If you're a regular gamer on dotblu, you may have noticed the amount of BluBucks you've earned mysteriously increasing. That's because we've added a new feature that will reward you with BluBucks as you get a higher score. The more you play, the more BluBucks you'll earn.
Also, all you Question of the Day writers will be happy to know that from now on the QOTD will be rewarded with 5 Tokens, equal to 10,000 BluBucks, so you'll be able to buy all those extra goodies in the dotblu store.
As always if you have any questions or comments feel free to write to us at feedback@dotblu.com or just ask the House. Have fun!
Now you can earn free Tokens for the dotblu mall!
Many users have been asking for a way to earn free Tokens to spend on the goodies in the dotblu mall, but Tokens were only available for purchase... until now. We've partnered with Offerpal Media for a way that you can earn free Tokens to spend on all the houses, cars, landscapes, tools and gifts that are available in the dotblu mall.
The Tokens bonus offers section will let you complete surveys and questionnaires and earn Tokens doing it, absolutely free. There are many offers to choose from, so try it out, and earn some of those coveted Tokens without pulling out your credit card. Look for the 'earn tokens' section of the 'play' menu on the main dotblu page.
As always, if you have any questions about Tokens, games, the store or anything else on dotblu, contact us at feedback@dotblu.com or just ask the House.
Three new games!
We added three new games to the dotblu arcade today! Surf over to the Game Lobby to check them out. Here's what we've added:
Gems Swap Want to collect some precious gems to add to your BluBucks bounty? Now you can collect them -- and destroy them -- as part of our fast-paced and exciting new puzzle game: Gems Swap! Use your mouse to swap gems from one space to the next to create rows of three or more. Rows of three or more identical gems are destroyed, and gems will fall from the ceiling to replace them. When a gem has been destroyed in a particular space, it will turn from black to light blue. Destroy a gem in every space to proceed to the next level, which will be a different and more challenging game board. Be careful to use every space on the board before time runs out and the game is over!
Dot Clusters Puzzle out how to destroy a barrage of falling dots in the latest dotblu game, Dot Clusters! Use the up or down arrows to rotate the dot clusters, and the right and left arrows to move them from side to side as they fall from the ceiling. Use the space bar to drop the clusters to the floor. Create groups of 4 or more adjacent dots to destroy those dots. Earn extra points by destroying more than one cluster of dots at once. If you earn enough points, you will proceed to the next level, where there will be an extra row of dots at the bottom of the game screen, and more dot colors will be added. Don't let the dots pile up to the ceiling, or the game is over!
Burst Your Bubbles II In this new twist on a classic dotblu game, destroy all the bubbles by clicking on similar colored groups of three or more. You have to hurry, though, as another line of bubbles will periodically appear at the bottom of the game screen.
Keep destroying bubbles to prevent them from reaching the top of the screen -- once they do, the game is over. As you continue to play, you'll reach higher levels, and the new lines of bubbles will appear even faster, making the game more difficult. You'll have to have pretty quick reflexes to keep up!
As always, if you have any questions or comments about games or anything else on dotblu, please contact us at feedback@dotblu.com or just ask the House. Good luck!
Complete your profile and learn about dotblu with our new profile checklist!
Often we get questions like "what can I do on dotblu?" or "where do I get started?" Now, if you check out your home page, you'll find a list of features on dotblu that you haven't yet taken advantage of. By using each one of these features, you'll grow your profile to add your picture, descriptions, statistics and challenges, and bring your profile completeness to 100%. Here's all the features it takes to have a 100% complete profile:
Add a picture
Set your status to let your friends know what you're up to right now.
Add "About Me" to describe yourself a little to those just getting to know you.
Invite more friends to grow your friends list.
Answer three questions and start winning BluBucks.
Play a game
Create a game challenge and play against other users.
Buy an item for your profile from the dotblu store.
Even long time users may find they haven't been taking full advantage of all the features on dotblu. So is your profile 100% complete yet? Check out the home page to make sure and see what you may have been overlooking. As always, if you have any questions or comments about dotblu, contact us at feedback@dotblu.com or just ask the House! Good luck!
Search dotblu with Google!
Now you can use Google search on dotblu! The search form at the top of the page will direct you to a whole new search page, which, powered by Google, searches all of dotblu, including the main pages, member profiles and questions.
Miss the old search? No problem, just select "questions" under the search bar, and the old-style search will be used, searching only the questions and not the other content.
As always if you have any questions or comments about dotblu, feel free to contact us at feedback@dotblu.com or just ask the House!
Sea Wars
We're proud to announce the latest game on dotblu: Sea Wars. Find the hidden enemy ships on your grid and blow them to pieces! To play, first you must arrange your ships strategically across the game board, while your opponent does the same. Then you and your opponent take turns firing on parts of the battle grid until you get a hit. You must hit every grid space that your opponent's hidden ship occupies to destroy it, and the first player to destroy all the others' ships wins the game. Come up with a strategy and cover as much ground as possible before your opponent takes out all your ships and firepower.
You can play either by yourself against the computer, or against another player simultaneously. You can play for BluBucks, but only in single player mode at the moment, by challenging your friends and trying to achieve the highest score possible. In multiplayer mode you can challenge your friends and play against them in real time.
As always, if you have any suggestions or questions, email feedback@dotblu.com or contact the House. Good luck!
