Archive for November, 2008
New Group Hosting Theme – Pyromaniac
Do you like playing with fire? Well, our theme designer Zel does, and she’s crafted a theme for all of you flame lovers out there – Pyromaniac. This time, it’s got one sub-theme, but don’t feel short-changed, because the theme itself is fully customizable (seriously, check out the theme’s Advanced Properties!)
Want to start using Pyromaniac for yourself? Give our 100% free group hosting features a try! Got any questions about our themes or anything else on gamerDNA? Let us know!
Winner of the Gears of War 2 Banner Contest
Drum roll please! The winner of our Gears of War 2 Banner contest is ready to be announced….
The winner is Golden138!
Congrats Golden138, you have won our 8′x5′ Gears of War 2 banner signed by the Gears development team.
So what does this banner actually look like?
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Many thanks go out to everyone that participated in this contest. A special thanks go out to our friends over at Microsoft and Epic Games!
Please stay tuned to gamerDNA and our blog for more contests in the future. We’ve got a Gears of War 2 event coming up this weekend…announced shortly!
November 17th Release Notes
This latest release was a pretty big one for us. It introduced another major system that will lay the foundation for gamerDNA as we move into 2009. I have mentioned it in the past, but this new system allows us to start getting at the "WHY" behind what you like as a gamer. All games are not created equal. Just because you and I play the same games and like the same games, does not mean that we like them for the same reasons… and when it comes to your gaming identity, this is an important nuance that we as gamers want to recognize.
Read on for the full release notes. We will be producing some more blog posts and materials through the week that call out many of these new features and give you specific help in using them.
Warhammer Signatures Now Available for European Players!
You may remember when we announced our Warhammer Online signature generator for anyone on RealmWAR in North America. Well, good news – with the launch of the European RealmWAR site, gamerDNA now supports European Servers and players! That’s right, so all of you who felt left out when we rolled out the signatures can now show off their faction, rank, renown, and guild anywhere on the internet. Here’s how to get your own signature:
- Sign up for gamerDNA.com (if you do not already have an account)
- Sign in to gamerDNA and go to the following link Warhammer Online Signature Generator
- Put in your character name and server name for that character and click submit.
- Now you have your signature with the provided HTML and BB Code so that you can instantly use it as a signature anywhere!
That’s it! If you have any questions please feel free to contact gamerDNA support.
Get In Gears… Gears of War 2, That Is
You totally expected to see something about Wrath of the Lich King, didn’t you? Well, listen, GamerDNA is for all gamers, not just MMOG nerds like… um… me. And second, if they had launched on a Tuesday like EQ2 and LOTRO are going to, giving us enough time to pull data, maybe we would have. 
Okay, seriously. Gears of War was THE shooter hit of 2006 in many ways. Three million copies in ten weeks is pretty awesome. To date, the title has sold over five million copies. Microsoft is currently predicting that total sales of the Xbox 360 will hit 25 million at some point this holiday season, with 22 million having been sold at the end of September. If no one buys a single copy of Gears of War from this moment on, and if Microsoft hits their goal, more than one of every five Xbox households will have a copy of this game.
Expectations for last week’s launch of Gears of War 2 were pretty high, you might say. Two million copies have already been sold. One week! Two million! Man, it must feel good to be Epic right now.
Can the data tell us anything we didn’t already know? To the numbers!
› Continue reading
Play World of Warcraft, win Razer Gear!
Hey guys, I’m sure every World of Warcraft fan is waiting with bated breath for the release of the hotly anticipated World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack, which is why we here at gamerDNA are getting together with Razer™ to offer some gear that’s sure to ensure that you’re ready to take on the ruler of Northrend.
Here’s what we’re offering to you:
One Grand Prize Pack, featuring a complete Razer desktop set that includes:
- A Razer DeathAdder™ mouse, with an 1800dpi sensor for precise control
- A Razer Lycosa™ keyboard, with fully programmable keys for macro creation
- A Razer Destructor™ mousepad, optimized for gaming grade mice
- A Razer Piranha™, with pristine sound quality and comfort for the long hours in voice chat
In addition to the grand prize, we’re also offering five Razer DeathAdder™ mice to winners who didn’t get a chance to nab the grand prize!
Now, onto the big question – How do I enter?
Well, most likely, you already have! Here’s the deal -
First, you have to make sure you’ve got an account on gamerDNA.
Next, between now and the end of the contest -Wednesday, November 26, 2008 - you can enter by performing one of the following tasks:
- Adding your World of Warcraft character to your gamerDNA – your character on gamerDNA will automatically update as you climb to level 80!
- Adding an image and associating it with World of Warcraft – show off your new gear or just prove to the world that your guild just accomplished the impossible – anything goes as long as it’s World of Warcraft! (Note that only one image entered during the duration of the contest will count as an entry).
- Adding a World of Warcraft experience – tell the world about your favorite World of Warcraft memories.
- Playing the Game! As long as you have your Xfire ID listed as an AKA – you can enter the contest by simply playing WoW!
You can have a maximum of three entries, so get to it!
