❧ NEWS OF THE BLUE - AUG '11

[{ CLAUS }]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,440,true][bg=dddddd][atrb=background,http://i56.tinypic.com/2vds329.jpg] NEWS OF THE BLUE AUGUST 2011

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[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,10,true][atrb=width,440,true][bg=dddddd][atrb=background,http://i56.tinypic.com/2vds329.jpg] Oh holy bananas-- WE ARE OPEN! AGAIN! Apologies for the delayed opening; we have a lot of updates for you and I was on vacation, pfff. I'll try to be terse, but hey, there was a lot of rearranging done around the site, some obvious, some not so obvious, to make The Blue even better than it was before! I. NEW MANAGEMENT! First things first, The Blue's management has shifted. There was never an official announcement made, but those of you that stuck with us late in the game probably won't be too surprised to to hear that yes, I, Claus, am now an admin of The Blue. Bwahahaha! Hannah has admin powers as well, so consider us promoted from minions to almighty rulers *cackles* Now, don't freak out-- Pasc is still an owner and an admin, and she'll be popping in from time to time, but real life does catch up with you once you're required by society to have a "career" ew. Luckily, she's staying on staff to guide me, help out with the plot and big questions, and make us beautiful skins. Which leads to my next point... II. NEW SKIN! YES. WE FINALLY HAVE ONE. ISN'T IT WONDERFUL? Side tables have been removed in favor of the snazzy table at the top; click the links in the box to the right of the cbox to flip through staff, OTMs, and your PM box. It should also be noted that you have to click the name of the board you want to make it show up in the category. Pretty neat huh? Pasc worked her buttox off on this one to make The Blue stand out as new and original in its own right so you better smother our lovely creator with all your love and affection. ♥ III. NEW INVENTORY SYSTEM! One of the key features of The Blue is its extensive shop system, but the staff agreed that we needed a simpler version of inventories. The result was a complete revamp of the system. The inventory boards are gone; inventories will now be attached to your character's profile as well as what I like to call your "karma bank". Please read the [ new inventory guide ] for all of the details. All information regarding shops, venny, and karma can be found in its own board, [ Shopping Instructions ], located under the Game Schematics. IV. KARMA REDEMPTION! In conjunction with revamping the inventory system, we had to re-do how you redeem karma. You must post in the [ karma redemption ] thread in order to receive your allotted karma, BUT you cannot redeem karma unless you 1) have completed the thread or 2) want to archive the thread, in which case you can't get it back. The karma redemption thread can also be found in the [ Shopping Instructions ] board. Speaking of karma... V. NEW RANKS?! Don't get too excited. While I have taken liberties to modify some of the ranking systems, not all systems got the same attention. I made all starting ranks options for existing characters, allowing you guys to change your character's occupation mid-game, I added a few "specialty" ranks to the sky pirates, and anyone can start a new gang --with the right ammount of KP, of course. Check out all of the new options in the Karma Shop Expect ranks to become a more... interesting feature later on in the game. VI. BESTIARY! The idea for one has been tumbling around in our heads for a while now so we finally sat down and put our imaginations to work creating 100% original creatures to inhabit the world of The Blue. You can find [ the bestiary ] in the Encyclopedia board under Game Schematics, but you might notice it's incomplete. Not only are there a mere five entries, not all of the entries have images... VII. SITE SUGGESTIONS! The Bestiary is incomplete because we want you, the members, to take part in creating the world of The Blue! We have a whole board dedicated to you helping us improve the blue. Its called [ Site Suggestions ] duh and can be found as a subboard of Questions & Suggestions. Currently we have threads where you can submit ideas for beasts, boards, and shop items for rewards, but feel free to start a brand new thread for any other ideas you want to share. We love constructive thoughts! VIII. ACTIVITY CHECK RESULTS! And last but not least, you might have noticed that we're spick and span, totally cleaned out. We held an activity check just before we popped into Maintenance Mode and I'm sorry to say only about ten active members replied and passed. The staff wiped out around 100 accounts, swept out even more threads, and updated the census & face claim lists appropriately to make The Blue nice and shiny for our grand reopening! I filled in the karma banks and transferred the inventories of all surviving accounts, and I even gave you the karma you deserved for the threads I archived while in MM. (See? I'm a nice admin. For now. Bwahahaha!) So guys... IX. ADVERTISING & AFFILIATING. For the time being we're going to let The Blue have a soft opening, hopefully to pull back some friends, invite some new friends, and get us gently off the ground. Once we get back in full swing and settled in, we'll use some of our nifty new advertisements to really put us back on the map! X. WHAT DO YOU THINK? Seriously! As another new feature of The Blue, News Posts like this one are going to pop up every so often to key you guys into updates and changes around the site. You are more than welcome, and in fact encouraged, to reply to this thread to tell us what you love, don't love so much, and might do a little differently. Member feedback is super important to us because we want The Blue to last fooorreeevveerrr! =D ♥ ♥ LOVE YOUR STAFF ♥ ♥

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