2008 Homepage Announcements

Note: This list excludes any announcements about quests.
==April 2008==
===Coming on May 22nd, 2008===
The beta version of the Virtual Family Kingdom will open on May 22nd, 2008. We are previewing many of the items which will be in the Colonial Setting in our Colonial Preview.
The Virtual Family Kingdom will bring you historical experiences in a virtual world where you can make friends and have adventures which are related to the particular setting you have chosen.
We've been working on the technology behind VFK for the last year, and we are excited to create this new online world.
We will of course have beta pins and day one pins for those involved in our beta program and subsequent release, so thank you for signing up!
You will also want to check back often as we will be providing lots of information about the upcoming beta release and features as they become available.
We will be featuring our Colonial Williamsburg setting this week in our preview theater.
===VFK lets you explore and experience dynamic times in history.===
Discover our Colonial Williamsburg setting, the Victorian Turn of the Century Main Street setting and our Wild West setting. More settings are coming as our Virtual Family Kingdom grows.
Our goal in creating the Virtual Family Kingdom is to provide a wholesome and safe place for families of all ages. As one of the legendary heroes of families everywhere once said: "To all who come to this happy place: Welcome!"
This Virtual Family Kingdom is yours and your family's. You will discover that age has no bounds in VFK, and the only limits are your imagination. VFK is dedicated to the hopes, the dreams and the aspirations of the young and young at heart and the values that create great families.
VFK allows you to interact with friends in a rich exciting online world. In this virtual world, you can:
*Have fun, visit and trade with your friends.
*Create your personal and family profiles.
*Design and name your character.
*Decorate your virtual rooms any way you want.
*Chat and play with friends in your room and all around the online kingdom.
*Challenge yourself and compete with others in great online games.
You'll find everything you love about an online world all packed into this new exciting family community!
Play those favorite games you love to hate like fireworks and checkers and new games like chess and bridge, and even create your own games.
Collect items and trade with other players for limited release ingame furniture, pins, clothing, magic and other items that you get by going on quests, playing games, or buying items in the virtual stores.
New items and fun adventures happen continually, so you will need to check the weekly newsletter for the latest upcoming events.
Plus...check out our innovative new features not found anywhere else online!
===Sign up Now!===
Thank you all!
Today has been an exciting amazing day, the overwhelming interest and response to our beta program has far surpassed our expectations.
Over 7,000 people registered for our beta program in only a few hours. Congratulations to this charter group of beta testers, as you will receive a beta 1 pin when we launch on May 22nd.
Thank you all again! We are encouraged and inspired by the outpouring of goodwill and kindness expressed in your numerous phone calls and messages. This truly will be a Virtual Family Kingdom.
We regret that we have had to stop accepting registrations for the beta program at this time, as all of the slots we have available for the beta program have now been reserved.
To all of the people who did not have the chance to sign up, we are evaluating the possibility of expanding the beta program by adding more servers and resources. Please check back often as we want to give as many people as possible the opportunity to participate in testing the new Virtual Family Kingdom.
We will display sneak previews of new features and glimpses of the future of the Virtual Family Kingdom through out the development process, so stay tuned for more exciting news and updates.
We will be featuring our Colonial Williamsburg setting this week in our preview theater.
===Latest VFK News===
====2008-04-10====
Is Virtual Family Kingdom a scam? Click here to learn more about rumors on the forums.
====2008-04-09====
We have visited with the people at SaveVMK, and would like to express our sincere support for the SaveVMK petition. 
Our fondest hope is that this petition is successful.
To gain an understanding of just how important this petition is, take a moment and read the comments at SaveVMK. Many of them will touch your heart, and in some cases may move you to tears.
====2008-04-08====
Announcing the beta launch of Virtual Family Kingdom!
==May 2008==
=== May 13, 2018 - Latest VFK News ===
We've got a lot of exciting news to share with you this week.
As you have noticed, we have upgraded our web site!
We have a new video trailer highlighting upcoming features which you can find above.
We liked the music, "A New World", which we used in our first trailer so much that we used it again in this one.
