Friday 27 January 2012

New MINION system (v1), new stats page layout, achievements list 5, new referral system & more





New Locations
2 new locations have been added  to the portal map. Petrik's Shack and The Unknown. The Unknown is a new location which currently closed to all vampires, but it'll be open soon. Petrik's Shack is explained below. The portal map has been updated, with a couple very small changes on there too.

New minion system (v1)
When I first started coding on the pets, I knew exactly how I wanted them to work. But the player base were pretty much split in half with their view on this. One wanting it the way I made it, and the other who wanted their pet to fight with them in their battles.  So I've decided (to much of your future enjoyment) to create a minion system.

Petrik, in the early hours of the morning, ventures beyond [ the yet to be explored ] human side of the mountains, where he captures skilled human killers when they're off guard (animals too). They are then enslaved, tortured and brainwashed to become minions of the Dead City inhabitants.

A minion, which can be bought from Petrik, is then stored in your new minion panel (see below). You can have up 10 minions, but can only use them 1 at a time. Minions help you in battle, but you have to look after them for them to be fully effective help in battle.

You can buy food from the food store on the minion page, you need to keep it fed for it to be effective enough in battle. Wouldn't want a minion with no energy helping you in battle, right?

You can increase your minions stats in two ways, one way, is to level the minion up and it's stats are automatically increased, or you can use AP to boost it's stats. Although keep in mind, minions have stat caps for each level, so you cannot just throw 100 AP and have a mega ultimate minion.


To read fully into the new minion system, I suggest you go check out the minion page, and the minion help page.

The minion system is for vampires over rank 30. 

Please note: This is the first version of the minions, they may be tweaked and altered in different ways as I watch them play out during their first version in beta.


New homepage layout
The homepage layout has an upgrade due to the fact I couldn't find a suitable place to have the minions. The main problem is there is so much content to squeeze onto this page, so hopefully you'll like the changes. The new homepage changes are:

- Navigation links at the top for quick access to stats, equipment, inventory, pets & minions.
- Power added & showing players close to your power.
- Greenwood information section added
- Added an option to remove the yellow warning box
- A nice cleaner layout
- Battle boosts tab to show ways to increase stats and rewards
- All number values (I.E money) have been formatted

New Referral system
On the "invite friends" tab on the new homepage, you will see a new referral system. The system is now based on you helping your referrals. Helping your referrals get into the game rewards you at the same time. Help them rank up and you get rewarded. If they buy VIP, you get rewarded even further! All new banners have been added to the referral page also. The link money system is still the same. You can also track your referrals on the same page to see how they're doing.

Achievements list 5
Slightly earlier this year... but achievements list 5 is here!

Ruby unbinding changes
I have now halved the price of taking rubies out of weapons. (Because I'm just that nice)


Been working hard for a while now on this, but I hope you like it!

Please report and bugs, further suggestions, or any questions you have about any of these updates on this thread.


Enjoy the weekend :)
Ash

Friday 20 January 2012

Double turns & points weekend



Server downtime last week
As you know, we had about 9 hours downtime last week as we did some essential server work. Overall, it was a success, server errors have been reduced dramatically, and we continue to watch the servers to get rid of them completely.

Instead of issuing a promo code for this, I will run DOUBLE TURNS and DOUBLE POINTS until Sunday night. [ View points page ]

Lots of updates to come! Stay tuned.

Ash

Saturday 14 January 2012

Server phase #1 complete



Thank you to everyone for your patience during the server updates.  I can confirm that phase #1 is now complete. Please keep in mind there may be the odd glitch, it may run a little slow as the new setup is worked out, but we're keeping a very close eye on it and will fix any issues that arise.

We'll monitor the servers over the weekend, and make a choice whether phase #2 is needed. If you're getting any problems, please post in the bug forum. I will deal with any missing resets (including the main reset which obviously has not been executed) after a few hours sleep.

A reward to all players for the downtime will be setup tomorrow (Sunday), we've just concentrated on getting the game back up and running for now.

Update: Main reset has just been executed manually at 8:16am.

Thank you & have a great weekend
Ash

Thursday 12 January 2012

Server downtime phase #1 [UPDATED] 24 hour notice



UPDATE: Due the server issues and random 503s today, I don't think it's fair for any of us to have to sit through a whole weekend with it, so we have decided to move the server upgrade date closer. See below.

