This month's RGR Competitions:

Screenshot Competition: Mario Painting
Draw the best picture involving Mario in Mario Paint
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=16713

High Score Competition: Tecmo Super Bowl 2K11
See who can beat their oponent by the most points in Tecmo Super Bowl 2K11
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=16677

You can earn up to 10,000 Viz for each of the above competitions, so be sure to compete!

---

Last month's Screenshot competition is in voting right now so please vote on a submission here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=16733

Last month's High Score competition results can be found here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=16674

Someone went through and edited the info to 30+ game pages in the Retro Game Room (mostly hacks). For most of the games the file was either removed or the game was marked as not working, resulting into these games not being playable.

I fixed all that I saw that were edited, if any other games still don't work that did before, please let me know here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=16650

The monthly Retro Game Room Competitions are a little over half way over, so be sure to compete before the month ends! This month's competitions:

HighScore Contest
Pac-Man

Screenshot Contest
Funny Comic Strip

Remember, the winners of each competition gets 10,000 Viz, 2nd and 3rd place also are awarded Viz.

I just want to announce that we received $270 in donations, the target was $300 but I was able to come up with the rest. Of course I encourage users to continue donating since the server costs around $300 a month and the next deadline will be a little over 1 month from now but from now on I'll be able to afford covering what isn't covered.

Anyways, I just want to say thanks to everyone who donated and to everyone who considered donating. It means a lot to have such a loyal and supportive community filled with kind and generous members, I couldn't ask for a better community

Any questions, comments or concerns, please post them here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=15961

NOTE: If you don't know what this Announcement is about, please refer to the previous Announcement.

I currently don't have enough money to renew the server 9 days from now and I'm in need of $300 for it. I honestly don't know where I'm going to come up with the money and I fear that vizzed could be down for a while if we don't get the $300 before September 12th.

If everyone who can afford just a little bit pitches in, we'll have enough for sure, so please consider helping out if you're able to. And remember, you are awarded 10,000 Viz for each US $10 you donate.



Reasons why I'm behind on the payment? 2 reasons:

1. I used a lot of the Vizzed fund to put toward an updated RGR Plugin without realizing that I put almost all of it toward the RGR Plugin. (the new RGR Plugin will be released soon which will have a few new features, many bugs and problems fixed, and also support for the famicom disk system).

2. My wife and I have our baby due any day which means money is very tight for us right now with all the baby expenses and hospital bills so I honestly don't have any of my own money to spare this time



If you have any questions, comments or feedback, please post them here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=15726

For 1 week only, you'll be given triple the amount of Viz you would normally get for referring people. This means you'll get 300 Viz anytime someone clicks your referral link, 1500 Viz if the person you referred signs up and 3000 Viz if they post!


Why do this?
1. I have a lot of sympathy for the kids who have to go back to school and this week most people who attend had to go back
2. What a great opportunity for you guys who are going back to school to tell your friends or classmates about vizzed


What or Where is your Referral code?
It can be found right below the message center (where it shows your Private Messages, Announcements and Notifications at the top of the page). You'll see a URL that highlights when you click it. Your referral link is relevant to the page so whatever page you copy the referral link from, that's the page the person will be taken to when they click your link. People can also sign up without clicking your referral link, when they are registering they can simply type in your username to refer to you (you'll still earn up to 2700 Viz this route).


If you have any questions, feedback or comments, please reply here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=15556

I've spent the past week making the following updates:


New Profiles
Spent the past few days completely remaking the profile pages from the ground up. You can see an example here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/profile.php?id=1
And here's an example of the Game Profile:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/profile.php?id=1&profile=game

Please note that the big box ad is only temporary until I replace it with something else (a future feature).

What's new about the profiles:
-Profiles are a lot smaller, about half the size they were before
-Easier to navigate
-Quicker to load (a big profile like mine wont be to much faster but a newbies profile will be a LOT faster)
-Easier to browse the games you have
-SNES Games are displayed nicely (hope to do that with the rest soon)
-You can now see who has added you as a friend
-Your friends list is more organized
-You can now see how many guests you referred
-You can view up to 100 comments you've received on your profile
-You can quickly reply to comments
-Sent Private Message link is easier to find
-You can now see all your most recent comments you've made on games
-You can now see all your most recent reviews you've made on games
-You can now see all your most recent screenshots you've taken on games
-Bio at bottom of page so that people can have really big bios without it interfering with the rest of their profile



You can now Backup your Save Files, make copies and also delete them
Ever wanted more than 1 save file? Ever wanted to make a backup in case something happened to your save file? Ever wanted to delete your safe file for any reasons? Well now you can
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/retro/savefiles.php



Games Cost Viz Again
I know I said I'd wait until September 1st but I decided to end the offer early and in return, the games will be half the regular Viz price until September 1st. This probably is better for some people because you'll still own the games after September 1st, while having them 0 Viz means you wouldn't. Plus I've had a lot of people request me to do this.