We wanted to share with you some of the behind the scenes activities that go into creating the exciting new features we will be adding to the Wild West land. To see this special sneak peek, you can visit our Wild West Story Board.
We are highlighting our Medieval lands, and these will be previewed in our next alpha test.
We have included our new VFK constitution, which you will find on the right, outlining our values.
We are really pleased to be introducing a new land, in conjunction with the help of our friends in Australia, which is planned to open on June 20th.
We are in the process of approving pre-registration character names, so watch your email for confirmation of your character name.
You can visit the previous Virtual Family Kingdom alpha test by visiting this page. 
=== May 14, 2008 - Newsletter - A Word From Sara ===
Hi Everyone!
Welcome to our second newsletter!! With only a short time left before the official beta launch we wanted to kick off this week with a brand new website design and alpha preview! That means new areas for you to explore on the home page, including info about the upcoming lands, games, and contests. Plus get a head start for May 22nd by checking out the behavior and conduct rules for VFK which you can read here in the VFK Constitution!
Get your exploring gear together and grab your sneakers, because there are lots of new historic areas for Alpha Girl to explore and it's going to take a lot of walking to see everything in the medieval city!
Here's Alpha Girl to tell you about her Alpha Walkabout.I've been working in my garden today, I love plants and flowers! I'm glad my garden has lots of both! The pink flowering trees in the garden are cherry trees which were popular in Colonial America. I have to say, just staying here in my room all the time can get a little boring. So today, I'm off on a medieval walkabout. With so much walking to do, I've put on my favorite jeans, sneakers and VFK T-shirt, because what can I say? I ROCK!I love medieval times and I can't wait to explore Celliwig the medieval city which is part of Camelot. Perhaps I'll even get to explore part of the castle at Camelot! In medieval times, cities and villages typically sprung up near castles or large homes called Manors. A medieval city was a busy place, where people lived, and sold all kinds of goods. It was also a place where people could buy fruit and vegetables grown on nearby farms from farmers who set up market stands.There are a lot of exciting tales and legends surrounding the history of King Arthur, Queen Guinevere and Camelot and a Magician named Merlin. Merlin was an advisor to King Arthur who aided Arthur on his quests and helped him gain the sword Excalibur. Legend says Merlin could shapeshift, conjure spells and see the past and future. Some say Merlin could travel though time, while others think he aged backwards.Stonehenge is an ancient circle of large stones just outside of Salisbury in England. No one knows who built the stone circle, or why. There are many stories about who built Stonehenge. Some think the druids built it for special ceremonies, but my favorite legend is about a magical stone circle which Merlin, a Giant and Uther Pendragon (King Arthur's father) moved from Mount Killaraus in Ireland to Salisbury field in England. The stone circle was thought to be built of magical healing stones by giants who brought the stones from Africa.A king named Aurelius Ambrosias wanted to build a monument to remember the nobles who had died in a battle at Salisbury. When Aurelius told Merlin his plans, Merlin recommended The Giant's Dance, a magical circle of stones in Ireland. Uther Pendragon and 15,000 knights, and a giant tried to move the stones. They tried for several days to move the rocks but couldn't. Then Merlin using his mysterious powers easily moved the stones to Salisbury where they were dedicated. Now, there is a place I would love to explore! I wonder if I will find Stonehenge or King Arthur's Round Table on my adventures.I can move my furniture now but I'm still waiting for Alpha Boy to help me rotate it! I was just thinking, how much pizza can Alpha Boy eat? Alpha Boy is coming to help me explore our new world this weekend, I can hardly wait! I'll have so many things to show him and so much furni to arrange.Well, I've got to get going! There's a lot of exploring to do, so let's get this party started!!Alpha Girl Out
=== May 14, 2008 ===
For all of those who have contacted us today from the west coast who were afraid they would miss the start of the preview, we are extending the alpha preview release by 1 hour.
See you at 3:00 PM west coast time!
=== May 16, 2008 ===
Just a quick note for everyone. If you didn't see it here at VirtualFamilyKingdom.com, it's not from Sara.
