Lasuni

Ready those eye sockets..

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:44:00 +0000

Yes, we've heard you. You have all been waiting very patiently (some not so much, but we still <3 you) for updates of any kind. The team here at YahRly deeply regret putting you through all this and it is with great pleasure that I, Calibrate, have been given the chance (*found the time*) to give you an update worth waiting for!

Yesterday I polled some of the players on whether they would like a video preview of the Friends & Messages window or the Navigator window, I guess it was no surprise that those who voted, voted unanimously on the beloved Navigator of which you have never set eyes upon before. So let's cut the waffling, enjoy my lil prodigies~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N8xgE6Wwqo

So there you have it, we hope this will appease your appetites for a little while until you all get restless again and force us to show you the level up screen... I've said too much.

Voice those opinions friends. Here or the YouTube page will do fine, we'll do our best to respond publicly if necessary - just don't ask for that thing I didn't mention about 5 seconds ago allegedly ;) Stay hungry.

-Calibrate

Updates + Q&A

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 01:14:00 +0000

Hey Lasoons,

Dasaii was meant to write a blog post but it doesn't appear he ever will so I guess it's up to me to post some updates. March has been a pretty slow month for us here at Lasuni. As most of you have heard, Wombat has left our team to persue his education, and we thank him for all his hard work.

This month we've managed to fix a few bugs on the website and added some back end tools that we never had a chance to add for us to moderate stuff though we won't go into much details as that might bore you.

In terms of client development, things have not stopped - we've rebuilt the path sending algorithms to keep everything in sync, while using the least amount of system resources. So when you and a friend decide to walk to the same tile, everything should be in sync and should prevent you from both landing on the same tile (which will work great for race type games and musical chairs).

We've also started implementing how avatars will work with various items and palettes. As stated on Kennen's post:

“When we make items we generally make 1 color, then use photoshop to recolor it. Due to the way palettes work, and to minimize space used, we'll recolor only the hue and not the darkness and saturation as that can break the palette meaning we have to import the entire image into the client - which leads to a larger file size and slow loading times. Whereas if we just recolor the hue (leaving saturation and darkness/lightness the same) we can then generate a palette which works with the original image, leading to an increase of about 2 kb rather than 200 kb for the entire sprite. That's per-item. At 804 items, we've saved tons of space, using only 2.43 mb vs 10.78 mb”

We're implementing a similar system though we'll just be sending an array of colors to the game client rather than storing the palettes in-game. This will allow us to dynamically add items without having everyone reload the game as they have to do now. The game client will download a grey-scale version of the image from our content delivery network (cdn) then change the colors dynamically to suit. This will serve 2 purposes, 1 being faster load times as the game only has to download 1 image rather than 1 for each color, and second, it'll allow us to explicitely set the correct colors for items, so a blue shirt and blue trousers will match, whereas at the moment they are the wrong shades (which many of you have complained about).

On a smaller note, we also changed our Lasuni site's footer to the one that'll appear on the new website once we launch.

A few Q&A:

Anonymous: Will we be able to unblock blocked people from our space?
Answer: Yes

Estria: Can you guys just tell us the deadline? Please, we're all freaking! seriously...
Answer: Deadlines are impossible to say as there's so many variables.. we're literally building the game from scratch so it's not like we're just updating some graphics.

Anonymous: I just sent my Application :) Hope you choose me!
Answer: Good luck!

Anonymous: Is the notification button on the preview the one from google+? ;)
Answer: Both are flags, but it's not the same image, we hand pixel our own artwork!

Anonymous: Can I re-apply for Event's Co-ordinator? :D Lolol
Answer: We keep all applications on file for a year, but you're more than welcome to if you feel it'll make is pick you.

iTao: Oh what?! Your removing our avatar from the top of the page! I like the look of it up there :'( lol
Answer: Yes, we feel it'll make the site look more clean and fine tuned without a massive bar at the top of the of every page.

VPlus: What about new mini-games like WAL?
Answer: We have plans for a new mini-game in Hubble, though it won't be released initially. Think PixelTBS.

That's it for this month's blog post, as always if you have any questions leave 'em in the comment section and we'll add them to the next blog post. We'd like to thank you all for your continued support and for waiting so patiently, just remember that we want to launch the new client just as much as you want to play it!

