Hi, orbsters! I’ve put together a new developer diary for Dungeon Assault II for you, with some ‘developer art’ screenshots. I hope you enjoy raiding, I mean reading, it.

To read the diary, click here.

Mod Vile
FunOrb Developer

As part of our focus on the FunOrb community, we’ve transformed our offence system; we’ve also made some changes to the Rules of FunOrb. Most importantly, many offences will now expire after 12 months.

The main reason we’ve done this is because we accept that many people learn from their previous mistakes, especially small offences committed long ago. This means that if you have an account that had offences on it, it’s entirely possible that they’ve been removed!

To support this, we no longer issue black marks, we simply record the offences themselves. If you log into the Offence Appeals page, you’ll see two pillars: one records offences that can result in being banned, the other records offences that can result in being muted. It should now be much simpler to see your account’s status and where you stand.

If you have an account that is still banned or muted after today, we’re allowing you another chance to submit an appeal. Our Player Support team will then reassess your offences and decide whether to remove some or all of them.

Furthermore, we have changed the system to allow some players who have had their accounts stolen a chance to appeal offences that occurred while it was hijacked. Typically, this happened because the hacker unsuccessfully appealed, leaving the real owner with no chance to appeal for themselves. If you have ever had membership on the account and have built up a significant amount of game time, you’ll have another chance to appeal after 21 days.

The Rules of FunOrb

We’ve updated the way the rules are organised to make it simpler for you to report abuse and to keep yourself free of offences. The rules are now organised under three general headings (click here to read about the rules in full):

* Honour
Offences related to cheating (like scamming, macroing, real-world trading, etc.)
* Respect
Offences related to inappropriate behaviour (like obscene language, discrimination, bullying, etc.)
* Security
Offences related to real-world safety and security threats (like asking for real-life contact details, website advertising, etc.)

To help out with this, we’ll also be updating the in-game report abuse feature. When you right-click a player’s name and select ‘report’, you’ll then see a screen from which you can select the rule they’ve broken.

Due to the size of this project, we’ve launched all of the website features today, while the in-game interface will be released with this week’s server reboot.

Final Note

If you receive a ban or mute in-game, this will also prevent you from using the forums. Equally, if you receive a forum ban, you’ll be muted in-game. This is because we believe that players should be treated equally whether they’re playing the game or posting on the forums.

Please note that because of the changes to how different offences are treated, it’s possible that any ban or mute you are currently affected by may have changed. For example, if you had three days left of a five-day mute yesterday, today you could have five days left of a ten-day mute, or one day left of a three-day mute.

We’re all here because we love FunOrb, and in order to better extend our community, we have decided to open an Arcanists league as well as an AOG championship - both of which are run by FunOrb world. The Arcanists league is currently accepting applications, and the AOG championship is still in the development phase.

If you’re interested in playing in either of these competitions, you should check out the threads. You can find the Arcanists league’s dedicated forum here, and you can find the AOG Championship thread here.

It has always been our plan to write developer diaries on more than one subject. Now that we’ve had a few about Pirate Empires, it’s time to introduce another topic in the form of Dungeon Assault II.

The first entry in this developer diary explains why we decided to develop a Dungeon Assault sequel. As with the Pirate Empires diaries, we will be following this project throughout its development.

To read the diary, click here.

Mod Korpz
Head of FunOrb

We now have our very own Twitter page! In the near future we will be using it to post regular updates regarding FunOrb and FunOrbWorld.

Our fresh design will integrate the updates on our website. More details on that to come.

If you have a Twitter account, be sure to follow us!

twitter.com/funorbworld

Hello, orbsters

This is my first entry to the Pirate Empires developer diary, which explains a little about what I’ve been up to as a programmer on the game alongside Mod Wivlaro.

To read the diary, click here.

Enjoy!

Mod Dunk
FunOrb Developer

Hot on the heels of the Zombie Dawn and Miner Disturbance expansions, we return to two of our block-based arcade games and make them completely free to play!

All FunOrb players can now break wall-upon-wall of coloured bricks in Brick-a-Brac, and clear their screens of falling fruit in Deko Bloko – both of which are popular multiplayer titles. Everyone should also take advantage of the busier multiplayer lobbies and work on earning those last, tantalising Achievements.

Shiver me timbers, ’tis the art team’s turn at the helm for this here Developer’s Diary! Climb aboard now to see how the game’s shaping up.

Hey there, orbsters!

All of the Zombie Dawn’s Washington D.C. levels have been opened up to free-players! That’s 24 levels (and three bonus levels) spread across four stages (The Mall, Power Plant, Police Precinct and White House). Only the first two of those four stages were available to free-players before today, so this update doubles the zombie fun for them.

Members content is also doubled with the UK levels expansion pack, which consists of four brand new stages (starting with Terminal 5), housing another complete batch of 24 levels (and three bonus levels) of extra-large zombie mayhem. In fact, some of the new levels are quite big!

There are six more power-ups to master (some from Zombie Dawn Multiplayer, some all new); double-decker buses; security doors that require specific humans to open them; corgis; hunters that come after your zombies; tea; and even enemy zombies trying to steal your humans!

The first few levels aren’t too hard – you should be able to play through them even if you didn’t complete the original game – but even Zombie Dawn experts will find the last few stages to be quite a challenge. As for those overlords who still don’t break a sweat, and who look with disdain upon the rest of us mere immortals who struggle with some levels, by all means try the game in Hard mode (you’re in for a real treat).

It’s been great fun working on this update. I think Zombie Dawn is a great game and I was really looking forward to expanding its mechanics and seeing what else could be harnessed from the gameplay.

Have fun(dead!) and Merry Zombie Day!

Mod Pedro
FunOrb Developer

Greetings Orbsters! Over the past few months we have been working on a top secret project. At Jagex, we have been working our magic to bring our most popular FunOrb game to an all new platform. Without further ado, we present Arcanists for the iPhone! We have received countless requests since the launch of FunOrb to expand our games into the mobile market, and we have listened to your input. More details will emerge over the coming days, but for now, here’s a sneak preview:

Arcanists on the iPhone!

Mod Korpz
Head of FunOrb