If you have any questions, comments or suggestions with these updates, please post them here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=15084

500+ New Sega Genesis Games
I've added around 500 new Sega Genesis games to the RGR. Before we mostly had just USA games and we were even missing some of those (thanks to MBWrestler87 for mentioning that we were missing Virtua Fighter 2, which inspired this update). After this update we should have an almost complete Sega Genesis game collection. To see the newly added Genesis games, you can sort the Sega Genesis games in order by date as seen here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/retro/index.php?sort=id&system=gen


9 New Pokemon GBA Hacks
I've done some searching for Pokemon hacks that vizzed didn't have. Most of these are only beta but most of these are rare and incredibly hard to find:
Pokemon Ash Gray Follows storyline of the Anime
Pokemon Azure Horizons
Pokemon Crystal Shards
Pokemon Lightning Yellow Remake of Pokemon Yellow
Pokemon Marble New Fake Pokemon
Pokemon Naranja
Pokemon Pyschic
Pokemon Waterfall Contains Pokemon from Pokemon Platinum
Be sure to take screenshots of the new Hacked games so that others can see what the game is like


Halo 2600 - Atari 2600 Hack
Lastly, we have an Atari 2600 hack. This would probably the the only time I'd even bother mentioning a single Atari 2600 hack but this one is big news. A former Microsoft employee made Halo for the Atari 2600. If you're not use to Atari 2600 games than you will not like this.
Click Here to Play Halo 2600


If you have any questions or feedback, please post them here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=14812

You can refer to the previous announcement on what this is all about, or you can refer here. The only way we can support her is by praying and by doing this. The only way we can show her how much we care and think about it her is by posting as much as we can in honor of her. It'll be very uplifting for her to see an entire community dedicate an entire day to posting as much as they can in honor of her and right now that's exactly what she needs, to have her mood lifted, even if it's only temporary.

So let the posting begin, it'll go on for 24 hours (server time) and our goal is to reach 1000 posts in a single day (go here to see why we picked 1000). Please keep the spam to a minimum, we will still ban members for excessive spamming.


If you have a comment or question about ~sakura~ Day or if you want more information, go here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=14714

A member of Vizzed Board by the username of ~sakura~ has leukemia and has only a 5% chance of living. I ask that you all keep her in your prayers. Go here to read her going away thread:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=14496



As a tribute to her, we will also be dedicating a day to her in which we will all post spree until we got a total of 1000 posts in a single day, that day will be August 10th, which is next Tuesday. For more information on '~sakura~ Day', please go here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=14510

The Super Mario Bros High Score Contest and the Scavenger Hunt Screenshot Contest are coming to an end but there's still 4 1/2 days left to compete so be sure to give them a try.

Here are the Prizes for each contest:
1st = 10,000 Viz
2nd = 2,500 Viz
3rd = 1,000 Viz

If I were to sell a PC Controller with the Vizzed Logo on it and pre-configured for the RGR, would you buy it? Please answer honestly, I need to know this before I buy a bulk quantity of 50. Also be honest as to how much you'd be willing to spend on the controller if you say Yes, either $15 or $20 (Prices do include shipping).

You'd also get 10,000 Viz points with the PC Controller!

Basically the controller would already be set up with the RGR Plugin games so that you didn't have to configure them. The controller would be pre-approved by me to work good and be perfect for all the retro games in the RGR. It would also have the Vizzed Logo on the controller and the packaging.

To answer this questions, please vote and respond here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=14128

Well after days of complications, Vizzed Board is back for good!

Well we had some complications with the current server so instead of fixing it, I decided to transfer to a new server. Well the new server had some complications and so I decided to revert back to this server. I've decided that instead of migrating to a new server in the future, I'll just get a 2nd server and place the database on the 2nd server. I can't possibly describe how many difficulties I went through but I've invested about 50+ hours on these problems over the past few days.

