Elite Black Dragon's

Tuesday, February 24 marks the latest version of Atmosphir.  Version 1.4 is the most ambitious update so far and most definitely the largest since I joined the community in November. This update has certainly sparked the most talk and feedback as well.

The list of what was added in this update is long, you can read all about it here.  The most notable of the changes is the long awaited Character customization.  There is no question that this was a massive amount of work for the Minor Studios team and I, for one, applaud them for the effort.

This update required a fresh download from the beta site, and required a little sleight of hand to move your map files (found in the drafts folder) to the new install folder, but otherwise, was seamless.  I think for ease of users, it would be ideal that all future updates do not have to be fresh installs, but having some experience with coding, I can completely understand the necessity of starting fresh, and the fact is, we are still in a private beta.

At first glance, I was really impressed with the amount of character options that were presented out of the box in this update.  Also, the generous team at MS kindly offered 200 Atmos (the brand new Atmoshpir currency 1 Atmo = .01 cents) for us to be able to pick out some cool weapons and clothes.  This update also marked the beginning of the Atmosphir Store which promises to have lots of items to come in the near future. 

They have opted to use Google Checkout, which worked pretty good.  I actually had problems getting my store code to work, turns out the code worked fine, but I was getting a false negative in game to make me think it wasn't working.  I signed up to be a member of the "Player's Club" which offers 3900 atmos doled out in 75/week incriments over the next 12 months, plus lots of extra stuff to be announced at a later date.  Overall, the purchase experience was easy, but it definitely needs work, but more on that later.

The second most important part of update 8 was the inclusion of the Color Pack, a 16 color set of blocks and platforms.  I absolutely loved this inclusion into the game.  It has already spawned a furious array of new designs and has opened up so many doors for new kinds of design possibilities.  Two of my favorites have been Dreaming in Color by PizzaBoy and ANATOMY by Gadoidao.  The first highlights the infusion of colors in many different rooms with a feeling of being in a dream, very well done indeed.  The second is such a great example of the kind of things that can be done with a block art level with the many new options available, not to mention its fun to run through the insides of a giant lizard.  In short, the color pack is brilliant.  At this point the color pack only has blocks, but they have promised some moving platforms to go along with it soon, and I can't wait to use these soon.

As I mentioned earlier, this update has spawned a fury of responses, some positive and some negative.  On the downside, there has been a noticable slow down of performance, both in frame rates and loading times.  There has also been some hiccups with uploading levels (though it seems the problem has been discovered and can be worked around).  But, and I can't stress this enough, this update was HUGE and since there was more content included in this update than any other update in the past (since I joined anyway), this was to be expected.  It only seems natural that the largest update would potentially cause some larger problems.  But, that being said, I think the update actually went about a smoothly as it could have.  Yes, there are some problems, but in the overall scheme of things, this update was a big success.

Community members would do well to keep that in mind when posting in the forums, and cut the hard working folks at MS a little break.  Oh, it's not all been negative, but I think some perspective is in order.  Actually, I always think people could use a healthy dose of perspective.  So, let me end by saying a big Thanks MS for a great update, with tons of features and more coming soon!

P.S. - Sorry, this is kind of late in the game, but at least I posted it before update 9!

Jumpstart 2.20.09

This was another installment of the jumpstart videos for Atmosphir. In it we get to see the final results of the Team 09 Challenge, the announcement of the new Tutorial 09 Challenge with a deadline of March 6, a look at some of the community videos submitted for inclusion in the upcoming game trailer, and a reminder to tune into the Platforms Live event tomorrow at 10 AM EST, plus some more looks at the highly anticipated update 8 which will require a fresh download.

I am happy to say that the levels I thought were the 3 best made it as the top 3 in the contest.  I even got quoted three times, one for each level I voted for.  Honestly, I thought the levels that won deserved it, not just because they were cool levels, but they truly showed a good TEAM effort.  There were probably some levels that perhaps had higher individual merit, but the combination with their teammate wasn't as well executed.  I really felt like frodo and jjjohn0404 made their levels feel like they were designed by one person and this is no small feat.

And, of course, my silliness made it in to this edition as well as I displayed my singing talents for all, ;).   Well, seeing as how I am writing this for me, I hope I enjoyed it.  HAHA, this is still a test of the capabilities of this cool free site provided by webs.com

It looks like we will be having another installment of Platforms Live via Atmosphir's Ustream channel on Tuesday, February, 24 at 10am pst | 1pm est | 6pm gmt.

This will be the Buenos Aires edition hosted by 3 of the developers, Martin, Maximo and Francisco.   So, this is your opportunity to ask your questions to the guys who are in the thick of developing update packs, bug fixes, and creating new in game features.

My expectations are that this live event will be highlighting update 8 with the promise of Character Customization, weapons, plenty of bug fixes, and the new color pack we've all been waiting for.  The last event turned out to be a great time of fun with Okaysamurai showing us how far they had made it into update 8 and taking lots of questions from a crazy group of people who were flooding the live chat.  So, if you have a chance, you really need to be there for this live event.

If you have questions, but don't think you can make it, you can post them HERE  And if you absolutely can't be there, I am sure they will release the full video afterwards in the News section of the website.

I know I'll be there!  Have a great weekend everyone!