Newsletter (6/22/07)

[WDWfanatic742]

6/22 – He's back! And he's got red hot info on cool NEW Snack Cart Furniture, a NEW Pin, a NEW In-Park Quest at Disneyland and the 2nd Annual VMK Slide-A-Thon coming this weekend!

It's Water Parks month! Take the plunge with VMK's Summer Adventure - now live and direct from VMK Central heeeerrree's Yavn!

Yavn is (back) in the house!

Greetings programs! Yes, I know, it's been a while … I know many of you have been wondering if I'm ok (I am) and where I have been the last month (can't a guy take a vacation?). The truth isn't all that exciting – I've been really busy – but I know you still want to know what I've been up to. Well, for starters I've been doing some traveling (the Churro & Turkey Leg combo was such a hit I had to go back to WDW for more!!) and I took a much needed 2-week vacation (let me just say Adventures by Disney are awesome!!!). But in general I've been super busy, and so has the entire team – we're all just crazy busy. Now that you know what I've been up to, let's talk about the game and get to the good stuff!!!

Principal Yavn

Now, I hate to be the bad guy here but I've got to fill you in on changes to our moderation and game policies. As you read over these points, please remember why we're doing this – our goal for VMK is to create a safe and fun place for everyone.

Game Moderation Revised

I know you will all be interested is how we're reworking the game moderation. We're always reevaluating the process and now we are making some changes from the ground up. Over the next few weeks you'll start to see changes and adjustments to how we moderate the game.

We're doing this to address changes in the game and provide even better service to our every growing community. Remember, as the game and community change, we're always updating the VMK values to address the changes and evolution of the game. So make sure you review the VMK Values from time to time.

While we're on the topic of moderation let me remind you: sharing ANY sort of messaging address or e-mail address will get you banned from VMK.

Inappropriate language, inappropriate behavior, hacking or use of bugs or programs that modify VMK and any player scams will get you banned from VMK.
We're cracking down on these behaviors, they will get you banned from the game - with or without a warning!

Pay to Play, not OK

You spoke and we listened. Based on your feedback VMK will no longer allow players to charge each other to play games, enter rooms or anything else. From now on the moderation team will be issuing bans for any players charging other players to get into a room or play a game.

Just to be clear this is related to player activities, VMK will still be charging game credits to play Pirates and ride the Fantasyland Dark Rides. Additionally, we will not be releasing the Turnstiles that were tested several months ago.

Slide On!

On a lighter side, get ready to dive - uh, I mean "slide" - into summer! Slide on down with our 2nd Annual Slide-A-Thon! The event is running this weekend only Saturday (6/23) and Sunday (6/24). Take a slide and you'll have the chance to win the Blizzard Beach Waterslide Start piece on Saturday and the Typhoon Lagoon Waterslide Start piece on Sunday. Remember each time you ride you will win one track piece - you can ride (and win) as much as you like, so ride often! If you can't join us for the Slide-A-Thon this weekend, don't worry - the tracks will be on sale soon.

Nemo & The Case of The Missing Submarine Piece

Sure, the front and back of the Finding Nemo Submarine are pretty cool but what happened to the middle? Well good news, the brand new Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage Quest at Disneyland will be the exclusive way to get it.

Starting late next week Guests in line for the brand new Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage at Disneyland will be given a special Finding VMK Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage Quest! Along with the cool activities, there will also be a card with the Submarine middle. Now like all good things the Quest won't be around forever - so hurry up and get to Disneyland and check out the coolest (and newest) attraction and start Finding Nemo! Guests who have already visited the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage – got a preview of the Quest (minus the card) which features a link to the Finding Nemo Virtual Lagoon - there you can find codes for the front and back of the sub. See the Promotions Page for more details.

Fun Days Return For Summer!

Starting in July we're bringing back Fun Days and increasing the rewards for playing Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. So make sure and check the Community Calendar for all the details. Why you ask? Well, I've heard that some pretty cool new stuff is on the way… keep reading…

Snack Attack

Since everyone loved the Snack Pin Series so much we decided to snacking a step further and create some Snack Cart Furniture Items! Now's your chance to make your room into an awesome snack bar! And what better way to kick off the new items than to start with a Yavn favorite… the Churro Cart! Did somebody say Churro? I'm buyin'! Visit the Emporium Specials in early July for your chance to pick up one of these beauties and keep checking back here for information on the next addition.

