I've moved all of Nerdbucket's games and data over to my new home. This new server is dealt with by a friend of mine, so we should all be really nice and not let him know about all the illegal w4r3z we download here!

And the best part: Bloodsport Colosseum is BACK! The open beta is now ready to begin again, so jump on in and kick some ass. For those who had tried out BC back when it was first in open beta, now is a good time to check it out again. There have been tons of fixes and enhancements. And with the new server, the site is blazing fast now - no more random Rails errors, no more 5-10 second page loads. Check it out, or Wayne Brady might have to choke a bitch.

Thanks to the very helpful team at Dreamhost, BC is no longer with us. It seems they have some kind of automated process killer. It kills processes that are doing something it doesn't like. Dreamhost won't tell us what this something is, of course, so I can only guess it's got to do with the fact that Rails eats up more memory than DH would prefer. Of course, they don't offer any kind of upgraded plan to allow users with high memory needs to expand slowly (it's the $8 a month plan or the $400 a month dedicated hosting options). So pretty much, any new development on my part is going to be unavailable to the public until I can get a host that, quite simply, doesn't suck.

Please don't click on any dreamhost ads I still haven't cleaned off my website.

The Bloodsport Colosseum beta is now up and running. This is a huge step forward for all of nerdkind. For the first time in Nerdbucket's history, a really big game is about to be launched.

Check out The newbie guide for a description of the game and how it's played, or the FAQ for a basic overview.

I'd like to thank everybody who helped test in the final stages over the last couple weeks, and to my alpha team who helped out last year. Everybody who was an alpha user will get some free in-game time (once we're out of beta) if they contact me when they set up an account.

After getting tired of having no real way to put up new articles in any organized fashion, and realizing my home page does nothing to explain what this site is about, I've put up a blog. I expect to post all announcements there, as well as new article-type information, as soon as I figure out a good way to integrate existing functionality (emailing different kinds of news to people, revamp homepage to make it more explanitory, etc).

For now, it's something of a work in progress toward better information delivery. Or something.

Time to get you all back in the loop. Since my last message about Bloodsport Coliseum, I've had literally thousands* of emails asking questions about the game. Everything from "When will it be ready?" to "Why not just give up and off yourself?"

Well here are some answers...

The game is still in development. In fact, in the last month or so I've organized myself with a really slick, open-source project manager. I don't imagine it's a great tool for big projects with anal executives, but for small teams, I find it nice.

But that's not the point. Point is, I've organized the hell out of BC and have finally pinpointed exactly what needs to be done to get this thing into a true beta state. The bad news is that I have at least another 140 hours of work! I had no idea just how many random little tasks were left, nor did I even guess how much time they'd all add up to.

The last piece of good news I can offer is this: I'm now making a point of spending at least 7 hours a week on BC. It's not much, but far more than I was hitting from January through March (~2 hours a week back then). At 7 hours a week, I've still got a lot of time left (~20 weeks!), but this project will get done!

* The term "literally thousands" in this case actually means "maybe one or two"

Well, I got tired of getting dozens of fan emails every day from my adoring fans, and not being able to share them! So from now on, select emails will be getting put into my "showcase". The world deserves to know how much my fans love me, and how much I love them right back. Click "View Fan Mail" in the left navigation bar to view it. Note that this is currently a rails app, and my host isn't doing such a great job with rails so far... so don't be surprised when it gives random errors. Just reload and all will usually work out fine.

Here's the deal - due to minor family crises and work concerns, Bloodsport Coliseum has had nearly no work since January. I won't lie, I'm also sick of it because it's gone from a really fun project to seeming like a crappy game. I feel like I'm doing Murder Manor all over again - start with a good idea, warp it into a bad one...

Anyway, for now, development is very slow. I'm going to force myself back into it because it needs to be finished, even if it ends up just gathering dust.

But I have some good news. NO, I did not save tons of money on car insurance by switching to Geico. But I created a new article! Take a look if you're interested in making fun of people who sell flash apps. It's called... "The Winklet Tragedy".

New game (not mine) looking for help:

Careful, kids. I know anticipation is at a record high right now... which is to say that one person out there keeps up on my site regularly, and damn is he pissed off about the delay news. Well, he's a little bit annoyed, at least... ah, to hell with it, even he doesn't care.

Anyway, BC is just taking longer than expected. I've decided public beta needs to be a googlesque beta, not a Microsoftian beta. ie, I want the beta to showcase a nearly finished product that needs a bit of polish and little else. My original plan was the more MS route of releasing a really underdeveloped game into the wild, so I'd have something to show sooner. I've realized the error of my ways, however, after my miserable failure of a pre-beta.

I accept full responsibility - my volunteers were expecting a playable game months ago, and even today the game is only barely playable. It "works", but it's confusing, and still lacks many of the things I'd consider to be core game features. In any case, the crew has jumped ship, probably waiting for the day I have something to really test out, and they're entirely justified in doing so. Moral: I'm not doing any more prerelease crap until I actually have something ready.

