Hey everyone,
Just wanted to write a quick update on the happenings around here lately. I'm sure you've noticed my flurry of activity in the forums has dwindled a bit. That's indicative of how hard we're working to get AG3 out the door. And me playing admin-bully and having to ban some users who weren't behaving. Grr. Folks, we have chosen our mods for a reason: we trust them. Please listen to them and follow their guidance.
Our beta sign up page design contest was a huge success, and we picked a winning design. Right now we're anticipating that the sign-up page will go live on November 8th, and you can sign up to join the beta. We'll contact people in the order they signed up, in batches, to assist with the beta. No word on when that public beta will begin yet.
Right now, that sign-up page works, the Email notices work, and the page you land on when you finally get to enter the beta works. Larry and James have done some spectacular work on the front end while I slave away on the back end of things (database, systems, etc). We've had all user and game data migrating for several weeks now, so that's all ready to go. I *just* finished the game play page today, and James will be working hard to get that ready for your viewing pleasure over the next week or so.
We've been re-evaluating the whole armor points / reputation systems this week, and trying to decide what sorts of content will count towards reputation. It *may* change drastically, and I will clarify this more throughout the month of November. Please, no speculation just yet, we've had to go back to the drawing board on some of it based on Dan's feedback.
Let's see, what else...
We're looking at several new game ratings features which we'll talk about in November as well, things like rating a game based on art work, music, game play, etc.
Larry's still hard at work on the whole 'activity feed' system and how that works to display news bits all around the site and let you comment on things that happen. He's having a blast with it, and I'm sure everyone will be excited to see it in action.
In our "alpha" testing just here in the office alone, we may be running into some conflicting cookies between our regular site, our current administration site (which we use to administer some areas of the existing site, games, users, high scores, etc) and the new beta site. We're hoping to work out the kinks before the public beta starts so nobody has trouble getting into the beta without wiping their cookies.
Any questions?