Updates and More + Preview

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 22:48:00 +0000

Hey Lasoons,

It's been almost a month since the last blog post and we thought you might want another one. The past month has been an exceptionally busy one. We opened applications for Events Coordinators and were overwhelmed with the number of applicants. While we can't hire everyone, we wish we could! We were able to narrow down who we thought would be the best person for the job and that's when everyone said hello to Virtuoso! She's been doing an amazing job at working with the other staff, coming up with events and competitions. She even has a 7-part event that she's been working on, which you'll all be excited to see once it's out (I know I am!).

After hiring Virtuoso, we realized it would be best to bring on a new community manager to work closely with the Event Coordinators and make sure everyone is doing what they're supposed to be doing. That's when we hired Alex to be our new community manager. Like Virtuoso, he has been doing an amazing job directing the team and putting together lots of events which you'll see in the near future.

While we understand everyone's frustrations with timezones and events, we are still looking for one more Event Coordinator, preferably within an American time zone. In the meantime, we've been adjusting times on our events so that it covers the widest variety of timezones so everyone has a chance to attend the events.

So you may be wondering what's to come in the near future. A pretty big party that we've started planning is when we reach 10k players! We're at 9,631 now, so we estimate that we'll be at 10k in about 2 months based on the average registrations per day. If you have any great ideas, send them to Wombat or any of the events team.

In other news, the client development has been going quite successfully. Public/Private rooms are coming along nicely, walking has been completed with the exception of fine tuning. Calibrate has been working pretty hard on the inventory system, so that just leaves a few more UI elements to do.

Time for a preview! Behind the scenes, Dasaii has been working on touching up our current website. While he wants to keep it a secret, I've decided to share a sneak peak with you, if you see him around, don't tell him!

A few Q&A:

Harmsarella: Will you get to be able to block users from your house/space?
Answer: Yes

Harmsarella:Will you be able to decide the weather around your house or will it just match the lasuni one?
Answer: You'll be able to pick the weather once, but it won't affect the furniture. (A spring tree will still remain a spring tree).

Estria: That's pretty nice! Also, can we have an image preview next blog post? thank you. :)
Answer: See above :)

Anyways, that's it for this blog post. Thanks for reading, if you have any questions you'd like answered, leave them in the comments and we'll be sure to get back to you.

Site Updates / Bugfixes

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:16:00 +0000

Hey Lasoons,

Just here to update you all with what we've been working on since the last blog post. We released a small bug fix, made a couple changes to the website, and were able to launch a quest with the help of a few Lasoons.

A few days ago we discovered a bug that users were exploiting which allowed them to gain extra silver by throwing snowballs/waterballoons onto a tile with multiple players. We've since released a patch for this bug and were able to push the update out to stop it from being exploited.

As for a change to the website, we're introducing a way to block players on the website - which means you'll no longer have to see posts or comments from players that you don't like. While this feature is still a work in progress, you can access the block function on the Manage Friends, on the Block List tab. Simply add a player to the block list to block them, if you accidently blocked someone, or have made amends to them, you can unblock them by checking their username and clicking unblock at the bottom.

On a side note, we've also updated our Terms of Use, so be sure to read over them. Particularly, it includes a new clause about flame wars on feed posts, comments, and chatting in-game.

Last week we also launched a quest which was our first ever to involve help from the community. We had a great time planning out the quest, helping to dress the NPC's, and coming up with the story line for the quest. We'd like to thank the players who were able to help with the quest and we hope you all enjoyed it.

If you're not sure which quest we're talking about, check out this page though the quest has just ended.

So you're probably wondering what's to come in terms of events for the next month. The player Estria just informed us about Carnival, a festive season in Brazil which starts next month, so we're gonna plan an event and perhaps an item to go along with the event, so keep your eyes peeled for it.

In other news, Valentines Day is nearing as well in about 3 weeks, so we'll also be running some specials in Hubble Attire for Valentines Day items, so be sure to check out Hubble Attire to get your hands on some seasonal rares!

As promised, Q&A:

Razzer: I hope that spaces get released soon, And I don't mean like next year.
Answer: Spaces will be here this year, just no definite date as of yet.

Thanks for reading our blog!

Outside Spaces + Q&A

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 03:38:00 +0000

Hey Lasoons,

Anyways, that's it for this blog post. Thanks for reading, if you have any questions you'd like answered, leave them in the comments and we'll be sure to get back to you.

