WRTL Newsletter #2 - July 2014

CHANGE CAME!

• The sections! They are fewer! Archived sections include Bare Tracks and Green Room, which were merged into the new “Line Rider Tracks” section, Non-Conformist Zone, which was moved into the now-renamed “Previews, Tidbits, and Oddballs” section, Hello/Goodbye, which was replaced by a sticky thread in WRTL Center, Feedback, which was merged with WRTL Center, Poll of the Day, which was archived and discontinued, Contests and Battles and Clans, which were merged into Engaged Riding, Recording Center and Tips and Tutorials, which were merged into the Help Center, and Announcements, which was archived hence why I am posting this in the WRTL Center. ALL of these sections can be found in the archives, and the remaining ones have been reordered and regrouped. It is our hope that this consolidation will lead to more activity and a simpler forum and more welcoming atmosphere for new members.
  
• A dramatic change in ranks has taken place. The rank of LCC and Elite have both been retired, Retired Staff still have their PIPs but they no longer have a pink name and rank, and the Member PIP is gone. This has happened in conjunction with a lot of the other major changes on the site, and while we are all sad to see these ranks go, it is time for our smaller community to consolidate and that means getting rid of a lot of the exclusive stuff.
  
• There is an amount of ongoing cleanup on the site happening. So far the portal chat has been fixed to be the correct stream chat, awards and join date have been removed from under your profile picture and we’ve added custom usertitles, forum section descriptions have been updated, a .sol archive thread has been created, the how to embed sticky has been updated, and track threads are now sorted by OP so we need not fear of bumping them anymore, and there is more to come.
  
• If you’ve been around this community for a while, we would very much appreciate if you could write stuff about our retired staff in our Honoring Retired Staff sticky. Thanks!

• Joy of Motion by Kramwood - Possibly Kramwood’s best track yet. If you don’t feel like watching the 20+ tracks he’s made since the last newsletter, at least consider watching this one. It is - of course - a mid-speed to highspeed quirk with lots of creativity.
  
• this is LOVE by gaoyubao - A potato - or rather, a track with many, many different styles and references, that gaoyubao works together into a giant ADHD mass of style variance. Good music syncing, good versatility, and just plain good trackmaking.
  
• Admiration by Kramwood - Not Kramwood’s usual style, this track starts with a compact-quirk space-recycling section, moves into an integration-heavy section, then a highspeed section, and finishes with a monument at the end.
  
• Drift Away by Opal Rider - A smooth and creative manual short by Opal, who says it is “not quite” his last track.
  
• Two WRTL Community Collaboration tracks - Co-Stars, a collab where every participant’s part lasted five seconds, and the (quite entertaining and unique) Two Rules Collab.
  

• The WeRideTheLines Community Collaboration has launched! The LCC has been discontinued, archived and opened up for anyone to look through, and the WCC forum section has been created in its place, a collaboration center open to all members. Some projects have been posted there from unfinished LCC projects as well as other community projects such as the CSP, and you are encouraged to start a project or join a project! To celebrate the launch, two community tracks have been released (see above). Subscribe to the LCC/WCC YouTube channel if you haven’t already! (all WRTL community projects of the past are going to be uploaded over the next couple weeks so they can all be in one place instead of scattered across 10 different channels)
  
• MOTW sections has been discontinued due to lack of activity. HOWEVER, the Featured Movies Discussion section has now been opened to all members to nominate and vote. Go nominate and vote on tracks!
  
• LAOTW has also been discontinued, but there is a Line Art thread in Previews/Tidbits/Oddballs that we encourage you to post your line art in! (the WTF does Line Rider thread has also been moved to that section)
  
• Epic Battle 3 was mostly a failure. However, we have been left with a lot of actually-pretty-good half finished tracks. Help us finish the EB3 tracks as part of the new WCC! The elites have about 30 seconds left of a music syncing track, the staff have about 65% of the track to scene, and the lcc need to tell us what their secret plan was so we can finish it, haha. Go to the WCC section to check this stuff out.
  
• The Community Scenery Project is back, and in need of participants so we can scene Phunky! Go to the WCC section to check it out, and sign up while you’re there. If we get enough interest we hope to start another project.
  
• efrazable has created the Hype Contest for the month of August. The goal is to overhype your track as much as possible, which should be great for boosting buzz on the site. Entries are due september 1, in the form of a preview thread, an image, or just a title. Find the contest in Engaged Riding.

• Kevans’s V3.4.3 continues to have bug fixes and new features added, including line-color swapping, lines lighting up on contact, and viewing in play mode for scening. It has arguably become the most popular version of Line Rider. View the update thread and download the version here.
  
