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- Written by: Aayrl
- Category: News
- Hits: 2369
Hello Marble Blast Community,
Today, we will be discussing a rather sensitive topic in the Marble Blast Community, but we feel it is necessary for us to publicly announce our stance on certain variations of Marble Blast Modifications and why we have chosen our methodology.
Many have asked us regarding the Marble Blast Ultra "PC Port", and why we do not make it available on our website. Just to make it clear, Marble Blast Ultra has never been supported by any members of the Platinum Team. While the Platinum Team have interacted with the "PC Port" to examine the scripting capabilities and engine support, it was ultimately decided it would be impossible to modify to meet the current requirements of the Platinum Team to further develop and enhance the versions of Multiplayer provided in Marble Blast Platinum.
The next topic we must discuss is the team behind Marble Blast Super, which is also behind the Marble Blast Ultra "PC Port" project. We were informed by the Marble Blast Super Team that they were not pleased with the default textures of Marble Blast Ultra. Instead, they purposefully circumvented multiple layers of security protecting PlatinumQuest files located in the Marble Blast Platinum directory, with the intent to access the PlatinumQuest textures and designed similar copies for use in Marble Blast Ultra as well as Marble Blast Super. Members of the Platinum Team arranged a meeting with the senior members of the Super/Ultra team, where the Platinum Team indicated this content must be removed from Marble Blast Ultra and Super immediately. It is worth noting these actions are strictly prohibited and a direct violation of the Marble Blast Community's Terms of Service. Members of the Marble Blast Super/Ultra team have "acknowledged" the Platinum Team's requests, but instead have chosen to ignore them and have claimed the whole of their work as "their own content", keeping the material in their most recent game client. Adding insult to injury, their team members wanted to add an encryption system that is similar to that used in Marble Blast Platinum so that users do not copy their content.
Additionally, some community members argued the points raised in the Marble Blast Super thread posted by members of the Platinum Team. We would like to remind these members that the Community as a whole had made identical comments two years ago on the Old Forums, where members of the Platinum Team attempted to provide constructive criticism on how it could be improved. Several community members even suggested ideas and directed the Super team to examples that would make their mod better. Unfortunately, while some members of the Super team finally took action, the senior members of that team chose to persist in its old ways, and aforementioned examples set to prove that this infringement continues even today. Due to these actions, we cannot formally support or back Marble Blast Super or the Marble Blast Ultra "PC Port" project. Nonetheless, we are not in control over any user who wishes to obtain Marble Blast Super or the Marble Blast Ultra "PC Port", but we are not liable for any consequences caused to any user who obtains these. Furthermore, we will not enforce sanctions against any member who wishes to use these mods.
It is in our best interests, as members of the Community, to follow the guidelines and regulations listed in the Terms of Service and the Rules enforced on the Marble Blast Website and Game Client(s) to ensure the integrity and sustainability of the Community. Our staff will spend countless hours debating topics such as these, and while some may view the ultimate decision(s) that come to pass as unfair or unjust, the conclusions reached must always benefit the protection and longevity of the Community. We hope you understand our reasoning behind this announcement. It is our hope that we may continue to encourage many more of the inspiring minds in our community to fashion new, original and exciting content for all of our members to enjoy for many years to come.
Best regards,
~The Marble Blast Community Staff.
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- Written by: Aayrl
- Category: News
- Hits: 2391
Hey folks!
Over the past few weeks, the Marble Blast Community Staff have been in discussions on how we want to proceed with the future of the Marble Blast Community. We've noticed a dramatic negative increase of activity that goes against all of the standards we set out to attain when the community was originally conceived. As a result, we're decided (unanimously) to start strictly enforcing our Terms of Service guidelines and our general system rules to ensure all users are treated respectfully and experience a welcoming, friendly atmosphere while they are a part of the Marble Blast Community.
We will also be implementing a new Warning System in the next few weeks. The system is still very much in the early stages, but will be used to restrict access to the various features of the Marble Blast Website and Game Client based on any negative actions imposed on user accounts. We hope to never use the warning system, but we feel the operations must be in place in order for us to strictly enforce the policy guidelines mentioned above. More news on this system will be unveiled as it nears public release.
