Christmas Event 2014

Christmas Event

I can't believe it's been another year already! Time sure does fly. As always, to celebrate the end of another great year, a fine Christmas event is upon us.

Christmas Tree
The Christmas tree in the Dead City is a great source for free turns each day.

Scratchcard
For all those who love a bit of gambling, you can get into the Xmas scratch card with 10 free scratches a day.

Sugar & Candy
A Christmas wouldn't be complete without those delicious sugar rush inducing candy canes.  Find sugar when battling other vampires, searching Greenwood and trading tokens via regular daily quests. Turn the sugar into delicious candy canes for amazing sugar boosts.

Daily Quests
Starting from Tuesday 16th December, there will be 10 pre-set quests. One for each day until Christmas day. Complete these for more candy canes!

VIP & Plasma Special
With all events, you can get your teeth into a beautiful deal for VIP & Plasma. Click here to check them out.

Enjoy the week,
Ash

Coven Conflict v2 Phase 2

New Homepage Design

I have brought the red back to Reign Of Blood. There were a few people that disliked the 2013 redesign of the home page (the way it was yesterday) because it went down the blue moonlight look. However soothing that was, you'll be glad to know I have now soaked the page in blood and launched a brand new, yet familiar look, heading into 2015.

New Co-Op Quests

I'm excited today to also launch a brand new co-op quest system. Co-op quests have been around for a while, but haven't been developed in some time, but I do think it's a key area in getting people to work together. So I have completely re-written the co-op quest system.

Firstly, you can have up to 6 vampires in each quest, up from the  previous 2 (6 including yourself). When you open a quest, you will see all the available slots, and at the bottom, an invite form. Just as before, you can enter the ID of someone you want to join the quest, and they can accept and help you.  When they have accepted, you'll be able to track their progress, as well as send them a quick blood letter if you need to. Whether you're the keeper of the quest, or taking part of someone else's, you can keep track of the quests you're in on the co-op quest control panel. When the keeper is happy with everyone's progress, he or she can finish the quest and claim the rewards.

The quests only get marked off your lists when you're the keeper of it. For example, if you helped someone else in their quest, it won't mark as complete for you, because you're helping them. You can help other vampire's quests and unlimited amount of times (but once per day), to earn a small amount of blood and reputation (a use of reputation i've still not decided on).

There are 15 co-op quests added to get us started.

Phase 2

Phase 2 of the Coven Conflict system is now ready. Which is, Coven War Day. One day a week, picked at random on Sunday night's reset, will be a game wide war day. Every coven will be automated entered into the war that day, and will share in the prize fund for that day.

Of course the random day that this occurs, you will be unable to choose for your own personal war day, so make sure you check on a Monday which day will be the all out war day so you can choose your own covens war day that week. This will begin from next Monday.

Enjoy the week,
Ash

Coven Conflict v2 Phase 1

Coven Conflict Status

Last month I started a discussion in the forum about where people are in their views of the current coven conflict system. Now the database clean up it at a good level, I can move my focus to getting this done. It will be done in 5 phases, of which I will describe in more detail below.

Phase 1 Complete

Phase 1 is the Coven Power Relic. Although this might be tweaked again at a later date depending the rewards for the newer systems, I've made some changes to it based of general feedback over the last few months.

New Relics

There are now 3 coven power relics, instead of just 1 as before. They include:

Coven Boost Relic   +10% PvP coven exp
Blood Boost Relic   +10% PvP blood
Turn Boost Relic   Small chance to have a turn replenished after a battle

To go with this update, the whole coven power relic page has been given a whole new look. And, to help stop some reported abuse of the relic, a few further changes have been made. The first and second part of the code are now unique to each coven, so only your coven can hunt and find the code. Using your covens code in other covens entry will not work. The ability to choose a player to hold the code has also been removed, its now completely random. To keep the relic flowing more, I've decided that a coven can only hold one relic at a time. So you will see 3 different covens occupying the 3 different relics at all times. The FAQ (which is linked to on the page) has been updated with all the new information.

The Phases

Here is a general overview of the phases that will complete the new coven conflict system.

Phase 1 - Coven Power Relic updated with new relics
Phase 2 - War Of Covens update with an all out war one day a week
Phase 3 - Part 1 of the new coven battle system, raids.
Phase 4 - Part 2 of the new coven battle system, skirmishes.
Phase 5 - Part 3 of the new coven battle system, invasion.

I hope you Americans had a good thanksgiving. The Black Friday special pack will remain on until Thursday the 1st December, so get your packs in before then!

Enjoy the weekend,
Ash

Cleanup Status

The Never-ending Story

Thank you again for all your patience as I cleaned up the database a little. There have definitely been some page load time improvement, which is great to see. But the job is never finished. Although it will no longer be my focus, I will continue to go through and optimise where I can over time, but the bulk of it is now complete. Throughout my journey I come across some things and some stats that I'd like to share.

Blasts From The Past

I found the image above that I used to use in the very early days, it sure brings back some memories. I made a variable called "dragon", which ended up never getting used, I have no idea what I planned for that, but it was ultimately dropped. There was an old option to change the font type of the game, but never fully released.

Some interesting stats for you: 2.3million comments have been sent. Just under 20million blood letters have been sent since the new thread system in 2010. And a total of 1,235,185,038 blood has been paid out in Spring Valley alone. I can't believe how popular Reign Of Blood has become over the years. And finally, $68,156,350 has been spent on daggers.

What I did

As you probably know, things get bloated after a while. And as RoB is over 8 years old now, there is a bit of bloat in the database. No different than computers going slow after a while. It was important that I spend some time going through and streamlining the database as much as I can. Here is a list of what was done over the last few weeks.

• Went through all database tables and removed the ones no longer in use
• Went through and made sure all tables were indexed correctly and efficiently 
• Transferred all quests & achievements onto their own table
• Updated all the achievements list onto the new "click to claim" system, and unlocked all the unknown achievements on list 8
• Transfered profile data & notepad data onto the secondary player table
• Transferred voting site data onto its own table
• Added more data to be automatically deleted

Removals

In a clean up, some things get removed. Here is the list of the things removed:

• All story quests have been removed
• Angeline the VIP quest removed
• Fark The Supporter quest removed
• Xander The Warrior quest removed
• Removed the need to find a bar bass to access the bar

The Road Ahead

This month, meaning from now, I'll be working on updating the coven battle systems. I know many of you are eager for me to get this going, and it will be my next priority.