=== May 17, 2008 ===
A Word from Alpha Girl, on Walkabout.I was having so much fun exploring Celliwig that I almost forgot my favorite part, Stonehenge! And you won't believe how big it is in person! It's just the place for a BIG PARTY. I think over 200 of my best friends and I could totally "rock" there! I know where I'll be dancing, on the top of one of those 24 foot high trilithons! I also noticed that one of the latest medieval tunes is playing in downtown Celliwig, now if I could only remember its name.Oh by the way, if you haven't seen Stonehenge yet, just take a left at the castle gate, you can't miss it!Can't wait to see you there at the first big party!Alpha Girl out.
=== May 22, 2008 - A Word From Sara ===
Are you as excited about the new Virtual Family Kingdom as much as we are?
Well some great news! The Kingdom opens today! Our amazing world really makes history come alive, and today is the day we start rolling out this historic event! The best part is, that you are about to be a part of the legend!
We are thrilled to have over 50,000 pre-registrations for the beta program, however we never anticipated that we would start our beta program with this many beta testers. There are just so many friends both new and old that we are not really sure how our servers will hold up.
Because of this we are going to be opening with just a basic set of features. Our main goal is to keep the servers up. We will be rolling out new features all day, everyday over the next several days. We will announce when new features are available both in the game and with an e-mail update each day to keep you informed.
Because we started this project only 7 weeks ago, everyone knows this is a real beta, in fact as far as we know this is the largest real beta ever attempted with a new virtual world, and it is only possible because of you! We are all going to make history together.
Literally thousands have expressed concerns about missing the launch of some of the exciting new features of Virtual Family Kingdom, so we have planned to start introducing the new mini games on Saturday, when no one has to miss out.
So again, to all our friends, welcome! Let's get started exploring all the historical settings in our new world and begin beta testing!
Plus, we have an amazing surprise for you! Here's a hint, once you login you will definitely want to find the staff and visit with them.
Coming later today: as the day unfolds we will be adding these features to our new world:
* Enabling Friends List 
* Releasing the Wild West Setting Room List
Tomorrow will also be a busy day as we release: 
* The Victorian Setting 
* Lots of Furni 
* Merlin's Magic Shoppe
Saturday will also be a big day, and we have saved the best for last as we release: 
* Our first mini games 
* Lots of hair styles and clothes to customize your character
=== Special Update ===
We are overwhelmed with the response from all our friends coming to Virtual Family Kingdom.
We are re-configuring our servers at this moment to accommodate the large number of people visiting us.
We should have the servers reconfigured in about 30 minutes, or about 11:00 AM Eastern Time.
=== Special Update 2 ===
We have just completed the reconfiguration of our servers, and testing everything.
We should be ready to start taking registrations in about 15 minutes.
Again, thanks for your patience.
=== May 23, 2008 ===
Wow, what an amazing day we had on the first day of our Beta Test!
We had lots of fun finding bugs. We had people stuck on walls, ghost chatting and even walking around alone in rooms filled with other people. If you missed the first day you missed quite an experience! And, what did you think of the surprise of finding your favorite staff already in Virtual Family Kingdom waiting to greet you? That just made the day even better!
To help make this experience more memorable, our graphic artists have created the "I Survived Day 1 Beta" shirt which you see here. Like the experiences we all shared, these shirts are destined to be rare. For everyone who got registered yesterday and also for those who register today, this "I Survived Day 1 Beta" shirt will be part of your wardrobe.
We have had some questions about Day 1 pins. These are given when the beta period ends and the New World is released. Because all of you are such great beta testers, we have our release date set for June 26th! All of our friends who participate in the Beta Program will receive the Day 1 pin.
There are some exciting new features for you to test today. The first you will discover when you leave your garden. With our sense of pioneering, you will definitely want to explore the new western setting. Just as our Medieval village of Celliwig is part of Camelot, you will find the essence of our early western towns founded by pioneering stock just like you, right here in the Virtual Family Kingdom.
=== May 24, 2008 ===
We have already broken all the records for number of people online for Saturday morning!
We have just reset the servers, and increased the capacity again. Hopefully this will mean that everyone can see each other.
