Erebus is Coming…

Today, I received an email flaunting Outspark’s latest game- Erebus. It looks like a sort of WoW/Warcraft 3/Diablo game, and I am hella-excited!

Story:

Eons ago, the jealous and vengeful god of Chaos, Erebus, nearly destroyed the human race. Led by the beloved King Danaus, humanity fled to the shores of Travia, a lush continent full of magical and ancient beings. The natives of Travia — noble Elves, rugged Dwarves and magnificent Dragons — welcomed the humans with open arms. The first years of coexistence were not easy, as humans came to terms with the reality of starting over in this world of strange creatures and magic. But soon, construction began on a new human home – Andarasa, named for the Goddess of Light, who many humans had turned to as their savior.

Peace would not last long. When the human refugees fled from the terrible forces of Erebus, Erebus himself had stowed away deep inside the young son of King Danaus, Prince Typhram. The God was weak, but by spreading chaos, he could regain his power and manifest in the flesh once more. Using the Prince as his agent, Erebus was able to bring fear and distrust to the human survivors. The Prince proclaimed that only a Human could lead the land of Travia to prosperity. Agents loyal to the Prince took up his new cause, each wearing a red armband to show their allegiance. The “Scarlet Revolution” caught the natives of Travia completely by surprise. Villages were razed, civilians massacred, and, most shocking of all, a band of human militants, armed with new-found Dwarven explosives, destroyed the palace of the Elf Queen. Truly, this was humanity at its worst. Prince Typhram’s sister, Princess Helene watched these events unfold in horror; why would her brother undo everything they’d worked so hard for? As chaos consumed Travia once more, Erebus grew in power. Typhram’s body swelled and warped, exposing him as Erebus reborn. He headed west, towards the desolate wastelands of Deva, leaving death and destruction in his wake. Wherever he went, monsters of old — the Orcs and Ogres, Revenants and Reavers — rallied to their lord and master. Erebus had come to Travia, and chaos followed.

For more information, visit http://erebus.outspark.com today!

Upcoming Updates for Fiesta: Estate System & Secret Unique Update!

Outspark [GM] Silkypico had posted an announcement about introducing the “Estate System” which is the upgraded mini-home. It allows players to decorate, walk around, and socialize with up to 7 other players. Fiesta players can buy warps for their home so that it’s a lot easier to travel to a specific area.

- Furniture will be useable (Chairs, benches, etc.)

- Holds up to 7 players

- The housing feature is free, but a special quest needs to be completed to use the feature

- Furniture/Deco will deteriorate over time, and players can buy repair kits. Furniture bought from the Outspark Store will use premium repair kits.

The secret unique update will later be announced, and will be coming before the housing update. In order for the housing update to become available this February, Silkypico has set a target goal for Fiesta Fans on Facebook: 10,000. To see the status of the fan count, I’ve programmed a fan count tracker image, which is used in my sig.

Blackshot Gets Canned by Outspark

It’s a shame that Blackshot had to meet this end, though many saw it coming. I loved the closed beta, and will miss that game very much.

To all the dedicated fans of Blackshot,

We appreciate your membership in our community and dedication to the game through beta testing, ongoing involvement in the forums and other places online. We realize many of you have been waiting to play Blackshot for some time now and we apologize for any inconvenience and frustration the delay may have caused.

After exploring every possibility related to the game’s delivery, we have decided to not move forward as the publisher of Blackshot. All related images and links along with the forum will be removed from our website shortly. While we are unable to discuss particular details of the situation, ultimately Outspark was unable to bring all of you a game that meets our standards. We have decided to move on.

Thank you for your understanding. We look forward to seeing you in one of our other games soon and value your membership in the Outspark community.

-The Outspark Team

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Sick

Since about September 21st, I’ve been battling a nasty case of Bronchitis. I’m just about over it now and have returned to my classes, but right now I still have a bit of a cough. I’m able to get back to working Thursday, and boy do I need to.

In other news, I’ve been playing a bit of AION Online, but like every other MMORPG, I’ve never been completely attatched to it. I guess I’ve got some sort of immunity to the “WoWcrack” or “Evercrack” that many have gotten addicted to. That does not mean I don’t enjoy the games; I just can’t find myself playing them constantly.

