This is a news post I was hoping I'd never have to make.

First off, I'd just like to say that, by and large, this update is unnecessary. The vast majority of our users are delightful, well-meaning people who do not verbally abuse or harass other players.
However, as of late we have seen a rise in cyberbullying, harassment and verbal abuse on Alacrity. This simply cannot be allowed to continue.

As many of you have already noticed and commented, the mean age of Alacrity players has dropped in the last year. Many of our players are coming to our community younger and younger, and even our player staff is now made up mostly of kids and young adults - people who are even more hurt by such attacks than the fully grown variety. As such, it has become even more vital to the administration that Alacrity continue to be the game it was founded to be - one of friendly, civil discourse and mutual respect.

While we recognize and agree that many of the growing pains the site has been going through lately are unpleasant, they are not the fault of any staff member or members, but rather the result of the unfortunate situation in which we find ourselves as a community.
I make this post to implore you all to resist the temptation that internet anonymity brings with it to treat the human beings behind the screen names as nameless, heartless, morally devoid bots here for you to abuse at your leisure.
Each username and account number on this site represents a real, breathing, harm-able person who deserves your kindness - whether they are players or if they are, on top of that, also staffers. Please treat these people as you yourself would expect to be treated.

On the subject of staff, specifically - if you haven't had the chance to get to know some of our staffers, I highly recommend it. These players take on long hours of complicated and often thankless work - without pay - because they want to see Alacrity succeed. These are kids with feelings. They're 20-somethings trying to figure out how to pay their mortgages, they're students working full time to get through school - they're not the devil. Alacrity isn't a big bad corporation trying to squeeze out every last dime, it's a bunch of young people trying to make something great happen on the internet. It has not been easy. It will not always be easy, but not one person on this staff - or on this website at all - deserves to be treated rudely just because you're unhappy about something.

I have gotten to know many of our players well over the years and I find myself protective of all of you, whether we know each other personally or even get along. We are, all of us, players. Lets all try together to be the people we expect ourselves to be, and we'll get through the rough bits and be all the stronger for it.

Always and intrinsically at your service,
~Kit

Hello Everyone!

Firstly, our apologies that the site was down for a day, it was an accident on our end.

However, we know a lot of you were feeling left out of the loop because there was no way to find out what was going on!

We are working on having multiple ways for you to find out what is up when Ala is down, including a Tumblr, Twitter and Steam Group. Once these are set up, we will list them here for you all to join.

Right now, you can join our Facebook group - you must request to join. We'll update that with news as well as the occasional contest.

AlacritySim Community on Facebook
AlacritySim Group on Steam

Hopefully in the future, even if you dislike social media like me, you can bookmark one of these sites and be kept up to date if anything goes wrong.

Again, we're sorry for the worry or trouble this caused any of you. We're glad to be back and we love you for be so patient with us!

Yours,
ZJ

Hey, Alacrity!

The site has been experiencing a bug recently.

As many of you have noticed, users who do not have the breeder perk have not been able to breed their Great Dane bitches.

We are aware of this issue and Coder is working on fixing it as soon as possible.
If you are experiencing this issue - we sincerely apologize. For now the only workaround we've found is either to buy the perk (the perk provides higher TP puppies, so it's worth considering, but we recognize this is not always an option) or contract with someone who does have the perk to hold your bitch while you send the stud request, then return the bitch to your account.

Some users are providing this service for free, so we recommend seeking one such kind user out, or waiting for the fix. Please confine all requests for this service, like any other service, to the appropriate forums/chats. We'll probably want to avoid filling Chat A with these requests.
If you are providing such a service for free, thank you. If you are providing it at a cost, please feel free to make a post in the appropriate forum.
We hope this issue will not persist for too much longer and look forward to all users being able to breed their Great Danes. Right now there is no need to report this issue to the hub.


Another problem we are having is that CAs cannot currently be created until the Great Dane layering drop is added correctly to the CA creation page. Again, we are aware of the issue and you should see a resolution to that issue shortly as well.

I'd just like to thank you guys, I know these bugs can be a real hassle, and you have been very, very patient.

As always, all my affections
~Kit