Horse Racing Fantasy Community

The new build is finished and would have been released today, but it's Friday. Expect the release either first thing Monday or first thing Tuesday morning. This is more of a technical update. You really won't notice any changes from a functionality standpoint except certain fixes for known issues. You will also notice a video icon on every page. We are in the process of building out some 60 video help files, each one geared to a very specific topic. This, in conjunction with the mentor pogram and the forums, as well as our Get Help section, should really help new players, as well as established players. The video help files will be introduced during September and October. Once we're complete with all the video help files, we invite any one of our users to produce their own video help file on a specific topic and, if it's better than the one we produced, we'll be glad to change it.

The new build does not incorporate any database changes, therefore, no files will be lost, no horses will be changed, no races lost, no racing history lost. The update should take the average user about 10 seconds. The new version will prevent players from opening up multiple accounts from the same computer. After Monday or Tuesday or next week, it just becomes impossible.

Next week should be the release of our new main home page for the general website. This has no effect on the community, but will definitely help us increase the number of new players. The look-and-feel is very appealing and is targeted to a broad audience.

Once the build is out and the website is released, we will immediately release the breeding program and the bonus program tied to your stable earnings. They will follow no more than a week apart, barring any disasters with the new build. These two new features will finally give horses eligible for the breeding shed the opportunity to enter the breeding shed and our players can start breeding to those horses.

The bonus program, which I have talked about on many occasions, will finally give us the opportunity to reward our top players who have accumulated the most stable earnings. Stable earnings currently are for bragging rights, but within the next few weeks, they will also help you earn community points by using those stable earnings to purchase horse racing-related businesses.

We're still trying to figure out the tournaments. I have received tons of suggestions on how we should structure tournaments. Every one of them has a valid point, but there is a downside to every one of the scenarios we have reviewed. We have currently made some changes and are hoping that those will affect the game in a positive manner. Instead of three different distances for the Blue Restricted Tournaments, we have narrowed it down to two. Instead of two tournament entry fee structures, we've narrowed it down to one. We're going to watch this for the next 30 days and then re-evaluate. I'm also planning on a conference call, inviting our top players to brainstorm some ideas in an open forum.

We have a lot of exciting things in the works that I cannot disclose just yet, but I'm absolutely certain they will all lead to an even more vibrant, diversified community of players and fun and exciting racing competitions.

The new handicapping program for the general tournaments is definitely beneficial. We have some very solid handicappers and I'm proud of them. We will restructure the rewards program for the handicappers. I have a scheduled meeting next week and we will figure out a different structure.

Enjoy this weekend's summer racing!

Puddles