Saturday, 27 February 2010

New forum and new Roleplaying forum!

The brand new forum (beta) is now in full motion, you can head over to the forum page to see it. It's had a face-lift and a couple new features added too.  Which include:
 - Karma - You get 3 karma a day to give (+1 or =1) VIPs get 5.
 - Pages - Forum threads are grouped into pages so they're not all listed on one page.
- Drop down - Player options on each thread are now located in a drop down menu to save space.
- Search - You can now search forum thread titles.
- Floated topics - Staff floated threads now actually stick at the top!

The old forums will still be accessible for at least another week.

For all you RP fans I have created (based on the new system) a completely seperate forum for you guys to RP.  Valterra Dominor is currently in charge of the RP forums, she has set up the boards and the rules, she has also given a basic RP guide.

There are two different types of RP boards.
- No character setup board (free role-playing board) where you can create threads and RP in the new environment just as before.
- Character setup threads where to enter each thread  you must create a character to RP with. Categories include, character name, age, species and a bio.

Head over to have a play and see how the new system works. The character system was highly requested and I'm sure it'll be a hit.

If all goes well with the new forum system then in a couple weeks time the coven forums will be upgraded too. There will be snag with this because the old forum posts wont be transferable, more on this later.

Please give feedback on the right forum, and report any bugs whilst we test this out!

Current Jackpot: $32,368,500 << Who's gonna win that in a few hours?

Thank you & enjoy

Ash

Friday, 26 February 2010

Help ticket system upgraded

I have spent most of the morning (and afternoon now) upgrading the help ticket system as before it was pretty inefficient.  Now when you submit a ticket it gets added into a separate ticket database (away from blood letters as it worked before). You can add more replies after you've submitted one in-case you want to add something extra. When a staff member replies to your problem you will get a blood letter notification, you can then go to your tickets page (accessible on the help page) where you can view the reply.

Hopefully this will make communication a lot easier.

Oh, and the lottery jackpot for tomorow night is hitting $24,000,000. Someones going to be rich! (Unless it rolls over, ha!).

Enjoy,
Ash

Thursday, 25 February 2010

Firefox is your friend.

On March 1st every windows PC in Europe will be asked if they want to change browser from Internet Explorer which comes bundled with every Windows PC. Blah blah basically Microsoft lost the right (not sure how) to force users with IE. Now they have to give the user the option to install other browsers right away, most people don't understand computers very much and use IE as its given to them. That changes from March 1st, you'll get a new option come up asking to if you want to install a new browser.

Choose Firefox or Chrome.

I use both, and they are both fantastic browsers. RoB runs the fastest in those browsers and i develop the site with them. Even though i test each browser, the game looks and plays the best in Firefox and Chrome.(Of course this is just my opinion)

Source: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/02/microsofts-eu-browser-ballot-approved-arrives-march-1.ars

If you are using Internet Explorer right now you can jump ahead and download firefox using the button below, if you haven't used it yet... download it now. You'll never look back on IE.


Spread Firefox Affiliate Button


Congratulations to Theo winning just over $20,000,000 on last weeks lottery. This weeks lottery is currently up to $16,000,000, so hopefully someone else will be made rich this week. Due to how well its going I think its very liked, so after there has been a successful rollover I will take it out of Beta. Thank you for all your feedback on the feature  so far!

Ash

Tuesday, 23 February 2010

Achievements list 0.5 and 3!

Whilst I was working on Achievements list 3 i was looking over the previous 2 lists and decided that list 1 takes quite a while to do. So I have created a list 0.5. Which wont take a long at all to complete but will give new players a bit of a stat boost and help  getting into the game. For most of you will have all these unlocked right away.

Ladies and gentlement, the long awaited List 3 and the new list 0.5.

Any glithes/problems, please let me know.

Enjoy!
Ash

Saturday, 20 February 2010

Valentines Day gift winners & lotto jackpot going uuuuuuup!

Congratulations to:

 Rue Lancaster-Dont Forget (204834)
 Inara Sin ~Tasty Raven~ (160572)

 for receiving the most gifts. Your plasma will be sent to you right away.

Oh, you guys checked out the lottery yet?

Current Jackpot: $19,395,000


Still 2 days left until the draw...  someone is going to make a tasty profit.