The first two days of the Virtual Family Kingdom Beta test have been incredible!
This is day 3, and our plans for today are really ambitious.
We have already confirmed the character names of over half of the tens of thousands who have completed their registration on day 1 and day 2. That means that today, more than half will have their character names displayed. That means finding your friends will be just that much easier.
Everyone will find logging in more successful today, as we fixed some bugs that impact this process over night.
As soon as we see how the logins and new names are working this morning, we will turn on the "Ask to be a friend" feature. This should occur before noon on the west coast!
We have lots of clothes, hairstyles, and furni for everyone. Our goal is to let you start creating your signature look by four this after noon. So, if you want a "Clone" picture, you had better get it this morning!
Have fun, and lets make day 3 be our best day yet!
=== May 25, 2008 - A Word From Sara ===
Woot! Is this the greatest community or what? You guys ROCK! But hey, what's this? You DON'T want invisibility magic? ;) Now there's something I never thought I'd hear!
Thank you all for standing on top of roofs, hanging from walls, being ghosts, moving the "pink couch" incognito, and of course, being the best beta testers ever! You made it possible to create a stable environment in less than three days and we've had an awesome time doing it!
Because we had over 8,000 members online at one time today, we are behind our ambitious schedule, so we are posting a new revised schedule below. Who knew we would have an opportunity to beta test with so many of you at once!
Knowing this great community, you will probably take our servers down again at least a few more times, but we can't wait!
So let's kick this party up a notch, we want to be ready for our "mates" from Australia in June.
Sara.
=== May 26, 2008 - A Note From Our Developers ===
Our beta test is going better than we hoped, and we want to thank everyone yet again for all your help.
This afternoon we exceeded 8,000 online again, and this is very exciting!
To support all of our beta testers, we are doing a server upgrade. We will be offline while we do this, however, as soon as we are back up we should be able to support many more than 8,000 at one time.
In addition, this will allow us to load the rest of the character names which have been approved, so everyone will know each other! Also, you will be able to finally change your clothes and get a new hair style, so that you can meet your friends in a fresh outfit!
Cross your fingers that the upgrade goes smoothly, and wish us good luck.
If all things go smoothly we will be back up in a couple of hours. If not, it may take us the rest of the evening. In any case, we will all be here until the system is back up.
Your development team.
=== May 27, 2008 - An Update From The Developers ===
We want to keep you up to date on our upgrade, as when we are done it will mean we will have 100 times more capacity at any moment to support our new virtual world.
One of the routers which we are installing this evening is not working correctly, and we are going to have to wait till tomorrow morning to get a replacement. We will keep you updated on the progress of the upgrade.
Your development team.
P.S. We have left the game up for you in single user mode on one of our servers, in case you would like to walk around and check out any of the details in the game while we are upgrading the rest of the servers and setting up the new network.
=== A New Update From The Developers ===
Great news, we have just received the replacement router, and we are letting you know even before we have it completely out of the box.
We will keep you posted,
Your development team.
=== May 29, 2008 - Featured Players ===
Four our first week, every beta tester has to be a featured player because of the great effort you have all put in!
Congratulations to all of our most excellent beta players!
Contest Categories:
* Most Excellent Room
* Most Excellent Garden
* Most Excellent Adventure
* Most Excellent Ride
* Most Excellent Video: Submit your Virtual Family Kingdom video. The best video each week will be featured on the home page.
=== May 29, 2008 - Another Update From The Developers ===
We now have our servers working in New Mexico, New York and backup servers in Dallas. This gives us both the bandwidth we need, and serious redundancy.
We will be doing live tests throughout the night, so if you happen to get into the virtual world, keep in mind it will only be up for a few minutes for any one test.
Your development team.
=== Another Update From The Developers ===
We have not quite completed final configurations, but hope to have this done shortly.
We have a couple more tests to run, and everything should be ready to go a bit later today.
Your development team.
=== Night Owl Update From The Developers ===
We want to thank all the night owls who dropped in to help us with our live tests tonight. It was a lot of fun, and the tests went great.
We should have everything back on line sometime tomorrow, and we look forward to seeing everyone then.
