Horse Racing Fantasy Community

The back-end changes to our Horse Racing Fantasy Community have all been completed. The front-end changes have been started and should be completed by Thursday. There may be some periods of time when the community may actually be down for 15 to 20-minute segments. Probably won't happen, but you never know.

All of the new community features that you see now or will see over the next few days are tied to the new game. I'm going to list a few of them and briefly discuss each one so everyone knows we're working hard here to build a quality product for you.

1. Top community point earners in last 24 hours - Here we'll display the top game community point earners from the previous day and how they achieved those points. Good insight on what your fellow game players are doing.

2. Top five racing game point earners - It's exactly what it says it is - the top point earners in our game, what they have available to spend and what the monetary value of that is. You'll also notice, if you're logged in, your username and where you rank.

3. Leading jockey/bettors for the week - Minimum 10 races as a bettor or 25 races as a jockey to qualify. This will show who is hot right now and, of course, your username will also show and where you rank.

4. User-shared races - On the top navigation, you can click on the Shared Race tab, click on any one of the races, read a brief description of the race plus the player's description if he entered one, and then look for the "Click Here" to add the race link. You will be notified that the race has been added to your game. Please note, the link will not work until the new game is distributed.

5. All the old stats that we were displaying on the home page of the community can still be accessed from the left navigation menu. So, we're not removing any stats, we're just making the more current ones prominent, giving everyone a chance to make it on the leader boards, whether as a jockey, bettor or community point earner.

6. If you click on a particular date on the Tournament Schedule calendar, like December 2, you can get an idea of what the tournament screens look like for both house and user-generated tournaments. You'll notice over the next few days lots of tournaments being built for testing purposes. Those tournaments will be associated with a color legend and a description. The legend and description identifies your eligibility or non-eligibility for that event, and if there is something you can do prior to the event to become eligible. We have made signing up for tournaments so easy that you, the user, will no longer have to figure out if you're eligible by reviewing your own stats. We do it all automatically. You will not be able to sign up for these tournaments until the new version of the game is distributed. You can review them and start getting familiar with the color legend and the different types of tournaments.

Lots more to come for community changes. In fact, by tomorrow you should notice two new counters on the main page - one showing all the open tournaments and the total points available for winning them and another showing total points given away since game inception. We're really trying to emphasize the value of community points, what they're worth and how to redeem them.

You will also notice tomorrow that the top navigation will change. Two new key buttons are being added. One is called Free Points - yes, we are giving away free community points, millions of them). Instead of bombarding our site with advertising and ridiculous pop-up ads, members going to the Free Points section can look at hundred of offers and opportunities such as surveys, watch movie trailers, sample products, visit websites and more. Each of these opportunities will earn you from thousands of points to hundreds of thousands of community points - ready for you to be utilized in tournaments so you can win those big prizes. Check out the Shop - there are a lot of cool items being added.

The other link we're adding to the top navigation will be our new Get Help section. This section will contain video tutorials identifying the key aspects of our game and community with a step-by-step walk-through to ensure and maximize your fun and winning potential. There will also be modified Help files representing all the changes in the game and the community.

Don't be afraid to comment as these new sections get turned on and, again, if there is any inconvenience or down-time, we apologize in advance. These are necessary steps and have to be done prior to the release of the new game.