Progress Report

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 03:22:00 +0000

Hey Lasoons,

Another year is upon us and we'd like to share our current progress state with you. At this time we're still pretty heavy into the development of the new client. As you know, switching to flash has been a huge undertaking and we're striving to create the perfect product, but doing so does force us to have to recode an entire game and server.

Some of you may be wondering why we're redoing the server as well, and the reason behind that is that we're trying to resolve several issues that we've had with the current server. One of the major issues is the packet format which is not compatible with flash. Putting that aside, another major issue is lag. While we've tried recoding several parts of the server, andwe've come to realize that we should have implemented it a different way which is exactly what we're doing. While we can't promise no-lag, we're trying our hardest to get to the point where there is none at all.

In terms of the game client, we've finished the new friends window [client side, serverside is partially done], chatting is fully functional (with smilies!) and they do look really nice if I do say so myself. (See below for a preview)

Users joining a room / multiuser (basically the ability to see other users join rooms) is done, though we're trying to work out a few kinks with the pathfinding engine. It is a bit buggy in the current version, but we're working on optimizing and improving it. This alone is one of the major sources of lag which we're trying to improve upon. We've essentially recoded the whole room system to work with spaces. This includes the server's ability to store a server-side 'image' of the room, so the server can tell if two users are walking to the tile and prevent them from standing on the same tile, or walking through each other. This will be a huge benefit to Lasuni as it will allow queues in rooms and racing style games.

We've revamped the loading screens [as seen in prior blog posts], we cut back on the graphics and made them look a bit nicer too. This will also decrease the overall file size that's loaded so that means a faster loading time to be in-game.

As for what's left to do, the list goes: Inventory, Equipment, OMG Help, Room Creation Window, Settings Window, Spaces [partially done], Furniture Engine [partially done], Avatars [partially done], Website Updates [partially done]

Now a lot of you are probably wondering about a deadline and such, but we're sorry to say that we can't make any promises as of yet. When we get a bit closer to releasing, we'll definitely inform everyone about a proper release date / party.

Anyways, the new year is nearly here, so we'll see what it brings.

Until next time~

The Future of Lasuni

noreply@blogger.com (Dasaii) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 10:54:00 +0000

Hey all,

Just wanted to give you an update on the development of Lasuni. First lets look back in time to March, when we first announced we were working on a new interface / UI. We started building spaces and working on a large, but mostly iterative update to Lasuni that would include spaces and a slightly different UI [as seen here]. As many of you are aware Lasuni is currently built on the shockwave platform that is quite simply out of date and not supported on many platforms [no Linux support, limited Mac support]. So midway through the development of Spaces we decided to switch Lasuni to flash!

There are many benefits for us in regards to using flash, but the main and most important feature is that the barrier of entry will be much lower for new users [and existing ones!]. From the offset we decided that we wanted to get this big update [which is essentially re-writing the entire client, and a large proportion of the server] out quickly, to surprise the Lasuni community with a much larger update than you might have been expecting. However, it’s been taking us longer than we would have hoped to complete the update.

There are significant improvements that we’ve been baking right into the core of Lasuni, such as it’s no longer confined to a set size window. You can re-size Lasuni to be as large as you like, or even play full screen! This enables us to have much larger rooms that don’t need to load in additional rooms - as such North and East Hubble are no more, replaced by one much larger room, Hubble! The new Hubble is equivalent in size to 4 current rooms, rather than just the 2 rooms Hubble consists of today.

Also, we haven’t been entirely truthful [sorry] on the blog in regards to the new UI. Whilst many of the features of the new UI we’ve been talking about are true, such as the search bar in the inventory window [seen here], the windows all have an entirely new style and look. Every window has been redone to make them easier to use and more consistent with the new look of the Lasuni client!

We haven’t only been focusing on the Lasuni client though, part of this update we really want to start pushing Lasuni up to an experience that will be much more enjoyable for new users. Currently we feel the experience is pretty confusing and a number of users don’t even access the client after registering. We are working on numerous other additions that will hopefully improve Lasuni for new users. But I’ll save some of those updates for a later blog post.

So that’s all for now, I’ve included an image of how Lasuni will look in the same area as North Hubble with the updated UI and windows. Hopefully you’ll like it, we’ve been working pretty hard on it!