4th of July

Got plans for the 4th? Make sure you drop by VMK – we'll be celebrating Independence Day by giving everyone who enters the game a snazzy 4th of July Pin! We also have some other cool stuff planned so you really should drop by!

See you real soon… really!

Well I hope that tides you over for a bit, and I promise not to stay away for so long next time. After all I need to give you updates on the cool Finding Nemo pins on the way, more Alice In Wonderland track items, some new summer clothing and a brand new game for VMK.com we are putting the finishing touches on. Alright I better start making some room for the upcoming Churro Cart… now, do you think we should make a Turkey Leg Cart too?

See you in VMK,
Yavn

Pictures

BB Waterslide Start (http://avmk.disney.go.com/avmk_v0300/en_US/media/calendar/EventInfo-2007-06-21-BlizzardBeachWaterslideStart.jpg)
TL Waterslide Start (http://avmk.disney.go.com/avmk_v0300/en_US/media/calendar/EventInfo-2007-06-21-TyphoonLagoonWaterslideStart.jpg)
Nemo Quest Front (http://avmk.disney.go.com/avmk_v0300/en_US/media/calendar/YavnSpeaks-2007-06-22-NemoQuestfront-sm.jpg)

[chrisb26]

interesting information Varcity will be happy and look when it happens while he is on vacation :)

So if Yavn made another quest at Disneyland does that mean it was Disney that wanted VMK out at least the booth and not VMK's idea to get rid of it?

I hope these start pieces will sell for good credits and not just 10 and if it is 10 then I hope we dont have to pay to ride.

I think I like the updates hopefully it wont take him another month to update.

[Thumper03]

Funny that VMK can ban people for charging to enter a room, but VMK continues to do it themselves.
Reminds me of a common bumper sticker- "Don't steal...the government hates competition." :thedolls:

[satchel01]

I thought that same thing about the charging for rooms. Staff can charge, but players can't. Why does staff NEED to charge us??? What's the point of that? It's hard enough for me to save up to buy anything now since they decreased the credits fireworks gave out. I stink at pirates and people always quit on me in the mansion as soon as I get a few more ghosts than them. :thedolls:

And what's with closing VMK in DLR and THEN putting out a new quest there. How confusing.

Oh, and the ride pieces they gave out this weekend, how original :rolleyes:. I went on each day and got ONE piece and thought ugh what do I want this for?? How about something NEW!!

Sorry to be grouchy, it must be monday :blush:.

[WDWfanatic742]

I guess that is what we should expect from a free game instead of what you usually get from regular MMORPG's. Oh well.

[Chescat]

Actually what they have done with VMK in DLR now makes sense. We're not happy, but it makes sense.

At DLR you had a booth that had a Cast Member at it all day long. They changed out staff once every 15 minutes. So you had a person that was just dedicated to the booth all day. That cost Disney money. There was also a lot of stuff going on there that I won't get into. Now Tomorrowland is over running with people because of Nemo submarine. Cast Members have been reassigned to crowd control along the line.

What makes sense to Disney has been testing for the last year giving things out at the promotion of a new ride. We had our gold doors, now they are adding the card to the quest package for Nemo. You get the stuff at the stores where you pay money, VMK Pirate pins for purchase, and Animation Desks from Animation building.

I've also heard that the bottom floor of Innoventions where the Cave and the western areas for VMK is, will be renovated. There are suppose to be plans for the Sedway stuff on that bottom floor. They are going to move the VMK computers (or at least some of them upstairs).

What I just didn't like was the fact that the new quests came in first of May, Yavn gives two weeks notice the quests are over, cast members knew nothing, the free for all happens at the VMK booth that last weekend, and we are told this was only a 50th thing. He should have just told us the truth that Disney reallocated staff to Nemo and that it wasn't cost effective to staff a booth, and not come out with those quests beginning of May. I think we wouldn't have been as mad.

[varcity]

interesting information Varcity will be happy and look when it happens while he is on vacation :)

Well someone got tired of hearing me complaine :) lol

I got home at about 11:30 yesterday night and read the newsletter. Excited we got one!!:mickey:

One issue I had was he said he need a vacation, yet he just hooked up with slinky man the week before he disappeared?? Strange. Got a vacation, came back for a day, needed another? Hard worker he is ;)

I think everyone's complaining about safety (taken, bay be day care, etc) will pay off with the modifications coming. Scared to see how strict they are though.

