Comments on blog posts have been reorganized in reverse chronological order to be consistent with commenting on the rest of the site. You will now see the most recent comment on the blog post first.

To help you quickly catch up with any activity that has occurred while you've been logged off, the home page now provides notifications for open friend invitations, margin calls, and special transactions. These notifications are provided at the upper right of the screen. This box will inform you if you have any friend invitations that are waiting for your action. The box also informs you if you have suffered a margin call in the past three days or have had special transactions such as receiving a bonus for a bug find or game submission.

The Pending Friends link in the Community Sidebar now appears as green if you have received an invitation to be simExchange friends. The link will also indicate the number of outstanding invitations.

Irrational Games' Bioshock, a new kind of first-person action game for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Windows PCs, will debut on the simExchange on Tuesday, December 19, 2006. It will be categorized under action and the Xbox 360 version will open for 120 DKP (forecasts 1.2 million copies sold worldwide over lifetime) while the PC version will open for 75 DKP (forecasts 750,000 copies sold over lifetime). This game was submitted by sjohn.

The summary for the game is the following:

Bioshock is a first-person hybrid (involving elements of a shooter and role-playing) set in an alternate 1960-era where people have become dependent on a substance, called "Adam," that enhances people genetically. The game takes place in an under-water ruined Utopian city called Rapture following a genetic arms race and war. The game begins with the character in the ocean near Rapture after a plane crash. The player will encounter genetically and mechanically modified opponents as he explores Rapture.

The game features "emergent gameplay" that involves "unprecedented" interactivity with many features from the System Shock games. The AI features "AI ecology," meaning it will explore opportunities in the environment and situation to carry out its goals rather than run scripted actions. The player can manipulate this to cause enemies to attack each other or NPCs to help the player. The player can upgrade the character with new abilities and weapons by collecting Adam (the currency in the game). These abilities can be used to manipulate enemies, such as confusing them into thinking you are one of them. The gameplay involves player decision making in moral situations that will impact events in the game.

One rule many players are not aware of is that your account does gain DKP over time. Every account gains 50 DKP every 15 minutes in its Time Trust. However, this DKP does not go to your Cash balance or count towards your ranking immediately. It will sit in your Time Trust until you spend it. Your Time Trust is capped at 5,000 DKP so you must spend it at that point or your Time Trust will no longer grow. This has been added to the FAQ.

In conjunction with the triple IPO kickoff event, you can now view recent IPOs on the Recent IPOs page. You can access this page through the sidebar in the Stocks section or by clicking the Recent IPO link at the IPO section of the homepage.

Microsoft's Blue Dragon role-playing game for the Xbox 360 will debut on the simExchange on Monday, December 18, 2006. It will be categorized under role-playing and will open for purchase at 200 DKP (forecasts 2 million copies sold worldwide over lifetime). This game was submitted by sonaive.

The summary for the game is the following:

Blue Dragon is an Xbox 360 exclusive RPG that Microsoft Game Studios is targeting for the Japanese market. The game is designed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series, illustrated by Akira Toriyama of the Dragon Quest series, and features the music of Nobuo Uematsu, famous for the music of Final Fantasy.

Blue Dragon features cartoony characters similar to the style found in Dragon Quest but not cel-shaded. The unique feature of Blue Dragon is each character is partnered with a shadow creature, such as a dragon or phoenix. Characters advance in character level and rank level.

The player controls four characters and their shadow creatures at a time and combat is played through a menu and turn based interface. The player can position the characters either in front or back lines (like early Final Fantasy games) for greater offense or defense. There is also a turn indicator like in Final Fantasy X that shows you the order your characters and their opponents will make their moves.

Monsters can be seen in exploration view (unlike traditional Final Fantasy and more like Chrono Trigger). Encounters can be avoided if you walk around the monsters, but if you stray too close a message will inform you that your party has been detected. You can then charge in to engage, wait and power-up, or run away.

This game was released in Japan on December 7, 2006. US release is in 2007.

Atlus' Trauma Center: Second Opinion, a medical simulator for Nintendo Co Ltd's Wii, will debut on the simExchange on Monday, December 18, 2006. It will be categorized under action and will open for 65 DKP (forecasts 650,000 copies sold worldwide over lifetime). This game was submitted by Renagade242.

The summary for the game is the following:

Trauma Center: Second Opinion (called Caduceus Z in Japan) is the second installment of the Trauma Center series that began on DS. The player takes the role of Dr. Derek Stiles (or Kousuke Tsukimori if you are playing in Japan) in a medical simulation where you must treat patients within a certain time limit without making mistakes and allowing the patient's vital levels to reach 0.

You will have a number of tools that were found in the previous game, such as a scalpel, forceps, syringe, etc., with the addition of a defibrillator, penlight, and flash camera. All these tools are used through the motion detecting Wii-mote and Nunchuk.

A new doctor, Nozomi Weaver, is also introduced in this game. Like the previous game, Dr. Stiles is armed with a special Healing Touch ability where he can sow down time. The GUILT, a deadly manmade parasite, returns in several forms to infect Dr. Stiles' patients.

Capcom Co's Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All for Nintendo Co Ltd's DS portable system will debut on the simExchange on Monday, December 18, 2006. It will be categorized under Adventure and will open for 100 DKP (forecasts 1 million copies sold worldwide over lifetime). This game was submitted by Simulazn.

The summary for the game is the following:

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All is the next installment of the Phoenix Wright series and is a remake of Gyakuten Saiban 2 (GBA). It is a point-and-click adventure game where the player takes the role of a defense attorney. You must find evidence to win what seem to be impossible cases. Like many popular law TV shows, the game involves both the fact finding element and the trial sequence that follows.

Like the previous Phoenix Wright game, this is a port of the GBA game and does not introduce new content. It does, however, introduce some new techniques and game concepts that were not found in the original, such as the ability to sniff for bugs, the ability to present the profiles of witnesses, and the Psyche-Lock ability where the player must unlock a witness' mind to reveal the truth.

Your courtroom performance is measured by a health bar that decreases whenever you make an erroneous claim. You can recover health by unlocking the truth from a witness. Taking too many risks and making too many mistakes will result in a depleted health bar which results in a guilty verdict.

Following the experimental two IPOs using the new same price all day process, the simExchange will kick off IPOs regularly using the new process. For the first time ever, the simExchange will be launching three IPOs in a single day this Monday, December 18, 2006. This should create a new dynamic as players decide in which IPO to invest their money (of course you can buy into all three).

The moment you've all been waiting for. . .you can now make friends on the simExchange! But seriously, due to overwhelming user demand, you can now invite individual members to be your simExchange friends so that you can compare your leetness (trader performance) more directly.

Making friends on the simExchange is a simple process. A tutorial on making friends has been posted here.

Currently, the simExchange does not send out any kind of email notification that you have received a friend request. You will have to check the Pending Friends page. Hopefully you actually know a way to contact the person outside of the simExchange to let them know you've requested to be simExchange friends. Once you have become confirmed simExchange friends with someone, they will automatically appear in Your League rankings page. Try not to go overboard inviting random people because that defeats the point of having a friend specific rankings page. Duh!

More friend-enable features are coming soon!