I’ll just leave Dave’s update message here for you all to read…

“Prebeta launch tomorrow is not looking good. We’re all working hard today, but some things that are just outside of our control – they’re not worth getting into here. I’m frustrated, but determined that we’ll be able to find a solution soon.

Best-case scenario, things work out and the 500 prebeta invites go out tomorrow; worst-case scenario, you have to wait another week. At least that’s my best estimation at this point.

Anyway…we will try to think of some way to thank you for your endless patience. In the meantime, a new trailer will be revealed in the next day or so, so stay tuned…”

First off, I’m sorry I haven’t written a new article in quite some time, but I’d like to bring one important thing to your attention: Stratosphir has been delayed until February 8th, 2010. The reason: Dave says it would be better to release it on Monday, rather than Friday (the 5th) because they would be in the office the day after, whereas if they released it on Friday, they wouldn’t be in the office over the weekend to work out any issues that may occur when Stratosphir is released to the beta community. Yeah, sorry about that huge run-on sentence, but it was necessary to explain the situation.

Also, I was just experimenting with a new logo for Atmosphiric… It’s a screenshot of my character in Stratosphir with a few things beside him. I’d love to know what all you readers think about it–drop me a comment.

An experimental logo I just made in Photoshop

I just got some positive feedback from some of the users in the chat, and I’d like to see what some more people think.

And to finish off today’s article, I’d like to inform everyone that Atmosphiric now has a Twitter account. Follow us at @Atmosphiric and know exactly when a new article is posted and receive special announcements immediately.

So that wraps things up. Have a nice rest of your weekend, and look forward to February 8th!

Dave has recently announced the names of the seven Prebeta testers for Project Stratosphir. Below is the list of testers:

Adz
Bigdrip681
Colinnn
EliteBlackDragon
Frodo
Redidas
Wowfunhappy

I would like to congratulate them for being chosen and I hope you all don’t get too jealous. Well, moving on to a little bit more news: there are two more screenshots for me to show all you readers, as well as a YouTube video.

To start off, two new screenshots:

Also, enjoy this awesome video of “Somewhere WAY OVER the Rainbow” by EliteBlackDragon–a Prebeta level. (Level in the first screenshot)

Enjoy this video straight from Dave’s kitchen, talking about the upcoming update to Atmosphir–Project Stratosphir.

Dave just announced that Project Stratosphir will not be coming out when they previously were aiming for: January 12th. Now, it will be released sometime around February 5th–just about a month from now. Also, please note that you should not do anything after January 12th, because nothing–levels, comments, leaderboards–will make it into Stratosphir. While we wait, here’s another screenshot:

Looks like some sketches of variations of knight’s armor for character customization. I personally think they all look great, and would love to use them if/when they are implemented.

So, in conclusion, look for Stratosphir on February 5th, 2010, though it could be earlier, or it could be later. I know we’re all crossing our fingers that it’ll be earlier, but just be patient. It’s hard, but no one really appreciates complaining, no matter how legitimate it may be. Anyways, I hope you all have something to do while we wait, and remember not to do anything new within Atmosphir after January 12th, because none of it will be transferred to the new update; really, it would just make sense not even to play the game after January 12th.

Dave just announced the release date for Stratosphir: January 12, 2010. Here is word-for-word what he has posted here:

“Our internal deadline for having the game ready for the general public is January 12, 2010. The current plan is to send out beta emails to the 20k current users on that day. We were originally shooting for December 15, but a number of issues have prevented us from meeting that deadline, the biggest one being integration of item purchases. Right now everything dealing with atmos, the player’s club, and marketplace is still a work in progress – the process has taken longer than we originally estimated. While other things are more or less working decently enough for people to access, there are dozens of issues that we’re still working on. Some examples:

* The multiplayer play browser is not showing up as “sessions” (active games where people are playing), but the full level list. This makes it really difficult to find and join co-op and competitive games.
* Wins/losses/abandons are not yet being properly tracked.
* The website is still missing a few pieces, like new forums and search.
* You can’t delete comments, and language filtering is still a work in progress.
* Not all users and level data have been migrated over to the new game yet.

I’m sorry you’re going to have to wait a little while longer…this should give us the additional time we need to make all the final pieces come together. I will update you if we foresee any trouble with meeting the January 12 goal, but we are all working around the clock to meet that deadline.

Oh, and I can officially say today that the game is based in and runs on the powerful Unity engine.

As always, thank you for your patience and understanding.”

Stay updated for all the latest Stratosphir news.

Today the newest moderators were announced, five community members were chosen for the spots. There were two open spots in Off-Topic, one in Competition, one in Levels, and one in Support. The open positions were filled by the following:

Off-Topic: Lemon and Bramblepath111

Competition: Jjjohn0404

Levels: BlazingPlatinum

Support: EdacOnag

Congratulations to every one of the new Moderators! It was a hard decision to make–there were so many great applications–but these are the ones we chose. If you were not chosen, don’t be discouraged, there’s always next time.

About one month ago, Dave asked the Atmosphir community to make the best arcade-based levels to their ability. Now we see who the best 10 entries were, and the top 3 will receive 250 Atmos for 3rd, 500 Atmos for 2nd, and 1000 Atmos for 1st. I would like to congratulate all the winners in participants of this last design challenge before Stratosphir, so here are the results:

It’s disappointing that this will be the last design challenge before the release of the biggest update in Atmosphir history, Project Stratosphir, but I think that these were some of the best levels to date. If you’re upset you didn’t make the Top 10, don’t worry, maybe you made the Top 25.

Also, a special thanks to Adz, for making this video compilation of all the Top 25!

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.