Next month will be the continue focus on the coven battles, as well as updating a couple newer features, setting up the xmas event, and an extra little surprise.

In the new year, the focus will be begin on story. I will be putting together a writing team, of which I know plenty are still interested, to re-do and reboot the Dead City story quests and other features.

I look forward to our future. Enjoy the week.
Ash

Double Weekend

Double Weekend

As I'm going through the final stages of the database streamlining, which will get its own blog post with the list of what I've been doing on it over the last month, as well as other tidbits, I thought i'd give you all some free double pleasure this weekend.

Starting Saturday 15th November 00:01 until Sunday 23:59 enjoy:

Double Blood
Double Coven Exp
Double Minion Exp

Have a great weekend,
Ash

Halloween Event

Halloween Event [THE INFECTED]

Yes, it's time for some Halloween fun again! This year's event is two fold. Firstly, The Dead City Infected, and The Haunted House.

The Haunted House
The Dead City Haunted house if full of ghostly beings. And what do you ghostly beings have that a vampire would want to steal? Their souls. Go soul hunting in the Haunted House, consume their souls and feel the power. The house is a bit light hearted and fun, those poor poor ghosts.

Dead City Infected
There is an outbreak of infection in the Dead City! Turning vampires into zombified rotting monsters. Luckily, the outbreak is controlled by a vampire that created the virus, and he wants to wreck havoc across the land. If you want to join his cause spreading this infection, visit him at Dead City to find out how you can spread the infection to your enemies.

When you're infected, the blood you get in battle is reduced by 5%, as your energy start suck the blood from your victims start to drain. The effects, luckily, only last up to an hour, and at half past all victims are cured. But, you can also get rid of your infection right away by passing it onto someone else.

You get bonuses for infecting someone, and a total count is kept of how many vampires you infected, with prizes you can claim based on that amount. Head to the Dead City for more information.

And to make it even more better,  there is a current boost section in the Halloween section of Dead City. It is currently DOUBLE WP.

Of course there is a beautiful VIP/plasma special, click here for details.

Database cleanup

Thank you all for your continued patience as I work on streamlining the database. If you've been paying attention to the updates page you'll be able to see what I'm up to. The only things that are less is migrating some of the old quests and putting some more things on auto-delete. This should be complete by the end of the month, and I'll make a blog post with all the changes I made.

Enjoy the event,
Ash

Wheel Of Death Expansion

Wheel Of Death

The majority of people who login each day indulge in the Wheel Of Death. Any why wouldn't they? Free stuff is awesome. It started with a daily turn login bonus. For those that remember, you used to get a little turn bonus on top of the updates page when you login each day. An extra boost for those who are active on a daily basis. I then made that process a little more interactive, and created The Wheel Of Death. Today, I take it a step further.

The new Wheels Of Death

3 New Wheels
3 new wheels have been added in addition to the main wheel. The old lonely wheel is now labelled the Turn Wheel. This wheel gives you a random turn bonus each day. The other 2 wheels, Vial Wheel and Vitality Wheel are explained in their descriptions. The Coven Wheel will be explained in just a minute. You can spin each of 3 above wheels once per day. How awesome is that?

The Coven Wheel
Wheel number 4 is a Coven Wheel. This wheel can only be spun by a coven's owner or co-owner, and can only be spun once per week. The wheel gives out exp, as well as other bonuses you'll have to wait and find out for yourself.

Timers
As you can see in the above image, the link to spin them is below the picture of the wheel. When you have spun the wheel, that link gets replaced by a counter until you can spin again.

Payouts
The Turn Wheel's payout has been increased. So now pays out even more than before (for both winners and losers).

Quests Etc
All previous quests, achievements & missions that require the spinning of the wheel, have had their descriptions re-written to indicate that they count only the turn wheel. Future quests etc will include the other wheels, but the past ones are valid on the turn wheel only.

What's even better for those that are online right now, is that if you've already claimed your wheel today, it's been reset so you can do it again.  Find any bugs? Be sure to report them.

Database work

In order to get ready for an awesome 2015, I need to start streamlining the database. During October, you probably won't see a huge amount of updates as I'll be spending time on the back-end of RoB. This will result in even faster page loads, and the ability to add more things that could never been done before due to potential "lag". There's so much in the pipeline, and I don't want this to be a deciding factor on an awesome idea not getting done.


Enjoy the weekend,
Ash

Increasing the feels

Reign Of Blood

On a quick note, I hope you all enjoyed the 2 week event at the start of the month. I know many of you love the AP rage event, we'll have another soon.

8 and a half years. That's a long time for something to still be going strong. And I'd like to keep doing that. So, I want to change, or rather improve, some things. Some graphically, some mechanically. But not in a huge way. People don't like change, and to be honest, neither do I. But I would like to increase the feels a little more. What do I mean by that? Well, one example is the feeling of accomplishment. Sure there is already lots of that. But can it be done more? What would really push you to do that little extra?

So I'll be doing some research and a lot of background work for a while and get some good stuff cooking. I'd also like to say at this point that towards the end of the year, probably in the next couple months or so, I'll be doing some MAJOR database work. I am going to streamline the hell out of our database. Getting rid of old unused stuff, clearing out lingering data, setting up more automated deletion for future data, and just giving it a really good clean. Not only will it make Reign Of Blood more fast, it will make for a more efficient system.

Keeping things fast, fun and flowing will keep us on track to always being one of the most loved vampire games! And I plan to keep it that way.

Your Daily Routine

To get me started on my feels quest, I'd like to get know your general daily routine. I know the routine I put in the daily to do list page, but some people do things differently. I know quite a lot of you won't want to share. But I'm not asking for your dirty secrets, just your general daily routine of how you do things, so I can get an idea of the most popular areas and spend extra time increasing the flow of those features.

If you'd like to contribute, you can post it on this thread, or send me a blood letter if you don't wish to have it public.

