Some fun Halloween stuff is going on today! You should poke around the site and see what’s new! It’s also the 1-year anniversary of when we launched the site as a closed Beta, so that’s a pretty big milestone. Recently Scullyangel posted a thread outlining some of the highlights of the last year. Honestly it’s my site so obviously I would say this: but I’m really impressed with how far we’ve come in such a short time. ...
We promised our users ages ago that we’d email them when Episode 2 was launched. This was one of the most often requested features during the Episode 1 Beta, since players had finished the content and wanted to be notified when they could come back to play more. So far, any emails you’d receive from the Forumwarz site were related to your Tubmail, Flamebate threads or forgetting your password. This is actually the first email we’ve ever sent out announcing a new feature. In fact, if you’re reading this blog you are probably an active user and will never see the announcement emails: we are only sending them to accounts that aren’t highly active already. ...
One of the biggest pains for our users has been the store interface. It worked really well for buying one or two items at a time, but it really sucked when buying more than that. Additionally, the undo purchase button was just rife with abuse – people figured out all sorts of tricks to advance in the storyline with “borrowed” items and such. Today I’m happy to release the first update to the store interface in about a year! Right now, you are presented with a more brief tabular view of the items the store has. You have a quantity box beside each item, with + and - buttons to raise and lower the value (although you can just type it in yourself too.) ...
I’ve been saying for months that the part of Forumwarz that I want to upgrade the most is the ForumBuildr v2.0 BETA. Right now it’s the only part of Forumwarz that requires manual intervention. Every Sunday night since we launched (with a couple of exceptions), I have had to stay home and do some work to make sure the stylesheet submitted jives with the existing site stylesheet. I also have to run some scripts to assign buildr scores and assign the difficulty of the forum. ...
Over the last few weeks I’ve received a couple of angry emails. Here’s a sample: “I have to PAY to play the next episode? No Thanks. No Thanks. I’m not going to tell you guys you suck now or anything, I understand, you need money to do what you gotta do… But I think you went about it the wrong way, and you aren’t getting my money. It’s not even entirely because I’m not convinced episode 2 isn’t worth money. It’s because I feel like I’ve been hijacked. ...
We’re only one week away from the Launch of Forumwarz Episode 2! Here are some very important things you should know (even if you haven’t purchased Episode 2): Most game statistics have been changed and tuned This is in the best interests of keeping the game smooth and challenging, as well as balancing between the various player classes. Many things are weaker, many are stronger. Changes have been made to pretty much every attack, item and upgrade in the game. In fact, you’ll find that the new system includes many more upgrades for the same amount of upgrade points, (although they are weaker.) ...
Episode 2 is now only two weeks away, and we’ve still got some surprises! Previously, I’ve alluded to an unannounced gameplay feature that will be released at the same time as Episode 2, and I’m finally ready to announce it! One thing lacking from Forumwarz is item drops when you beat enemies. Sure, we send you junk the next day, but if you are just 50 flezz short on an item you want, it sucks to have to wait, especially if you have forum visits remaining. Also, there is relatively little to collect in our game, since there are a limited amount of stores and items you can buy from them. ...
Today I’m happy to announce that we’ve launched our official merchandise store! We have partnered with Zazzle.com to bring you a variety of Forumwarz themed products, including t-shirts, buttons and posters. One of the best things about Zazzle is that each product can be customized in many different ways, so you can play with all sorts of settings to make the items into exactly what you want. This is our first stab at merchandise, so we’d love to hear your feedback. Do you like the products we have? What kind of products would you like to see in the future? Let us know! ...
Yesterday, we decided to promote TUBSWEETIE to be a new moderator for Forumwarz. With Episode 2 coming up soon we figured we could use all the help we could get. There’s a thread here if you want to say congratulations!
A lot of Episode 2 has come together over the last couple of weeks. I remember it being this way before we launched Episode 1. It seems to take forever to get the ball rolling, but near the end so much comes together so quickly! I included an illustration of a permanoob in our last update. It’s actually a tiny piece of our new homepage! For Episode 2 you’ll be greeted with a beautiful piece of artwork from the guys at Dooomcat. We liked their artwork so much that we had them re-design the character selection portraits too. I think our moderator, Mc Banhammer, had an orgasm when he saw the full artwork. ...