And they’re off!

Everyone is resting up between races.

Drinking a glass of lemonade to recover some energy.

Track & Field has definitely been one of the more popular events.

Players earn their net after completing a certain number of missions.

Players can then trade their bugs to NPCs for SoBucks!

- Chris Evans

Our forums have become very active over the past few months! Make sure to stop by there for the latest info and to converse with other SocioTown players.

That said, over the next week I’ll be posting about one of the significant features that was added in the past few months. Hopefully in a couple of weeks this blog will be up to speed!

- Chris

All you need to street box is a pair of boxing gloves, which you can get at the local shops in SocioTown. Street Boxing is real-time fighting. How well you do is dependent on your fight strategy as well as your player attributes such as Speed, Strength, and Endurance.

You can improve your player attributes by training, eating, and lifting weights.

- Chris Evans

Right now there’s already a small special forces group checking out the game on the production server. Once they give it the okay, we’ll be contacting about ~100 beta testers on Saturday night/Sunday. Assuming the game doesn’t blow up in flames, we’ll contact another ~250 beta testers on Monday. If all still goes well, we’ll contact an additional ~1000-1500 beta testers throughout the rest of the week.

So if you don’t receive an e-mail this weekend, wait until about the end of next week before you send me hate mail. We have received close to 4,000 beta test signup requests, which is fantastic considering we’ve done very limited marketing thus far. Out of that 4,000, we’ll probably contact half over the next week.

Also, if I find the time this weekend (which will be tough) I’ll post some screen shots of Street Boxing. Street Boxing is one of the gameplay features we’ve kept under wraps. Yes, it means there’s actual PvP play in SocioTown. Like I said I’ll try to get some screen shots and info posted this weekend.

Hope to see you in SocioTown!

- Chris Evans

3/17/08 UPDATE: We are about 5 days behind schedule, so if you haven’t received an e-mail yet don’t worry! We haven’t contacted the majority of people yet. Again, check your emails this week. Sorry to keep you all waiting! But we want to make sure all the major kinks are taken care of before you guys get your hands on it.

From those who signed up for the beta test, we’ll be choosing a select group. That group will then get SocioTown Invites which they can invite their friends or whomever. So if you haven’t signed up for the beta test now is the time to do so. Make sure to fill out all the sections correctly and any comments you provide will help a great deal as well.

It’s almost here!

- Chris Evans

Interview With Virtual Worlds News

- Chris Evans

Also, the official site itself has gotten a large update. A bunch of new screen shots have been posted and we’ve created a new section that goes over all the new features:
http://www.sociotown.com/sociotown_features.html

Those who signed up as Alpha testers should be contacted shortly if you haven’t already. The first beta test should get started sometime next month.

In the meantime, enjoy all the new footage and information!

- Chris Evans

Development should resume at the end of this week. However this means the testing schedule will be pushed back by several days.

Those in San Diego and others in Southern California who are affected by the wildfires, stay safe!

- Chris Evans

Next week, I’ll be releasing a new gameplay video that will show some of the social system in action.

Stay tuned the wait is almost over!

- Chris