We would give you a definite time, but something always comes up that takes longer than we expect, but it will definitely be sometime Thursday.
Your development team.
=== May 30, 2008 - An Update From The Developers ===
We ran our final tests this evening with the customization of characters, and with the help of our devoted beta testers everything went great!
We will resume operation at 12:00 noon pacific time!
Thank you all for your help, see you in our new virtual world!
Your development team.
==June 2008==
=== June 1, 2008 - A Major Update For Our Beta Testers ===
As you may have heard in the news, there was a large explosion caused by electrical equipment failure in the H1 data center in Houston that knocked down three walls at about 5:00 PM CDT. Fortunately, and most importantly, no one was injured. In addition, no data was lost and there appears to be no damage to the servers or networking equipment.
You remember when you first started playing that the servers went down? Well that was because of bandwidth, so we went to The Planet, which is recognized as one of the most RELIABLE providers in the world.
As luck would have it we are among an estimated 100,000 websites that are down around the world.
We have been assured that engineers are working around the clock to get the H1 data center back online, and we are told it will resume operation sometime tomorrow, Sunday, June 1st.
We are not going to waste this time though. This gives us the opportunity to complete enhancements we are working on, and add new lands. Our goal is that each day you log into the kingdom, it will be better than the last.
Keep an eye out and make sure you log on when the services are restored, because our world will be better than ever.
We have rerouted the DNS for the WWW server, so that we can share with you what is happening.
However, we do need the bandwidth from the H1 data center in Houston to support all of us in our virtual world.
We will keep you updated about the progress being made in restoring the Houston data center.
Your development team Virtual Family Kingdom
We will be posting updates below from The Planet on the progress being made in bringing the H1 data center back up.
=== Update 1 ===
From Doug Erwin (The Planet): "This evening at 4:55pm CDT in our H1 data center, electrical gear shorted, creating an explosion and fire that knocked down three walls surrounding our electrical equipment room. Thankfully, no one was injured. In addition, no customer servers were damaged or lost."
"We have just been allowed into the building to physically inspect the damage. Early indications are that the short was in a high-volume wire conduit. We were not allowed to activate our backup generator plan based on instructions from the fire department."
"Our initial assessment, although early, points to being able to have some service restored by mid-afternoon on Sunday. Rest assured we are working around the clock."
"I am sorry that this accident has occurred and I apologize for the impact."
=== Update 2 ===
Hello,
Our various departments continue to work very hard to restore service to our H1 data center. We expect to have Server Command access restored within the next several hours as well as access to single homed name servers out of H1 redirected to another facility.
We will continue to provide status updates once an hour. We do not have an Estimated Time to Repair at present.
Todd Mitchell.
=== Update 3 ===
Morning, We are continuing to work through various issues this morning. We will have additional contractors on-site this morning starting at approx. 7 AM. Some will hand-off from contractors who worked overnight and others will start the recovery/installation of new electrical gear to power the data center. We are still working through the EV1 DNS and ServerCommand items. We are making progress on both items and expect to have both functional within the next 120 minutes. In addition to the above, the network engineering group worked overnight to prepare the network for the recovery of H1. We expect the reconvergence of the network to go smooth once H1 comes back online. We do not have an Estimated Time to Repair at present; we should have a better estimate this morning. Our staff and management continue to work through the night and morning-- we will continue to provide hourly updates. Todd.
=== June 5, 2008 - A Note From The Developers ===
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.
=== June 13, 2008 - A Note From The Developers ===
Our hats are off to those amazing players on the Audubon Wildlife Adventure game high score leader board. You certainly know your birds, Audubon would be proud!
None of us ever got to level 60 in the game, and so it was great when our beta testers discovered the bug which let the game continue past level 60.
We hope that our new richest members of the community will also be our newest philanthropists. :-)
Your development team, Virtual Family Kingdom.
=== June 21, 2008 - Largest Palm Tree in VFK! ===
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!
=== June 26, 2008 - A Note From The Developers ===
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.
=== June 29, 2008 - Featured Rooms ===
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.
