V0.9.18 - May 6, 2022 - GRAND OPENING!

The Gizmoplex The Virtual Theater
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Oh, hey, IT’S LAUNCH DAY!

We’ve been hard at work preparing for tonight’s official SEASON PREMIERE and GIZMOPLEX GRAND OPENING, so we’re short on time.

In case you’re short on time too, here are the biggest changes in this release:

  1. The Gizmoplex Virtual Theater beta is now open to everyone – no pre-approval required!
  2. The Ticket Window is now open for business… or at least, the TICKET KIOSK is.
  3. And – oh yeah – over 150 classic episodes and shorts are now available for free!
  4. Lots of upgrades to the Video Fridge should make videos easier to search, filter, and sort.

…what’s that? You want more details? Fine, you monsters. To celebrate our Grand Opening, we’ve got a ton of new features and improvements for you to try and break.

NEW: FREE ACCESS TO ALL CLASSIC EPISODES!

  • The biggest news is that all Gizmoplex users now have free access to stream every [available] classic episode from Seasons 1-10, on-demand and ad free until at least Dec 31st…

  • Which means you’ve now got over 150 classic episodes and shorts waiting in your Video Fridge!

UPDATE: NAVIGATION

  • Cambot has relocated to the top left corner of the screen, for all of your QuickNav needs.

  • The top right corner is now freed up for EXIT signs, which you’ll see as you venture deeper into the Gizmoplex. Use them to find your way back to the lobbies and escalators, and you might never need the Cambot QuickNav again!

  • Hovering your mouse over the escalators and exit signs will reveal their destination.

UPDATE: TICKET LOBBY

  • We’ve cleared the dropcloths and revealed our new TICKET WINDOW & KIOSK!

  • The “full service” TICKET WINDOW isn’t staffed just yet, but will be sooner or later.

  • Starting now, the TICKET KIOSK is available for all of your self-serve ticketing needs.

    • Is the usher keeping you out of the Kingadome? Not for long!
    • Just grab a ticket and march back upstairs to put him in his place!

  • Through a series of highly invasive retinal scans that you might have agreed to in the Terms of Service that you didn’t read when you registered for the beta, the TICKET KIOSK is also able to identify you, and knows whether you have tickets for each upcoming event.

    • This should lead to at least 50% less accidental purchasing of tickets you don’t need!

  • For now, you’ll need to complete ticket transactions at the Gizmoplex.com website, where Vimeo OTT will process the transaction for us. We’re looking into setting up our own payment processing later in the year, so that you won’t need to leave the theater at all. Ever.

  • In other MAIN LOBBY news…

    • You’ll now see banners for each month’s Gizmoplex theme, and Vault Picks, hanging over the escalators. They’re not clickable yet, but just you wait: we’ve got BIG plans.

UPDATE: VIDEO FRIDGE

  • The Mads have rolled out some major upgrades to your KingaKool Video Fridge, which they claim will “keep your video fresher, longer.” Whatever that means.

  • However, now that every available classic episode is free to stream on-demand, your fridge will be a lot more crowded – which means the filters and search are your new best friends.

  • To the LEFT of the fridge, you’ll now find…

    • An ALL / OWNED toggle filter. Now you can choose whether to see all of the videos that are available to watch, or just the videos that you own.

    • THE FILTER MENUS were having some display issues on certain browsers (cough Windows Edge cough). While those browsers aren’t technically supported, the issue might be fixed now. You’ll tell us.

  • On the TOP panel of the fridge, you’ll now find:

    • A DROP-DOWN PAGE MENU for faster page hopping. Don’t click through 20+ pages to reach the end of the collection! Jump straight to the page of your choice, and save precious seconds!

    • New SORTING OPTIONS, letting you organize and sort all of your videos either A-Z (by title) or EPISODE #, so that you can see them in chronological order.

  • On the BOTTOM of the fridge, you’ll now find:

    • An INFO DISPLAY, showing you the number of videos that match your current searching and filtering demands. Feel the power of data coursing through your veins Video Fridge.

BUG FIXES

  • To celebrate PESKY CRITTERS month, our code monkey bots have been working overtime to squash some of the bugs that have been reported.

  • We don’t think you’ll miss them, but fare thee well, digital critters.

Lots more coming soon, but that’s all for this round.

We’ll #SeeYouInTheGizmoplex this weekend!

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It’s such a great treat to have so much MST3K to start my morning off! I decided to start with “Moon Zero Two!” Thank you so much for sharing them with us!

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I’m diving in with Rowsdower. Zap Rowsdower!

Edit: Aaaand it’s gone. I think I wasn’t supposed to look behind that particular curtain!

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! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

This is my first trek through the Virtual Theater, and I have to say, very cool stuff!

And thank you so much for all your hard work - here’s to a fantastic grand opening!

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Most excellent! Apropos, too, with that whole “first cineplex on the moon” thing!

Terrific choice as well!

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@ivan and team - Love it! It all looks and works beautifully. Amazing work to everyone involved!

I’ve just noticed that the standees in the lobby and outside the theater entrance proper, are still for the previous two backer preview shows, but I’m sure they’ll be updated before too long.

Everything else is looking super slick and playing gorgeously, and the additional polish to the navigation with text overlays makes things much clearer. The highest of fives to you all!

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@Ivan - above and beyond I’m every possible way! There are not enough thanks to you and the production team for all your hard work. :slight_smile:

What an Amazing way to start a Friday!

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It’s today! :partying_face:

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No, not Jimmy’s birthday. Here’s $5, scram, ya dope. It’s PLEXMAS! :tada::confetti_ball::dancer:t2::clinking_glasses: Congratulations and thank you for all the hard work, team. We did it! It’s here!

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I remember when Kinga came to me with nothing but an empty crater and a dream…

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The Virtual Theater is open, and it’s really, really cool. I’m glad there’s nobody else in my theater talking over the episode. I hate when people do that.

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Can’t wait to find out where the “Up” escalator in the Kingadome lobby leads to eventually.

ROOF ACCESS
Robots only
Seriously, meat people will die up there.

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The monkey bots didn’t destroy anything else in the theater, right? There better not be any banana peels all over the place!

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That perplexed me for a while too, before I realized that’s just the end of the up escalator from downstairs.

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Clarification for fellow monsters: do you mean for us to try them AND break them, or to simply attempt to destroy them?

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Aaah, so excited!

But I just checked the virtual theater and I’m still getting the “wait for an invite” screen. I hope I didn’t do anything wrong when getting signed up!

NO PRESSURE. You are doing an AMAZING job of launching the heck out of this site! It will be available to me when it is available. :heart: I’m just happy watching on the G-plex, virtual theater fanciness or no. :slight_smile:

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I’m counting down the minutes until I can work from home (I do half-days in the office on Fridays) so I can have some Gizmoplex time. They don’t let me watch videos at the office, but they can’t stop me from getting my MST fix at home while I work!

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Try holding down the Shift key while you reload the page. Sometimes you need to do it twice, depending on your browser.

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Ah, yes, the hard refresh. Will also try giving my cache a clear, it gets all mucky since I use my personal computer for work too!

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