We’ll announce the winners on Monday, December 1st – make sure you keep an eye on your private messages, we’ll be contacting you through there.
Just to clarify – you don’t need the expansion to enter, but if you’re a serious WoW player, you’re probably going to get it anyway!
Also, please note that the contest is limited to North America.
November 10th Release Notes
This week we worked on some new features at gamerDNA, most of which we will deploy NEXT week. We want to run them on the live site for a week to tweak them before we unleash them on everyone… so everything else is more of a bug fix.
I will say that the new features next week are about breaking down why you like the games you like. Just because you and I play the same game, does not mean that we like it for the same reason. As you build your gamerDNA, this nuance is important so you can accurately convey your gaming identity. We also hope it adds a fun dimension to your game list and provides all new ways to explore games played and enjoyed by people like you.
So look for that next week… this week, here is the full list:
Group Hosting Enhancements/Changes
- Added a new "HELP" link on the group management tab to help members with functionality. The docs are hosted on the company blog.
- New AION theme for group hosting!
- Added new documentation for lots of various parts of group hosting. Go check it out.
- Images in the group forum have a max width supplied so they do not break the layout.
- Made some tweaks to the filmstrip gadget for groups to be clearer when images are approved or not.
- In the Home page configuration of group hosting, when you configure an order for the homepage gadgets, they will now display in the correct order.
- Fixed an issue where guild applications were still pending, even when the user has applied.
- Fixed some IE7 cross-browser issues with the group recruitment configuration page.
- Trying to create a group event will now prompt you to enter a game, if you attempted to create a game event without one.
- When you remove yourself from a group, you are now redirected to the homepage after confirming, instead of refreshing the same page.
- When we display the games that your group plays, we now show the platform.
- Renamed the tabs on the group management interface so we could fit more of them.
Profile Enhancements/Changes
- All quiz behavior trait widgets are now shareable to various social networks sites. Click the "get & share" link in the widget for a list of networks.
- [next week] Built out a new homepage for gamerDNA that focuses on discovery.
- [next week] Built a new page for adding games to the system.
- [next week] Built a new page for helping you explain WHY you like the games that you do.
- [next week] Created a discovery page that runs off why you like the games you do.
General Enhancements/Changes
- Build a query that inserts traits and pre-populates the system.
- Tweak some settings that will allow caching of javascript and css to work properly.
- The most anticipated section on the games landing page shows the games by individual game/platform combinations.
- Adding some new caching configurations to make things go faster.
- The quiz results all use caching now, which is a big performance boost.
- Added new content to the results of the RTS quiz that better explains the buckets.
- Full caching put in on the Message of the Day component.
- Visual tweaks to the DNA panel pages with the new game type-ahead.
- Converted the games landing page to use lots of caching to increase speed.
- Fixed some CSS issues for the game typeahead on the games landing page.
- There were some strange redirect issues with the DNA panel pages. This has been repaired to behave correctly.
- Fixed a performance issue with the first step of group hosting due to the new game data.
- Fix the game type-ahead so that it handles ":" properly and provides better match results.
- Added some data to the individual game pages for platform in the game title, other platforms, and release dates.
- when adding a game using the type-ahead you will get a cancel link when you are entering platform in case you made a mistake.
- Cleaned up some CSS issues on the guild recruitment pages. Most of it was IE7 issues.
- Cleaned up some spacing in the gamerDNA panel around the game type-ahead.
- When clicking the Add Game button from a specific game page, it now jumps your directly into adding the game.
- Fixed an issue where the home button on the nav bar was not clickable in some instances.
- Fixed an issue that was preventing preloading of backgrounds in Css that was contributing to performance issues.
- Fixed issues where the nav bar was still wrapping due to some lengths of user names.
- When you are picking a game using the type-ahead and the game is selected, the platform now displays to enforce your selection.
- There were some errors being created by spam bots trying to submit the give-respect form. They have been blocked.
See you next week with all-new and improved stuff!
Reminder: Gears of War 2 contest ends Nov 17
Gears of War 2 has swept the nation(and the World!) with the release arguably one of the best first person shooter games out to date. The reviews are in, the buzz is buzzing, and the word is this: Gears of War 2 is awesome and you must get it!
At gamerDNA we’re excited about the game as well, so that’s why we’ve announced our Gears of War 2 Banner contest. All you have to do is get 195 GamerScore by 11:59pm PST November 17th (next Monday) and you can be entered to win our 8′x5′ banner. It’s not just any banner..no no..it’s a banner signed by the Gears of War 2 development team.
If you’re interested in all the details, check out our announcement from last week about the contest. There is still plenty of time to get that 195 GamerScore, many have reported that they already have well over 200 GamerScore in just a couple days of devoted play to the game. I know what I’m doing this weekend..playing Gears of War 2!
Finally, many thanks to the following people for spreading the word about the contest:
Married Gamers Podcast - Great gaming podcast and community for married gamers out there. Great stuff, check it out!
XBLRadio Podcast – Fantastic Xbox 360 podcast
Good luck!
