Horse Racing Fantasy Community

Again this week, a lot of backend work was done in preparing for quite a few upgrade roll-outs next week. We plan to roll out a new search feature in the View Upcoming Trainer Tournaments section. This should be available by Tuesday. The new search feature allows you now to search by tournament type. The tournaments are broken down in the following way - General Trainer Tournaments, Restricted Trainer Tournaments, Insta-Trainer Tournaments. This should further help when looking for specific events.

We have published (and it is now live) a new tab in the right navigation of our community called Jackpot and Super-Jackpot Tournament Information. This is for players who have horses that are partially or fully-nominated. In this new section, you'll see a list of recent horses and their owners who have won special bonus programs specifically tied to horse racing tournaments where partially and fully-nominated horses received bonuses. In addition to jackpot and super-jackpot bonus information, we also show horses that have broken track records and the bonuses they received. This section also features both general trainer tournaments and insta-trainer tournaments that have been labeled as jackpot or super-jackpot. Remember, you do not know if a tournament is a jackpot or super-jackpot tournament until it starts, so this section gives the players the ability at a glance to identify these upcoming special bonus events. Over the next week or two, watch how this section really starts to fill up as more and more of these tournaments get started.

Changes to Insta-Tournaments (Claiming Races) - We're going to make a couple of small changes in the insta-tournaments. Currently, the insta-tournaments that are available are 10,000, 25,000, 50,000 and 100,000 point claiming races. Though the entry fees will stay the same, the claiming prices will be slightly increased: 10,000 will go to 12,500 / 25,000 will go to 30,000 / 50,000 will go to 60,000 / 100,000 will go to 120,000. Again, before everyone starts saying anything, please understand that the entry fees are NOT going up. Right now, we feel the insta-tournaments favor the buyers just a tad. By raising the claiming prices, we're giving a little bit back to the sellers. This may not be a permanent change. This is an adjustment that will be watched and re-evaluated over the next two to three weeks. We could end up going back to the way it is right now. Existing insta-tournaments that are already created and/or have started will stay the same. This will affect unpublished ones that will start appearing sometime in the next week or so.

We are thinking about adding a 5,000 claimer insta-tournament. This will allow new players to participate in the claiming game as both buyers and sellers. These 5,000 claimers will carry a 1,000-point entry fee if we decide to go with this feature - a very low race for bottom-of-the-barrel horses, but still gives some players the opportunity to have some fun in this aspect of the game. I expect horses with speed ratings in the 70s and low 80s would end up in this type of event. Obviously, with the 1,000-point entry fees the prize pools will be relatively low and we might guarantee a minimum of 7,500 prize pool, even if there are only the minimum four horses entered. We'll know for sure if we go with this additional classification sometime next week after we look through some more data.

Within the next week, you should also start to see new bonus programs. These are not the free point programs you normally find under the Free Points section. These are free point programs that we are running with special partners. Our objective is to start having these appear within the next fourteen days and start offering players these special free point programs almost on a weekly basis. Most of these free point programs will only be applicable to U.S. and Canadian members, but some will apply to our European players, as well. If it was up to us, we'd let everyone participate, but the partners we work with are only interested in certain geographic areas.

By the end of next week, we will be completely done with the development of our ownership program. This is where stables (owners) will have the ability to purchase, using their stable earnings, horse racing-related businesses. Once purchased, these owners will earn a monthly income for a specific period of time. That monthly income will be in community game points. This bonus program is really in place for active stables. Though average-sized stables will be able to buy smaller horse racing-related businesses, the bigger stables will be able to own things such as racetracks. If development is finished next week, then there will be one to two weeks of testing and then we can go live.

We're still working on the new build, which solves a bunch of small issues and puts in place some architecture for future game enhancements we have planned down the road.

We developed a really cool equipment change program, which we call our Bit Program. This will probably be the next stable enhancement feature released. This program allows players to try different bits for their horses. The bit changes affect the horse's running style. Smart trainers will know how to use the bits to help horses that they own or might want to claim.

There are plenty of other programs, such as our new handicap weight program for the Breeders' Cup final races. This also should go into testing a week from today. I truly believe this will add a whole new dimension to our game and player engagement.

We're noticing a rapid growth in new members and new member retention. This has helped us achieve record levels of active horses in the game, allowing us to publish larger variations of tournaments creating much more game playing opportunities. We're at the verge of reaching critical mass.

Finally, I'm hoping to make a very big announcement next week or the week after. If everything stays on course, the announcement completely changes who we are and how we are regarded. This will be by far our biggest accomplishment and will open up numerous doors for unlimited growth opportunities. This is something we have been working on for a very long time and will benefit everyone who is involved with us.

- Puddles