Graphic artists

My most recent graphic artist has gone off to college. I could outsource some work, but we have so much talent on Reign Of Blood, I'd like to tap some of it. If you want to part of a graphics team for future Reign Of Blood image related jobs, please send me a blood letter.

Writers

A couple months ago I put out applications for writers. I haven't forgot about that. I've made a list of all the writers that will be put forward to the next stage. Circumstances change, even over a couple months. So if you applied a couple months and go and are still interested, send another blood letter (link below) to say you're still interested. If you did not apply, and would like to, you can blood letter (link below) with your application on why you should picked as a writer for future Reign Of Blood quests and writing content.

Click here to send the blood letter to the RoB-Bot.

Thanks,
Ash

Double Event Celebration

Double Event

The end of August I always get the pleasure of celebrating my birthday, apparently dubbed Ashmas, or Ashday, and as I'm about to enter into the wrong side of my 20's, we're going to have a little fun.

You'll be able to enjoy 2 different events over 2 weeks, each lasting a week each.

Event 1 is available for viewing now at the Dead City. It includes:

• Double turns from voting
• +10% Blood
• +10% Coven Exp
• Spring Valley death chanced halved
• +1 QP for correct QOTD answer
• Double daily WP

Event 1 will start on my birthday, the 30th August and last for 1 full week. Event 2 will be revealed when Event 1 ends. I wonder what bonuses you'll get?

Free Turns & QP

Just for the pure giggles, put "Ash" somewhere in your username. And on my birthday, the 30th, I'll give everyone who does 50 free turns and a QP. I'd love to see what creative nightmares people come up with.

Plasma Special

As with most years, there is a special on to help celebrate this awesome occasion. The special will last throughout the 2 weeks while these events are active. The special starts today.

Enjoy the events!
Ash

War Of Covens Changes

War Of Covens

I've made a few backend changes to the War Of Covens today. The main change that you'll notice is the way you choose your war day. Due to some errors that could creep up from time to time, I've changed the way you declare. Before you would choose a day next week you'd like to war, and when that day came, you would war. Now you must choose the day you want to war THIS week. For example, if it's Tuesday, and you want to war this Friday, then you can do so.

The only complication with this is Monday, because unless you get on at midnight game time Monday morning, you'd miss a few hours at least if you wanted to war that day. So I was going to declare Monday a "Truce" day, but thought, you know what? If a coven wants to get in at the right time and take advantage of first place on what will probably be the most unpopular war day, why the hell not?

So to confirm, from Monday 00:01 game time, your coven owner or co-owner must choose a day to war THIS week (not next week anymore). Everything else works the same.

On the page itself, you'll see I've tidied up the layout a little, and also sorted out the messy tables on the previous wars page.

Mobile Payments

Some of you may have noticed that Onebip is currently not available. And that's quite simply, I've had enough of them. I've had complaints from some people who it simply doesn't work for, and others who have contacted them and got useless responses. And I can tell you, I've been getting the same ridiculous unhelpful responses too. So I've decided to ditch them. I have an alternative in the works, and it shouldn't be too much longer, but they do work a little different. Keep an eye on the game updates page for when that's ready, if it's before the next blog post.

Midweek Madness

There will be a Midweek Madness event this week!  From Tuesday 00:01 game time, until Thursday 23:59 (that's pretty much 3 full days) you'll be able to enjoy Double Blood for free. Want even more? Check out one the surprise packs available right now.

Enjoy the week,
Ash

Free Double Weekend

I can't believe we're in August of 2014 already. Because I am kind, I've decided to run a free double weekend this week for everyone who wants to take part.

There will be 3 full days of double goodness, starting Friday 8th Augustand ending Sunday.

Everybody gets double turns. But to get more, you need to hit milestones each day you want them. When you hit those milestones, that perk will activate for the rest of the day.

Double blood - When you reach 100 PvP wins in the day
Double coven exp - When you reach 200 PvP wins in the day
Double minion exp - When you reach 300 PvP wins in the day

You've got a couple days to prepare, I hope you enjoy it.

Ash

EDIT: The event is now over.

New Coven Quests

Missions

I'm glad many of you are enjoying the new missions, and the idea behind the mini-achievements feature. I said in the previous blog, if you missed it, I will be adding more over time. So there's plenty of potential future QP up for grabs. The feature will also be expanded in the future, and like a good amount of Reign Of Blood features, it's future-proof. Some of them may not be reachable right now. But, remember, if use the boosts effectively, you can do quite well and hit those marks, if you want the QP, that is.

Coven Owner Quests Changes

Today I've changed the structure of the coven owner set quests.  Hopefully you'll agree, for the better. All coven quests are empty, so to all the coven owners and co-owners out there, as soon as possible, go enter in your new quests.

What's changed? For starters, I've increased the coven exp amount to 250,000 (up from 50,000). But most importantly, you can now have different quest tiers.

Each coven can add up to five different quests. I know some covens have had issues not knowing what to set their quests at because there is obviously a big gap between what a rank 10 can earn, compared to a rank 1000. So you can have five different tiers that should cater for the majority of covens.

What else? You can add plasma as a reward as well as money. Also, there's no need to "accept" the quest. It'll count all exp until a player wants to claim, and when they do, it then resets, so the player can start all over again.

So for example, this could be your covens quest layout:

$5,000 for 1k coven exp
$10,000 for 2k coven exp
$50,000 for 10k coven exp
$100,000 for 20k coven exp
1 Plasma for 100k coven exp

You can mix and match and have things however you want, you're in total control.

Other Things

There's also little fixes & updates, tweaks going on. For example, your stats now showing on the gym page, increasing potion caps for NPC credits, new coven rankings page & more. Keep an eye on the game updates page.

Enjoy,
Ash

coven rankings page updatd with new layout, and coven exp today added

New MISSIONS

Plasmalympic Games

I hope you all enjoyed our second Plasmalympic games! I see a whole load of you rushed in there to get the benefits. If you took part in the fencing, which you should have, you can click here to spend your gold. The gold prizes have been given out, and also more gold for the top players. You've only got a few days to do so, so use 'em quick!

