Filler

Notice the new spelling of “colosseum”. Some nerd-bullies at my work made me change the spelling because “coliseum” is a rather obscure way to spell it. In the next update, the whole game will be spelled that way.

On a lighter note, last week was huge - over 12 hours of work on BC, the most I’ve ever done in a single week. I’ve registered several new domains to get prepped for the open beta, I’m looking into several different hosts for the game (I loved Dreamhost for a long time, but lately service has been just crap), and I’ve gotten a ton of documentation out of the way.

However, I still have at least two weeks of work left, and in all reality that’ll probably turn into four. Lately I’ve been putting my bug-finding goggles on while I do work, and have noticed tons of new bugs. I would have allowed these in the closed beta, but in an open beta I consider them to be unacceptable. Last week’s twelve hours of work moved me from 15 hours left down to 10 hours left, so … yeah. Lots of little bugs I keep finding.

Oh yeah, and feature creep. Evil thing, that.

This has been a long time coming, but finally a really big change to the game is up. A huge amount of stuff was added, changed, and fixed.

I expect this to be the last major update before I go beta! Woohoo!! The “changelog”:http://bc.nerdbucket.com/help/changelog is always the best place to find details about major updates, but here’s a quick rundown of the most interesting new features. * Instant challenges are in! Players can run an instant challenge against one another and gain small amounts of xp and skills, plus loot each other’s credits (very small amount - I’m not a fan of major losses from random PvP)! * Danger level and multifight points for extra fun! ** The concept of multifight points is pretty simple - arenas that have multiple gladiators will give points to the highest finishers. Better placement, more points. These points are mostly a status symbol, though you will need a few to get to the heavyweight division. ** The “Danger Level” concept is a bit tougher to explain, but I’ll try anyway… when your gladiator’s risk is chosen, it affects how fast he deteriorates (battle scarring) as well as how likely he is to die if he loses a match. Danger Level is something of a tracking system to see how dangerous a gladiator has been recently. Fight dangerously, and it goes up. Be safe and it goes down. Higher levels grant extra money at the end of fights in which death is a possibility. In addition, getting to the heavyweight division will require a certain danger level, so all players will have to eventually live dangerously. Just my way of giving you, my loyal player, the finger. :P (Actually I think it makes the game more interesting, but some people will probably not see it that way, so oh well.) * General UI improvements - more feedback for potentially confusing things, email reports for battles, and other little things.