Thanks,
Ash

Friday, 19 February 2010

New coven advertising system, New Lottery, Competition results & Last day of Valentines Day specials!

Good evening all.

I had a feature that was suggested to me a couple weeks back, it is a way for covens to get more players attention through some sort of coven advertising system. Basically any coven member of a coven can top up the coven advertising balance with real $ or game money. The coven owner can control the ad bid and the description. It uses a cost per click bidding system, where the higher you bid the more views and volume of clicks you get. Not to worry, once a player has clicked on your ad, you will not be debited another click for that same player again.
There is a new heading on the coven page called "Coven Promotion", there is the link to the coven advertising system and the old invite vampire link.  These ads are placed on the coven page when you're not in a coven, the coven hall page and the bottom of the dead city for maximum exposure. This idea could flop, or be successful, so I'm putting it on a trial run.

Onto the next thing... a new lottery! The old has been there since day one, and I remember back in College my good friend Rob who coded it up for me. Of course now it's a bit outdated and the prizes are pretty low. I've decided to drop the tier prize structure and just have one bigger winner once a week. Tickets cost $2000 each and you can buy as many as you want (more tickets = higher chance to win). The jackpot is 75% of all the ticket sales. Every Sunday night reset the lottery will run and there is a 25% chance of nobody winning, which means the jackpot will rollover to the next week (how exciting). If that doesn't happen and a winner must be chosen, then 1 random person will be selected to win the jackpot. For this first week of the lottery draw (which is this Sunday) I am giving the winner  5 plasma extra! So get over there and start buying up some tickets. (If it rollsover the winner next week will get the 5 plasma)

The winner of the extended January competition is  Jodas (60366). The next competition will be open in March. Thank you to all that entered.

Tomorrow is the last day for the valentines special, so to get some cheap plasma and show some love, do it asap! (Also the gift winners competition will end tomorrow too)

Also remember the Wallie Card UK special runs until Sunday too.

I'd like feedback on this weeks new features, either on this blog or on the forum, thanks!

Thanks & enjoy!
Ash

Monday, 15 February 2010

(UK Only) 10% off Wallie Cards at WHSmith this week only



 (If you're not located in the UK their offer does not apply to you)

Wallie are doing a 10% off promotion on their pre-paid game cards this week only. Go into your local WHSmith store and buy a £10 or £20 card and get 10% off with the voucher below. This works well with our current valentines day special, so getting more plasma for cheaper the price can only be good!


http://www.wallie.co.uk/images/upload/newsItems/Voucher%20WHSmith.JPG

Print off the above voucher and take it with you into your WHSmith store to get 10% off the Wallie card price. When you have bought your voucher head over to the BUY VIP page and click on WALLIE.

Back to the game side I have updated the left hand boxes to simple tables rather than the fancy images before (new layout), because I've had a lot of tickets through saying the game is too long (i.e have to scroll down a lot to get to the bottom) and the overlapping text problem (this is because they're set images). So I've replaced them with plain tables to make the more compact and expandable, I've had good feedback so far.

Thanks!
Ash

Saturday, 13 February 2010

Valentines Day 2010 celebration. *updated*

 Hello again,

Everyone gets 3 gifts to give to someone (except yourself) every day until the special runs out next Friday. The person who has the most gifts given to them will get 5 plasma (the person with the most premium gifts will get 10 plasma). So make sure you get on each day and give your gifts away! Sorry new players, but you have to be at least 7 days old to send the regular gifts, but you do get 3 to send right now. (Stop people making multis to get more gifts, don't wanna give the ACT unnecessary work).

You can go to the Dead City under Valentines 2010 heading for a quick link to the gift shop and leadeboards.

I've been asked a lot about trading to family members. This still is NOT allowed. If you trade plasma/money/equipment to people on your home network your account will still be liable for jailing.

Your account is completely safe to send gifts via the gift shop. Those gifts can be sent to anyone, even family members.

The reason for the couples pack is to give plasma both to you and your in game partner as you cannot trade across your same network, please be clear on this else you'll have Aftershock on your ass. Hope that makes sense :)

I have added a special pack for the WALLIE CARD. Head over the to the Wallie VIP page to see the offer. Again this offer lasts until next friday.

Thanks & have a good day tomorrow!

Ash

Friday, 12 February 2010

Valentines Day 2010 celebration.