---

TL;DR? To summarise, Lasuni is moving to flash. It’s taking longer than we hoped - sorry, but it should be worth it!

Click to see full size!

A nibble of what's to come!

noreply@blogger.com (Ambear) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 20:36:00 +0000

So very sorry it's taken us so long to write a blog post but it's very hard for me (Ambear) to write about development when I can't exactly tell you what's going on!

Anyways, above you can see a redesign of the forest in East Hubble! You will notice that a lot more is going on in the image above!

Firstly the forest is a lot bigger then it is currently. There is ACTUAL GRASS on the ground. The trees are full sized and not cut off from the map.

Notice any animals in the picture as well? :)

Development is going very well from what I have seen! Jason has been working very hard alongside Calibrate and I expect things to be done before you know it!

Till next time...

More North Hubble

noreply@blogger.com (Ambear) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 04:21:00 +0000

As promised...

Thank you for everyone that attended the birthday event! We all had a blast!

Happy Birthday to us!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Ambear) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 16:03:00 +0000

(Click the image to view larger)

This week's blog post won't have anything to do with the development of the new Lasuni client. SORRY! (It's looking amazing though) Just saying. If you'd really like to know how things are going follow @sermos on twitter for his lovely updates.

Above is your invitation to the 2nd Lasuni Birthday party! If you aren't subscribed to our email updates this is probably your first time seeing this image. If you are subscribed <3 (we love you) you've seen it! We're so looking forward to Fridays events! (Saturday if you're in Australia) If you are unsure what time the party is check the news article on the Lasuni website or just click here to find out!

Till next week!

Podcast - Episode 6!

noreply@blogger.com (Ambear) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 05:54:00 +0000

YES WE STILL PODCAST!!!

It's been a long time since we've last podcasted, but as promised here is your October podcast! We talk about a lot of interesting subjects, mainly answering your questions that were asked on the feed post. We mention how we miss Jason... We do a segment called WTFeed post, and we talked about what's going to be happening for the Lasuni 2nd Birthday, along with announcing two new birthday items! If you'd like to know what they are you should definitely listen to find out! Thanks for listening!

Download (~19mb)

Subscribe to the Lasuni podcast on iTunes!

Progress has been made!

noreply@blogger.com (Ambear) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 20:01:00 +0000

Hello friends!

It's a rainy Monday here in midwestern America, but it's been a pretty exciting weekend as I have been told that the Navigator is now 100% complete!! The Navigator is the Lasuni world looking icon located on the toolbar.

The navigator has many different features and options which include... searching for any private space, moving your character to a favorite room, the option create your very own space, and lists all your created rooms! It will also allow you to get to each public space quickly by using the public section of it. (Hubble Attire, Salon, Gertrude's House, etc) We hope this will be useful for those who need to get somewhere in a hurry (or are too lazy to walk) :) ! Don't worry though; you will still be able to get from public space to space the old fashioned way by walking on the arrows!

Another neat feature of the navigator is you will be able to view a list of popular rooms. It will show the room name with an colored icon to the left of it with the number of people currently in the room.

There are so many things you are able to do in the navigator! Lots of progress has been made since the last blog post and we are super excited to be getting closer to completion!

Sorry for the lack of images in this post! I'll be sure to overload you with them in next weeks blog post. What do you think of the navigator? Our progress? When do you think we're releasing? Do you like cake or pizza more? Leave us comments we love to hear your opinions!

"So far I have managed to contribute over 14,500 lines of code towards the client, we makin' srs progress." - Calibrate

Be sure to check out our newest official fansite www.lasunilove.com

Till next week...

Good Bye, Tchau, Adios, Arrivederci, Au Revior <3

Don't you just love toolbars?

noreply@blogger.com (Ambear) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 00:46:00 +0000

Long time no post.. *looks around* How is everyone doing this week? We're doing lovely over here at YahRly. We're getting closer and closer to our spaces release, not saying any dates or anything. If you take a look at the picture below you will see part of the beautiful new navigator. Featuring a NEW black gradient, the icons appear on top. The icons in order from left to right Navigator, Friends, Me, Inventory, Quests, VIP, and Settings.

The Navigator will feature both private and public rooms in two separate tabs. You will be able to add spaces to your favorites as well as search for spaces. You are also able to create your own space.

The Friends list will display your friends online and offline, along with a tab with your messages or conversations.

