Hi Akohans. Here’s a quick update on a few changes we’ve been making in the last couple of weeks to how Akoha works.

We wanted to let all of you know that the “Mission HQ” area has substantially changed to accommodate the growing number of submissions. Last week, we changed the “Create a Mission” a mission section to a moderated “Suggest a Mission”. That way, we have a chance to work with the community on what makes great Akoha missions prior to them appearing in the site! Soon, we’ll be posting a tutorial on what makes great Akoha missions.

For now, the rough guidelines are as follows:

• missions that can be played forward,
• missions that are non-promotional (no corporate/organizational affiliations),
• missions that are non-denominational (no religious, cultural or racial bias),
• missions that are non-partisan (no political affiliations),
• missions that are non-violent,
• missions that are safe and fun!

We really don’t want to act as the judges of content. We’re just doing our best to make sure that no Akohan is put in an awkward or potentially difficult situation! Keep watching for more details about the mission submission guidelines, tutorials on how to create good missions, and what sort of mission examples work best for the Akoha game.

Over the coming months, we’ll be engaging the community on how we can involve players in the moderation of missions to share the responsibility and have the flexibility to make Akoha missions that matter most to you.

In the meantime, we’re doing a bit of cleanup in the Mission HQ. Thanks to everyone who created missions and continue to suggest great ones. If you see that a mission you created was removed from your inventory or from the mission tab, chances are that it didn’t meet one or more of the above guidelines. If you want to talk about it, feel free to contact us and you’ll get a prompt response!

See you all soon!

Source: La Presse, September 17, 2008

We’ve been stuffing envelopes all week!

The first Akoha Starter Kits are in the mail. We don’t know exactly when they’ll show up in mailboxes, but we’re pretty confident that the postal service will get them to you.

I wrote a little message on the first four envelopes for testers who test-ordered from us. Then my hand cramped up. (Ow.) But we still want to thank all of you for playing Akoha and sending us your feedback!

We’ll be stuffing more envelopes and doing more shipments soon. Although we can’t promise exactly when they’ll show up, don’t worry, we’re working as fast as we can!

Source: Montreal Gazette, September 11, 2008

Source: Technocite (Montreal Gazette), September 11, 2008