"Also view a special message from Admin"
[spoiler]Message from Admin - Dec 2011
I rarely get a chance to ramble, so here it goes
...Hello and thank you all for playing gatewars, being a part of the gatewars community, or even just for checking us out!
We are dedicated to making the game, community and future of gatewars as entertaining, engaging and strategic as possible.
While we have been active since 2005, this last half year has been quite a challenge. We have moved servers a number of times, after a significant hardware failure at our last colocation facility.
We have FINALLY found a new home (after no less than 3 separate moves!) on a stable server setup with great speed and reliability. We worked very hard to get here, and do apologize for the bumpy (or slow, spuratic, unstable, annoying) road along the way!
I will also take this opportunity to note that we have a new feature developer for the Ascended server -- Sol -- who is making great improvements to the interface and playability, and will soon be looking at gameplay improvemetns as well.
This is a great example of the community involvement in the game.
I would also like to thank all existing, and past, Forum administration, moderators and other helpers. Without this commitment from other community members, we would not have what we do today!
This holiday we are offering $20 in free black market goods, OR a $20 supporter package (each using the until Jan 5th only, double resource rates!!!). The supporter package option is so that all existing players can get full benefits of supporter status. This allows for a more engaged player base, more options and strategy for all, and a lesser separation between 'payers' and 'free accounts'.
The black market $20 bonus ($40 of regular priced goods) is both a thank you, and Christmas present
Over the next month, we will be giving at least the main page a graphics face-lift. This will be coupled with a new advertising campaign to draw new players, and an email (our only one in history!) to the player base to let them know the status of the game is back to stable
The goal is to increase the active player base, with both new players and the return of players who may have left frustrated with the instability or speed over the last few months.ALSO -- and this is hopefully big, good news -- we will be launching a new game server in the new year. It will be open to all, although designed with the newer players in mind.
There has been an ongoing issue with newer players not staying long on the site after joining. This is the result of many factors, namely: too far a distance to cover to rank in the top; far too complex a game for someone new to the site; existing relationships and alliances that are not accessible; some players or alliances who beat the crap out of new accounts making the experience negative; too long a road to reach top ascension levels; -- in short -- things are not setup for new players -- they have evolved to cator to existing players. This issue has resulted in a significant slowing of newer players joining. Any multiplayer game needs new players to survive. So .....
So ....
GATEWARS - NEW GROUNDS is now available as a live beta. It will be a non-reset server, with built in ascension (affects just that server - there is no separate ascended realm here, nor do players gain access to the existing ascended server), many common features to main, and some quite different. When a player reaches a high enough level of ascension, they will have the opportunity to ascend to the main server -- as a powerful account. (It will be known which accounts have come from NewGrounds. )
The entire NewGrounds server is simpler, and offers a clean start. This will address the issue of new players above.
Before NewGrounds goes 'live' all accounts will be reset (but not needing to re-register). This should happen in late Jan 2012 or early Feb 2012.
Players will be allowed to have one NewGrounds account, and one Main account, in Main. This seems the most reasonable method to address the issue of players wanting to play in both servers, and ultimately return to Main.
GATEWARS - NEW GROUNDS
We are also launching a community portal catoring to all gamers - although we are hoping that the gatewars community will be the first to take advantage of the setup. More on this will follow in early 2012. It will provide a directory of online games, player profiles (kind of like facebook but for game characters or aliases opposed to real people), friend tracking, enough email addresses so that you can use a separate email for individual online game registrations (and dump it if spam starts coming), free flash games, powerful search filter and find functions, image albums and sharing, various tools, and much more. Its built for fun
2012 should be a great year for the game, the community and hopefully you personally!!! The world may end Dec 21, 2012, so make the most of it until then!!!!
Sincerely, Admin Jason.[/spoiler]
New game in beta and other snippets. As I don't think the forum is yet ready for this new game, thought I'd start a discussion here! My favrouite bits:
New Game: http://newgrounds.gatewars.com/recruit.php?uniqid=mq1323942625
Admin wrote:ALSO -- and this is hopefully big, good news -- we will be launching a new game server in the new year. It will be open to all, although designed with the newer players in mind.
This also scares me:
Admin wrote:2012 should be a great year for the game, the community and hopefully you personally!!! The world may end Dec 21, 2012, so make the most of it until then!!!!
Anyway...get on the new server, rush for Rank 1 starts here...I agree, this revamp is perfect. Whose ready for all out server war in main?
my first sigging. I sigged you too. <3
Armysize counts for something. *brags*