Introducing White House packages: Show your support on your dotblu world!
Who do you want to win the upcoming Presidential election? Show your support for your Presidential candidate on your dotblu world with one of our new White House packages! We've created two complete dotblu virtual worlds with a White House setting, each one welcoming the Presidential candidate of your choice, Republican John McCain or Democrat Barack Obama, to their potential new home in the White House. Each world includes the following:
Animated fireworks background
White House with banner featuring President of your choice.
Presidential limo parked out front
100 Tokens
Purchased separately these items could cost over $40, however for a limited time we are making this special package available for just $19.99. Click here for more details.
As always, if you have any comments or suggestions about dotblu, email feedback@dotblu.com or just ask the House.
What are you up to right now?
Now you can let your friends know what you're up to today when they visit your profile. Let your friends and fellow dotbluers know how you're feeling, what your plans are, or if you're interested in something. The possibilities are limitless!
Your status will be visible to all dotblu users that visit your profile, and will show up in your friends' feed on their home page. So what are you waiting for? Let us know what you're up to!
As always, if you have any suggestions or questions, email feedback@dotblu.com or contact the House. Good luck!
Introducing Video Questions!
Ever wanted to add a YouTube video to your dotblu questions? To rate a song, add a video news report, or just share your own videos to get opinions from fellow dotblu users? Now when you add a YouTube URL to your bets, the video will be added to your bet automatically!.
To add a YouTube video to a bet, just put the web address into the "URL of News Story" field on the bet creation page. Note that you want to use the regular URL, and not the embed code that is provided by YouTube. For example, for the bet above, this is what you would enter into the "URL of News Story" field:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8knTJDjhQBE
We hope this new feature can help everyone make even more creative and awesome bets. Go ahead and try it out, good luck!
Recent changes to BluBet
You may have noticed some significant changes to BluBet
recently. One of the most notable
changes is that we no longer allow you to participate on bets when your BluBet
debt is higher than 100,000 BluBucks. A
very small fraction of our active users are in that situation. Even if they were willing to pay money to get
out of debt, it would just cost too much to do so. I will address the issue of
those users in a later part of this post.
First I would like to address why we made these sudden
changes and explain our position. Currently, BluBet is a good game, but it must be great in order to
ensure that we survive as a game that everyone wants to play. As it was, the game wasn't challenging enough
for many users. Since winning and losing
bets made little difference, BluBucks as a virtual currency didn’t carry any
value even within the world of BluBet. Ideally, your BluBet Net Worth should
represent how good you are at the BluBet game.
Please understand that BluBet is a business and must find a
way to become profitable. Otherwise the company that you and I love will cease to
exist. We will continue to evolve BluBet
to make it more interesting to different groups of people as well as turn it into
a sustainable business.
Here are some of my responses to your questions:
Why limit at 100,000 BluBucks?
We didn't want to stop our loyal players from enjoying
BluBet for free. If you choose to participate for free, you should continue to be
able to do so. However, you will need to expend a little bit of effort to win
games and bets. This means that there
are no more huge gains without any risk. If you continue to lose, you can always contact our trusty and helpful
top users for a pointer or two. We are a
great community and a big family. Most
of our users are happy to help. 100,000
was a statistical number to minimize the users who can’t participate.
How do I continue to play BluBet for free?
You will
need to play to win.
Check the
ante and your balance when participating in bets.
Don’t bet
more than you can afford. Don’t spend
all your debt; wait for some bets to settle before jumping into more.
If you don't
want to take risks with difficult bets, you can always participate by
commenting. However, remember that with higher risk comes higher reward.
Watch
settlement dates on bets and participate on bets that are settling soon.
Come up with
a strategy and stick with it. This is a
game and it is easier to win than you might think.
If you owe
more than you can afford, you can always start over by creating a new
account. Make sure to change your email
address and delete your existing account afterward.
Why don't you give some users amnesty?
We carefully considered this option. A large amount of complexity
is introduced when you consider the bets that are in play. If we clear some
users’ balances, their ranking will increase dramatically due to their bets in
play. This wouldn’t be fair to members that earned their ranking by playing the
game fairly. We are still weighing
several options here but we don’t have a working solution yet. In the meantime, you have the option of
starting over by creating a new account as I mentioned before.
Why are you guys so greedy and charging money to play?
It’s not greed, it’s a business. However, we do not expect
everyone to pull out their credit card and pay us for BluBet. We don’t expect
to turn profitable in just a couple of months. To tune and improve BluBet, we are charging a very small amount to a small
fraction of users that are willing to pay for a service that they love. It costs a lot to run a service like BluBet. We will do our best to make a major portion
of our service free for those who love our service but cannot afford to
pay. Also, we will continue to add and
expand our service so that you’ll be happy and willing to pay for some of the
value that we provide.
I hope that I have addressed some of your concerns. Over the weekend, I saw some great community
support from users all over the world. This
is a very unique value that no other online community can duplicate. I thank
you all for loving our service and our community. I appreciate your continued support.
Gems Swap
Dot Clusters
Burst Your Bubbles II
Now you can let your friends know what you're up to today when they visit your profile. Let your friends and fellow dotbluers know how you're feeling, what your plans are, or if you're interested in something. The possibilities are limitless!