Anyways, Vizzed is back for good and nothing was lost. You can go back to posting and playing games like usual.

As a bonus to make up for the 3 days worth of down time, RGR Games will be free, 0 Viz, for the rest of summer (even if it'll cost me a ton of extra money, I feel I owe it to you guys).

For more information, questions, feedback, etc... refer to this thread:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=13982

I've just spent the past 3 days (and 20+ hours) optimizing the site to increase performance and speed. Unfortunately this required me to spend most of my Saturday working on this, however it was definitely needed since the site was starting to get real slow and the SQL Server kept crashing due to so much database strain and I wasn't going to put something like this off to the side. I'm sure everyone has noticed the huge increase in site speed (note: the RGR game pages were taking up to 5 seconds to load before, now they're well under 1 second - in other words, about 10 times faster)



All games are free for the next few days
That's right, all games are free to play for the next few days. I'm making some DB changes and therefore I can't allow any data to go to or from the DB that involves purchasing or selling games. This means that while the games are free to play, you wont actually be purchasing them when you go to play them. Also because of this, you currently cannot sell your games that you have.

For those who are tech savvy, here's exactly what I did: Currently I have 1 DB table dedicated to keeping track of all the games that every user owns. The problem with this is that there's over 300,000 rows which means that every time a user goes to a Game page, it has to search through all of those rows to see if the user owns the game. What I plan on doing is making a table for each individual system. One of the reasons why the game pages are a lot faster now is because I removed the script that searches these rows, just until I've got a DB table for each system. I'm hoping to have everything taken care of by Monday, which means games are free until probably around Monday.



Improved RGR Search
A lot of Google Bots would get stuck or lost in the RGR Search engine which would cause a little strain. Basically they'd end up on pages that would display no results. Here's what I did to prevent this:

When you go to search for a game, Tetris for example, the systems that have the game 'Tetris' would be clickable and let you view only Tetris games for whatever system you clicked and all other systems are dimmed but if you click them, it just takes you to the system but it wont try to display tetris games for that system since the dimmed systems don't have tetris games; same thing applies for the letters.

Another nice new thing I've added was that if your search results return nothing, the RGR will try to make a recommendation. So for example, lets say someone tried searching for Pokemon games for the Atari 2600, since none exist, it would give you recommendations of Pokemon games for other systems.

This also increases my Search Engine rankings since Search Engines will be finding and displaying good pages in the RGR instead of bad pages with no results.



Other Optimizations
I did optimize various other pages which included the Message Center, RGR Pages, Index, and a few other things.



For more information, questions or comments regarding these updates, please post here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=13899

Click Here to vizzit the Vizzed Ebay Store

Most of you probably have seen by now that Vizzed recently opened up a store on ebay and is giving out 500 Viz for every US $1 you spend in the store. The store is about half way over so be sure to take advantage of this offer and the below offers:

Most of the Games in the store have dropped in price between 25% - 50%

Also, Pokemon Cards have been added to the store!

For more information about the store, go here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=13422

I've just added 1200+ Nintendo and Famicom games (famicom games are listed under NES). The RGR should now have just about every single Nintendo and Famicom game ever made, I was surprised at how many Nintendo games were missing and I've also had a ton of requests to add more Famicom games. What is the Famicom? Well it's basically the Nintendo in Japan. You can find the newly added games here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/retro/index.php?system=nes&sort=id

I've also added 2000+ Atari 2600 games. I was surprised at how many games were missing. This update also includes a bunch of hacks. You can find the newly added games here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/retro/index.php?system=a2600&sort=id

Atari 2600 games are now 1 Viz. Since the games are so small, it was silly to even charge 5 Viz. Plus a lot of games suck. Another reason for this is that there's been a lot of people who have bought Atari 2600 games, didn't like them, rated them a 10 to get some of their Viz back, and than sold it (which results into a full refund). Well now that the games are only 1 Viz, you don't get any Viz for rating them or selling them.

Apple II games are now 5 Viz. Not a big drop in price but they went from 7 Viz to 5 for similar reasons to the Atari 2600 price drop.

For more information regarding the new games and price drops, or if you want to leave feedback, go here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=13632



3 new little features for the RGR Search engine.