==July 2008==
=== July 1, 2008 - A Word From Sara ===
Virtual Family Kingdom is all about families.
We have put together a Founder's membership especially for your family which includes special bonuses for you. It is our hope that these special gifts express our appreciation for your helping us make this world a reality.
Each of these gifts were created by our staff especially for you. Our graphic artists created the comic book from the story boards that have gone into making Virtual Family Kingdom. The DVD is produced by our media department, and gives you a behind the scene glimpse of what has gone into the making of Virtual Family Kingdom.
In addition, our graphics department has created all of the designs for the other gifts. As you know, we always pay attention to detail, and each of these gifts is a one of a kind creation from our family to yours.
It also includes three months of the Family V.I.P. Pass membership, which provides many new features especially designed for families and based on the suggestions of our members.
We also want you to know that the Family V.I.P. Pass includes those new features which have been requested by our members. When you look at the comparison chart, that shows those features which are free to everyone, you will see that everything you expected to be free is still part of the Basic Membership. In fact, you will discover that there are even new and exciting features included in the basic membership that were never there before.
The new features reflect exciting new developments, and are designed around the wonderful suggestions that so many of our community have shared with us.
We hope that you find these new features as exciting as we do, and that the Family V.I.P. Pass meets your expectations.
One of the most exciting new features is Groups
With groups, you can form anything from a small club with your best friends to a complete organization with thousands of members. Share items, build rides, host events, and enjoy being with your friends and family. Large groups even qualify for their own group badge which can be worn by members. Most importantly, your family is a group and can have family rooms where you can create a virtual family home in our world.
Even more exciting is our Families Helping Families Program.
Each month you can designate, the recognized charity or non-profit organization of your choice and we will donate ten percent of your V.I.P. Pass membership to that organization. You can also create a group for your designated charity or npo and as others join with you, your contributions will add up. By coming together, we can all make a real difference.
Sara, Virtual Family Kingdom.
=== July 2, 2008 - A Note from the Developers ===
Our graphic artists are putting the final touches on the map for our world, and our schedule is to have it available to everyone a bit later today.
One of the most exciting projects we have worked on is the creation of horses for our new world. Next week marks the debut of our first horse, the platinum stallion and with it the stable room and the riding field.
Whether it is a leisurely ride, a full gallop, or jumping over obstacles, riding your horse is an experience you will not want to miss.
When we began the work on our horses, we started with motion capture files of real life horse movements as the basis for our horses’ gaits. Coordinating this work with our graphic artists has resulted in the development of horses which have natural movements and are fun to ride.
Your Development Team, Virtual Family Kingdom
=== July 4, 2008 - A Note from the Developers ===
With the introduction of our map inspired by our community we have all of the major elements in our new virtual world. Now that we have the structure and major elements in place we are transitioning to Release Candidate One.
Later today, about 5:00 PM Pacific time, just before dusk on the east coast (an excellent time to start a fireworks display), we will open our fireworks game. As you all know, our last minute testing can always reveal some bug which will result in something being delayed, but we are planning on 5:00 PM Pacific time. As you already know, we always strive for something that is new and innovative, and usually a bit beyond our reach!
Over the next two days we will also be adding a lot of new elements which complete our base elements, not the least of these will be the ability to finally sit down and blink.
We will also add IM this weekend, which is the basis for our groups and clubs!
In addition, we will also bid goodbye to the ubiquitous "pink couch" label and the bug in the Audubon Wildlife Adventure game which makes the last question always wrong.
On a more prosaic note, we have also completed the re-factoring of our basic engine again which will make all rooms load significantly quicker. This update is planned for Friday night.
This should be another exciting weekend in our virtual world!
Your Development Team, Virtual Family Kingdom
=== July 4, 2008 - A Word from Sara ===
We want to thank everyone in our community for your overwhelming support of our Founder's Members program and V.I.P. Pass.
Our goal is to be an involved good citizen in our community and so we also want to thank VFKFanForums.com for their support and participation in the Virtual Family Kingdom Founder's Member and V.I.P. Pass program.
We would also like to express our gratitude to VFKGadget.com for their excellent companion program to the Virtual Family Kingdom.