Summary: No public beta this year. Probably not for another few months. Sorry kids, chalk this one up to inexperience.

Well, looks like the prior article about Sony's incompetence has caused quite a stir, as far up as the US of fucking A's DoD: http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,69601,00.html

This is bad news for Sony, because they got caught. But the real concern here isn't sony. As the article puts it:

The story to pay attention to here is the collusion between big media companies who try to control what we do on our computers and computer-security companies who are supposed to be protecting us.

Initial estimates are that more than half a million computers worldwide are infected with this Sony rootkit. Those are amazing infection numbers, making this one of the most serious internet epidemics of all time -- on a par with worms like Blaster, Slammer, Code Red and Nimda.

I've always been against digital rights management for copyrighted material. The line between "fair use" and "illegal" is simply impossible to draw. But I've never felt the need to use this site to mention my opinions... until now:
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html

If you find that article a bit confusing, it's basically an issue of Sony installing "Malware" onto your computer if you choose to buy one of their "copy protected" CDs. Their software will actually cut down your computer's performance forever by 1-2%. Additionally, it appears to have potential security implications, where somebody could install undetectable software onto your computer by exploiting the stupidity of Sony's "copy protection".

If you've bought any CDs that have this software, I encourage you to get your money back and/or write Sony. These kinds of invasions are dangerous if left unchecked, and it seems like they're getting worse every year. In the interest of intellectual copyright law, we're trading more and more personal freedoms in order to keep Sony from losing a few bucks from people who probably weren't going to buy their CDs in the first place...

Just letting everybody know I'm not dead. I did return from oscon and have been working on my new game that I announced would be in an alpha state by late july or august. Unfortunately it's still not really in a good alpha state, but it's getting closer. A lot of redesign has taken place, and I expect it to be a far better game than it was originally planned to be. Unfortunately, ambition takes it's toll and causes things to happen more slowly.

I will have an open beta before the end of the year. I expect sooner, but given time constraints and all the work and home obligations I have, I can't promise anything better.

...I'm off to OSCON next week. I will obviously not be doing updates, reading email, etc.

The server move went very smoothly I think, as I have yet to hear about any problems.

So long, suckers...

I'm switching hosts to accomodate further development of my new game. Because of this, the site will likely be inaccessible for a day or two. I apologize for the inconvenience.

I'm about 30-40% done with a new game, and I'm going to need a (small) group of people to mess around with it and brainstorm ideas and such. I expect to be in an alpha state within a month or two, at which point I'll show what I've got to this hand-selected crew, and see if we can't work out some kinks or even get better ideas.

This game will not be free! I am putting a lot of time into it, and it will be the first pay-to-play game by Nerdbucket. Those who are picked for alpha testing will of course get to play during beta, as well as getting some amount of free play once the game goes live. The amount of free play will be at least three months, and for extremely helpful play-testers it could extend well beyond that. I will be awarding at least one lifetime free ride to the person who I feel puts in the most effort. For the skeptics, this is above and beyond and freebie memberships for my personal friends (such as MJGaiser and Paula).

Please only contact me if you're truly interested in helping develop a good game. If you get on my list and turn out to be uninsterested in helping, you won't get any free time (duh), and you'll generally find yourself not on my good side.

If you're interested in helping out, go to the contact section on my website, http://www.nerdbucket.com/contact.php.

Just to give a basic idea, this game will be browser-based, much like Murder Manor, but will be much bigger and hopefully a lot more interesting. The game will be set in the future, with players managing a team of gladiators who compete for money and fame. I hope to get a good blend of role-playing with fantasy sports.

The forums are largely unused, but with my plans for a new game, I intend to push them a lot more, particularly when I'm ready to do beta testing. In order to make things easier to use, I've linked the forums more closely with your nerdbucket.com login!

Now, instead of logging in to the site and then logging in separately to the forums, your site login acts as a forum login. When you enter the forums, simply click "Log In" and your site login information will automatically be pulled in to the forums. If you haven't logged into the site, you'll be directed to do so, and then your information will be pulled into the forums.

Try it out, and as always, contact me if you have any trouble.

First, let me assure everybody that the previous email I got (about a female who found nerds hot) was 100% legit. At least, that's what the sender tells me.

Second, I have no new stuff to mention, as I am very busy with my real job. Updates to my site have never been particularly speedy, but even less so lately. I assure you all that I am working on a new game, but I've only been able to devote about 6 hours a week to it, so it will be a while yet. I will try to keep you all posted.

I've received a very troubling message from a supposed female...

From C.A.

I have always like and been attracted to Nerds..... even Nerdy Nerds! No, I don't qualify for Nerdiness; I'm just Weird. I used to hide this from other people, now I just want to say, "I'm proud to be Weird".

Still haven't gotten around to the user-purging program. It'll happen, it's actually almost done, but it is quite a low priority. I don't really get any benefit from scrapping users, and the database is so small (< 600 registered users) that it isn't wasting any real space. Sooo.. it'll have to wait still.

