New Features:
Welcome Walkway - Open House
We are excited to introduce our new First User Experience location.  The "Welcome Walkway"  has been designed as an immersive introduction to There for our newest users.  In addition to the guidance of our greeters, new users will be introduced to several basic concepts including walking, talking, and customizing their avatars as they walk down a series of ramps.  The Welcome Walkway also contains a more informal activity area where members can participate in fun events that will help them get involved in There.  The Walkway has a nautical theme, and includes a dock area with a variety of boats that represent some of There's most popular activities.  Signs located at each boat provide more information about how these activities work and how to get involved.

We invite everyone to come visit the Welcome Walkway during our Open House period. Please provide your feedback and suggestions here. New members will still be landing at the current newbie islands while we fine tune and place the finishing touches. Once the Welcome Walkway is designated as our new user landing area, only newbies, Staff, and Island Guides will be able to access the area.   It will be configured with these access permissions to ensure that new members have minimal assets to download when they first enter There.

Give A Gift
We have added a link to the Auctions which allows you to buy a gift for a friend.  Just enter your friend's avatar name and a personal message then click Give It.  Your friend does not even need to be logged in for you to give them something, they will receive your message in an email!
-- You should not be able to buy something for someone who is ignoring you and vice versa
-- A basic member should be able to buy something for another member
-- You should be able to buy something for a basic member - Members during the beta expressed concern that basic members will resume begging with the introduction of this feature.  We will be releasing this feature as is, but will monitor its usage. If we see an increase in the amount of begging in world as a result of this, we will modify functionality to exclude giving to basic members.

Mannequins
- Mannequin - We are launching the functionality for the female mannequins with today's release. We will be conducting further tests with the mannequins in There. Until the testing period is complete, the mannequins will not be available via ShopCentral. We will keep you up to date as more information about the test is available. You should see mannequins on display around There as the testing proceeds.  We look forward to seeing how these great tools are used by our developer community.
-- How they work:
--- Drop a Mannequin in your zone
--- Click Edit
--- Enter Product IDs (PID) for the items you would like to display (or click Mirror)
--- Select avatar skin tone and pose
This is a work in progress, so here are a few explaining notes...
1. There is only a Female Mannequin at this point (either because we secretly like females better or because we haven't finished a male version yet).
2. When configuring the mannequin, you can omit clothing items, and the mannequin will figure out the best way to display them.
3. The mannequin will deny a request to dress an item if it is not available for sale.
4. You can only mirror clothing products that you can put on. Specifically, you can't mirror an undressed avatar.
5. Developer items can also be displayed on a mannequin.
- Item PID in catalog - To make configuring a mannequin easier, PIDs for all ShopCentral items can be found on their catalog page as part of the description.

New Emote
Greet your friends with these new 2 person emotes! In response to many requests for more interactive emotes, we have added 'hug and the ‘fistbump!  Like the 'cheers and 'hi5 you will need to be in a chatgroup to activate these emotes.

New Islands
A large Therequake was reported in the Northern hemisphere of Aurora Island late last night. Luckily the world was closed for maintenance and no avatars were harmed. The force of the tectonic plates deep in the ocean moved large fragments of the continental shelf above sea level. Skippy sent Betty_Bulldozer and her team in to survey the new land and secure the area. Upon arrival she discovered ten new islands off the North coast of Aurora. Betty assembled a construction team to bulldoze the terrain for residential living. Eight new 45-Acre single Island Neighborhoods, one 100-Acre single island Neighborhood and a large island created specifically for PAZes will be available for member population.

CC Metro Music Center - Release Postponed
The release of the Music Center and Music Mixer is being delayed while we continue to iron out issues with the components.  When the Music Center is fully functional, we will post any additional information about its release date and functionality.

With today's release, we present the CC Metro Music Center, a joint project with the Coca Cola engineering team.  This great new tool will allow you to create your own mixes and play them in world for your friends.  The Music Mixer can be accessed via the DJ Station in the KO lounge, the jukebox in the Coca Cola Cantina, a boom box, or the Activities menu on the client toolbar.

There are 3 major sections to the Music Center - Music Mixer; myTracks; and Your Personal Play List.
Music Mixer - Allows you to mix music samples and save them to your Personal Play List or even burn them to a CD
myTracks - Allows you to download songs into your Personal Play List from myTracks.com
Your Personal Play List - Allows you to broadcast your mixes, and song selections in world, at the KO Lounge, the Coca-Cola Cantina or portable boom boxes.