Again, our thanks to all our community and especially our most excellent beta testers for making all of this become a reality. When we all come together, there is nothing we cannot accomplish!
Sara, Virtual Family Kingdom
=== July 4, 2008 - A Note from the Developers ===
We have just completed testing of our new maps, and everything is working great!
As we have completed our testing, we have updated the registration database to include all of those who are on our waiting list.
To complete your registration and create your character, click on the Register button.
So for all of those who have been so kind and patient on our waiting list, we want to welcome you to Virtual Family Kingdom!
Remember when you are creating your login that your user name can be different from your character name, or they can be the same.
For our existing Beta testers, if you have friends or family who are on the waiting list, please let them know that they can now register. We will also be sending out an email to let those on the waiting list know that they can register now.
We look forward to seeing you in the kingdom, have a great 4th of July!
Your Development Team, Virtual Family Kingdom
P.S. For all of our existing Beta testers, we want you to know that we are running behind on including the new fireworks game, but we felt is was important to complete our testing so that all those on the waiting list could be included today.
With any luck, we should still have the game up this evening!
=== July 6, 2008 - A Note from the Developers ===
We want to thank all of those who helped us with our live test of the new fireworks game last night, everything is looking great and we should make it live a bit later this morning! 
Your Development Team, Virtual Family Kingdom
=== July 10, 2008 - A Word from Sara ===
As we research our period wardrobes, we are also starting to test several of our newest creations. We were so pleased to have CynAnne accept our latest creation, the Princess or Damsel Hat, as a birthday gift and agree to test it for everyone.
As we researched the Princess or Damsel Hat, we discovered that its origin is somewhat shrouded in mystery, though it appears to be reasonably prominent in artwork beginning in the 15th century, especially among royalty.
There is also an interesting article about this type of hat on wikipedia under the term hennin, which also includes a number of examples of artwork displaying the Damsel Hat.
This is a very popular style of hat in theatrical productions and reenactments and if you would like one in real life, you can find numerous theatrical costume shops who sell them. Some of them are quite beautifully designed, and would honor any princess :-)
Of the numerous examples we reviewed in creating our Princess Hat for the many Princesses in our Kingdom, we liked the painting by Thomas Reynolds Lamont titled “The Prince’s Choice” the best. Our graphic artists fell in love with this painting and it became the inspiration for our Princess Hat.
We imagine that CynAnne and our other princesses would all have been “The Prince’s Choice” with this hat!
Sara, Virtual Family Kingdom
=== July 10, 2008 - A Note from the Developers and Graphic Artists ===
We want to thank everyone for their great feedback on our new Fourth of July Fireworks game. We began developing this game shortly after we started this project. During the development of the game we reviewed numerous fireworks games dating back to the turn of the century. We also wanted to place our fireworks game at historical points in history that are the basis for our present day Fireworks displays. While some of you have already noticed much of this, we thought we would share some of the behind the scenes research and development that went into the making of our Fourth of July Fireworks game.
Firework games have historically tended to break down into three primary categories. The first category required the player to select a firework just as it was set to explode. A second category required the player to select the firework by color or type just at the moment of explosion. The third category was the coordinated firework game which used a combination of both the first and second. There were also a number of somewhat related games which were more focused on rockets and bombardment, but which followed this general scheme of play.
After reviewing all of these fireworks games, we decided that the most interesting was a coordinated approach. However, we wanted to add the ability to explode the firework as it ascended and not just at the moment of apex. This gives each player a greater range of strategies when deciding how to play a game.
The play of the game was also defined to some extent by our selection of the 1812 Overture for our music, as we wanted the number of fireworks to coordinate with the music. We also wanted the beginning levels to match the beginning of the musical piece and then build as did the music at each level.
We also selected our scenes to be reminiscent of the period involved. For instance, in the lobby for the game we find the verdure of a native forest much as you would have found in upstate New York in the year 1776. Many do not realize that New York was a dense forest of native trees at this time and impassible except on foot or by using the natural rivers and streams.
