The big finale is here. about three month ago I entered the new Astrowars round playing with old friends under a (for me) new tag. So far the round went on smooth.. But somehow we made it to enter the winning countdown of the game. As of today we are ranked first, and might even win the game - if we are really lucky... But due to that countdown we are now target of all of those other 5000 something players..

Well, I've managed to get the highest ranking within our alliance, so I fear I will be target #1 for anyone trying to kick us out of this countdown. Awaiting 24 sleepless hours.

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life at 00:50 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Tomorrow the online browser game Astrowars will start in it’s next round. This time I’ve decided to follow a few of my friends I was playing together with through the last rounds and join the AF alliance. This will be my first time in one of the real big alliances, and I’m quite curious how it will turn out to play in such an environment. Since the biggest challenge of that game is the interaction with your fellow team mates and other players around you, the environment you are playing with is very important. For me mastering this interactions is the most interesting part in playing Astrowars.

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life at 19:12 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Do you know these evenings/nights, when everything just won’t work like intended? I had one of them yesterday:

“Yes I’m really tired, too – probably better catch some decent sleep tonight instead of seeing each other.” With this rather rational argumentation I was looking forward for a calm evening and a long night with plenty of recovery. Later I resisted my friends who were about to convince me that a visit to “Drönland” a party with quite hard music would be a good place to have a beer or two! I decided that it would be better to save the necessary money – only have 30€ left for this month. Ok, I got to admit that I watched a movie and it was about 1am when I finally got to bed – but that’s a god time for me anyway. So I went into my bed some time after 1am. It didn’t take me too long to fall asleep. But at 2am suddenly my mobile phone tore me out of my dreams. An unknown number calling in the middle of the night?!? Having a closer look at the number I already got an SMS explaining everything “Cat you are being attacked!” – It was my Astrowars Buddy Matti informing me of an incoming attack within this text based online real time strategy game. So I went to the computer and ran right into our little online crisis conference. Another player of our alliance was also attacked by this Lithuanian alliance which has decided us to be the main target of their aggression! He had is defence already in place. Now, we were starting to calculate how I could win that battle – I was being attacked by one of the ten biggest fleets in that game! And I didn’t have too much production points which are needed to build defences saved. So I first had to use the last chance (If you really need some in-game money you may donate to the game creator, and you will win some in-game money) – so I did that until I had enough money to raise a decent defence. The only problem was that I needed the help of another alliance member to get the defences in place. So another member got a wake-up call in the middle of the night… I then got up at 7am and at 8:45am to check that everything went right and to build up my defence.

It worked!!! I got this guys fleet destroyed Thx to everyone involved! And let’s hope for some more quiet nights!

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life at 23:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

For days I’ve been thinking about a high sophisticated topic to blog about. Today a short article on the World Youth Day in Cologne gives me an impulse to reflect a little bit on the changing relations in our society. A generation away, when my parents had my age it was not that common to travel foreign countries. A visit to Paris was a real highlight at that time. But during the last years Europe and our world grew quite close together. The enhanced mobility with fast train connections in Europe and discount Airlines did their part to make traveling very easy. Some 25 years ago it was something special to visit a football game at the other end of the country – new you visit a Champions League Match at the other end of Europe.
So it is no problem to have international gathering of people! And if one of the biggest communities – the Christian church – invites you can get 400000 young people gathered together. With his business Know-How the german President Horst Köhler encouraged the participants to use the chance to form new friendships.

“Enjoy your stay in Germany. I hope you will return to your home countries with new energy and confidence, remembering the impressions of this World Youth Day with lots of new phone numbers and e-mail addresses in your pockets. Do not let go of the hands reaching out to you over the next few days.”

I think it is a real good chance for our youth to get in touch with different cultures and will help them to lose xenophobia. The xenophobia issue reminds me a little on Arthur C Clarke’s “Childhood’s end”, which I read last week. To really work together with an alien race, it takes two generations, until the humans are finally allowed to see the alien race – first the humans got to learn to accept the aliens. Globalization and global collaboration takes it’s time – but with events like this World Youth day we really have a great step towards becoming a worldwide community. Gathering of the youth will help people to become more tolerant, and enhance the willingness to work together beyond national borders.

With study programs, which bring you abroad, and the traditional school exchange many people get the chance to form networks around the world within their education. Communication over a global medium like the internet brings people together, too. (Without playing Astrowars I would probably never know that there exists a place like the Prince Edwards Island – no I have some friends over their, and I’d really liked to visit them some day!). There are many more new developments, which bring people together all over the world – let’s hope that we all make the best of it. So I’m connecting to Horst Köhlers appeal – make the best out of your chance to get connected to the world!

Interesting is that of course the issue of sexuality amongst the youth is an issue. The point of view of the Catholic Church, which is head of the gathering, is “no sex before marriage”. And as Pope John Paul II put it the use of condoms is a sin. But for the young people an open dealing with that issue is common sense. This does not mean that young people would get intimate with each other in an ill-considered manner – they make their decision dependant on the feeling of love not onto the institution of marriage. In a conservative community where the intuition of marriage is still one of the most important institutions this paradigm shift is not accepted. So it is not surprising, that authorities of the church get annoyed asked about that issue. But as it is a important issue for the youth I think this topic will be discussed amongst the participants. I think many participants are going to discuss. Partnership and sexuality go together and partnership is an important issue for young people, who seek there place in live. So it will be an issue, trying to ignore it, because it is a explosive topic will not prevent that.

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life at 07:25 | Comments (2) | Trackback (1)

In case you didn’t know before – I more or less completely stopped playing computer games, when I moved to Bamberg at the beginning of my studies in 1999. So in the last years there were not too many conventional games that grasped my attention (in fact the only game I have got installed on my computer right now is NFS2U).
But there is one strategic game that occupied my quite a little the last year. And guess – it is a game that only can be played through the internet. But Astrowars is no game with neat graphics, it is just text based. The goal of the game is quite simple – set up a galactic empire over several star systems and fight with allies to defend it and to gain new planets. This might sound quit simple, but in fact it is not. You can play the game with only a few minutes of time each day, but you should continuosly follow the game. Since interaction with your opponents and allies is crucial you are needed to communicate a lot. Players play Astrowars from all over the world, and the game takes place in real time. So beeing in a different timezone then your fellows may be an advantage/disadvantage…
The game also is really dynamic, since one round, until a player or an alliance has reached the necessary points to win only takes about 3 month. In Beta Round 9 my brother and our GSG (Gamma Sector Group) Alliance even had the 15 minutes of fame you get once in a lifetime and made #5 in the Top Alliances ranking.
For this Beta GSG won’t be formed, and I started this morning with a part of the MOW. I’m looking forward to a promising beta. If you are interested in Astrowars, than just follow this link, and have a try!

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life at 12:05 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)