Founder / Operator Shawn Robbins Posted November 6, 2015 Founder / Operator Posted November 6, 2015 Greetings All, Alright, time is short and my days of writing walls of text are (mostly) behind me still. This is one wall some of you might be happy to read, though. First of all, happy 4th anniversary! It's hard to believe it's been that long since this community formed, but four years is a remarkable accomplishment and it's owed to the fantastic support you've all given during that time. Be it through your donations, your contributions to the community, or just sheer fun discussion among friends from around the world... this place exists for you and because of you. I also want to sincerely thank the entire staff for what they do to keep the community thriving. It's been financially independent and funded through your donations for almost a full year now. I may not be a regularly contributing poster anymore, but for the Box Office Theory address to still serve some purpose makes me feel proud of what everyone banded together to create. You've also probably noticed some changes around the place lately. We thank you for your patience as we know it can be a little frustrating at times, but there have been required updates to the forum software which WB and Tele have been doing an awesome at implementing. Those are the pleasantries. This is the main course: We're bringing the Box Office Derby to BOT Many of you might be saying, "we've heard that before," and it's true. Not being able to launch the Derby a few years ago was one of the regrets I had when I had to forfeit my daily presence around the forums. Bringing the game here was major goal when the boards started, but I never was able to quite pull it off before leaving. I was so nervous about another attempt at it that I asked the staff a favor in keeping this news close to the chest for many months. And know that: it's not something that ever would have happened without the efforts they've put into running this place, or AndyLL's generosity in volunteering to program a new version of the game to be hosted here. As you're probably aware, Andy joined the moderating team earlier this year and recently became our official IT Admin. If you're newer to the box office community in general and aren't familiar with "the Derby", many veterans here will be happy to detail it for you. In short, it was a very popular box office prediction game at Box Office Mojo that was unceremoniously shut down in 2011. We're still at least a few weeks away from publicly launching as we finalize design and scoring elements, but as someone who played the old game for nearly a decade, I think you're going to really enjoy what's being put together. If you've donated to the forums, you should have received a private message about invitations to beta test the game. If you haven't donated but would like to, you will also be granted beta test access to the game for as long as your forum donation subscription is active. As always, 100% of donations go toward paying monthly server hosting costs of $330 to Invision. When the game launches, it will be free to play. I know some of you will have plenty of questions and suggestions about the game, so feel free to ask and please be patient awaiting answers. We have a launch date in mind and other plans brewing, but we'll share most of those a bit later on and let Andy's hard work speak for itself when the game goes live. Your feedback and suggestions will be read in the mean time, though! With that said, I hope you're all doing well. Enjoy the holiday movie season! Best, Shawn 18 Quote
Community Manager Water Bottle Posted November 6, 2015 Community Manager Posted November 6, 2015 As Community Manager, I'd also like to wish us a happy anniversary and am very happy to report that the derby game is really coming along great. We've gotten great feedback from the staff members and the donors who have been instrumental not only in finding bugs but also in providing feedback. This site, and the derby, is only made possible through your contributions. We're very excited for when we do launch the derby game to the public. 5 Quote
Community Manager Water Bottle Posted November 6, 2015 Community Manager Posted November 6, 2015 THE FORUM ANNIVERSARY SALE Hello everyone! As many of you know, we currently offer you the chance to buy a whole year's subscription to the Copper Account tier for $5 a year (totaling $60 a year) or for $55 a year (giving you a whole month free). With the release of Specter AND our Forum Anniversary, we decided to celebrate what should hopefully be a better box office weekend than the last couple weeks combined with a very special one-week sale! If you buy your annual subscription within the following week for a Copper Account, we'll give you two months free. That's right, the cost for a Copper Account annual subscription will be only $50! With a Copper Account, you'll get the ability to send private messages in Chat, you'll get 75 whole likes a day to give out, you'll get a larger avatar size, AND you should get no ads while browsing the forum! You'll get these benefits for a whole year for only $50! The best part is you'll be helping support the forums stay alive. Without contributions from users, we can't pay our server fees and we'd be forced to shut down. With your donations, we can stay alive and you can have a home to predict whether or not Star Wars will open to $300 million or not. With $50 you'll also get early access to the derby game where you can help test it to make sure it works properly and you'll be able to provide feedback on how to make the game better. Supporting the forums means supporting the derby! So donate within the following week for this special limited time offer! We also offer other account tiers that offer more perks like having your own custom signature and being able to change your display name. You can choose to get each account tier monthly or you can choose to get each account tier annually (with a free month)! 4 Quote
Guts Posted November 6, 2015 Posted November 6, 2015 This is really, really cool news. Thanks for not giving up on the derby. Wow, it's been so long. Looking forward to seeing who the big dogs will be - hopefully lots of old vets like me (Proud Ryu) and lots of folks from here and KJ, and lots of folks who didn't play the old derby but have since become experts. 4 Quote
SchumacherFTW Posted November 6, 2015 Posted November 6, 2015 My phone saw a new thread by our watchful protector and immediately rebooted. I knew it was a fan girl at heart! Happy anniversary everyone, can't wait to fail in the Derby! 1 Quote
Founder / Operator Shawn Robbins Posted November 7, 2015 Author Founder / Operator Posted November 7, 2015 16 hours ago, SchumacherFTW said: My phone saw a new thread by our watchful protector and immediately rebooted. I knew it was a fan girl at heart! Happy anniversary everyone, can't wait to fail in the Derby! I liked your post for several reasons, but I'm hardly the watchful protector anymore (and you'll do great in the Derby). 1 Quote
kayumanggi Posted November 7, 2015 Posted November 7, 2015 When is the exact day of the anniversary? Quote
Community Manager Water Bottle Posted November 7, 2015 Community Manager Posted November 7, 2015 November 5th. 2 Quote
MovieGuyKyle17 Posted November 7, 2015 Posted November 7, 2015 Hearing that the Derby is coming back makes me very excited. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk 2 Quote
kayumanggi Posted November 7, 2015 Posted November 7, 2015 5 hours ago, Water Bottle said: November 5th. I see. Happy anniversary everyone. 2 Quote
lilmac Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 Will it be out before Star Wars weekend? 1 Quote
AndyLL Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 1 minute ago, lilmac said: Will it be out before Star Wars weekend? Yes 5 Quote
GiantCALBears Posted November 17, 2015 Posted November 17, 2015 Tele told me the news on this today & all I can say is in my best Bart Scott voice, "CAN'T WAIT." Was easily one of the best parts of Mojo that IMDB discarded. 1 Quote
tawasal Posted November 17, 2015 Posted November 17, 2015 Great work Shawn, AndyLL and the staff. Looking forward to playing the derby again and getting back to posting more regularly in here very soon. 1 Quote