June 2008

==Outage update from the developers==
The outage caused by the electrical explosion continues and the best estimates given to us are that the services should be coming back online in the next few hours.
When this outage originally occurred we were told it would be resolved in less than three hours. It was several hours later that the extent of the damage was determined and a new estimate of when the services would be restored was provided.
We had an option to have our services redeployed but this was forgone to allow those services which support critical sites, such as sites related to medical and health support to be moved instead. We know that each of our community would have made the same decision.
Even though there has been an outage, we have been hard at work taking advantage of this time to complete a number of features we know you will love.
We look forward to seeing you again as soon as the outage is resolved, hopefully later this evening.
Your Development Team
Virtual Family Kingdom
==A note from the developers==
VFK Gadget is a fine new application, also in Beta mode, which is created by Kurt Boyer (who many of you know as BlueHairedMonkey).
Kurt's new VFK Gadget is a simple and FREE program designed to help you view and play Virtual Family Kingdom.
If you would like to download and try VFK Gadget, you can find it at: http://www.vfkgadget.com/
Your development team
Virtual Family Kingdom
==Surf's Up Summer Fun Quest==
7:00 AM Pacfic Time June 15, 2010 to 10:00 PM Pacfic Time June 16, 2010
Our first quest! Cowabunga! This month is the beginning of summer, and what better way to welcome in the warm weather than with a few days at the beach surfing! To hit the surf, you need some basic equipment like maybe a... surfboard. To get your great new VFK designer surf board, you have to go on a quest to find it. I'd like to say that it will be totally easy, but what is the point of a quest if you don't have a bit of a challenge? Your brand new surfboard is just waiting for you to "hang ten" at the end of your journey around the kingdom. Go on the Surfs Up Summer Fun Quest and complete all the tasks as they come up. You will then be all set to hit the beach. I haven't found the beach yet, but I for one like to be prepared, and you just never know what's going to happen around here.
===Summer Surfs Up Summer Fun Quest===
Quickest Times - June 14th to June 15th, 2008:
1. Guest15760 6:02
2. aPrincessDelaney 8:15
3. iSirius 8:20
4. Boadicela 8:48
5. SouthernBelle 8:57
6. OoyayOotay 9:03
7. Lavender_Lollipop 9:08
8. dawgydude 9:24
9. Guest11363 9:24
10. Guest10369 9:28
11. solomia 9:32
12. MyHorseAwesome 9:38
13. Clarity 9:42
14. Persephone 9:48
15. RedheadedStranger 10:00
16. RoxyStar 10:02
17. Guest15759 10:09
18. Tudor 10:18
19. Pizza 10:18
20. bubblegum 10:28
==Dudes and Dudettes!==
Surf's Up Summer Fun Quest is now open! Just refresh your browser and click the new Quest button on the tool bar.
We are a bit late opening our new Surf's Up Summer Fun Quest, so to make sure everyone has a chance to be a part of the quest, it will be available until 6:00 pm pacific time tomorrow!
Have fun, and oh yes, Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful Dads in our community.<BR>
Surf's Up!
