Sodaplay Blog

Hello Sodaplayers,

We are aware the forums have fallen down and are taking steps to fix them or possibly go with a new solution. More soon…

We have updated our moderation tools so please if you find models that are obscene or otherwise offensive please send the full URL (web address) for the offending model to: moderation@sodaplay.com and we will remove it.

Plans are in motion to update Sodaplay  and we hope to be addressing some of your concerns and issues and adding new features in the near future. Apologies this has taken some time.

(Soda)play on !

Fiddian

There have been some exciting changes behind the scenes here at Sodaplay we want to tell you about. The main transformation is that it is no longer Soda Creative doing Sodaplay’s development and administration grunt but a new entity called, quite bizarrely, ‘Sodaplay Ltd’.

You are in safe hands, the Sodaplay Ltd team has familiar faces Alex, Fiddian and Tim at the helm. We will be dedicated to making Sodaplay a compelling creative play and gaming experience for you folks. To do this effectively we will work with you, as dedicated and inspirational Sodaplayers, to help us shape the new Sodaplay.

Please keep checking in for opportunities to help shape Sodaplay’s future and experiment with innovative developments as we roll them out.

Happy (new!)Sodaplaying.

We have moved our blog over to wordpress.com. The daily spam count was getting out of hand and our previous blog system did not offer us an easy solution for that. This move will also free us from one other system we have to look after and maintain and let us focus on the real show:Sodaplay.com

For the time being it looks somewhat generic (we are using a standard template) but it is a good start!

Looks like we have to start 2008 with one big apology. Some models could not be saved between New Year and today due to a server configuration issue. We have fixed this problem now and everything is working fine again. This will also put an end to the slow downs you might have experienced over the last few days.Unfortunately we can not bring back the models that were not saved properly during that time. We are very sorry. 

Sorry about the disruption to sodaplay over the course of the last eight hours or so – we ran out of disk space on our main partition – this was caused by our new backup process being a bit too enthusiastic and saving too many previous versions of all the models (combine this with a migration of models from the database to the filesystem, and there’s a recipe for problems). We’re in the process of adjusting this. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve added a small feature – you can now see how many people and who else is online (check out the link at the bottom of each page).

Server is happier and a change (which some may have noticed already) is that the models should be loaded faster (because the application is loading a gzipped version of the xml, rather than the xml itself).

The sodaplay server needs some love and care, and a few behind the scenes updates. Sodaplay will have to be taken offline for a while from about 10am on Tuesday Nov 13. I’ll comment here when it goes offline (and then when it’s back online correcly)

We’ve just released Race on Sodaplay.You can now race your constructor models over editable tracks.Good luck!

Many apologies for some bumpiness just now – this was initiated by our otherwise lovely hosting company mistakenly rebooting our server the hard way (by knocking against the power cable) and then our server (which hadn’t rebooted for a few months) being slightly disconcerted for having been rebooted. All sorted out now, sorry for the interruption.

You can register now online (finally).  Tell your friends!

We have just added Google search on Sodaplay. Results might be a bit erratic while Google is busy indexing the new site but should get better over time. We are likely to add a more integrated search at some point in the future but this solution seems to work rather well for now. Let’s start searching….

We have just released an updated constructor complementing the recently introduced multiple select with cut, copy and paste functions. Also new is the red highlight for the eraser tool and the ability to pause the wave in the advanced muscle settings.Sodaplay.com has also undergone a minor face lift adding better presentations to some old and new features alike (like the delete links)… 

Over the weekend a user created some very offensive creations with the moovl application. Soda is very open and respects and appreciates everyone’s creativity but we will not allow Sodaplay to be misused as a platform for hateful and offensive expression. We will formulate some rules and guidelines as soon as possible but until then we reserve the right to delete any such creations without notice and will temporarily or permanently prevent offending users from logging in.We apologize to anybody who took offense and will make every effort to prevent this from happening again.From the sodaplay team.ps >> Right now, when you save a creation from a sodaplay application, it is public and will appear automatically in the play section. We will enable user to create private models (that only they can see) in the near future.> We hadn’t implemented “delete” before this. We have now, and have also shared it with you, so you have the power to delete any of your own creations. Note there’s no undo for this, so use carefully.

We’ve completed our migration of accounts and models from the original sodaplay.com. Everyone should be able to login, and you should find all your constructor models (both public (visible to everyone) and private (only visible to you)). 

Moovl is now available to play at Sodaplay! Moovl adds bouncy physics and springy animations to freehand drawings.Have a play and start drawing, I’m really looking forward to seeing what colorful contraptions and crazy characters you can create!

The new sodaplay does not feature a zoo like the previous version did. But you can now access the original Zoo and even launch all the models in the new Constructor. Check out the archived Zoo if you feel a bit nostalgic or if you just want to play with some of the outstanding models created over the years.And we have another big surprise coming. An application might make its debut on sodaplay.com later today….

We have just released the latest version of constructor. Using the new sodaplay layout engine it has an all new interface, but all the well known and loved features are there. And more features will be coming soon as this new version enables us to be much more agile. We look forward to seeing loads of new constructor models!Next on our list is to turn registration back on so we can welcome new users to Sodaplay once more.  And then there are sodarace (a whole new application suite), moovl, and a great many other features and updates we are working on. Stay tuned!ps: To embed a preview image like the one shown here simply copy and paste the code shown with each model and application (e.g Ed’s dainty walker) into your site.

We’ve just made the first dashboard available – this is where you can view all your creations – both public, and private. 

You can launch them all from here, and in future delete or move from public to private or vice-versa.

Further notes on public vs private:

All models created on new sodaplay.com are currently public whereas we’ve migrated from old sodaplay.com both public/published models and the “private” ones. There is a difference here by the way – currently in the new site you can’t share any private model – only you (who are logged in) can see them when you are logged in. 

UPDATE: a small number of users haven’t yet been migrated… we’ll keep trucking till they’ve moved across. They’ll be ones at the end of the alphabe (near “z”) – sorry if this means you…

Sodaplay creators are (almost) all migrated across from the old sodaplay. Let’s celebrate by turning login on. This means if you had a login on the old sodaplay, it should now work on the new sodaplay (but there are a few tweaks, which might mean your login has had to be changed slightly – try it out, and follow any links).

About half the creators’ models have been migrated. The rest should happen over the next few days.