The Me tab will open all your characters information such as level, experience, achievements, and also allows you to equip your clothing items.

The Inventory icon will have three tabs containing clothing, items, and misc (collecting items, quest items, etc.) Look back into the blog for a more detailed explanation and picture!

The Quest icon will not be available right away in the upcoming release, but will be coming at a later date.

The VIP icon has been added to the toolbar to make purchasing and renewing your VIP even easier.

The Settings icon will feature your area to edit your mission, turn trading on/off, friend requests on/off, music on/off, and volume settings. You will also be able to manage your blocked list of users you have blocked! >:D

If you haven't noticed when you hover over an icon the image will move up, and the name of the icon will appear below it!

So I hope this somewhat descriptive post about the new toolbar has got you excited! We are really looking forward to the upcoming months! Till next week...

Anyone hungry?

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 21:45:00 +0000

Apologies if this post feels a tad rushed, it's just downright crazy how quick the weeks roll by! However, this is my first entry into the famous Lasuni blog so I'll do my best to keep the standards high... who am I kidding, it's usually Ambear that writes these posts anyways... <3

So another week, another... dose of freshly baked Lasuni goodness. Mmmm, can you taste the excitement? I sure can! So in terms of what I have been up to this week specifically is the renewed, revamped, rebaked(?) interface. For all of you who aren't quite with the whole computer jargon craze (which I totally recommend you become a part of, geekin' out is aweesoome), the interface is all those fun buttons and clickable things you interact with, such as windows, catalogues... navigators. I have been spending a great deal of time implementing Dasaii's new designs into a working product and let me tell you, it looks outstanding. Following our next major update you will have plenty of clickable things to click upon and draggable things to drag and even the occasional slidey things to er... slide. We are doing pretty well in terms of our super secret schedule and you should expect a release in the very near future. (is that a hint?? perhaps...) :)

As much as I would like, I can't get in to too much detail as it may ruin the epic surprises we have in store for you. I can guarantee that you will not be dissapointed on release and who knows, we may put out a few juicy details on our (the admins) profile pages so keep a keen eye out for those.

Lots of fun happening in the ol' Lasuni headquarters, enjoy the fun! I hope you enjoy my first entry into the blog and if you feel I did a pretty good job, let me know and I'll try to do more of these! :D

See you folks next week, hopefully. ;)

Written by Calibrate

Even more Hubble updates!

noreply@blogger.com (Ambear) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 23:45:00 +0000

Oh herro everyone!

Another week has passed (+1 day, but who's counting???) :P Lot's has been done this past week and Dasaii has finally finished the Hubble updates. So below you will find an image of the all new VIP Lounge! Only VIP members will be allowed to enter and gain access to all the features that the lounge will offer.

We hope you've enjoyed this tiny update and we hope to have either Jason or Calibrate post another technical blog soon!

Till then!

North Hubble Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Ambear) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 18:05:00 +0000

Bonjour mes amis! (Hello my friends)

It's been another long week, and as promised here is your weekly dose of Lasuni updates! So... not much has been done community wise as I (Ambear) have just gotten back from a mini vacation. Expect to see a new event/competition coming your way soon!

Above is a picture of... North Hubble! Yes what you're seeing is indeed North Hubble, and Gertrudes home! Dasaii has decided to spruce up a bit and enhance the outside of North Hubble. This is obviously just a teaser of what has been done and updated. What are your thoughts and opinions on what you are seeing? What do you think we can add, or do you think it's fine the way it's looking now. Let us know in the comments!

Progress is still being made on the development of new interface!!

Until next week!

New Log-In page

noreply@blogger.com (Ambear) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 01:01:00 +0000

Ola amigos! (Hello Friends)

A sincere apology from the Lasuni team for being so UBER slow on the blog updates. The lack of blog updates does not mean that there has been a lack of development. Lots and lots have been done since the last blog post. The UI has been completely finished in the design aspect, and is nearly finished developed coding wise. Since the design aspect is nearly completed Dasaii has been working on many various things such as furniture for spaces as well as a new log-in website design.

What you are looking at above is a partial picture of the redesign of the log-in part of the Lasuni website. When we redid the website we always had the intention of re-doing the log-in and registration pages to make it EXTREMELY simple for new users to sign up and get online straight away.