Missions

Everyone loves quests and achievements. The only issue with achievements is they're BIG tasks that can take a while to complete. So, to go alongside achievements, I have created a Missions system.

Missions are essentially mini-achievements. They're tasks that be completed to earn QP. They are split up into different categories, and you can complete one from each category every day. (You'll see why that is when you check them out.)

You'll find the missions page on the "Game Quests, Achievements & More" of your home page.

And yes, more will be added over time.

Enjoy,
Ash

Plasmalympic Games 2014

Dead City Plasmalymic Games Returns

Due to the several requests I've had over the past few months, the Plasmalymic Games are back! You can now head over to the Dead City to enjoy the games for 1 week starting right now. The games that are open in this event include:

Plasmalymic Games

Here are the games available to play for the next week:

Weight Lifting - Use your turns to train your strength & toughness for better results than at the gym.

100m Sprint - Train your speed for better results than at the gym.

Shooting - Pick up a plasma launcher and shoot back at some humans. (Revenge is sweet!)

Archery - 5 free archery shots a day for a free random bonus.

Fencing Arena - Who says vampires wouldn't love to fence? A simplified pet style mini-game where anyone can take part will be available to play. You get separate turns every hour and can fence any other vampire who is taking part. Prizes will be given out for top level and top 'ego' gained. Small prizes will also be given to everybody who takes part. 

Plasmalymic Special

There's an awesome plasma special up with this event too, of course. Check out the Buy VIP/Plasma page for all the great offers. 

Enjoy the event,

Ash

World Cup Final Bet

Who doesn't love a bit of gambling? I know you all do, and that's just looking and the billions that has passed through the lottery system! This Sunday will be the World Cup final (for those interested in football). I've setup a little betting page at Dead City for you to bet on who you think will win. The prize pool will be shared out to all the winners, and they'll be a few other prizes for a few random people too. (Probably through some free Vials out there!)

Click here to place your bets!

Best of luck,
Ash

Double War Exp Rescheduled

Double Exp Rescheduled

Due to the mass confusion over the wars this week, the wars will not be double exp. If you would like to do a standard war this week, coven owners, please go to the War Of Covens page and choose tomorrow (any day this week) to war as normal (regardless if you've already chosen a date this week) using the big bold link at the top of the page.

Double Exp Next Week

NEXT WEEK's wars will be double exp. From Monday 14th July to Sunday the 20th July. If you've already picked your war for next week, that's when it'll be. If you'd like to change your day, please blood letter me. But you won't get the chance to join (as you did this week) if you don't choose a day by Sunday to war next week. Any questions? Just blood letter me.

Enjoy the week,
Ash

Reminder: Double War Exp (Updated)

If you missed the update at the beginning of the week in regards to the new POWER HOUR feature, you can click here and read all about it.

This is the final notice of the Double War Exp for all wars taking place next week (starting midnight tonight).

You have until tonight to chose you war day for next week if you haven't already. It doesn't matter what position you come in on your day, you'll earn double the coven exp you would regardless.

UPDATE (7/7)
If you forgot to set your day, or your day didn't appear as it should, coven owners can go onto the War Of Covens page and set their day for tomorrow. (Can use this option until Saturday).

Good luck & have fun!
Ash

New POWER HOUR

New Payment Methods

On our previous blog post, we released a whole new load of new payment methods, including more mobile phone payment methods, more pre-paid card options, the ability to buy Subway or Burger King giftcards to buy VIP etc with (which I still find awesome) and lots more! I've had a bunch of people thank me for setting it up because for some people its hard to get hold of a debit/credit card, and I'm glad many of you are taking advantage of the new options. To read all about it, you can click here.

New POWER Hour

For a while now people have enjoyed the random blood hour, where one random hour each day, all PvP blood rewards are doubled. Battling in this hour also using potions and other boosts, can yield amazing results. Now I'm taking it one step further. Blood hour is now POWER HOUR.

There will now be 5 different hours in the day when a boost might pop up. Here is the list:

Blood Hour: +100% PvP Blood
Light Blood Hour: +50% PvP Blood
Coven Hour: +25% PvP Coven Exp
Minion Hour: +1 Minion Exp
NPC Hour: +25% NPC Blood

War Of Covens Double Exp

Next week, all War Of Coven wars will yield DOUBLE EXP. All wars from Monday 7th July to Sunday July 13th will pay out twice the coven exp it normally does. Make sure your coven is entered into a war next week here.


Enjoy,
Ash

New Payment Methods

Buy VIP Page Updates

It's been a while since I've given some love to our precious payment store. So today, I've spent time time on the layout and negotiated some more payment options. I'd also like to point out that due to currency fluctuations, the New Zealand dollar price has been reduced to average out with the other currency options we offer. I have also made some tweaks to Onebip should make it work better.

New Payment Options

I mentioned in the forums that I got a tip that the Ultimate Game Card is going to be shut down a month or so ago. Unfortunately, it turned out to be correct. They'll slowly start coming off the shelves now, and will be completely discontinued by 30th September 2014. (It annoys me because I know how many of you rely on them, and the reason they're closing it down is because they got bought out by Visa and the UGC is not part of their "vision", so they're closing it down, even though it's insanely popular and profitable! Oh well...)

Luckily I was able to get some new payment methods set up that'll fill that void (& more)!

OPENBUCKS
When this company came to me, I was a little confused. They were a payment company who deal with using store giftcards as a general payment method. (Please note this is currently USA only.) For Americans, this completely fills the gap Ultimate Game Card has left. Basically, you can go into any Subway, any Burger King, any Circle K & more, buy their own store giftcards, come onto RoB, and buy VIP/plasma with it. How awesome is that?

Openbucks payment options

XSOLLA
Xsolla is a payment company that is essentially a hub for all other payment methods.  They offer so many different methods, you'll find it hard finding one that you can't access. There are even more pre-paid card options (good news for the old Paysafecard users). Paysafecard and Ukash are everywhere around Europe, and Rixty is everywhere in the US. (They run also run MoneyPak and Coinstar.)

Xsolla prepaid card options

They also have several other payment methods, including even more mobile phone payment options (as we just offer Onebip independently).

Xsolla payment options

The methods will differ from country to country, the above is what I see from the UK. Have a  look around and you will find something that is available to you.