Happy Valentines Day on Sunday :)

Valentines day is either one the happiest days of the year for some people, or the most depressing. I'm sure we can change that!

To celebrate it on RoB (a highly requested) a plasma/vip special has been added as always. Also I have added a COUPLES PACK, which where you and your in game partner gets some plasma. With that pack you also get to give a PREMIUM gift at the gift shop. (Google checkout and paypal only). Also for you chatters you get a cute little heart image next to your name with a purchase of any pack.

Everyone gets 3 gifts to give to someone (except yourself) every day until the special runs out next Friday. The person who has the most gifts given to them will get 5 plasma (the person with the most premium gifts will get 10 plasma). So make sure you get on each day and give your gifts away! Sorry new players, but you have to be at least 7 days old to send the regular gifts, but you do get 3 to send right now. (Stop people making multis to get more gifts, don't wanna give the ACT unnecessary work).

Depending on the popularity i might increase the plasma prizes and I also may add something else special on Sunday.

Happy gifting <3

Ash

Saturday, 6 February 2010

Weapon name rewards and economy info.

All is going well in regards to the weapon system. Nearly $1.5billion has been taken out the game already, the bar price is dropping and the market prices are dropping too. Exactly what we wanted! And I also see a lot of you are very much enjoying the Critical and blocks!

A while ago when I first was talking about the new weapons I asked you guys to come up with names for them all. And you all did, the ones I've chosen are obviously used on the equipment page. I also remember saying I'd give out a small prize to each one I chose? So congrats to all these players who won an AP:

Darcy Maiko (187992)
Goggy  (48702)
Trent D`Oreb (73679)
Dark Vermilion (85300)
Arhat 146154)
Bella Darkstar Arcana (76517)
Fallen (136635)
BK-201 (71664)
Blood Rayne  (92121)
Sekem (193152)
renagade  (97385)
ArcAngel  (149363)
Reagan Feenux (136111)
Dementia (141416)
Arkhon (100520)
Lady Dawn(Dria) Meurtrier (82469)
Lady Aestolia Silverfalls (172014)


As for the Janauary competition it will last until the new forums are done, because of illness etc i'm a bit behind as well as upcoming events this month, so if you still want to submit and win some plasma, go to dead city >> Janaury 2010 competition. February will not have its own competition and the next one will start in March.

Thanks,
Ash

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

NEW WEAPONS SYSTEM! All the updated info included in this blog.

Now this is going to be quit a beefy blog, as you can see...














So i've been working on this idea for a few months now and it's finally realised. Even though this bug has taken most my energy, I've powered through and I introduce the new weapon system...

Reasons for this new system:
- The current weapon prices are so cheap now, I haven't increased them in a long time which means you could pretty much sell 1 plasma and get the best equipment, that had to change.
- I wanted to add a bit of spice to battles, if you know you kill someone, things might be a little different now.
- To get some of nearly $16,000,000,000 (billion) out the game. Saying that, for the player base it's not a lot... compared to other games where their economy is through the roof with hundreds of trillions laying around.

So you're wondering, what exactly has been changed? Here goes...

New Weapons and Armour
A  brand new set of weapons and armour is now located in the new Equipment Shop at the Dead City.

Critical & Block %
To add extra spice into the battles and the new equipment, block and critical hits are now in motion! So how does that work? All of the new weapon and armour comes with a base 1% critical (or block% if its armour). Which means you can expect 1 in every 100 hits to be a critical. The same with block.

What is Critical and Block?
When you get a CRITICAL hit you double your attack for that hit. If the opponent BLOCKS you only do half the damage for that hit. Pretty simple eh? (If your hit is critical, and they block it, simply cancels each other out).

Blood Rubies
Okay so we all now know that weapons and armour come with the 1% base, how do we increase it? That's where 'Blood Rubies' come in. Blood rubies can be bought from the Blood  Ruby store at the Dead City. Now this is where it gets expensive... Each weapon (and armour) and 3 available slots. 3 slots where you can put 1 Ruby into each. Each Ruby has its own stats and adds to your critical or block % in battle.

Is it rank based?
What i wanted to do was with the new weapons is set a rank cap on each one, that was very disliked. So I took that feedback in and came up with a solution that would satisfy everyone. The new weapons and armour are NOT ranked based (as they have always been) BUT the Blood Rubies ARE rank based.

