After a significant amount of work the next generation of match making is here! With a brand new client, website, name, and more.

• Goto www.voobly.com and login with your IGZ username and password.
• Download the client from the right hand side of the page
• Once the client is downloaded and installed, select your game from the right hand side of the main page and then select which lobby to join

If you need any help or have any trouble getting on, there is a help section which you can get to on the top right of every page and we have a forum if you can't find what you are looking for in help.

Website

The largest change is in the website as it's been transformed from the ground up into a social gaming application. Structured similar to many social networking, some of the key features included are a wall, profile, public friends lists, etc.

Like the MSN Gaming Zone was Voobly is also web based where once the client is installed you join lobbies through the website as shown in the screenshot below.

Client

The client has also been completely redone. Some of the key features include:

• Vastly improved messenger (see screenshot)
• User customizable thumbnails (see screenshot)
• Improved auto-update support (Updates are downloaded automatically)
• Customizable chat colors
• Improved system tray alerts (similar to MSN messenger)
• Rated range for game rooms to keep inexperience players out
• Improved settings dialog
• Improved support for skin designers (E.g.: with the /retheme command skins can be previewed on the fly)

New messenger dialog

Table view

List view

New Name

The general consensus among senior IGZ staff was that using IGZ as the number was kludgy as the site was really www.igzones.com. Voobly, while it might take some getting use to is a more creative name in the same spirit as organizations like Pogo and Google.

Financial

One of the most important aspects of Voobly is to make it self-sufficient. With the IGZ model we were almost always running month-to-month w/ donations, advertising, and memberships. Voobly takes two big steps in the right direction:

• Launch from website. With people having to launch from the website we'll see a lot more revenue from advertising.

• Premium memberships are now reoccurring revenue. IGZ had a 1 time fee where people paid and there money helped run the server for a little while but after that period the money dried up and the server costs remained.

With those two as a base we'll have the revenue to afford adding more great new features in the future. We can't count on surviving on the backs of a few members of the community forever.

With the strong financial aspects of voobly, and the sturdy base of the new website and client we'll be much better prepared to add great new features in the future. Some examples of planned features are:

• router bypass (you don't need to forward ports)
• easy-of-use improvements (e.g.: browse for game if registry keys are missing)

Win98/WinME/Win2k/WinXP/WinVista/Win7

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Last updated on September 20, 2009 by Rambit