Sara
==VFK Happy Father's Day Quest==
Monday, June 16 5:00 P.M. to Tuesday, June 17, 2010
If you're like us you probably had a busy Father's Day yesterday. To extend the celebration of Father's Day we have a special easy quest! Grab your dad and have a great time playing. Because what better way is there to continue a great "Dad day" and to tell your dad you think he's groovy than with a life-size Lavalight complete with blue lava and 500 credits to buy Dad something he (or maybe you) will love! :) 
===Happy Father's Day Quest===
Quickest Times - June 16th, 2008:
1. Mistymoonlilly 9:02
2. Acemanrocks 9:48
3. YoungLink 9:57
4. Gsterg 10:58
5. SpacePirateMore 11:02
6. AstroAlphaTyler 11:45
7. luckyorchideffect 12:02
8. YoshiRaptor 12:02
9. Guest428 12:02
10. Shelby_animalgirl 13:02
11. savvy.star 13:02
12. Swordsman 13:03
13. angelagt 13:15
14. Adam_rocks 14:15
15. Guest136 14:28
16. Figment 15:02
17. Evident 15:38
18. CoolManStarBigC 15:39
19. hulamoongirl 15:58
20. Guest565 16:02
21. CrystalWaters 16:01
22. Ravynwingz 16:02
23. Adoril 17:02
24. Avastjonny 17:08
25. SweetDreamssss 17:09
26. KahneFan 17:10
27. Jasonbobdude 17:15
28. dizdreamer 17:21
29. mary-cate 18:02
30. raiyana 18:30
==Audubon's Wildlife Adventure High Scores UPDATED==
June 16th, 2008:<BR>
1. JungleDudette 26556
2. rain 22592
3. rain 22194
4. colorsofthewind 20852
5. colorsofthewind 20010
6. colorsofthewind 19634
7. colorsofthewind 18836
8. JungleDudette 18472
9. colorsofthewind 17994
10. rain 16944
11. PrinceBlueYoshi 15658
12. colorsofthewind 15628
13. Cindi-Lu 15310
14. colorsofthewind 14798
15. JungleDudette 14398
16. Pascualina 14020
17. colorsofthewind 13040
18. Guest428 12652
19. Guest136 12338
20. cooledcoyote 10222
21. happykimmie 10164
22. colorsofthewind 9788
23. woowoo 7672
24. Guest428 7636
25. colorsofthewind 7336
26. woowoo 6898
27. Guest5552 6608
28. iSirius 6538
29. YellowStrangeShark 6336
30. Clarity 6292
==Audubon's Wildlife Adventure High Scores - Final==
All Time Highscore Leader Board:
1. YellowStrangeShark 253918
2. YellowStrangeShark 124226
3. BriarOtter 90212
4. PrincessDelaney 81952
5. JungleDudette 78650
6. Cindi-Lu 68224
7. YellowStrangeShark 65212
8. YellowStrangeShark 57102
9. BriarOtter 43600
10. BriarOtter 41040
11. YoungLink 40500
12. YellowStrangeShark 37394
13. Cindi-Lu 35000
14. YoungLink 33898
15. YoungLink 31778
16. Cindi-Lu 28136
17. YellowStrangeShark 27678
18. BriarOtter 27478
19. Tomorrow 27254
20. JungleDudette 26556 
==A Note From The Developers== 
June 18th, 2008
This is a special thank you to all of our beta testers who so graciously participated in our first two Quests. These were a major milestone in our development process and the information we gained from the Quests has been fantastic.
The Quests bring together many of the technologies and make testing them under load a reality. We thought we would share with you some of the more exciting results from our two Quests.
One of the most important tests we were able to perform with the Quest was the use of the trading engine. The award of the prizes used the trading engine and with literally 10's of thousands of trades, many of which were simultaneous, there was not a single error. Thank you all so much for making this test possible.
We also want to thank you for doing these Quests without the benefit of a map. However, we needed to do these Quests before we added the map to complete the tests. In particular we were able to test multiple simultaneous teleports from a room, multiple simultaneous teleports into a room, m*****ive simultaneous click requests to move in a room to a location or to select an object, and large chat loads in a room. From this data we were able to reduce the memory requirements on the servers by over 7 times.
We were also able to test what happens when 100's of thousands of items are placed in rooms, moved around and then removed from the room and placed back in inventory, almost simultaneously. After analyzing the databases we are pleased to report that not a single item was lost. We did have 15 items which were placed in rooms we would have never imagined possible. One was a "pink couch" in an Audubon Wildlife Adventure room. We changed the code to prevent this from happening again and put the couch back in the person's inventory :-)
Last week we re-factored our primary 3d engine which made it faster, more accurate and more stable. These Quests also allowed us to test these new developments, and again, everything went perfectly.
There were a great many more metrics which we collected, most of which are very mundane and boring, but because of this data we have spent the last two days making enhancements based on the information gathered from the Quests.
We hope the great prizes our graphics team created especially for these Quests show how much we appreciate your help during these beta tests and our heart felt thanks.
So, in the future, when anyone uses a teleporter, makes a trade, places something in their room, or even just goes from room to room, you can tell them that you were part of the Beta Quests which made this all possible.
We have a fun Quest planned for this weekend which should allow us to complete the cycle of development. The great news is that this means we will finally have a map and your hard work of trudging through the kingdom will have paid off! However, we will miss seeing the garden so full of people everyday about to go out into the kingdom.
Again, thank you all so much for your help in making this new world a reality, and thank you for your help in our Quests.