Update 2 : The reason for the time of the day is because that is when it's out of office hours here, so the server guys can dedicate 110% of their time to us uninterrupted. 


 I posted some information on the last blog about the upcoming structure changes, and I have good news, we're commencing phase #1.

There is a total of 2 phases, the first is a complete re-design of our server structure, the second is hardware upgrades. Phase 2 may not be needed depending on how much the server improves with the new optimised setup, but this phase needs to be done regardless of any improvement, just for efficiency, optimisation and keeping things running as fast as possible.

More on phase #2 if we need it next week.

The downtime will be FRIDAY 13th JANUARY 2012 evening at 7pm server time (UK time). The downtime will be between 4 and 8 hours.

The server guys will setup a separate server which I will be updating so you can keep an eye on our progress (instead of getting the "SERVER NOT FOUND" error message).

Thanks for your patience as I try my best to get RoB as fast as possible for all.

(I am also aware it's Friday the 13th we're doing this, not superstitious are you?)

Ash

Monday 9 January 2012

Server architecture changes



Server architecture changes
With the constant growth and activity on Reign Of Blood, the guys who run the servers have offered up a 7 page PDF file of different routes we can take with the server structure to make it run much more efficiently. I am going to spend the next few days analysing different methods with them and getting the ball rolling as soon as possible. More info on this when we proceed.

Sorry for any inconvenience with any lag spikes or 503s you're getting. We know when it happens, and doing all we can as fast as we can to get it sorted.


Blog changes
Due to abuse on the page view system on the blogs, blog popularity is now based on the amount of comments a blog has, not its page views. This new comment count now shows on your profiles too. In the blog center, the views are still viewable, although they are for reference only. The blog directory no longer shows private blogs, and the lists now show [friends] or [public] depends on what that blog is set to.

More updates to come.
Ash

Wednesday 4 January 2012

Thank you for 2011



Thanks to all the players
Thank you for logging into RoB today, and over the past year, thank you for reading this blog. Without you, RoB is nothing.

Thanks to all the staff
Thanks to all the staff, the ACT, the mods, the QOTD, helpers, everyone for helping keep the site is line over the past year. Everyone should go fill their comments with thanks!

Thanks to everyone for buying
Bought VIP, plasma, potion credits etc this year? Well THANK YOU. You keep this site running and allow me to continue making it better. I hope I continue to get the same support throughout 2012.

As a thank you
As a small thank you, it's double turns and RAHP until SATURDAY NIGHT! That's pretty intense.

December competition winner
You sure all think up good RoB - themed Christmas songs! The best one goes to ~Queen~Achtland~ (279430), the 2 other top songs go to Destiny Nostram (267488) and Lilah (545977). They get 10 Vampsant gifts each. Good effort! And thanks for everyone who entered.

January competition
This months competition is to come up with an awesome idea for the upcoming Valentines day event here on RoB next month. Come up with the best idea for a valentines event and you could bag yourself 20 plasma!

New awesome features next week. Can't wait!
Ash

Monday 2 January 2012

Reign Of Blood 2011 in a nutshell



Happy new year!

2011 has been a great year. Here are just some of the highlights:

- Sortable enemy lists
- Bounty hunter system
- Greenwood
- New portal world map
- New quest log layout to accommodate more quests
- New profile layouts
- Battle reports
- New family & friends system
- Upload avatars onto RoB instead of URL linking
- Introduction of the social panel
- Trik's potion shop
- "Bite out of poverty" the start of our charity campaigns
- Custom quick links
- Hit 500,000 total signups
- Coven quests
- Pets & Mount Tilia
- NPC's returned to the Dead City
- Project RAHP introduced
- New RP features including character creation
- $1338 raised for charity!
- VIP Subscriptions

2012 we're going to see a lot of new stuff, and I can't wait to get it rolled out to you guys. Thanks for another great year!

3 Collectibles
As promised, all players who got all 3 of the VIP collectibles in the special packs can use this promocode (you can still get all 3 now and still redeem the promocode until the event ends): 3collectibles


Xmas special & event
The Xmas plasma and special and all the festive features will be removed in 3 days time. Get in what you can now!

Yesterdays downtime
We're sorry for the downtime yesterday, there was a few glitches that popped up which of course has been fixed, everything should be back to normal now. An added bonus for this downtime has been added to the promocode below.

Thank you for playing RoB in 2011, here's a little promocode: 2011rocked

Here's to a great 2012!
Ash

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