To assist with these new policy enforcements, we have decided to make the following changes to the Marble Blast Community Staff:
- Regislian has been promoted to an Administrator. Regislian has been a moderator of the Marble Blast Community for almost a year and has shown exceptional support, maturity, and encouragement towards other members of the community. It is without a doubt that Regislian has proven himself to be an asset to the Marble Blast Community, and as such we are promoting him to the highest administrative ranks.
- Promarbler14 has been promoted to Global Moderator. Promarbler14 has constantly provided exceptional support and guidance for both new and veteran members of the community and has proven a vast knowledge of the game content. As a global moderator, Promarbler14 will oversee the operations and actions of all Marble Blast Community Moderators, and will be in charge of ensuring the Marble Blast Support forum and the Marble Blast Support System are checked daily and all issues are resolved by a member of the Marble Blast Community Staff.
- Kalle29 has been promoted to a Moderator. All members of the Marble Blast Community Staff have spent countless hours debating this decision, but ultimately we have decided that Kalle29 is fully capable of filling this role and his active participation in the community ensures he will be able to assist Regislian with monitoring our Webchat and Forum services as often as possible. Effective immediately, Kalle29 will be granted a temporary moderator role until June 20th, at which point the Marble Blast Community Staff will ultimately decide if we wish to permanently keep Kalle29 as a moderator.
We have also decided to implement a new "tier" of permissions for both the Marble Blast Website and the Game Client. This new tier, dubbed "Developer" will be granted to members that are actively working on official content for Marble Blast Platinum, PQ, Fubar, or miscellaneous Marble Blast Community projects. These members will be displayed in Webchat with a dark green username. This "tier" was conceived to help reduce confusion between developers and members of the Marble Blast Community Staff.
Lastly, a formal post on our forums will be listed later this weekend detailing all current members of the Marble Blast Community Staff and our respective roles within the community. We will also include instructions on how to report any incidents regarding other members of the community in the event that one of our staff members is not available for direct consultation.
Please assist us in giving a warm welcome to our newest moderator and our staff changes, and overall we hope we can improve the atmosphere of the community! We are excited to have these new changes in place and we sure hope everyone will have a more positive experience in the community over the next few months.
Finally...did I mention there is exciting new content coming down the pipeline for everyone? Expect some spontaneous events over the next few weeks and make sure you check in daily to see what's coming!
Thanks!
~Aayrl
Marble Blast Community Manager
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- Written by: Jeff
- Category: News
- Hits: 2965
Hey everyone,
A few announcements that are worthwhile:
- The Platinum Team is proud to announce that Amd42 (Derpking) will officially be part of The Platinum Team with contributions to PlatinumQuest as another programmer. We look forward to working with him on PlatinumQuest!
- In case you haven't seen it yet, we have added shaders to Marble Blast Platinum for a future update in preparation for PlatinumQuest! A common question we have received is if the shaders are optional. The shaders will be optional, and will require a graphics card with OpenGL 2.1 or higher (Gforce 6000 series, Radeon 2000 series, Intel HD Graphics) or better with a minimum of 256MB of dedicated video ram. They will work on Windows XP+ and Mac OS 10.6+. Direct3D (Part of DirectX) is not supported in marble blast platinum or PlatinumQuest, so there will be no Direct3D shaders.
- If your card is too old, or you decide not to use the shaders, you can use the original Marble Blast rendering engine. However, we strongly recommend to make use of the shaders, because there is Graphics Hardware Caching enabled for the geometry which makes the rendering actually faster than the fixed function pipeline. We will most likely provide quality options for the shaders, so that even lower-power cards can still take advantage of the caching.
Keep on rolling, summer's around the corner!
- The Platinum Team
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- Written by: IsraeliRD
- Category: News
- Hits: 2861
As the title says, we now have a twitter account, so go ahead and follow @MarbleBlast
You may see updates and fun stuff through that account so make sure to check it out!
- The Marble Blast Website Staff
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- Written by: IsraeliRD
- Category: News
- Hits: 2309
Hey all,
The Platinum Team is happy to announce that Buzzmusic has joined the team as a level designer, and will also help with sounds and music. Please give him some warm welcome.
I'd personally like to thank RDs.Empire, Uil and Buzzmusic on joining us and really help develop the best experience for Marble Blast alongside HiGuy, Jeff and myself. This really gives PQ the push it needs and gives us all lots of motivation.
Thanks,
Matan and The Platinum Team