There are quite a few things to write about today… I’m going to go one at a time, starting with the announcement that Moderator Applications have been released. After the past few months, a few of members of our Moderator team have either become inactive, resigned, or just lost their powers due to other reasons. Because such a large quantity of Moderators are not part of the team anymore, we are looking for other users to replace them.

Their are five spots open, each definitely in need of a fresh new Moderator. As always, the community has become very excited and anxious; people want to know whether they have a good chance of being chosen or not. I wish the best if luck to every applicant, and I look forward to reading what you have to say. Just remember, get your applications in by December 1st, and fill out your application to the best of your ability.

Yet another bit of good news, PizzaBoy has returned! He had deleted his account, but has now recreated the same account and will hopefully continue playing Atmosphir. I was joyed to see it when he made the thread of his arrival, I think we all were. I hope he will become as valued a member of the community as he used to be, and that we can forget he ever left. Welcome back PizzaBoy, I’m sure glad to see you; they always come back.

You can read PizzaBoy’s thread here.

Dave, without any warning, released even more Stratosphir footage in another Quick Look video the other day. I think we were all surprised to suddenly see it up on the Front Page and and News Page. It showed quite a lot improvements and amazing concepts. The video consisted of a lot of events, but I hope this list sums it all up for you:

• Moving platform triggers and waypoints
• A waterfall, made of a rotated water block set vertical
• New bombable blocks
• New animations for things like combat, walking, climbing, and jumping
• More bomb-cannon aiming
• Improved graphics and textures
• Resized and rotated blocks
• Crows following the character

I hope that described the video all of you reading, you can watch it in its fullest here.

In addition, voting for Arcade09 has begun. Remember to send your votes in to user Atmosphirvote by tonight (November 27). Good luck to all the participants in this last design challenge before Stratosphir, and I can’t wait to see who won! Stay updated with Atmosphiric to see the results.

I am quite impressed with the entries to Arcade09, a lot of them are some of the best levels I have seen to date! I’m sure it will be a close run between many of the levels, because very many are brilliantly designed and well-deserving of an honorable placement within the top ten. Again, good luck to everyone!

A little while back Wowfunhappy (A Moderator of the Support Section) and Colinnn (A Moderator of the Ideas Section), were given the chance to change sections. Wowfunhappy chose to go to the Atmosphir Section, while Colinnn chose to go to the Competition Section. The Atmosphir Section had recently lost Pizzaboy, and was in need of another Moderator, so Wowfunhappy gladly moved from his Support position to the Atmosphir Section. The Competition Section had recently lost munchy365, its only active Moderator, and since I have the Ideas Section covered, Colinnn decided it would be best to take over the Competition Section.

I know that was a lot to take in, but I thought I would inform you of this change so that you weren’t so surprised. Just so you know, only Colinnn and Wowfunhappy have moved from their previous positions. All other Moderators are remaining where they were.

Dave recently announced on Minor Studios’ Twitter feed that all approximately 20,000 current registered Atmosphir users will receive Stratosphir on the same date. That date will be announced shortly!

As we reach the last third of November, we fast approach the frigid month of December, know for it’s very giving holidays, Christmas and Hanukkah. But, aside from some of our favorite holidays, we think about early December, when Minor Studios is scheduled to release the biggest update in Atmosphir history. “Project Stratosphir” as the team has code-named it will bring Atmosphir to the web browser, and with that brings better graphics, shaders, gravity switches, new blocks, multiplayer, a whole new interface, laser guns, and much, much more.

Tensions are growing as we all await one of the biggest and greatest changes in the over a year that Atmosphir has been in Private Beta. Threads are popping up in many of the section of the forums with countdowns and questions about the release–all I can say is be patient, because Stratosphir will definitely not disappoint.

Seemingly without warning, long time member and head moderator, PizzaBoy deleted his account yesterday. He did not even leave any message for the moderators or users as to why he had deleted his account, and it still seems to be a mystery…

What most to believe the likeliest reason for his account deletion is the New Terms of Service, which states that you should not “modify Atmosphir in any way using non-native code, hacks, third party programs, or anything that changes the game or website in any way from Minor Studios’ original code.” PizzaBoy has a strange passion for hacking, and we assume he was upset that he was not allowed to continue his hobby, and deleted his account so that he would not cause any commotion or corruption from hacking Atmosphir in the future.