I hope this helps with the all the requests I get about methods that isn't just credit cards. Been hard work getting all this sorted and I'm glad it finally is! If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

New Layout

The buy VIP/Plasma has had a little bit of a facelift. I've put the VIP packs and the plasma packs side by side so you don't have to keep scrolling down the page to see it all.

New Vials [Tonics]

Packs now come with free vials, which can be traded in Dead City for delicious tonics. You can also get your hands on these as prizes, and from the top daily quest. More ways to get vials will come over time.

Special

To celebrate the new payment methods, there is a 3 day variety pack available. You'll find the link to get your hands on this pack on the top of your pages, or click here.

Quiz night

This Saturday evening we will be hosting another quiz night in our general chat room. Everyone is welcome! They'll be a total of 50 questions, and the first correct answer of each will win QP, and the most correct answers will win plasma at the end of the night. It will be hosted at just past midnight this Saturday night (Sunday morning). Click here for full details. Hope to see you there!

Enjoy!
Ash

Revisited: Houses

State Of Houses

Houses were introduced a while ago to appeal to the "non killing covens". They're a place where you can get together socially without the game benefits that a coven gives you. Due to the way they were setup, you could only join a few, and they were not as fluid as I would have hoped them to be. But today, after much thinking and designing, I have come up with a new house system.

New House System

Houses have been completely rebuilt from the ground up. The internal structure has been completely changed to allow for all the new features and fixes.

House Directory
The house directory has been updated along with the new houses. The layout has been updated, and now the list of houses now incorporate a new house  VIP feature that'll be explained in a minute. Finally, the member count is added to the house lists too.

House Changes
What's great about the new structure I created, is that it gives a lot more freedom. Which allows you to join and create more houses than before. Everyone can be part (or own) up to a total of 5 houses, VIP members can enjoy being a member of up to 10 houses, and VIP+ members can join up to 20. You can now own more than 1 house if you'd like, but each owning house counts towards your house total cap.

House staff members now have access to even more. Including accepting & kicking members, editing the welcome pages, moderating the forum and the chat, and editing other members titles and colours. Each house can have up to 5 staff members, and VIP houses can have up to 20.

The house chat and forum has been updated to the latest versions, and now (hopefully) work as they should. The house RP forum works exactly in the same way as the coven RP forums.

There is now (just like with the covens) a formal invite feature, so you can quickly and easily invite other players to join your family house.

Social Page Update

The social page has had a little facelift to go with this update. Firstly, there is a new section on the right dedicated to houses. This box will list all the houses you're a member of, and next to the name of each house is a shortcut to the chat and the forum. (The name lists will also be coloured if the house is VIP).

House VIP
The house VIP features have also been updated a little. These now include:

- Upload family avatar image
- Coloured house name on all lists and player profiles
- Coloured member titles
- HTML/CSS allowed on the apply & home page
- Ability to have up to 20 staff members
- Mass blood letter all members (subject to approval)

The house avatar is shown at the top of the house page, as well as in the house directory.

Compatibility
The main issue with building a new structure to make something better is the old system is never going to be completely compatible. And unfortunately, the new house system isn't compatible with the old one at all. BUT! Because I'm so nice and all, I've spent a few hours creating a migration tool. Which allows you to transfer the majority of your house' content, into a new house (bringing the members along with it). You'll see a green link on the your social page (house owners only) where you can find out how to migrate your house.

Other updates

There have been loads of other updates, quests and fixes made since the last blog post, all of which are listed on the game updates page. One of the most shocking is mass coven blood letters. You'd never thought you see that happen, did you?

Please report any bugs or feedback on this thread. You can also see a more in-depth guide on the migration system on that thread also.

Enjoy,
Ash

The Winners Are...

Plasma Pack Lottery Results

Well, that was an easy way to take half a billion out the game's economy. Here are the random winners of the Plasma Pack Lottery, where the winners will share over $250 worth of plasma! Here are the winners:

$100 Pack
Takuyia Marose (208663)

$50 Pack
Lexi Axenus Teller (533290)

$25 Packs
†Izabetta Freakshow† (200221)
Jerich Phuri Dae Anvari (631597)
Demetreus D`Spartan² (612013)

$10 Packs
Lydea Mey Keates (292043)
Sinara VeRosso Dominor (162961)
Footman DCXLV (40487)
Connor Farron (229642)
Rilee Rae Price (275708)

Unlucky to those who didn't win, congrats to those who did.
Some updates to come, stay tuned.
Ash

Plasma Pack Lottery

While I'm working on updates, I've decided to run a little plasma pack lottery.

Plasma Pack Lottery

A new lottery location has popped up at Dead City, where you can win a plasma pack. Tickets are available for in-game cash for $500,000 each. The plasma packs that are being given away are 1x $100 pack, 1x $50 pack, 3x $25 pack, 5x $10 pack. To buy your tickets, please visit the Plasma Lottery Center. The more tickets, the higher chance of winning.

The draw will take place Sunday night  so tune in then to see if you've won. 

Remember to keep up to date with all the game updates on the game update page.

Good luck,
Ash

Double Daily Weekend

Double Daily Weekend (30th May- June 2nd)

This weekend, enjoy some different free boosts each day.

Friday - Double Blood
Saturday  - Double Coven Exp
Sunday - Double Turns
Monday - Double Minion Exp

Game Updates

I have updated the game updates page with a nice new look. I've also created a new notification which pings when I post a new game update. This means that you'll know updates as soon as they happen.

Twitter

Because of the Facebook nerf, my primary social media outlet will now be Twitter. Don't worry though, everything that gets posted on Twitter will be posted on our Reign Of Blood Facebook page too, so you don't need to do anything,  Click here to follow us on Twitter, if you've not already. If you use Facebook only, then follow these steps to make sure you get our updates.

Enjoy the weekend,
Ash

Daily Quest Overhaul

Quest Page Update

I've done some work on the quest page layout today. There are a lot quests, as you know, and creating a way for them to be displayed in the neatest way possible sure is a challenge. When you next visit the Quest Hall, you'll be able to enjoy the new look.  I have also replaced the "Show All Quests" link with a button, which opens them all up on the page, no longer requiring opening a new page.

