Release Notes 2009-11-18

The Dawn of New Whirleds

Greetings Citizens of the Whirled,

As rumoured in previous missives, today we're announcing and beginning the test of an exciting new feature: Whirleds. This marks the beginning of a major rethink of how we expect most players to experience Whirled.

Whirleds are consistent, themed spaces inside of Whirled in which the content is restricted to that which is authorized by the Whirled managers.

We are releasing the alpha test of Whirleds today as an exclusive preview for Club Whirled members ONLY. The details:


 * A Whirled is a themed area of Whirled, created and managed by a Group. Managers of the group are also managers of the Whirled.
 * Whirleds cost 100 Bars to create. We do not want a lot of Whirleds, and each Whirled should be of high-quality.
 * Items Rooms can be marked as a part of a Whirled. Whirled managers can mark items from the Shop or from uploaded originals. An item can be marked as approved by multiple Whirleds.
 * Rooms are also marked as belonging to a Whirled. A Room can only be a part of one Whirled.
 * Only marked items for that Whirled are permitted inside of a marked Room. So the content permitted inside a Whirled Room is filtered to that authorized by the managers of the Whirled.
 * When inside a Whirled the user interface is re-skinned, including a different logo in the top-left and custom colours for the interface. We've implemented the first few of these and will add more customization points over time.
 * When inside a Whirled the Stuff and Shop pages will be filtered to only show items marked by the Whirled. The Rooms page is removed from Whirleds, for now.
 * When you enter a Whirled, you must be wearing an Avatar marked by the Whirled. If you have such an avatar, you'll automatically start wearing it. If you do not have any such avatar, the Whirled will offer you a free Avatar that's compatible with the Whirled. These free Avatars are configured by the managers and must be owned by the same Group Brand as the Whirled.

Naturally you'll want to visit some Whirleds and see what this is all about. We have a few early test Whirleds ready to go;


 * Club Bella: Bella Living Room
 * Bang Heroes: Bang! Heroes Theme
 * Kawaii: Kawaii Hub
 * Hide and Ghost Seek: Hide and Ghost Seek Theme

These Whirleds are all preview Whirleds. When we roll out fully we will be moving the group home rooms over into the Whirled, but for now, as non-Club members are excluded from Whirleds, we are using back-rooms to test.

Remember, ONLY CLUB WHIRLED MEMBERS will be able to enter Whirleds. Sorry, non-members, but y'know, you could always join! We hope to release Whirleds to all players at the beginning of December.

This is an exciting new chapter in Whirled's evolution and brings us significantly closer to my original vision of a place where players could create consistent worlds that center around particular themes. I hope you find it as exciting as me!

Thanks for being a part of the Whirled,

- Cleaver