This theory seems quite plausible to me, but it seems that PizzaBoy also said to the community under a different account that “the combined stress of several real life events combined with stress from recent events here are becoming difficult for me to handle. Deleting my account was a decision I made to attempt to relieve some of this stress. I may return later this year or early next year depending on how things go. If the state of things in my head does not improve, I may not return. I do not expect to remain a moderator if/when I return. I apologize for any trouble I have caused with this.” [Special thanks to The Atmosphirian for this quote] PizzaBoy’s statement appears to prove the theory wrong. It now seems likely that this is the real reason PizzaBoy deleted his account, not because of the New Terms of Service.

Another Atmosphir moderator has gone today, one by the name of landoralpha. Landor was a great moderator for the Atmosphir Section of the forums, but has officially resigned today because of his inability to be more active. You can read his entire resignation post here. I honestly think it is a very sad thing to see such a valued member of the community, one such as Landor, leave his spot as a moderator. He even says that he will not be active on the forums anymore, which saddens me even more, because Landor was a great guy!

I am truly disappointed that you must leave, landoralpha, but I wish you the best of luck in your outside life. You have made some great contributions to the Atmosphir community, and we will definitely never forget you.

To end on a good note, we recently inducted two new Editorial Staff members, DuffyZeEmu and Swordsman761. They are promising new writers who will hopefully do well in their new position. I would like to say congratulations to my new co-workers, and good luck with those screenshots and reviews!

That is all for today, and I’ll keep you posted on anything new with Atmosphir! Remember, Project Stratosphir is set to launch soon–only about 2 more weeks! I am just as excited as anyone, but we must be patient. Just a little reminder for everyone: Minor Studios will be bringing users in in waves of a few hundred or so at a time. I would assume that the more well-known, forum users will go first, then other users will proceed after them. I don’t know the exact arrangement, so don’t take my word for it, but I believe that will be the probable order.

Atmosphir LIVE has been a consistently great live Atmosphir show that I’ve always tried to watch. I’ve become a Moderator in the chat of the show too. Basically it works like this: The host of the show, marcod sets a certain number of levels that can be requested, and users request levels to be played live by marcod. He talks to everyone as they chat in the chatroom next to the stream and plays the requested levels.

Tonight was the night when Episode 12 of well-know user, marcod’s live video show, Atmosphir LIVE, was set to go live, at 7 PM EST. But there were a few surprises…

First, the show began with a trailer for a brand new Mod that user drfuzzyness is currently developing–a Half-Life 2 Mod. He originally made a Portal Mod, which I must say was extremely awesome, and now he is making a Mod for Atmosphir of the great game, Half-Life 2. Just like the Portal Mod, this Half-Life 2 Mod looks like it’s going to have high-quality textures and awesome visuals. I’m sure everyone can’t wait until Content Pack 1 is released, because this next Modification looks truly amazing!

Second, marcod played a few of the requested levels with Cameron, who was the first character that we played as before the implementation of character customization, which definitely brought back some great memories of the early days of Atmosphir in some of us older users.

Third, and probably the biggest surprise of the show was that I called marcod in on Skype, and guest starred throughout the whole approximate 2 hours 45 minutes we were on air. Another frequent viewer of Atmosphir LIVE, and a well-known forum user, ZettaKuma showed up on Skype to talk to us too, but not for the whole show, becuase he had a conflicting schedule. It was an amazing experience, chatting live with marcod, and I hope I can do it again, because I really enjoyed it.

Hopefully anyone who missed this episode will be able to make future episodes, and maybe even some other users could talk with us on Skype. Altogether, I had a great time on Atmosphir LIVE, thanks marcod!

As some of you may have now noticed, the user Shming recently changed his username to Prime, but his fan series by the name of “AtmoServer” did not go with his old username.

AtmoServer is a comedic series in a chatroom format about a few characters in “BanningLand,” the place where you go when you are banned. Their adventures are very humorous, and I suggest you check out Prime’s work!

As many of you know, munchy365 has been around since before we can remember, being one of most renowned designers and forums users. From his activeness and popularity in Atmosphir, munchy has become a Moderator and Editorial Staff member. This has since changed after a string of events that put many moderators at the edge of their seats.

We had been discussing a certain user in the private Moderator Section of the forums, and munchy disagreed with what we had been saying. This is not uncommon, as many of the Moderators have different points of view. He stated that he did not believe the user was doing anything wrong, so he expressed that to us. Munchy then sends PM’s to this user with quotes of the discussion that followed his post in the Moderator section.