Daily Quest Overhaul

A lot of people enjoy getting the benefits of the daily quests each day, but one of the main complaints about the daily quests is the reward not being what they want. Well, I'm happy to announce from today, that changes. Introducing Quest Tokens. You earn quest tokens from completing the daily quests. You then take them to the Quest Token Collector and trade them for things of your choice. You must spend any earned quest tokens by midnight (just like you needed to claim before then) because they cannot be stacked as they reset each night.

Some more new quests to come...

Ash

Coven Conflict Changes

Lastest Update

Missed the enemy list and new quests on the last blog? Click here to catch up.

Sunday Event

I hope you are enjoying today's 24 hour event. Double blood and extra QP when you rank up for free! You can continue to gain this benefit until midnight tonight.

Coven Conflict Changes

The coven conflict system, 1v1 battles in this case, is an ongoing project. I'll continue to tweak until we have majority satisfaction. The changes I've made today bring back some of the things that people liked in the old system, mixed with the awesome features and boosts from this system.

Round Scoring Bonus
Some people enjoyed the hourly rounds of previous system. In a way to bring back some of that magic, you can earn boosts for beating the opposing coven's score that hour.

Each hour (at half past) if you scored more attacking coven battle exp than your opponent, your total score calculated at the end of the battle is increased by 2% (this could change later on). Meaning, there is a total of 48% boost up for grabs during the duration of the battle.

For example:
Coven1 attacks Coven2. Coven1 scores 1000, Coven2 scores 800.
Coven2 earned more attacking battle exp than their attacker, Coven1, winning 19 out of the 24 rounds. Giving Coven1 a total boost of 10%, and Coven2 a total boost of 38%
Final score is: Coven1=1100 and Coven2=1104

Coven Exp
The coven exp you get for a win is now based on the opposing coven's level. This is how it should have been to start with, but I tried to be too nice. Now the exp you get is based off the target coven, it'll help stop any abuse of the system.

Scoring
On the top of the coven page in the battle box, I've added these new rounds score into them. You can see who won the previous round for the bonus %. VIP covens can see a total of tally to date. I've not included the total score of the whole battle at the moment, not sure how I want to implement that yet.

You can continue your feedback and ideas from this post on the Coven Conflict thread.

Thanks,
Ash

New Quests & Event!

New Quests

Thanks to our new Quest Stormer Dark *}{STORM}{* we have some new quests.

• Spring Valley Mayor
• Spring Valley Mayor II
• Hidden Gem II
• Hidden Gem III
• Fan Quest

These will be the last batch of rank 100 quests, the next lot will be higher!

Enemy List Updates

I've made a few updates to your enemy lists today, they are:

• General interface layout improvements
• Coven & gender icons added 
• Checkbox delete system
• Attack link made bigger and bolder
• Attack link grayed out if target not attackable
• New "PRO" label for targets alive but still in 15 min protection
• New coven category list

Writer Updates

Thank you to everyone who applied for a writing position (there were a LOT), unfortunately, as much as I'd love to, I can't hire everyone. I will be going over the applications (again) and finalising potential candidates and reaching out.

For the people who won't make it, there will be opportunities for you to submit and write content for RoB, more on this in the near future.

Little Things

• Increased Spring Valley Serum success chance by 25%
• Achievement 8 #5 label incorrect (4k, but should be 2.5k)
• Fixed a whole load of reported typos

Sunday Event

On Sunday, the 1v1 coven battles will be updated again with some of the ideas discussed on the thread for next weeks battles. So also on Sunday, we're going to have a little double blood event with a twist. Tune in Sunday for details.


Enjoy the weekend!
Ash

Few Random Updates

As we head into our 9th year (how scary) lets get the party started...

To-Do List

I have updated the to-do list, and added a permanent link on the top bar (newest layout only). I have given it an all new look, with emphases on your daily redeemables. (Added more.)

Little Things

• Fixed a small link problem that could get you stuck in Vadenhill
• Recent blog posts added to Social Panel
• VIP+ cap updated to show current 1200 on VIP page
• Fixed a couple Vadenhill typos
• Changed Vadenhill 4 digit redeem code to 3 digits
• Fixed a glitch that made some chat commands show up in BL's
• Greenwood daily quest reduced to $1500 from $2000
• Fixed a couple small pet hitlist glitches
• Slightly increased the height of the Greenwood frame
• Game panel, social panel etc no longer links on the page you're on
• Oldest & Latest page links added to blood letters

May Day Potion Credits Offer

Until 4th May, you can enjoy 20% off the top Potion Credits pack. Need some credits? Now would be a good time to top up! Click here to see the offer now.


Enjoy the weekend,
Ash

Reign Of Blood is 8

Happy 8th Birthday, Reign Of Blood!

 I cannot believe it's been 8 years. And for those who have been around a lot of that time, I guess you feel the same way. It's been a great ride so far, I've learned a lot, and had a great time doing it. I hope the next 8 years continue to be as good! Here's to the next 8 years.

[ This event is now over ]

+ DOUBLE BLOOD
+ DOUBLE COVEN EXP
+ DOUBLE MINION EXP
+ DOUBLE MP
+ PROMO CODE:  IAM8

A Special Variety pack available to get double turns, click here for details.

Feedback

Thanks again for all the feedback that was given, loads of things have added to my to-do. I did also make an interesting observation.

Thanks again & enjoy the little event.
Ash

Writers Wanted

Easter Event

The Easter event is now over, and the vampire bunny has gone into hibernation. I hope you enjoyed the event, and I look forward to the next.

Feedback

Thanks to everyone who took the time to fill out the feedback form over the last couple days. I am going to go through and read all of them tomorrow. I did scan a couple earlier, and I just want to say I may reach out to people if there is anything on their feedback I'd like to personally address. Thanks again!

Staff Wanted

We have a load of talent here on Reign Of Blood, and I'd like to tap into that to create more story based content on RoB. If you're interested you can take a look at the available staff positions on this thread, and discuss ideas as you please.

Coven Conflict

I've started a fresh new thread discussing the current system. Please give your feedback and ideas on how you want the system to be.

