Kaneva has plenty of unsung heroes, whether they are the coders working on new features or the quietly helpful people who are almost always available to help answer questions or concerns. JoJo_66, Kaneva’s community manager, is one of the latter.

JoJo, you have been part of Kaneva for nearly six years now; how did you originally get involved?

Well, it was a dark and stormy night… :) No, I was watching Fox News one evening and ran across an interview that Chris Klaus was giving on Kaneva. It sounded fun so I checked it out. I was lucky enough to get in while Kaneva was still in private beta testing. At that point, we only had a few members. It opened a couple of weeks after I joined, and the population just took off.

I had been a member for about a year when the community manager at the time started the advisor program and asked if I might be interested in being part of that. I said yes, and just never quite left! Since advisors rotate through every six months, my role has shifted over time to provide more and more community support and ultimately became a job. These days I spend quite a lot of time answering tickets, setting up and promoting contests and other events, coordinating and working with the advisors, and generally doing what I can to help out.

What do you like most about your role?

Well, I’m based in South Carolina, so I have to admit, I love the flexibility I get from working from home! But more seriously, my favorite part of this job is helping people, and being a small part of this big, wonderful thing that is Kaneva. I like knowing that I have had a positive impact here, and that I have been helpful to our community. I also enjoy the sheer variety of it all—it is never the same thing every day; whether it is new people or new questions, updates, or projects coming down the line, there is always something different to think about and work on here.

Given how much time you spend helping everyone else with projects, do you have any chance to work on your own projects in Kaneva?

Sadly, no, not really. I do try out and use all of the features in Kaneva, but at the end of the day, there just aren’t enough hours for major projects of my own. I get a bit jealous sometimes—build mode is so user-friendly at this point that you can do some wonderful things in it.

Try out the new Epic Battle Template, customize it and promote it.

Create your game world via the Epic Battle option under the Create a World Drop down menu.

1st Place will win 20,000 credits

• URL from your zone must be posted on the contest page of Kaneva to be considered
• Enter as often as you like

Now’s your chance if you missed the last contest to get in on the action.
For those that participated in April, if you didn’t get enough time, you are eligible to win this contest.

In fact, if you previously won, you can compete again and try to win this contest.

This contest is open and eligible to all Games made with the Epic Battle Game Template and is based on how many people play it during the month of May.

Promote your world to get the most users!

Good Luck to All.

http://www.kaneva.com/mykaneva/contests.aspx?contestId=417

Thanks to community members wvoutlaw22 and PreciousTabby, this game template boasts an amazing custom map!

Here are some of our favorite highlights included in this release:

• New: Group invitation system.
• Leveling in game.
• Gifting System: So you can send power-ups to your friends: send them heals, experience, ammo, or bounty points while you play!
• In-Game Shop: In case you run out of boosts to send your friends you can easily acquire more!
• Amazing New Game Map: An original, custom factory map.
• …And much more …

To start your own Epic Battle, go to Create a World and select the ‘Epic Battle’ option from the drop down menu to begin now!

Try it out and let us know your thoughts! Have Fun!

Follow this link for more detailed information:

http://docs.kaneva.com/mediawiki/index.php/Epic_Battle:_Release_Info

Club Template Contest

ZacharyInk is the winner of the Club Template Contest with his club Club Erratic. One of the things the judges particularly loved about this particular project was the overall appeal.  Great use of colors and was not overdone.  We enjoyed the simple yet tasteful choices.

Epic Battle Contest

Sheeno1 won the Epic Battle Contest with his game WAR!!.

Tralirra won second place for the Epic Battle Contest with her game It’s a Jungle Out There

Jack_Builder won third place for the Epic Battle Contest with his game Gettysberg1863

Congratulations to our winners and to everyone who entered or voted by playing! Stay tuned for updates on our May contests.

Today we are featuring Jack_Builder, one of Kaneva’s many amazing builders. His historical game, Gettysburg 1863, was one of the winners of the March 2013 Battle contests.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I am currently based in Germany; I came here through the Army and stayed.  My wife is German so we have some fairly strong roots here.

How did you get into Kaneva?

I originally got started with Second Life, but after a while I got frustrated by the creative constraints and really wanted to focus more on the creative aspect. I think I did a Google search for ‘like Second Life or better’ and ran across Kaneva. I also have roots in Atlanta, so I had to check it out. And I have been here since.

My very first building project was a naval base, but I accidentally erased the whole thing… fortunately I like to create, and really enjoy building learning experiences online, so I kept going! I also have some 3D art experience, so it is fun having a chance to use those skills.

What do you enjoy most about Kaneva?

I love being able to create pretty much whatever I want. I also love visiting other projects to see what other people are working on—I recently had a great time checking out this one Star Wars build that had an awesome Death Star Trench in it.