As you can see from the image, there is a huge blue button for new users to click and register. Registering will be simple and painless. We will also have a tour for people who are confused to experience what Lasuni has to offer and the basics of playing. Hubble is also the background image on the website and will feature users and their popular feed updates.

We hope you enjoyed this teaser and we promise on fish fingers and custard that we will keep you updated with our progress!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Avatar updates~

noreply@blogger.com (Dasaii) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 22:45:00 +0000

Hey all,

Another week another blog! Today I'll be talking about what I've been spending my week on. Updating the avatars. So, we need to update the avatars we we're now splitting up the avatars so it'll be easier to add new movements in the future, such as waving for example.

So, since we needed to do some work on the avatars, I thought I may as well give them a little bit of a spruce up while I"m at it. So I've re-shaded all the avatars just to make them a little nicer than they were before :). Hopefully you'll appreciate this small change and it'll make Lasuni slightly prettier than it was before :D.

As you can see they no longer feature the black outlines and don't have dithering any more. We've also removed the mouth from the face by default so users will be able to have different expressions in game! Also Lasoons now have little tiny toes -- how cute!

That's all for today, sorry if it's not the most exciting update, but it's what I've been working on this week and thought I'd like to share it with you all.

See you next week for another blog and a podcast!

P.S. Only two Lasoons lost their dignity in the making of this blog post.

Podcast - Episode 5

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 03:32:00 +0000

IT'S BEEN A WHILE...

But here we are again with our 5th podcast where we mostly almost always stay on topic with everything related to Lasuni! In this podcast we talk about our summer event, what we've been up to, answer players questions, give the answers for our Summer Story competition, and give a ton of shout outs! Enjoy!

Download (~11mb)

Subscribe to the Lasuni podcast on iTunes!

OMG HELP!!!!!!!

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:34:00 +0000

Hey,

This might not be the most interesting blog for our current users, as you're obviously all veterans of Lasuni, but making Lasuni easier to understand for new users is very important to us.

There is one experience we particularly want to help users with on the next release on Lasuni, helping our users out! Currently users often aren't sure how to best get the help the need, and our tiny current OMG Help window doesn't really help the situation, or explain how to best get help.

So we've redone the OMG Help window to more closely match the website. The goal behind the new window is to direct the user to the correct way to contact us so we can resolve issues much quicker and to help users have a better experience on Lasuni.

Click for full size

As you can see this is now split into 5 main sections which will help the user to take the correct action when they need help. The 'How do I...?' category will help users find tutorials on how to play and use the features found on Lasuni. The report a user function will take you to use the help system that will work in a similar way to the current help system in client. The remaining 3 will first offer the user FAQs and then help them create a help ticket. All of this will be easily accomplished from within the client so the user doesn't have to switch between the client and the website to get the help they need.

We hope little changes like these will really help to make users experiences on Lasuni that much better.

Quick note on the podcast front, we will be podcasting on Sunday so look forward to that. Also if you'd like a shout out let us know in the comments.

Until next week!

Inventory

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 00:22:00 +0000

Hey all,

As a few users [Ahem, Joe and Cake], have been having a few problems with their inventory because they have so many items I thought it'd be a pretty apt thing to blog about today!

Starting today we will be posting weekly blogs [not necessarily on the same day, but every week-ish], and fortnightly podcasts, the first of our new run of podcasts should be happening early next week!

So here is a screenshot of the new interface window. There are a few different features I'd like to talk about and how they'll end your current inventory woes!

First and foremost, the new inventory will load your items in a more efficient way, so we don't have problems with Joe lagging up the client :P. But it'll also have some fun features to make your life easier in Lasuni.

First is the tabs, as the next release will include furniture the Items tab will be used to separate your clothing and your other items. The Misc tab will be used for miscellaneous items that will be used in quests. You may notice the pages are now gone as well, the inventory will expand to hold all your items perfectly. Also the annoying bug where the inventory always returns to the first page will be finally gone!

Now onto the most important feature of the inventory that'll really make things better, the search bar! The search bar will include smart search, so you can search for a specific item, or search more generally. Looking for a nifty red items to go with your outfit, just search red, or you don't know what trousers to wear, just search trousers! We think this should help create a much more useful inventory.

Last but not least, see the bottom right corner of the inventory? You can now drag that to expand the inventory to view more items on the screen at once. That'll make it easier to see all the items you've got!

Let us know what you think and we'll see you next week!