Enjoy the weekend,
Ash

Easter Event

If you missed the Vadenhill updates made a couple days ago, you can get up to date on those updates by clicking here to view the post. Good stuff!

Easter Event 2014

It's the time of year again when you fill your mouth with chocolate and dream of vampire bunnies. This years Easter event will be delicious.

Golden Eggs
There are 3 big ass golden eggs that costs gold coins to help yourself to. You can help yourself to them as many times as you like, as long as you have the gold coins to pay.

Easter Quests
There are 3 random daily quests that you can complete to earn gold coins.  They change each day, so be prepared for all sorts of different quests to pop up.

Vampire Bunny
There is an absolutely delicious vampire bunny at Dead City. Be careful though, you don't want the thing taking a bite out of you. That would be counter productive.

VIP/Plasma
There's of course an even more delicious VIP & Plasma special available throughout this event.

The event will last a week, so it will end next Thursday evening.

Enjoy!
Ash

New Vadenhill

Vadenhill Updates

At the end of last month, I made a pretty huge update to the much loved Spring Valley. To go along with that, I have also made a few updates to Vadenhill too.

New updates & changes made to Vadenhill:

• New background image for harvested human, and new red X for an empty slot
• A general new upgraded look. Removed drop down menu and replaced with links
• New top section, similar to Spring Valley, with information and portal/help links
• Everyone can now hold up to 40 humans, up from the 25 before. VIP members can hold up to 60, VIP+ can hold up to 100.
• Removed the human no longer being ripe outcome
• Increased the juiciness amounts (before, 10 for everyone, up to 12 for VIP, up 15 for VIP+) to between 10 and 11 for everyone, between 10 and 13 for VIP, and between 10 and 16 for VIP+
• Hourly feeds must be redeemed (anti-cheat measure). Payouts the same as before
• Reduced the chance of a failed harvest by 25%
• New dispose option which incorporates killing and donating to coven
• Donating to coven now yields twice as much experience for the coven
• Vadenhill help guide updated and made more clear
• Serum found in Spring Valley can be used on your harvested humans

Coven Conflict Updates

Over the last couple months, covens have been playing around with the new Coven Conflict System, which includes Coven Battles and the War Of Covens. After watching people use it and reading the feedback, here are the changes made to the coven battles starting tonight.

- New base exp for winning a battle is 20% of your coven exp bar
- If your attacking battle experience is more than their defending experience you get +20%
- If target coven is higher than half of your coven level you get +20%
- Bonus exp based on target level. Extra % from the value of target level / 20

Fulfilling all of the above gives you +100% (+more based on the target coven level) of your coven exp bar for the battle.

The coven ranking page, and the top covens page all now show the new battle system stats.

New Help Pages

Tizzie and I have been spending some time redoing the help files.  It now live, and has a new general help page layout to go with it. If there is anything missing or incorrect, feel free to blood letter Tizzie so we can get it added as quickly as possible.

Enjoy!
Ash

Double Blood Weekend

It is lovely to have internet again. Didn't know what to do with myself. Let's move on...

Double Blood Weekend

Until Sunday the 6th evening you can all enjoy double PvP blood on me. Aren't I kind?

Little Things

• Increased the Trik's stamina potions cap (normal & XL) by 1 a day
• Coven news ID search added
• If you have coven conflict notifications off, you don't see the red boxes anymore
• A new tool for ACT
• Healing potions bought new variable created
• UG2 "Ultimate Search" quest glitch fixed
• New misc stats including: Current win streak, WP spent, Greenwood QP total, plasma spent, blood hour wins & total daggers thrown.

Oh, and the jail free ticket and minions were april fool pranks. Thanks for making that fun ;) Some more tweaking the coven conflict system come next week.

Have a great weekend,
Ash

Revisited: Spring Valley [Updated]

Reading the title of this post, I can only imagine the different reactions that are going off in people's minds. But yes, the much loved Spring Valley is finally getting a makeover.  The general censuses of Spring Valley, is that the blood pay is pretty good, but people just hate how often those pesky humans with their plasma launches get a shot in before you can open your mouth and say "hold on there matey". I have spent some time making it less painful.

Spring Valley Stats

For those of you who love stats as I do, here's a few about Spring Valley to date. There are some things I keep stats of and log, but I always forget to go look them up. So I was surprised to see the stats of Spring Valley. For the amount of dislike it gets, people sure do use it a lot.

Total hunts: 20,528,441
Total blood payout: 987,093,112 blood

Spring Valley Updates

The changes that have been made to Spring Valley today are as follows.

• New House Images - I have decided to keep the old ones, but there are also new house images thrown into the mix.
• More Houses - Before there was 2 rows of houses, with a cathedral at the end. Now it goes a little deeper, with more houses after the cathedral, and something else at the end of those.
• Cathedral - The cathedral now has a permanent bloody use.
• New Way To Browse - Before you were given a list of all the houses. Now I've made it so it feels more like you're walking through Spring Valley, where you can pick off houses as you pass them by. 
• Quick Options - You can still click on the houses to enter them as before, but I've also added a quick drop down menu when outside the house, to make your hunting faster.
• Customisable Default - With the quick option above, there is a settings page on Spring Valley which allows you to set the default of which action to take while outside the house.
• 2 New Hunt Options - Before you had sneak in, walk in, and run in. Now there are 2 more.
• More Stamina - You gain Stamina the same way as before, being located in Spring Valley whilst alive. But the potion shop has been updated, and they pay out more with each purchase. A shortcut to use your Spring Valley Trik's potions is also available there.
• Pesky Humans - Reduced chance of getting caught by 25% 35%.
• Empty? - Reduced change of finding an empty house by 25% 35%.
• Multiple Stamina - To make Spring Valley slightly less time consuming for those who want it to be, there is now a 2x option. Which uses twice the stamina, for x1.8 of the reward. There is also a VIP option for x3, and a VIP+ option for x4. Full information and payouts are explained on the Spring Valley's Help/Guide page.
• Speed? - It now tells you how much speed you need to have to hunt certain houses.
• Layout - The overall layout has been updated and improved quite a bit.