I think one of my favorite things about Kaneva is that it isn’t just a game that you play—in many ways, being part of Kaneva is an experience, that happens to include games.

Tell us about Gettysburg.

I have been to the real-life Gettysburg quite a few times and know a good bit about the area and the battle itself. Plus I like doing research, and this was a fun chance to learn more about 19^th century urban warfare. I built as much of that into Gettysburg as I could—6 or 7 of the buildings are based directly on the original, historic buildings. You can even see walls pockmarked by bullets in several places. This game actually encouraged me to host my first event ever, for the anniversary of the start of the Civil War.

Can you tell us anything about what you have planned coming up or your other projects?

I would love to build something set in Bamberg, Germany—they have a really neat town hall, castle, and other fun architectural features; it might be fun to set up some sort of virtual tour. I also have a project set in Washington, DC—I can literally claim to own the White House in Kaneva! Ultimately, I’m a builder—that is what I love to do here.

We are looking for your help in creating a new Club Template for Kaneva. We are looking for the best of the best club zones in Kaneva, both new and old builds welcome- this is your chance to help influence the club experience in world!

Plus, our April Epic Battle contest, for the game with the most overall users during the month. So go vote by playing for your favorite games, or throw a game party for your friends if you have a game you want to enter.

For more information on entering, check out our forums here.

Sheenno1 is the grand winner of Kaneva’s March 2013 Battle Contest. We had a lot of fun playing his winning game, War!! and talking to him about it afterwards. So, how did you first get started with Kaneva?

I started playing Kaneva 4 years ago when my sister found it and told me about it. I liked the idea of being able to build stuff so l joined to build my house. After that, Kaneva added member-made items and l started building in SketchUp but ran out of ideas, so I stopped playing for a while. Now that there are worlds, l am more active on here building in them.

Tell us about your game War!! What inspired you to make it?

War!! was born when I started messing around with the Battle Template because l didn’t like the map that Kaneva gave us. I built tunnels for a spaceship in SketchUp after they were done. I wanted to take the guns out because l think for any game with guns in it you should have to aim at other players, not shoot in their general direction.  The swords didn’t look right in the spaceship so l changed them to red lightsabers. I had a lot of help on the scripts from different people.

After all that, I thought War!! was finished. But then Battle Template 2.0 template came out and GreatSaphenous helped me get it back to what it was before the update. l added hp packs and got blue lightsabers for the team blue. Then War!! was pretty much finished again. A few days later the contest started so l entered it.

Was War!! your first game?

No, War!! was not my first game if you count THE_SUPER_HARD_MAZE and THE_HOLE_IN_THE_WALL. So far only one person has beaten my maze that I know of—it is stupidly hard to beat.

What is next for War!!

After the last contest, War!! was finished… until l started my rebuild of the map and all its models. War!!  Is now totally redone and looks amazing. I have no plans to change it again for a while.

What other projects or games are you working on now?

For now l am building my new puzzle game with Tyson called PATH_FINDER. It is going to take awhile to finish it so it won’t be ready to play for some time.

Please join us for a Town Hall meeting with Chris Klaus, CEO of Kaneva. We know there have been a number of changes at Kaneva over the last few months, so we want to check in with you and to share our progress and overall vision for the future. After the talk we will host a live Q&A.

Please plan to attend to offer your feedback, check out what is new, and talk to some of the movers and shakers at Kaneva. Tune in to our livestream channel at 6 pm EST on Wednesday (4/17/2013).

If you are unable to make the Town Hall, this event will be recorded and posted shortly after the event.

Please note: To make the Town Hall as successful as possible, please try to post in chat as little as possible until we open the Q&A. Disruptive audience members will be removed from chat.

See you Wednesday!

We are very excited to launch our new Builder Fame recognition system. Builders will now be able to level up and get rewards for doing what they love. Building now includes leveling, rewards, new badges, and some pretty serious bragging rights.

You will receive Builder Fame every time you build in your Worlds and in your Home. Plus, having visitors to your worlds will reap even more rewards for you. More visitors? More in-game rewards and chances to catch up with your friends in-world.

‘Kaneva’ means ‘canvas.’ This is a place and a means to create what we want and to fill that canvas with wonderful things. Thank you to all of you for being part of Kaneva, and we hope you like our new Builder Fame system!

Check out the winning teams and projects here:

http://spsugames.blogspot.com/2013/04/kaneva-hack-thon-winners.html

The students gave us some great feedback and technical tweaks to add to our content creation platform. It was also exciting just being there, watching people explore Kaneva for the first time, and being able to see it all through new eyes again.

Many congratulations to all of the SPSU students who participated- we look forward to seeing you again in world!