Paying staff to play seems useless? Paying people to pay sounds right. Oh well, I never do anyways :mickey:

Thanks for taking quests away then giving one back. Actually excited it's exclusive to DLR (as of now). And glad I traded for 2 cheap.

Glad I was gone for the slide a thon..

Excited about the snack food carts. They will look really cool in the EPCOT rooms. Then JK will stop stealing my pizza..

I oddly enjoy the 4th of july pin

Hooray for fun days!!! Boo for no computer capable of playing games!!! Hooray for playing enough JC during school to have enough credits for summer!!!

Last but not least: didn't they say they had a massive build they were working on? JW

[mickeytinkerbellprincess]

FINALLY something other than cookies! I hope they will expand churros to burgers, fries, peanuts.. :cloud9:

[WDWfanatic742]

You know, I just thought of this. It wasn't more than even a month or two before today that EVERYONE was talking about the next virtual park that they will release and now we are talking about the quests disappearing and maybe VMK ending. All of this just off of the newsletter going for weekly to bi-weekly to monthly. New game, but where? It almost sounds like it might not be an in-game game but a mini-game dealing with one of these movies. Probably Ratatouille then...

[mickeytinkerbellprincess]

A new game on Ratatouille? Maybe we'll learn how to cook ;)

[WDWfanatic742]

BTW JPL, Tom, Patricita:

Feel free to attach the pictures to my newsletter posts since I still can't do it.

[Chescat]

Still no submarine middle parts at the park today. Gypsyoffire, Dog, and I checked today. :blush:

[bigpapiortiz34]

My thoughts on everything :)

Game Moderation Revised:
When I first read this I was like, OH SHOOT! They aren't going to make VMK free anymore! That cant be good. But now that I read the article, I could care less about this new rule. I never charge people to enter a room. I mean, really, even if the players aren't technically "in in" the room, they can still see the whole room, so whats the point? They can still talk and stuff, just cant sit down. Well, then again there are game rooms. But I find it weird that people would pay to enter in a game that could be fixed for you to loose. Its just kinda common sense not to enter in that type of a game room. Also, this can kinda defeat the whole purpose of the tickets. Some players can say I will give you a ticket to my room if you give me something for it. That is basically paying to get in the room. To me, the ticket system seems to fit in this category too (the pay to enter). But I doubt they will stop the ticket system. And yeah, I also don't get WHY staff can charge but we can't. Oh well.

Slide-a-thon:
That was a total waste of my day. I was expecting something cool, but no. We got start tracks. Sorry, I mean COLORED start tracks. Woo! I mean, I only use one start track in a whole ride. Seriously! This was just BOOORRRIIINNNGG!!!

Nemo & The Case of The Missing Submarine Piece:
I wonder if this quest is coming to WDW too. Yavn did say that the DLR quest kiosk was closing soon, so I find it weird he is releasing a new quest only at DLR. Maybe, he was just kidding on the closing?

Fun Days Return For Summer!:
Can't wait! I LOVE fun days. I am glad that he is bringing them back. Also glad that he did the extra credits on two of my favorite games to get credits from. Yay!

Snack Attack:
OMG! Yes, yes, yes! I can't wait. The snack stands look so cute and will be perfect in my new movie theater room. Also in my blank EPCOT rooms. Hopefully this is just the start to the EPCOT furniture!

4th of July:
That pin looks pretty cool! Can't wait to see what fun stuff he has planned out for us!

See you real soon… really!:
Okay, for starters, he better really come back soon to write to us more! I do love these newsletters! Second, did I hear new pin series? I am on that, totally! Third, more to the Alice stuff? Holy cow, I haven't even bought the original stuff in the stores now. I am totally sunk! Fourth, new clothing?! Really! Can't wait. I was getting really bored of the same old clothing that they have in the stores now. Hopefully, that's what Yavn means...Fifth, no way! New game! Hopefully it will be in-game. Not sure what he meant by "coming to VMK.com". I couldn't stand it if it wasn't in-game. Sixth, I love that hat!