Horse Racing Fantasy Community

The speed rating issue where speed rating numbers have been changing inside the game has been resolved. We expect the new release or patch for the client (game) to be out next week. I want to do another solid day of testing to make sure we absolutely have this issue resolved. There are still players who are confused saying that their speed rating numbers are changing on their horses. I've written on this subject quite a bit. The bottom line is that the changing numbers have no effect on the horse's traits nor his ability. It's a technical error and the only place that is being affected is the speed rating number.

Next week we will be launching all of the European horse files. I believe there are 14 of them total. At the same time, we're going to launch the All Horse File Bundle Extension Package, which will allow all previous owners of the All Horse File Bundle to not only get any additional American files we release, but these 14 European files, as well.

The Challenge Buddy Jackpot Program is finished. We would have put it live today, but I do not like new development releases on Friday - so, look for that next Monday or Tuesday at the latest. What is really cool is that we have also built a very nice Challenge Buddy Leader Board, which includes weekly, monthly and all-time leaders. In conjunction with the leader boards are all types of new Challenge Buddy badges. The Challenge Buddy Jackpot Program will pay off first thing on a Monday morning on challenges Monday through Sunday. A live update of the jackpot will be available on the Challenge Buddy Leader Board page.

Corrupt Horses - Several players have emailed me that some of their breeding horses are corrupt. The horses themselves are not corrupt, just the way they were put into the game. The new client (or patch) should repair the issue. If it doesn't, any player that has a horse that has a speed rating number followed by a decimal and more than 3 digits and/or a letter will be given the opportunity to breed a replacement horse. From what we can tell, the horses were created correctly, but just sent to the game incorrectly and that's why they are not functioning correctly.

Special Partnership Program with Today's Racing Digest - In the left navigation of the community, under the Recent Winner, there is a tab called Community Special Pages. We have released a new section sponsored by Today's Racing Digest. There are some great video tutorials in this section on all the different facets of racing. A lot of the information can help trainers in our game get a better understanding of how horses run and why they run in certain ways and how that can be interpreted in our game. I believe there are seven tutorials, and every one of them has content that can absolutely be beneficial to the trainers in our virtual racing game.

In addition, we are now beginning the launch of our own bonus point programs. Players who are over the age of 18 can earn 10,000 free community points by signing up to a free membership for Today's Racing Digest. Simply click on the Community Special Pages tab (again, from the left navigation under the Recent Tournament Winner) and click on the section Today's Racing Digest. Just follow the instructions on how to earn those 10,000 free points. This is our offer, so we know the points will be credited immediately. The entire signup process takes about a minute. The actual website (Today's Racing Digest) that you are gaining access to has a lot of valuable horse racing information that could be applied toward our game, as well as information that can be used by those who like to bet on the horses.

Restricted Trainer Tournaments - This week we launched restricted trainer tournaments. These are tournaments restricted to horses with specific speed ratings or less on the same surface the Breeders' Cup final races will use. There will be more of these tournaments implemented, we just want to make sure everything works okay. So far, so good.

New Surfaces for Trainer Tournaments - For the Breeders' Cup final races, we've added two new surfaces. So, if you're suggesting tournaments, you now have the ability to select Dirt-Good and Dirt-Heavy as well as the existing surfaces already available.

General Comments - Once the new client is released, we will then release the new class of horses (nominated horses) as well as the jackpot and super jackpot tournaments.

The new client has fixed several small bugs that have been reported in addition to the fluctuating speed ratings mentioned above. It is important that the client is released first before we turn on new features.

We also activated this week the new jockey and betting tournaments. Everything looks good so far and players are adapting. Next week we will start to set up some really cool VIP jockey tournaments for great prizes. We have a whole collection of items to start giving away - we're excited!

Finally, the weight issues have been resolved and will go into effect with the new build. These are the weight issues for the Breeders' Cup final races. Reducing the weights was a little more complicated than we thought it would be and required a lot of testing. Basically, we're reducing the Breeders' Cup final weights by 30%. We will watch it for about 30 days and if it needs further reduction, it will not be difficult to do because we have a complete understanding of how the program works and what needs to be done for further weight adjustments.

All in all, a very good week - a lot of progress made on a lot of different fronts. We're going to be making some modifications in the Request Trainer Tournament program and will have more information on that next week.

Have a good weekend!
- Puddles