Random Game
You can now have the RGR randomly pick a game for you by clicking the 'Random' button. It randomly picks a game based on your specifications. For example, if you type in 'mario' in the search box and click 'Random', it'll randomly bring up a game with 'mario' in the title. If click to display only game boy games and click 'Random', it'll randomly pick a game boy game. And of course if you have no specifications, it'll randomly pick any game in the RGR.

First Game
This is for users who are impatient or in a hurry and want to go directly to the game they are searching for. So if I wanted to search for 'Moto Roader' and wanted the RGR to take me directly to that game, I type in 'Moto Roader' and click '1st' and I'll be brought to that game automatically. Now there are some games with the same title as others, the RGR will randomly return either the one with the most views or the one with the highest rating. Just like the 'Random Game' feature, you can adjust your specifications. For example, I can click 'Sega Genesis' and than type in 'Bomberman' and it'll direct me to the 1st 'Bomberman' game the RGR finds for the Sega Genesis.

Country Origin on Search Results
Search results now tell you which country that specific game was released in. (U) = USA, (J) = Japan, (UEJ) = USA, Europe and Japan, etc. This will help you to avoid games released in certain countries. I also made little flags to represent which country each game is from.

For more information regarding the new features, or if you want to leave feedback, go here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=13575

July VCS has Begun, and this will be the first VCS that I'll be handing out awards to the top 3 participants (using the Awards feature which will be available at the end of the month).

For more information and what the VCS is, go here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=13556

You interested in earning 1000's of Viz for very little effort? Record yourself playing Retro Game Room games, you're already playing the games, why not earn tons of Viz while playing? Here's what you do to earn the Viz


Instructions

1. Record yourself playing a game in the Vizzed Retro Game Room. Your video can consist of short segments of your favorite games, a walkthrough, a commentary review or simply just showing off gameplay of your favorite game. Do whatever you want, just as long as the video consists of you playing a game (or multiple games) from the Vizzed RGR.

You'll need screen recording software:
I recommend CamStudio since it's free. Camtasia is probably an even better program but it costs money but it does have a 30 day trial.

2. You'll upload your videos to youtube to your own account. In the description of the video, at the very beginning of it, paste in your referral link. So for example, if you choose to play Pokemon Emerald in your video, go to the Pokemon Emerald game in the Vizzed Retro Game Room and copy your referral link from the page and post it into your youtube description. This way, every time someone clicks your link in your description, you'll automatically get 100 Viz per a person who clicks it and even more if that person signs up or registers.

Title of Video Recommendations:
The title of your video should use as many keywords as possible. So for example, if you're playing Super Mario Bros for the NES, your video should be titled something like 'Play Super Mario Bros for the NES FREE'.

That's it, your done. Read on to see how you earn Viz from this and what the rules are.


How do you earn Viz from this
As you already read, you earn Viz when your link is clicked. You ALSO earn Viz based on the amount of views your video gets. So for every 1000 views you video gets, you'll be given 1000 Viz (maximum of 10,000 Viz per a video). So as soon as your video reaches 1000 views, reply to the below thread posting a link to it and you'll be sent the Viz:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=13317

Your video description MUST have a link to vizzed otherwise it does not qualify for the Viz.


Any Questions?
Please respond to this thread with any questions you may have:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=13317
This offer has no deadline.

Vizzed Board is now hosting the Final Fantasy 7 NES Upgrade Project, a team dedicated to taking the FF7 NES remake and upgrading it's graphics, music and a few other things to make it more like the Playstation version.

If you have some graphic talent, 8-bit composing talent or rom hacking talent, please apply for the position here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=12838


If you're interested in knowing more about the project, go here:
https://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/thread.php?id=12837

The more support we can get, the sooner this upgraded game can be released! So if you don't have the talent to apply, please tell anyone you know that does have the talent.

June 2010 Competitions have started, you can earn up to 10,000 Viz in each.

Here's this month's competitions:

Final Fantasy VII Master Screenshot Competition
Get further into the game than anyone else.

D-Pad Hero 2 Highscore Competition
Have the highest score in this game at the end of the month.

Close Call Screenshot Competition
Take the best screenshot of a close call situation.

10,000 Viz is awarded to 1st place in each competition, 2,500 Viz is awarded to 2nd and 1,000 Viz is awarded to 3rd. Anyone can compete, the more the better!