SmallWorlds Blog
SmallWorlds 1.0 Release - Official Launch
December 2nd, 2008 - Hilary Jackson
Yes, its here! … after over 18 months of development we are finally peeling the “beta” sticker off our baby and bravely pushing it out into the world.
We are incredibly proud to announce to you the official release of SmallWorlds 1.0. It’s been an exciting road to here, and a highly anticipated wait for many out there in the SmallWorlds community (we include ourselves in that). We’re feeling very confident that that you’ll agree that it has all been well worth waiting for.
Summary of Release 1.0 FeaturesWe gave you a preview of some of what we’re including in this release in our last blog post (
http://blog.smallworlds.com/2008/11/27/release-10-a-sneak-preview/ ) which contains some more detailed information about many great new features and future plans. Here’s a short summary:
*Ecommerce: the ability to purchase VIP Club subscriptions and Gold (our secondary in-world currency)
*VIP Club- a monthly salary of gold and access to VIP-only options
A monthly salary of gold
Access to VIP-only avatar options (hair, accessories, facial options, clothing)
Access to the Dance Studio (no longer available to everyone)
Ability to take pet whereever you go. Non-VIP Club members pets will stay in their owner room(s)
Access to VIP-only objects and spaces *Performance improvements (site now runs much faster)
*Improvements to visual appeal of site
*Monthly Newsletters & optional subscription to weekly in-world news and events updates
*Fantastic Missions designed and created by SmallWorlds HQ staff - new ones will be created and released on an ongoing basis
*A simplified sign-in and registration process (now with no requirement to validate your email address)
*Oh - and something we forgot to mention in our Sneak Preview blog edition: We’ll be releasing monthly collectible items on the 1st of every month from 1 December ‘08 on! The first collectible item is a Polar Bear suit. Collectibles will be limited to one per registered user - available in the all new “new items” section at Mysterios.
Our Deepest Appreciation to Beta UsersWe expressed a little of our appreciation to all who have played SmallWorlds during its beta phase, but the depth of it has not been expressed fully enough for us.
Thank you for all the praise, encouragement, complaints, raising of issues, creative suggestions, help with testing… with your help we’ve been able to iron out more creases and add in more cool features than would have been possible without you. As a team we have felt really supported by you, and it has felt many times that SmallWorlds HQ ‘grew bigger’ to embrace this larger off-site team!
To say thanks we’d like to offer all who registered during the beta phase a 50% discount on the full price for a 12 month VIP plan, taking the price down to only $47.95 for 12 months - we’re also throwing in a Ray Gun!
This is a limited time offer for the remainder of 2008. Just log in to SmallWorlds and click on the Beta Special button.
Beta users will also be gifted a foundation member item - a special beta cape - as a thank you gift. This will never be made available again and will become a rare item. Beta users also get a beta badge that appears on their profile panel, and of course you get to retain all of the items you have procured during the beta period.
We’re excited, confident and incredibly curious to see how it all evolves from here. One thing you can be sure of: we’ll be doing everything possible to make your experience playing in SmallWorlds as good as we can - providing you and your friends with what we believe to be the best browser-based social entertainment experience anywhere on the web. Thank you sincerely for your support.
Onwards to Release 1.1!
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Topic: 12/2/2008 SmallWorlds 1.0 Release - Official Launch (Read 8474 times)