The Playpen Anncmnt:2013

These are copies of the announcements for Smashblox updates from 2013 and onward.

Introducing the Playpen's Halo-A-Day Prize Giveaway!
Looking for a way to earn oodles of gold while playing games? Welcome to The Playpen!

The Playpen starts off with a blast by introducing Smashblox, a game that tests your skills and timing as you destroy blocks and clear the board to score as many points as possible! Head on over to Gaia’s game page to start your smashing today.

To celebrate the launch of Smashblox we’ve increased the payouts of all tournaments and are holding an extra special Halo a day Giveaway! For the next three days, September 17th until September 19th, all tournament winners will not only receive increased payouts of gold up to 10,000,000, but they’ll also be entered in a daily drawing to win an Angelic Halo! For more information about the drawing check out the official rules.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there and engage in a little friendly competition! We can’t wait to see you in the Playpen!

Play Now!

Update on Smashblox Issues and Halo-A-Day Giveaway
Hey everyone!

Yesterday, we announced the launch of The Playpen, our gaming area containing competitive and casual games played in a tournament setting. The first of these games, SmashBlox, experienced playability issues due to heavy usage. Basically, though we did perform testing on the game, so many of you fabulous Gaians played the game, it crashed the system!

We are actively working on a fix to these issues. Rest assured also that any interruption issues are being looked at by Customer Service.

As for the Halo-A-Day giveaway, some of you have expressed concern that you were unable to participate due to the game issues. No worries - we will be extending the Halo-A-Day giveaway 3 additional days since people weren't able to participate yesterday and some Gaians are still having issues playing the game. The giveaway will now be running until 11:59 pm PT on Sunday, September 22nd. We will update the giveaway rules with the new contest dates today.

We understand that extending the giveaway means 3 more halos will be given out than we originally anticipated, but this is a small number of additional items. Most importantly, we feel that this solution is the most fair thing to do for the community.

Thank you so very much for your patience while we work to resolve these issues.

Smashblox Play Test Part Deux
Yesterday we asked for your help via staff notice to play test Smashblox. During this time we had tournaments running at zero cost and the chance to win up to 10,000 Gaia Gold. Lots played, bugs were found, the site even went down, but that still is not enough!

We have since launched revisions and improvements to the game to correct what we found in our last test and are ready for round Deux!. Now, we know you have better things to do then go testing our games, this time though, forget the measly 10k. We've decided to really make it worth your while. We will be running the tournaments free of charge for a max payout of up to 1,000,000 (yes, that's one million) Gaia Gold. So don't miss your chance at major winnings, join us for the ultimate test 5 to 7 PM PDT.

Visit the Playpen!

Smashblox is back!
Smashblox is back and ready for prime time! We’ve been at work fixing the game and we’re pleased to say it is now better and able to accommodate increased numbers of players. By the way, we truly appreciated your patience with us as we worked through technological issues with the game. Tournaments are also alive and kicking in Smashblox and to help get the word out again, we want to announce a new Prize Pool for October!

Anyone entering a paid tournament between October 3rd and October 6th that emerges as a winner is automatically entered into a drawing for your choice of Mini Angel Wings or Mini Nitemare Wings!! One winner per day across the four days will be chosen. For all eligibility and contest information see Contest FAQs.

Smashblox!! Smash to your heart’s delight! PLAY NOW!”

Play Now!

SmashBlox Lag
SmashBlox Lag

We've ended new tournaments for now as we're attempting to address the issues with lag in the game. We'll update this once we have more information.

Late Night Update
Late Night Update

As you may have noticed, there are still no tournaments available to play in SmashBlox. Unfortunately, we haven't found an efficient solution to fix the issue of lag in the game despite throwing ourselves at it until about 9 tonight. We'll start again bright and early tomorrow to get things hammered out to have the game playable again as soon as possible. Sorry for all the issues with this launch!

In unrelated news, we've removed the PowerUser Menu lab option and turned on all available menu navigation options for all users. Enjoy!

Lastly, there were complications with removing HoC from the site today that caused the Facebook version of the game to also go down. We have fixed this bug and the game should be available on Facebook again now, sorry for any inconvenience. Now that the game is down on the site, we plan to address the issues of converting Chaos Cash to Gaia Cash and granting the achievements out. Once we have an update on those, we'll let you know, but rest assured that we are still planning on doing this.

Smash Blox Update
Smash Blox Update

As many of you know, we have had some problems with Smash Blox overnight, and Narumi, Uncle Kenny and I have been working into the wee small hours to set things right.

If you have had any problems from this morning (Sept 18, 8 am pst) on, please post it in this thread. Thanks

CodeMonkey

SmashBlox Woes
SmashBlox Woes

Yeah, the cash tournaments are down again. We've discovered an exploit in the game that allows users to get scores that were far higher than what they should be able to get. Until we fix this exploit, we've disabled the cash tournaments since it presents an unfair advantage for the users who know of the exploit. We will have this fixed and the cash tournaments back up ASAP so sit tight and we'll update you once we're back up again. In the meantime, feel free to play the free tournament! Sorry for all the trouble this has caused!

SmashBlox Lives Again!
SmashBlox Lives Again!

Sorry for the extended downtime again but we've put the game back up in its full capacity with all tournament levels available. We've put in quite a few patches that should fix issues with levels not loading, scores not adding up correctly, scores saving the wrong value, games quitting in the middle of the level with moves and time remaining, and especially with the excess lag between each move. If you continue to encounter issues, please report them in Codemonkey's thread here.

For those concerned about how the downtime will affect the ongoing giveaway with the game, we're aware of the issues it presents and will make a decision on it on Monday.

Smashblox Stress Test
Smashblox Stress Test

Hey guys, we need your help! We want to get as many people playing Smashblox as possible. This will help us see if there are trouble spots and get them fixed so you'll have a smoother experience going forward. So to do that, for the next several hours, you can enter the tournaments in Smashblox completely free, and you can win up to 10,000 Gaia Gold!

Go Play Smashblox!

Boom!
Boom!

Sorry for the short outage. A change made during the stress test for SmashBlox caused our DBs to explode (not literally). They're all coming back up now and everything should be stable and back to normal within a few minutes. Thanks for your patience!

Smashblox Stress Test Ending!
Smashblox Stress Test Ending!

Hey guys, the stress test has been extremely helpful but sadly will be ending soon at 5PM PST. Make sure to not to miss out on your chance to win up to 10,000 Gaia Gold ...Free!

Go Play Smashblox!