The Music Center has a very detailed tutorial, which guides the user through each step of the tool.  We highly recommend following the tutorial, but have provided basic instructions on how to use the Music Mixer and Your Personal Play List here.

Music Mixer
- Launch the CC Metro Music Center, and click the Mixer link at the top of the page.
- Drag music samples from the Sound library into the Mix table
- Click on the gray boxes to make each stanza play. Each trey box is considered a measure.
- Playback your mix using the Play/Stop/Volume controls at the top of the page
- Save the mix to add it to your Mixes Library.
- Click on Mixes Library or My Mixes link at the top of the music center
- Any Title that you click the 'In Playlist' checkbox will be added to 'Your Personal Play List'
- You can also click the 'Burn to CD' checkbox and store up to 7 minutes of music on CD.

Your Personal Play List
- Launch the CC Metro Music Center, and click the Your Personal Play List button at the bottom of the page.
- Any tracks from the Mixes Library that you have added to the play list will be displayed here.
- Click Add to Queue checkbox to have the track added to the queue in the KO Lounge, the Cantina, or your boom box.
- You can add up to 4 tracks to a queue per hour.

Again, the above is just and introduction to the things that the music mixer can do, the tutorial goes into far more detail.

Known issues:
- Adding a track to a boom box play queue returns the message that the track has been added to the Coca Cola Cantina playlist.
- The 'Your Personal Play List' add to queue does not provide notification that you have reached/exceeded the 4 tracks per hour limit.

Fixes & Updates:
Scion
Over the last few weeks we have made several updates to the Scion zones.  These changes include a redesign of the vehicle interiors, addition of an animated neon graphic on the hillside, and an observation deck over the Scion area.  Today, we are introducing an outdoor pool deck at the base of the Scion canyon.

Custom Vehicle & Parts Auctions
Shortly after this release (some dust will need to settle), you will be able to use TryIt/RentIt on developer-submitted custom vehicles and their parts.  This means you can try that set of tires before you buy them, and if you try a chassis you will get the full pimped version exactly as it would be if you bought it.
 
Also, when you investigate a car up in auctions (or just using its ABOUT tag in world), you will also get a list of the currently attached parts.  This helps you know in advance what you're buying, or just get an idea of how they made it look so cool.

Shoutcast Fix
Music boxes can now 'change stations' using either the new or the old Shoutcast.com web site.

Racekit Fixes/Changes
In an effort to reduce accidental collisions between racers and lappers, the following changes have been made:

• the "Race or Watch" pop up menu has been removed, so a zone newbie will no longer schedule a race accidentally.
• if a race does get scheduled, it will not interrupt any laps in progress, until the 20 second commit-to-race moment
• but at that 20 second commit moment, the race will be canceled if fewer than 2 people have signed up
• and if the race is canceled, your practice lap continues without interruption.
• if you are driving a borrowed vehicle when a race starts that you are not participating in, it will be returned to YOUR pocket instead of the owner's
• a new checkbox on the race setup screen can restrict 'driving' to that of the zone selected vehicle only.

Known Issues:
1) When running practice laps, and someone selects Join Race, your directional arrow is replaced with the pending race messaging.  If the race is cancelled, your directional arrow will return.

Update to Macromedia Flash 9
In order to utilize latest technology, and support the Music Mixer, we have updated the version of Flash that the client uses.  You should not see any change in how the existing client flash windows perform (IM, ChangeMe, Communicator).

Performance Improvements
Server - We have made several changes to server/backend processes that will improve performance in member programs processing and billing.
Client - We have changed the way your client displays objects that it has already seen. Previously,  when you entered a neighborhood, all of the objects in the hood and lots load slowly, even if you were there earlier in the same login session. Now, if the contents of the hood and lots have already been downloaded to your client once during the session, they will load MORE quickly the next time you go there.

This release brought to you by:
Welcome Walkway - Alex; bsquared; TheChaz; Greeter_Josie; Vash; Mackie; Jessica; There_Pod; Imaginary Forces
Give a Gift - Skippy
Mannequins - TheChaz
New Emotes - TheChaz; DamonSnyder
New Islands - Betty_Bulldozer
CC Metro Music Center - EngeeDave; Vertex; Coca Cola Engineering
Scion - DangerKitty; Metaversatility
Custom Vehicle & Parts Auctions - TheChaz; Samsyn
Shoutcast Fix - Samsyn
RaceKit Fixes - Samsyn
Macromedia Flash Update - TheChaz; Vertex
Performance Improvements - Skippy; Samsyn; katkat
Creation of Millions of Clients - DNE
Testing – Mommm, Kirzten, Light67, many brave Beta testers.