July 2003

Be greeted Galactic Traveller,

as the summer has come more and more player are going for vacation and I am asked very often if there's a summer pause this year at echocluster.com.
First of all: (for most of you) don't worry, there is no fixed host pause planed this year. I might be away for one or two weeks but I'll take my host stuff with me and expect it to continue running smoothly as before. So you can continue having fun in your games.

However I understand people want to take some vacations at least once a year so I decided to do it in the following way:

- If you are going on vacation please first ask your allies or friends if they can play your turn while you're away. You can simply switch primary email-address to your friends one, allies can even submit turns for you without a change (they won't get replies, but your turns get listed as "received" on the webpages!)

- If you really do not find anybody who could play your turn email me and I will pause the game for up to 2 weeks so you can happily enjoy your free time

- For more than 2 week vacations you'll have to look further for an replacement for that time (forum, newsgroup, etc.) or drop completly from game letting cplayer do your turns meanwhile and hoping nobody is taking over your race meanwhile. I will make exceptions on very late-turn-games when players in game agree with that for pausing games for a longer period.

For all pause requests: please email me IN TIME. One day before you go on holiday, with next host in <24 hours is too late. Please email me exact dates when to pause game and when next host should run. Thanks!

All summer pause requests are limited till 01.09.2003.

Some games have already been stalled because of this - some players already mailed me about that. They will all get back in ~1 week so don't worry and don't forget to send in your turns in time.

I hope everybody is happy with this solution and I wish you all a happy summer time! :-)