HAHA I'll just get a high rank to fuse the weapon and send it to me!
No. When a Blood Ruby is fused into a weapon (or armour) that weapon (or armour) THEN becomes rank based. So you will not be able to equip that certain weapon if it has a ruby rank requirement  is higher than your rank. It is possible to remove rubies from equipment (at a price) and once the ruby is removed you can use that weapon again.

What about the current weapons?
Had long thinks about how I can not piss everyone off and still make the new weapons more valuable. Your current weapons are still usable, they will be not be deleted and you will not be forced to sell them, but the old weapons will NOT be able to be upgraded with Rubies to have any critical or block %. This does not apply to the current VIP weapons and the achievement weapons, they have been upgraded so they are slot-able. It's down to your expense to dispose of the current weapons and upgrade to the new if you wish. I hope that makes sense.

Anything else?
Rubies can be added to equipment, taken from equipment and sold on the market. They cannot be donated to covens although you can donate equipment to a coven (and trade it over the market) and the rubies will belong to the coven (in the weapon) until its sent to someone else and they become the ruby owners. You cannot sell your weapon at the reselling store if you have any rubies attached to it. I am now going to spend time upgrading all the pages with equipment information and added Ruby info too (aswell as unlocking all the trade options). Oh, and the equipment page has been redesigned too. VIPs still get 20% off the equipment, there is no VIP discount on the Rubies yet.

I hope you like it, It will bring unpredictable good changes to the economy, it will give people something to save for. I'm exciting to see how this works out, I hope you are too.

Over the next few days i will be making small changes to the layout etc depending on the feedback and any small bugs that crop up.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the new weapon system!

Ash

BUGS - If you find any bugs with this system please send me DarkAsh(1) and blood letter and you will be rewarded plasma. 

I will reply to any questions i see here in red.
- When you donate equipment to the coven the coven has no access to the ruby. If you donate a weapon with a ruby in, then it will appear on the coven armoury as a weapon with a ruby in. When it is GIVEN OR LOANED the ruby remains in tact with the weapon and to be used with whoever is given or lent it. If someone LENDS you a weapon from a coven with a ruby in it, they will not be able to sell the weapon nor take the rubies out, though if the weapon is GIVEN then they are able to take the rubies out and sell them. 

- Edit, you can now sell your weapons if they have rubies in, you don't get anything from the rubies but a warning message comes up. 



- Rubies have no affect on coven stats.
- There is no advantage or disadvantage to the slot you chose to put the ruby in.


Current VIP/Achievements weapon update:
 - (Achievement weapons) The 325s comes with a 1% base, and the 350s come with a 2% base.
- The current +250s VIP equipment owners get a free upgrade to +280 and 2% base critical. (I think this is a fair compromise to the feedback)

The new VIP equipment pack is now available from the BUY VIP page! 


These weapons are expensive to give you something to SAVE FOR. You can get the old top weapons no problem. The best weapons aren't meant to be easily affordable... That's the entire idea behind them. You wouldn't play an xbox game and instantly be given the best stuff on the first level, would you?... That would be boring. It gives you something to work for, something to try and achieve... A reason to play the game.

Also, as for the achievement to buy a weapon, the weapon has been changed to one of the ones in the new equipment shop.


FINALLY the new weapon system is here!

Now this is going to be quit a beefy blog, as you can see...














So i've been working on this idea for a few months now and it's finally realised. Even though this bug has taken most my energy, I've powered through and I introduce the new weapon system...

Reasons for this new system:
- The current weapon prices are so cheap now, I haven't increased them in a long time which means you could pretty much sell 1 plasma and get the best equipment, that had to change.
- I wanted to add a bit of spice to battles, if you know you kill someone, things might be a little different now.
- To get some of nearly $16,000,000,000 (billion) out the game. Saying that, for the player base it's not a lot... compared to other games where their economy is through the roof with hundreds of trillions laying around.

So you're wondering, what exactly has been changed? Here goes...

New Weapons and Armour
A  brand new set of weapons and armour is now located in the new Equipment Shop at the Dead City.

Critical & Block %
To add extra spice into the battles and the new equipment, block and critical hits are now in motion! So how does that work? All of the new weapon and armour comes with a base 1% critical (or block% if its armour). Which means you can expect 1 in every 100 hits to be a critical. The same with block.

