new option for Second Life Premium Members. Premium account holders may change their first, last or both names.

However, active TE players should NOT, repeat, NOT do this at this time. There are reports that one GV changed her name and was demoted to a wanderer. The Emperor has been asked to confirm or deny this and if confirmed, fix the glitch that allowed it to happen.

Until that time, please do NOT change your name.

 This was also mentioned in the Second Life forums.

I just paid £42.97 to change my name to Eva Nova and was so pleased, until I logged back in to SL and put my games HUDS on to find all progress lost. I had a guild in Tiny Empires 3000 and also played the classic game, for many years. ...
 
Please everyone be careful before you rush in like I did because I have destroyed years of progress on my games.

Also, Oldesoul Eldemar notified the Newser of a notice he'd gotten from Caspertech:

We were prepared for the name change stuff coming well in advance. It will not affect the operation of CasperVend or CasperLet in any way.

However, if you change your name, you will need to continue using your old name to log in to CasperVend.
~Casper

So those in Second Life changing their names early will likely go through a number of inconveniences.

Bixyl Shuftan

Flonne Ninetails Has Died

Ranchan Weidman, the owner of HV Community where the SL Newser office resides, announced that a friend of hers, Flonne Ninetails, had passed away.

For those that have known Flonne Ninetails, either in passing chats or on more deeper levels; from being friends or family with Flonne, both in Real life and Secondlife, it saddens me to pass along the news that early this march, for those that didn't know yet,  Flonne passed away.  Our hearts and wishes go out to you.  The strength and personality shared by Flonne, even under the medical issues being battled, will forever resonate in our hearts.  May you Rest in Peace, Sis. 

Flonne's profile listed her age as 29. Besides Tiny Empires, she was involved in a few sci-fi roleplay groups.

Relay Wizards' "Dunk the Emperor"

This weekend held a number of events connected to the Relay for Life. Among them was an event by the Relay Wizards for Spunky, DrFran Babcock's team. Having gotten a dunking booth for volunteers, they soon had a rather unusual volunteer: the creator of the popular Tiny Empires game.

Read DrFran's article in Events.

Dunk the Emperor

On Saturday, DrFran Babcock attended a Relay For Life event with a twist. Ultralite Soliel, the creator and 'Emperor' of the Tiny Empires game, volunteered to be among those in the dunk  tank. And so, people took turns tossing balls to hit the target and send the imperial figure into the drink, eventually getting him to change his clothes into something else.

Read DrFran's story in People.

Cartoon of the Day

Some people can really go "bats" over "Tiny Empires."

by Bixyl Shuftan

Tiny Empires Back Up

It was something of a rough time in my home estate at Sunweaver, and presumably many others, as there are a number of players of the game "Tiny Empires" here, and for a few days the game was non-operational, the HUDs coming up empty when brought up. The local Queen gave the following message on January 10th, a day after the problems began:

The bad news is that there has apparently been a catastrophic failure of some kind in the Tiny Empires servers and they will have to be rebuilt ... The good news is that I managed to grab a good backup before the failure, so nothing in the Tiny Empires games will be lost. Your acres and gold are safe. ... it is looking like the game won't be running again until tomorrow. I am very sorry for the long delay. This is the worst downtime for TE in years.

Finally today, she gave a message in the game group to reattatch the HUDs. The game was working again, and all was well with the Tiny Empire players, once again looking forward to the next announcement of "Trader!"

*Update* Seems some players are still having difficulties, so perhaps it may be another day or so before it's truly fixed.

Tiny Empires

Today, Xymbers Slade looks at the popular inworld game Tiny Empires. It's possible you may have come across people talking about "free acre" or "the trader." They were players of this game, sometimes called TE for short. Around for some time in Second Life, the game continues to be popular, and Xymbers gave it a try to see what makes it tick.

Read more in Design.