In other news, I've decided to put up a map editor for Murder Manor. This will allow users to submit maps to me via the web! The map editor is very basic (made mostly for myself a while ago, just now got a 2-hour overhaul to make it friendly for other people), but it gets the job done. People who like Murder Manor should definitely check it out. Just log in to the game and click "Map Maker!"

This is to let you all know that even the king of the nerds can make mistakes. As a good number of you are already aware, I just sent out a test email that spammed everybody with "Test". Cool.

Just thought I should let you all know that was a mistake, and I do not in fact plan on testing any of you.

For those who care, this test message was supposed to be to tell you that within the next week I will be making accounts auto-delete themselves. Any accounts that are not logged into within a few days of creation will be deleted, and any accounts that are inactive for more than 60 days will be deleted.

Since I need to test the new email sending capabilities, I decided it would be best to create some new content instead of just making a stupid news post. So, without further ado, I invite you to learn how to make a cake, weblibs style!

Enjoy the weblib.

If you don't like these emails, the bottom of this message will tell you how to unsubscribe. I hope you find my regular news informative and interesting, but if not, you can turn them off and only receive those messages you really want (new large games, new game content, etc)

The preferences page has been updated to include email preferences. The next news article or game improvement which I post (after this one, since I'm lazy) will be emailed to all who are part of the nerdbucket member list. If you want to keep up-to-date with nerdbucket news, you're all set. If not, you can choose to receive absolutely no informational emails from nerdbucket.com. There are several categories of emails so you can pick and choose which emails you wish to receive.

In other news, not that any of you will care, but I've just added a very important feature: instead of storing your login information in a cookie, I'm now using sessions which are ever-so-slightly more secure. Yay me.

After claims that my site was working on both IE and Mozilla, I've just noticed that this isn't true. I apologize for the problems some users have experienced when browsing with mozilla. Considering I dislike IE, I'm very disappointed with myself for this blunder.

The problems with WebLibs and Murder Manor have been fixed. If users experience other problems, please let me know right away.

Seeing self-esteem camps, books, workshops, and even computer games, I realized that nerdbucket is missing out on today's latest craze. Well, no longer. In the games section you'll find my new Self-Esteem Hangman! It's guaranteed to make you feel like a winner... well, seeing as it's rigged so you can't lose...

With Halloween on its way, what better way to celebrate than a Halloween Safety WebLib? Check it out! Choose your words just right, and you could give a whole new meaning to the words "safety first!"

Murder Manor is now completed. I don't claim that it's bug free, stable, or even fun. I can, however, guarantee that it is a game and that it works well for me. Check it out, it's in the games section and should be pretty cool if you like strategy and slow-paced games.

Well, I decided it was time to allow my visitors to converse with themselves or even me, and I installed phpbb. If you have an existing nerdbucket.com login, you can go to the "community" link and log in with your existing login info.

You can read messages without a nerdbucket account, but you can't post, so get yourselves accounts, and go talk about how great I am!

The new privacy policy no longer specifies that users may decline game-related emails. This, of course, affects nothing right now, but in the future certain games will need to email players certain events, and it doesn't make sense to allow the user to opt out unless the user doesn't want to play the game anymore.

If I have games that email non-essential information, those emails will have an option to be skipped.

In keeping with my aggressive anti-spam policy, I decided today to take a break from Murder Manor to work on encrypting the databases for users. A spammer is unlikely to hack my server just to get at the email addresses, but in the event that my email addresses somehow do become available to a potential spammer, they are now fairly well protected. My email, for instance, is now "enc_5f504a02075539262d4a06080e465756405519031544575754". I don't think I'll be worrying about spam for a while.

The website now has a "member" login. Right now this really doesn't do much, other than basically allow people to feel nerdy by having one of the first logins available. Soon, however, I will be releasing my first turn-based browser game (Murder Manor, assuming I can't find a better name...), and it will require a login.

Getting a login is 100% free, and I promise everybody that I have no desire to sell your email addresses to anybody. I have been on the receiving end of spam far too often (100+ emails a day at one point) and I wouldn't condemn anybody to that fate. But I digress... the point is, soon I will be putting turn-based games together to add a whole new dimension of multiplayer gaming to my site. Stick around, things will be getting very interesting.

Today we are officially live! The site is almost 100% functional and will soon be able to get new content for the first time since I was mywebgames.com...

The java games with high scores now use an SQL database to store their info. To the layman, this means high scores won't likely disappear like they used to. Also, all web emails (weblibs, refer-a-nerd, etc) currently seem to be very slow, taking upwards of 30 minutes to be sent. I hope my host can fix this, but we'll see...

Nerdbucket.com is in preliminary design right now, but I hope to see it up in the next few weeks! Replacing the old Mywebgames.com, Nerdbucket is already sporting a new (and hopefully better) layout, and is entirely php-driven, which should make my life a lot easier.

For the record, some freak parked Mywebgames.com. I didn't much like the name, and never had tons of traffic, so why it's parked is beyond me, but that's the story for my move.

Stay tuned, there's more to come...