Small Updates, Upcoming Events, and More!

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 23:09:00 +0000

Lately we've been working on several small updates to the website, mainly fixing bugs and optimizing the site.

We've recently released a new feature that allows you to change the background color of your avatar. You can view this by visiting your account page and clicking the "Set Avatar Background" button on the bottom. We plan to add several more backgrounds for VIP members, but all solid colors will be available for all members, regardless if they're VIP or not.

This month we've decided to have a pretty big set of events which we'll be writing an article about in the coming days, just have to plan everything out beforehand. We're planning on running a PayPal promotion with some sleek new items, as well as having several competitions and events. Though we won't go into details on it, just be sure to keep an eye on the news feed.

That's a wrap for now, we'll keep you posted on other updates, such as Spaces and the new UI in the coming days. Just rest assured that we haven't given up, we've just been a bit busy.

Loading Screen

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Wed, 18 May 2011 02:14:00 +0000

Lately, we've been busy planning out the new interfaces and working out a way to help users get into the game much more easily and with less hassle. The first things players see when they click that giant play button at the top of the screen, is our loading screen. At the moment, our loading screen seems a bit slow, and sometimes buggy. Once it finishes loading, it takes you to yet another screen which then tries to connect, all while taking it's sweet time. We know time is important to everyone, so we decided to make a pretty big change here.

Firstly, rather than preloading everything to just get thrown into another screen which then tries to load even more stuff then finally connecting. We've decided that why not just make this into one process? So that's what we've done. We've just recoded a large portion of our server to work like this, so instead of connecting to the server.. waiting.. request user data.. waiting.. it'll just connect and the user data will be sent immediately. This will definiately speed up the time it takes to get from pressing play to being in a room.

Now a lot of you have wondered why we haven't really been working all day and every day, and it's mainly because none of us can dedicate the full amount of time as we all have prior obligations, be it uni, a second job, or just a personal life—just know that we're trying our best. Dasaii is nearly finished with uni, once done he'll be able to dedicate a lot more time to finishing the new version.

Lasuni API - New Feature

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Fri, 13 May 2011 21:18:00 +0000

Recently we were asked if we had a "Share to Feed" function for fansites and at that time we didn't. We thought about how it may help fansites be more integrated with Lasuni, so we decided to add the feature!

By adding a few lines of javascript to any website, you can easily post content to your feed - all with the click of your mouse.

Javascript:

How to use:

Once you've included the javascript above, you then simply have to create a link like so:

<a href="#" onClick="javascript:shareToLasuni('jason is awesome!!');">Share to Lasuni</a>

You can change the text inside the function from "jason is awesome!!" to anything you like!

Example:

Share to Lasuni

If you create anything using this new feature, share it with us! We'd love to see what you've come up with.

Long time no type

Wed, 04 May 2011 19:59:00 +0000

Hello Lasoons,

While you've been bombarded with our vocal tones recently in the podcasts, you haven't had much time to enjoy the written word. So here I am to fill you in with some of the latest with blogtastic action.

We've been working hard recently on preparing Lasuni for the future and the fundamental changes we'll need to make to achieve what we have set out. Part of our continually changing plans means a planned interface change, has been changed.

So I thought I'd share the Lasuni that could have, but never will be. So here is the main interface:

Click for the full sized image

As you can see there are quite a few fundamental differences from our current interface. A lot of these changes are hints to what you'll be finding in the new new interface, though admittedly changed rather a lot :).

First the button images are made smaller and they have text. The thinking behind this was that users get confused not knowing what each button does, but having the text it makes it more obvious. However, we have gone back to the large icons for the new interface. What would you prefer?

Also the way the interfaces are accessed is changed. Me opens the interface where you equip your items, but will also include achievements. Currently with it hidden in the inventory window causes confusion for many new users. VIP also get it's own button to help promote the feature, and to also make it easier to expand it with new VIP features :).

The chat log gets a separate button, rather than being a very small button in the chat box area. There is also a emoticon button to make it easier for users to add emoticons and to know all the ones we have!

Finally we're adding notifications to the client, this will include all of your notifications from the website and in client to help you keep up to date with the latest Lasuni happenings!

So what do you think of these changes, what do you like, what don't you like? We'll use your critique to adjust the new interface :). Just to spark some interest, the new new interface isn't just further moving things around, it's a whole new visual look!

Until next time <3.