Project-wise, I’ve been messing around with LightBox, vBulletin, and CSS. CSS has been giving me hell lately, mainly with cross-browser support. IE and Firefox like to fight and process CSS differently when I use a style code such as:

.midBox a:link { color: #000000; text-decoration: none;} <-- This wanted to work fine in IE8, but was ineffective in Firefox for some reason. I had to rewrite it to be:

.midBox > a:link { color: #000000; text-decoration: none;}, which really didn’t make sense to me why the first didn’t want to work. They should both target the link inside the <div> tags.

It could be just me, but I am not sure why that really is happening differently/incorrectly… if you know differently, please comment. I am still a learner!

A friend of mine suggested that I use YUI (Yahoo! UI) “reset.css” which should be able to minimize the differences between Firefox and IE (as well as other mainstream browsers). Unfortunately, with all the CSS I had written, it only made things worse.

In Blackshot news, I had made an attemt to work some new information out of the staff, but there really is no news. Sadly, this game entered Closed Beta testing 1 full year ago. Suprising, isn’t it? Luckily, I have patience and could wait even another year before I give up on the game. I have Counter-Strike: Source to keep me happy.

I also recently uploaded my recording of the Blackshot CBT event: “GMs vs. All” to Youtube, so you can watch it in fairly high quality.

Quick Update on my Server Status

I recently spent a few hours until 3am this morning and adjusted my server status image again to transform it into a bar again and also made it a whole lot more accurate by checking the ability to log in rather than just seeing if the login is online. This was added since the servers come online during maintenance, but users aren’t able to log in until maintenance is over.

This is the barred version of the server status signature image ver. 3(.5 after login update).

Updated Server Status

I recently added Cypion to the server status list as well as made a new sig. My next mini-project will be to make individual status bars for anyone to use.

[Fiesta] New Cypion Server Open!

The new Cypion Server opened just moments ago and it is quite crowded! The server is full of new players reserving names and also competing at the “Race to 105″ event where the first adventurers to reach 105 will receive 1,000,000 sparkcash (Approx. value: 1428.57 USD)! To view more information about Fiesta, visit http://fiesta.outspark.com. Enjoy!

Fiesta's New Server- Cypion

Project Powder OBT 2 and Fiesta Cap Raise Out Now!

Fiesta’s new content update is looking awesome! Unfortunately at the time of this post, I am on Windows 7 which is currently incompatible with Xtrap and Outspark’s games. I will be reformating by this weekend to get back in the game!

Project Powder has also released a new update with an extra character and a few edits. Hit the more button for details on Fiesta and Project Powder’s content updates.

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Project Powder & Blackshot

I have noticed there are a few out there who hate Outspark’s guts for not spilling any info on the release dates of the major Project Powder updates as well as Blackshot. Though I may have more precise information on said topics, I do not have the liberty to discuss them. All I have been able to provide to you guys is the dreaded word- “soon”.

Project Powder has had a UI change already and I am looking forward to seeing many more players hop into ProPow! This time, we mean “soon” the way it was intended. You won’t be waiting another 6 months this time! I will update you all as I am given more information to relay.

As for Blackshot, Rider is calling the shots I believe and he had made a recent post on April 1st (What a bad time to make an announcement?) stating that Blackshot’s targeted Open Beta date is somewhere mid-June. Ouch. It has been around half a year since Blackshot went into the first Closed Beta. I just hope the Blackshot team can give us something worth waiting this long for.

For more information- visit www.playblackshot.com and www.project-powder.com today!

New Theme, New Version, I’m back. :D

I have a lot of things to say since I last posted, so here goes:

• I found this Vista-esque theme on the Wordpress main site and I LOVE IT. It even has an awesome functioning Start bar!

• As for the site, I’ve returned to using a blog since I have bought a new domain for my friends to use on our “project.”

• I also have been working on this site for the past week- http://www.gamer-universe.net/web101 It’s due Tuesday and I still have a ton of content to put on. I also have to find out what I’m going to use to fulfill my Flash requirement. It’s a site devoted to helping new players interested in Outspark’s Fiesta

• I would also like to congratulate Celtic_Princess on joining the CL Team at Outspark. She’s going to be a huge help for us!

• I have nearly completed my Server Status and Player Stats apps for use on the Outspark Forums

Outspark Character Stats

Outspark Server Status