• It looks like Unleashed will never be coming out, but Kevans and Shotoku are each working on new builds of Line Rider built in C++ (rather than Flash, which the Beta 2 builds have been in). The benefits of these will be inherent lag reduction, saving .sols more easily, and being able to run as its own separate application, rather than needing a Flash Player to play the game. Work has been really slow on both fronts, but every so often progress is seen. Kevan’s Line Rider Loom development thread can be found here, and Shotoku’s Line Rider MM development thread can be found here

• 11 months ago, I mentioned in the newsletter that two CSP tracks were on the cusp of completion. This is still true, and while they were stagnant for about 10 months they are once again moving toward completion. One of them is set to be the largest collaboration in the history of Line Rider. Expect a release of one or both soon!
  
• A new section where we all can honor existing Line Rider Legends and nominate new ones is in the works. Launch expected soon.
  
• More site cleanup is on the way, including a new organization sticky for the livestream, some changes to the portal, and tons more. Stay tuned.
  
• Kramwood is undertaking Project Levitation.
  
• Shotoku is scening The Well-Tempered Manual by gaoyubao.
  
• Helios Pavonine is making a thing.
  
• Chuggers is making a thing. Actually it looks like he’s making several things.
  
• GhostY might be making a massive thing (as indicated in this thread)
  
• If you have something you want to add to this list, PM me within the next week. If you have something you want to add to this list in next month’s newsletter, PM me after a week

• Kramwood released a massive boatload of tracks. His best ones were probably Pop Off (a super creative mid-highspeed manuquirk), Phantasmagoric Heart (a tribute to those struggling with depression), Still (the closest Kramwood has ever come to a “chill” track, music synced, with a great monument), The Obscene (a how-are-you-still-churning-out-awesome-tracks-like-seriously track), Finalize 2.0 (an epic track with a huge airtime drop and breakneck speed and a super creative ending section), and Horizons (another crazy creative midspeedish quirk). But he’s also released Eh (a super short), Y (a super short all-Y), Unown (a fun-with-kramuals short), Stuff (a garbage collection), Sunflower 2 (a fun highspeed manuquirk with recycling and grolls and integration), Mewtwo (a highspeed gravity short), Path to Truth (another fun highspeed short), Paradise Lost (a manual-heavy anniversary track with a highspeed section at the end), The Artist (an all gravity well track), Turn of Tides (a tapeworm-inspired track), Point to Point (a manuquirk that would be good for scenery with a compact quirk section), CC3: Finale (a fling-heavy conclusion to the cloud control series), and Recollection (a track inspired by various others). I’m pretty sure he’s immortal.
  
• Other people made tracks. Gaoyubao released The Pavlov Effect (a short track with a ridiculous amount of lines per second), Ballet/Family (a delightful manuquirk), and The Hardest Word (a chill music synced alt quirk with super long lines). Chuggers made Creation (a super stacked quirk that was featured), and Bawks (a chill XY). Summoning made Buggin Out (a funky compact track). Shammies made what was probably his best track yet, Turning Me Off. Amid much drama, Sheldon released Valence 2 (recently reposted here) and Centrifugal Force 2 (stalled, recorded, edited, and reposted by gaoyubao here). Shotoku released a massive 6 minute all blue omnitrack, Angel, as well as Honey Trap (a fun recycling mostly-flatsled with a creative ending), Toxic (a compact-midspeed quirk), and Ashes (a slow manuquirk). Cereal released a sequel to the manuquirk Turmeric. Lukking reappeared to release Particle Feelings. Sssschiller dropped in to release an awesome partially-scene manuquirk, Blank is Boring. Opal released a super short “manuquirk” (watch and find out why I put quotes), Curiosity, and a manuquirk collab with summoning and CC, Identity. Rafael released The Black Parade, an unfinished music-synced collab with Kramwood, and the all blue sequel to The Source. Kevans experimented with slow-paced music syncing, with Hollow Victory, Sleepyhead, and Night Passed Away. Seth released his enormous unfinished scenery track, Four Seasons. Wizzy released two manuquirks, Gnome and Stronger. And three community collaborations were released - Stutter Step, a do-whatever collab by the LCC, Epic Collab 3, a music syncing project by the LCC, Gray Matter, the grays’ epic battle entry, and Continuum, a community project organized by Kramwood where each participant made 200 lines. And there were a number of others too. We actually haven’t been terribly lacking in track releases.
  
• We had three contests. The Speed Scenery Contest invited people to attempt to scene a minitrack as well as they could in 30 minutes, and Sssschiller edged out IGLima and squashed efrazable to win it. The Manual Only Contest involved making a track with zero gravity wells, and Opal edged out Pawel and crushed Kramwood and Orthuss to win it. The Hax Contest involved basically making a good track in a hax (invincible Bosh) version, and kevans easily smashed shotoku and Diotoxin to take home the gold.
  
• There was a toilet lord? Or something. AC has warned me I can’t tell you any more. Just kidding he hasn’t, I just don’t really know what happened. I hear it was amusing.

typos:

gaoyubao wrote:

typos:

Otherwise, as usual, really brilliant excellent job on the massive undertaking of a newsletter!

GhostY wrote:times like these makes me wish i had a super massive scenery track that nobody knew about......