Updated:

I have made a couple more tweaks included with the above after 18 hours of watching people play Spring Valley. Here they are:

• Fixed a bug that wasn't applying the the 25% less chance getting caught and finding empty houses. And reduced it a little further again.
• Shortcut at the bottom to get back quickly to house #1.
• Information and services section now appears when you're dead.
• Hunting skill now multiples with the stamina multiplier.
• Shortcut link to VIP heal when you're dead.
• Your stats section added to top hunters page & formatted the page better.
• Fixed a few typos.

Thanks for all the feedback so far, keep it coming.

Please report any bugs in the forum or in a BL to me.

Enjoy!
Ash

Achievements List 8

Stupid ISP's

I am currently internetless. Have been since last week. I've changed my broadband package and my ISP (Sky) have made a huge mess up in getting a new router sent to me. It should have arrived last Tuesday, and then today... and now it's Friday. Without getting all angry about it again, at least you know why I've been absent. I apologise, and will be catching up on things and blood letters today. I've got a 3G stick with some credit now to last this week, but that's painfully slow. Saying that, here are some updates for you...

Achievements List 8

Achievements list 8 is now ready for your efforts! There's a few unknown ones (as there was with list 7), these spots are saved for features currently in development.

I've been asked about giving hints to the previous achievements list secrets. So I've made it a little bit easier, and given, albeit vague, hints on each of the secret achievements. You'll find those on the incomplete achievement lists.

Top Profiles

Thanks for everyone who took part in the St. Patrick's day profile makeover. There were some great ones! My favourites are listed below, and all the others I liked are listed below them. All prizes have been given out. I hope you enjoyed the event, and enjoy the prizes!

Fabian Constantine (129755) 

Grumpy Shamrock (208663) 

John O`McClane (167969)
Tizzie the Leprechaun™ (127113) 

Patrick`s Fae (376116)
Kassafeh Morellis (201632)
†BOT~O`GoLD~DiggeR† (221897)
Eponine Thenardier (283088)
Lynxie Leprechaun Jinxie (311006)
Apocalypse (617943) 

Black Gardenia (636232) 

Gabriel James Byrne (144454)
The Foreigner (191363)
Ta me are meisce (248616)
The Lucky Shamrock™ (253772)
Melena~Kerintis~Diluculo (272712)
Lucky Charm (283916)
Imortalica LaRouge PD (299127)
Mikkala (311519)
Aoife Golden (327598)
Wild Irish Rose (353331)
Lucky Charms (366333)
~The Irish Lyonese~ (390348)
The Drunk Irish Fairy (390959)
Victoria (401356)
Aurora BlooderflyWhispers (449556)
†CaliX Phuri Dae† (491221)
Alegna McClellan~Raynes (520460)
Johnny Moonshadow Decus (534661)
Amun Arachne (561280)
The Shamrock Shoveller (566604)
Raina Marie Adaleiz (605849)
Jerich The Irish Brawler (631597)
Lily McShamrock O`Twinkle (632470)
Maro Sasaki (662320)
Ghosty Incognito (671592)

Thanks & enjoy the week,
Ash

St Patrick's Event

Each year we celebrate St. Patrick's day because, well, who doesn't love the Irish? The full details of the 5 day event are listed below. Enjoy!

Irish Dressup

Dress your profile up with an Irish theme and enter into the competition to win a bunch of free plasma! If you want to enter, post your profile on the entry page on the St. Patrick's section of the Dead City. The top 5 will win a plasma prize, and all valid entries will win some free gold coins. As an example, I've done mine up.

Leprechaun Gold

Hiding in Greenwood are sneaky Leprechauns. They're hiding in all the nooks and crannies of Greenwood. Go and find them and steal some of their gold! You can buy drinks at the Dead City Green Bar with the gold you find over there.

VIP/Plasma Special

No event is the same without a good special. Head over to the Buy VIP/Plasma page to see all the awesome value packs available to you.

Everyone gets a free drink on me!


Enjoy the event!
Ash

23 Updates

Updates Updates Updates

I've been on an update spree today! No major changes, just lots of little ones. I've started a new thread in the forum about what updates you'd like to see, so if there is any you can think of, post it here. I want to continue making Reign Of Blood as good as possible.

 The updates & fixes that have been made today:

• New table header image and border setup. Less grey & more red!
• 6 new emotes for everyone to use have been added
• Move notifications box above the stat box on the left option added (account page)
• Tidied up the grammar and capitalisation of the notification texts
• The day has been added to Dead City's date
• New battle/war exp stats now properly reset when leaving a coven
• Game ID displayed on the new forums is no longer a profile link
• Help chat content now displays the correct font
• Extra characters allowed when editing posts to accomodate "RE:"
• You can now rate RP characters
• Delete all blood letters from a particular sender after ID search
• Minion image size increased from 75x75 to 125x125
• Increased Demeter's custom text character limit
• Quest boxes now open on click, and page anchors removed
• New vote site added and some voting structure changes
• VIP Credits page has been updated with quick trading links & new layout
• Changed the available VIP Credit packs to just a 30 VIP pack.
• You can now buy VIP+ pack with 2 VIP Credits
• House VIP and Coven VIP credits removed, all now done through normal VIP Credits
• VIP Credits have been added to the Auction House
• Potion Credits have been added to the Auction House
• Status update character limit increased
• Competitions forum board added

VIP Credits

As you can see above, there's been a few changes to VIP credits which I'd like to explain a little further here. Basically, I've discarded house VIP and coven VIP credits. If you have any left over, you can still use them. But from now on, it'll all be done through VIP credits. The VIP credit page now tells you all the information you need to know. House and coven VIP are now both bought using the same VIP credits you use to trade for VIP yourself. It just makes more sense this way. Makes it easier to use,  and easier for buying and trading. 

The packs available for VIP credits, are a 31 day VIP pack for 1 credit, and now a 31 day VIP+ pack for 2 credits. VIP credits (as well as Potion Credits) now have a spot on the Auction House too.

VIP Credits are a great way for you to buy/trade VIP with other players safely, a great way to give out rewards to coven members (as they can be donated to covens.) They're also a good way of controlling your own VIP, being able to practically start your VIP days whenever you need it.

I hope you enjoy these little updates,

Ash