The user then says he has knowledge of what we are posting in the Moderator section, and posts that he has found an exploit within the forums (no such glitch does or ever has existed) that had allowed him to access the Moderator section and view our discussions. This drew great anxiety out of all of us, because we did not believe that the Moderator section was safe anymore. Adz, a long-time veteran and Moderator on the Atmosphir forums Emailed Dave to inform him that there was a glitch of some sort in the forums, and just in case that was not true, to check the PM’s sent to said user to make sure that no Moderator had leaked any information to them.

Dave checked the PM’s sent to the user, and found one containing quotes from Moderators that was sent to the user by munchy. Dave then asked him to explain this incident, and when munchy lied, Dave posted more evidence. Munchy failed to respond, and has now been banned for a total of 7 days, and has been stripped of both his Moderator and Editorial Staff powers.

I hope munchy365′s story is a lesson to all current and future Moderators, that all discussion in the Moderator section stays in the Moderator section. If you do not keep it there, you will suffer the severe consequences that await.

In another set of news, sadly not good news either, Dave has announced that he will not be doing anymore office tours after an unexpected visit from telmac, yet another forum user. Telmac posted pictures of his visit with Dave, and some revealed something that was not supposed to be seen by anyone in the community… I do not believe I am allowed to followthrough with the rest of the story, but I think you can figure out on your own, with a little bit of thinking, what happened with telmac’s pictures and the information they contained.

Just to make sure everyone knows, this was an unintentional incident that telmac did not purposely cause. Blame is not to be placed on him.

So, Dave will not be leading any office tours from here on out due to some unfortunate events. I’m sorry to everyone who was hoping for good news, but Project Stratosphir will be coming in only a few weeks, and I think that will lighten the mood.

Ironic how I post all this bad news on Friday the 13th, isn’t it? Well, to all Italians, or people of Italian heritage, this is a day of good luck, but in America, it is not such a lucky day. Usually it is a day of bad luck and unfortunate events. So far, I haven’t had many (knock on wood), and I’m glad. How was your day so far? Any disasters?

Well, now the forums are back up! I hope everyone survived the down time. Have fun talking with everyone again.

Late last night, the forums crashed. No one is able to access them until whenever they go back up, which seems to be unknown to everyone. Dave has posted in the news section that the forums have been taken down due to a minor issue and will be up and running in a short time.

The problem appears to be with SMF, the forum type that Minor Studios uses for the Atmosphir forums. The forums have been down for quite a few hours now, thanks to everyone for their patience and understanding!

As I’m sure most of you know by now, renowned designer boberto lives down my street, and we are the same age, in the same homeroom, and we hang out a ton. Therefore, he is my best friend on Atmosphir. That’s not to say that I haven’t made a lot of friends here, in this inviting and (usually) kind community. However, one of my best friends on Atmosphir, with whom I spent a whole hour talking to on my second time in the chat, is Colinnn. We discussed many topics, such as school, extracurricular activities, etc. I came to find he has an open heart, and is quite straightforward with his thoughts, and I constantly find myself looking up to him.
Most of the Atmosphir community knows Colinnn for his in-depth analysis of Level of the Days from his position as an Editorial Staff member. In addition, he is also a moderator for the Idea Box section and runs the website/blog The Atmosphirian, much like the one I’m posting in right now. He is an extremely active member in the community, and he has been rewarded for it in many different ways.

Now, to the part you’ve all been waiting for (cue the drum roll), the Level Review! Colinnn has requested that I review his level Return to Lush [Big09]. It is probably more fit for Expert09 than Big09, and he uses his creativity to manufacture remarkable gameplay, and work it seamlessly in with a stunning environment. There are a few flaws, however, such as the environment seems a little too blocky and straight along the edges of the numerous canyons and mountains, and it’s all the same color rock, but those are two very minor details. The puzzles and traps are ingenious, and you have to check your step to make sure you didn’t miss something, such as a moving platform (I hate that bug! Gah!). All in all, a stunning and brilliant masterpiece that was a clear favorite to win first in Big09.
In addition to Return to Lush, the sequel to the acclaimed Level of the Day Raiding the Temple of Lush, Colinnn has created the first place winner in Mini09, Time Trial Tower Dash. It is a short (but very difficult) level where you have to beat a muka shaman riding an elevator to the top of a small building. He has also designed a small series of “Gaming Classics”, including Qbert and Pacman. Congratulations to Colinnn, and a quick question; what did you do with all of those Atmos?!?!?!