What is Critical and Block?
When you get a CRITICAL hit you double your attack for that hit. If the opponent BLOCKS you only do half the damage for that hit. Pretty simple eh? (If your hit is critical, and they block it, simply cancels each other out).

Blood Rubies
Okay so we all now know that weapons and armour come with the 1% base, how do we increase it? That's where 'Blood Rubies' come in. Blood rubies can be bought from the Blood  Ruby store at the Dead City. Now this is where it gets expensive... Each weapon (and armour) and 3 available slots. 3 slots where you can put 1 Ruby into each. Each Ruby has its own stats and adds to your critical or block % in battle.

Is it rank based?
What i wanted to do was with the new weapons is set a rank cap on each one, that was very disliked. So I took that feedback in and came up with a solution that would satisfy everyone. The new weapons and armour are NOT ranked based (as they have always been) BUT the Blood Rubies ARE rank based.

HAHA I'll just get a high rank to fuse the weapon and send it to me!
No. When a Blood Ruby is fused into a weapon (or armour) that weapon (or armour) THEN becomes rank based. So you will not be able to equip that certain weapon if it has a ruby rank requirement  is higher than your rank. It is possible to remove rubies from equipment (at a price) and once the ruby is removed you can use that weapon again.

What about the current weapons?
Had long thinks about how I can not piss everyone off and still make the new weapons more valuable. Your current weapons are still usable, they will be not be deleted and you will not be forced to sell them, but the old weapons will NOT be able to be upgraded with Rubies to have any critical or block %. This does not apply to the current VIP weapons and the achievement weapons, they have been upgraded so they are slot-able. It's down to your expense to dispose of the current weapons and upgrade to the new if you wish. I hope that makes sense.

Anything else?
Rubies can be added to equipment, taken from equipment and sold on the market. They cannot be donated to covens although you can donate equipment to a coven (and trade it over the market) and the rubies will belong to the coven (in the weapon) until its sent to someone else and they become the ruby owners. You cannot sell your weapon at the reselling store if you have any rubies attached to it. I am now going to spend time upgrading all the pages with equipment information and added Ruby info too (aswell as unlocking all the trade options). Oh, and the equipment page has been redesigned too. VIPs still get 20% off the equipment, there is no VIP discount on the Rubies yet.

I hope you like it, It will bring unpredictable good changes to the economy, it will give people something to save for. I'm exciting to see how this works out, I hope you are too.

Over the next few days i will be making small changes to the layout etc depending on the feedback and any small bugs that crop up.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the new weapon system!

Ash

BUGS - If you find any bugs with this system please send me DarkAsh(1) and blood letter and you will be rewarded plasma. 

I will reply to any questions i see here in red.
- When you donate equipment to the coven the coven has no access to the ruby. If you donate a weapon with a ruby in, then it will appear on the coven armoury as a weapon with a ruby in. When it is GIVEN OR LOANED the ruby remains in tact with the weapon and to be used with whoever is given or lent it. If someone LENDS you a weapon from a coven with a ruby in it, they will not be able to sell the weapon nor take the rubies out, though if the weapon is GIVEN then they are able to take the rubies out and sell them. 

- Edit, you can now sell your weapons if they have rubies in, you don't get anything from the rubies but a warning message comes up. 



- Rubies have no affect on coven stats.
- There is no advantage or disadvantage to the slot you chose to put the ruby in.


Current VIP/Achievements weapon update:
 - (Achievement weapons) The 325s comes with a 1% base, and the 350s come with a 2% base.
- The current +250s VIP equipment owners get a free upgrade to +280 and 2% base critical.

The new VIP equipment pack is now available from the BUY VIP page! 





Monday, 1 February 2010

First stage of making things faster!

Some of you may or may not have noticed that things are running a bit faster now, excpecially in the chats. This is because of a recent database upgrade that was made. I notice a difference, and I've had a lot of feedback saying that too. With the new servers arriving mid-February that will add to the speed at peak times also.

This bastard bug has hit me again and my damn throat is on FIRE. A guy does everything he can to help boost his immune system but the sucker bugs still get by. Nevertheless, my plan for tomorrows update (previous blog) I will still be working of during the day. Worse comes to worse it'll carry over to Wednesday too.

I also see eveyone's all Tomato throwing happy? Awesome!

Thanks & Enjoy!
Ash

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