Your Development Team
Virtual Family Kingdom
PS. As an interesting side note, the bug which makes it possible to have different size characters after changing clothes or hair is the result of a single line of code. However, it seems that everyone is enjoying this, so we will leave it a bit longer. If you haven't experienced this bug, make sure you do before it is removed.
PPS. We also thought we should share with everyone a bug in the Audubon Wildlife Adventure game. The bug is that the last option in the multiple choices is never correct. So, on the second level, it is always the first choice. It may not seem like a lot of credits each game, but if you just play it consistently for an hour you will discover you have over 3,000 credits. This is because the game restarts quickly and because of the bug you can almost always make over 50 credits per game. The worst case is that you will end up knowing a lot more about our natural wildlife, not to mention being able to impress your friends with your knowledge of birds! :-)
==I Scream For Ice Cream Quest==
Friday, June 20th 7:00 A.M. Pacific time to Saturday, June 21 10:00 P.M. Pacific time
With all this hot summer weather we need something to beat the summer heat and what is better then Ice Cream!! This Friday and Saturday play our "I Scream for Ice Cream" quest and learn all the chilling history about Ice Cream, and maybe a little about popsicles too! Get ready for some cool summer fun and prizes this weekend! Be there or be square.
Once you complete the quest, you will receive 1,000 credits to help you buy new rooms that are coming soon, a red and white ice cream cart, and your choice of either chocolate or strawberry ice cream parfait!
==Largest Palm Tree In VFK!==
June 21st, 2008
The first day of summer and the first day of our room list we found lots of great rooms and we discovered the largest palm tree in VFK to cool off under!
Our thanks to PrincessWendybird for the shade and this fabulous tree!
==A Note from the Developers==
June 26th, 2008
Many in our community, especially educators, have requested that we make July 4th Day One. These requests are primarily based on conflicts with work and summer school schedules. With your help, we’ve stayed right on schedule, however, we also think July 4th is an excellent choice as it so eloquently represents freedom and a new beginning.
This also works well with the release of our July 4th Independence Day fireworks game!
Another reason we like July 4th is that it makes it easy for everyone to remember when beta ended and Day One occurred.
Our original choice of June 26th to end beta was chosen purely based on the development timeline we put together, so there is no technical reason why July 4th would not be an excellent date to end beta.
We truly appreciate all of our community and beta testers and also everyone who was there for the early alpha tests.
As beta ends, July 4th will be day one of the release candidate phase of our new world. For all of our community who are new to software development, the RC phase of a project is primarily focused on refining interface, introducing assets based on the existing structure and feature sets defined during beta. With the framework of our new world so well defined, and because of the excellent assistance of our beta testers, we look forward to the final cycle of development and the launch of RC1!
Your Development Team
Virtual Family Kingdom 
P.S. – We have also had a number of questions concerning the transition from beta to release regarding existing items such as furniture, credits, etc. We want everyone to know that they need not be concerned about any of their items being misplaced or lost between the transition from beta to release.
P.P.S. – If you have ever found yourself being unexpectedly transported to a friend’s room, you might want to know why this happens. The reason for this is that when you click on "go to a friend," and it is not possible to transport you to the friend then just like an old time telephone operator, the next time your friend is available, even if that means they log in hours later, the system completes the connection and takes you to your friend.
==Weekly Featured Rooms==
June 29th
Our featured rooms this week in the order we discovered them are:
Glitter scooped up a huge cookies-and-cream ice cream on a cone to help keep everyone chilled out.
Jade's cool confection, an enormous chocolate ice cream cone with a strawberry on top made our summer evening cool and tasty.
BlueHairedMonkey created our first aquatic attraction, a stellar fish aquarium which created quite a few currents.
CuteHalloweenGirl did a fresh and fun pineapple which Surf said made us all think about riding the waves in Hawaii.
==FAD-ulous Summer Quest==
Sunday, June 29th 7:00 A.M. Pacific time to Monday June 30th 10:00 P.M. Pacific time
What's better then a summer full of fun and fads! This Sunday and Monday join us as we search for some of the funniest, funkiest, and way out fads through history. So grab your Tamagotchi, dust off your hula-hoop, and get ready for the new craze in quests! It's going to be a blast from the past, not just a passing fad, so get ready to Woot for the Zoot! You won't want to miss the awesome prizes, because they might just teleport you where you want to go.