As the scenes progress in our fireworks game you will notice the transition to the depiction of the Battle at Baltimore during the war of 1812. At this time Ft. McHenry was under attack from 19 British ships, some with notable names such as the HMS Terror, the HMS Devastation, the HMS Erebus, the HMS Volcano and the HMS Meteor. It was on the fateful night of September 13th, 1814 that Francis Scott Key watched the bombardment of Ft. McHenry by these British vessels and wondered if on the following morning the United States flag would still be flying over Ft. McHenry. Indeed in the end, it was the American flag that that still flew, and Key wrote the words to the Star Spangled Banner, which became our national anthem.
For those who had the opportunity to participate in our Fourth of July Quest, you will remember that the flag which flew over Ft. McHenry was 30 ft by 42 ft in size and was made by a mother and her young daughter, Caroline, who was only 13 years old at the time. In addition, Caroline’s grandmother had also made flags for our new country during the revolutionary war.
We end the game with a view from a castle in honor of Tchaikovsky who wrote our musical selection. The 1812 Overture was originally written to inspire a love of Freedom in his native Russia, but has since become a standard to celebrate Freedom and Firework displays everywhere.
Again, we thank all of you who have told us about how much you enjoy our new Fourth of July fireworks game, and we hope our introduction in the game, the scenes and the music will inspire players to consider the history which this game represents and learn more about the times and the men and women that made freedom today possible.
Your Development Team, Virtual Family Kingdom
PS. For those who enjoy a bit of historical detail, you might notice the American and British flags during one of the depictions of the Battle of Baltimore in the game. :-)
=== July 24, 2008 - A Note from the Developers ===
Well, one of our horses made an unexpected debut this morning. We were testing part of the AI for the horse, and VFK_Mintie’s horse got to a jump point in the paddock which led to the map. After that, the horse did what it was supposed to do, which was avoid people by either going to another jump point, or in the worst case if cornered it would teleport back to its home paddock.
Once back in its paddock, it would head to the jump point again, and we would be off chasing the horse once more.
Short of shutting down the server we were not sure how to corral it.
Finally, several developers blocked the jump point in the paddock, and the horse decided to stay!
We did have a lot of help from everyone up late trying to corral our wayward horse,
It was an exciting test, and we learned something about interacting with our new horse.
Your Development Team, Virtual Family Kingdom
==August 2008==
=== August 29, 2008 ===
Friday, August 29th marks the 100th day of our Virtual Family Kingdom online world. This 100th day commences Celebration Weekend, a four day event (including Labor Day) which ushers in amazing changes. Over the past few weeks, all our developers, graphic artists, researchers and staff have been preparing for this weekend and we are finally ready.
Throughout every day this weekend we will be adding exciting new things into our world almost every hour so you won’t want to miss a minute.
Here are the new things which will be added during our Celebration Weekend!
Note: Those in the list with a check mark have already been added!
* New Site Layout.
* 100 Day Celebration Pin when you login on Friday.
* Those who have pre-registered will be automatically assigned their beta level.
* Delta begins Friday as a limited open beta, so pre-registration is no longer required!
* New Hair Styles, New Faces, New Skin Colors, New Clothes (all weekend long).
* Beta Tee-Shirts.
* "I Survived Day 1" Tee-Shirts.
* New Furniture (all weekend long).
* Fairy Furniture - Pack 1.
* Fairy Furniture - Pack 2.
* New Construction Blocks.
* New Building Logs!
* New Guest Rooms - Stable and Paddock for horses! 
* The introduction of Horses to the world! 
* A multimedia entertainment center with working TV with news, events, entertainment, players channels and more! 
* Upload your videos to be included on the player's channels! 
* All new Market Trading Game! 
* Two Quests this weekend, one for a multimedia entertainment center and the second surprise quest. 
More new and exciting features and games to be unveiled as the celebration unfolds! We will keep adding to this list as features, games and items are added!
We think this will be our most exciting weekend yet, and we look forward to seeing you during our Celebration Weekend!
==September 2008==
To be added.
==October 2008==
To be added.
==November 2008==
To be added.
==December 2008==
To be added.
Category:Announcements