We’ve reduced the prices on over half the packs in the Marketplace. Packs previously priced at 1300 MSPs are now just 1000 MSPs, and packs priced at 600 MSPs are now 500 MSPs. Rental prices are now 100/50 MSPs per month, or 10/5 MSPs per day.
Why? So you can get even more for your monthly sub. And, let’s be honest, it’s a whole lot easier working in nice round numbers.
But that’s not all!
To make it even easier for you, we’ve assembled several 800-point bundles. In the Marketplace, click on Ready-made bundles. Each of these bundles includes between five and ten packs, and costs 800 points to rent for a month. Next month, keep the packs you like and change the packs you’re not using any more, or just pick a whole new bundle. A bundle is all covered by your monthly subscription fee, so you’re not paying anything extra!
Available bundles include:
Police, Camera, Action!
If you’re a fan of CSI, Law & Order, or The Bill, this is the bundle you’ll need. You get cops and criminals, a police station, a cell, cop cars, plus all the props and animations required to commit robbery, deal drugs, check out the crime scene, fight blazing gun battles, and arrest the perps!
Out of this world
If you’re a science fiction fan, this what you need to get you going. It includes aliens in space suits with ray guns, flying spaceships, and space station interiors, plus special effects. You’ll also get the President, his military advisors, soldiers, and the White House, ready to respond to the threat of alien invasion, as well as a wardrobe full of extra costumes and hairstyles.
Sweet loving
If you like curling up on a sofa or snuggling up in bed with a romantic comedy or a sitcom, then this is the bundle for you. You’ll get our biggest selection of costumes and hairstyles, as well as sets for living rooms, bedrooms, and gardens. And, for those intimate conversations, a coffee shop.
Let’s rock!
Whatever your kind of music, whether you want to get your groove on, rock the joint, sing your heart out, or mellow out with some smooth sounds, you’ll find what you need in here. There’s a varied mix of musicians and instruments, including the amazing Guitar Hero Storm, dancers, a DJ booth, a recording studio, venues, and stage effects including lasers, lights, smoke, and pyros.
Scary movie
Vampires, werewolves, zombies - what makes your perfect horror movie? All of them? That’s what you get with this bundle - monsters, monsters, and more monsters! There’s also a bedroom, the perfect setting for those night-time terrors, and the special effects pack, so you can make it rainy or foggy, cast spells, wave burning torches, or blow things up.
There are only a couple of weeks to go until Valentine’s Day, so we’ve decided to help you out with that question of what to get for that special someone in your life. Make them a movie. You can even make them a movie star.
We’re giving you a whole suite of free tools and content, specially designed for creating Valentine’s Day movies.
For Facebook users, Moviestorm Live offers the quickest and easiest way to make a movie. You can do it right in your browser, and there’s nothing to download. Your movie will be finished and on its way to your Valentine within minutes!
Moviestorm Live gives you two different types of instant movie. They just take a few clicks to create, then you can share them with your Facebook friends.
Photostorm Live allows you to show off your photographs - perhaps those pics of a trip you did together, or your favorite pictures of each other? There are nine different template movies to choose from, ranging from sassy and sexy to sappy and romantic.
With Greetingstorm Live, you can put your face and your loved one’s face onto the characters. There are an amazing seventeen movies to choose from. There are cute cartoons, or you could get smoochy on the sofa. There’s even a Romeo and Juliet scene for real star-crossed lovers!
For something a little more sophisticated and creative, we’ve got two free add-ons for Moviestorm. These do the same thing as the Live apps on Facebook, but you have more customisation options, and you’ll get a higher quality movie. You’ll also get a load of extra free content that you can use in your other Moviestorm movies. There are more costumes, more animations, and flowers. You can also make your characters eat and drink - perfect for those romantic candle-lit dinners. And there’s a fabulous Romeo and Juliet set, including an amazing fantasy tower.
Choose from eight Greetingstorm movie templates and nine Photostorm movie templates to suit your mood. You could send a saucy message, or an invitation to a romantic evening out - or a wild night in! Either way, your Valentine’s sure to be impressed that you made a movie just for them.
Start up Moviestorm, hit Get More Content, and you can download Photostorm Valentine and Greetingstorm Valentine - absolutely free.
If you’re entering the Valentine’s contest, you’ll probably find something useful in here too.
In addition to the packs in the Marketplace, there are loads of mods available from other Moviestorm users. All the ones we found are free, so when you subscribe, you’ll get to use all these too. There’s no central repository for mods yet, but here are some places to look.
Machinimods.com has a big collection of mods, covering sets, costumes and more. Set the platform filter to Moviestorm to find them. There’s also a handy index in the Moviestorm modder’s forum.
Stormcraft has another large collection of mods, including shops and vehicles.
The Moviestorm wiki has links to some individual modders and their mods.
The modders’ forum is a great way to find out what’s new, and who’s building what.
Valentine’s Day is coming up fast, and how better to express how you feel than with a movie made specially for your loved one? (Apart from chocolates and roses, of course. Don’t forget those.)
We’d love to see what you make, so we’re offering a bunch of Moviestorm content for the best Valentine’s Day movies.
Prizes!
There are two categories:
Most Romantic movie
Funniest movie
In each category, the winner will get 10,000 Moviestorm Points (worth $100), which is enough to to rent everything in the marketplace for three months or buy at least five packs outright. Two runners-up in each category will get 2,000 Moviestorm points each, enough to rent ten packs for a month or buy at least one.
We’ll also award a special prize of 10,000 points to the best newcomer.
Download Moviestorm free, post your movie on the Moviestorm Web site, and tag it either Valentine or Valentines. Closing date will be 11.59pm PST, Feb 14, 2010. Oh, and it has to be made with Moviestorm, of course!
We’re really looking forward to watching your entries. And even if you don’t win, at least you can turn to that special someone and say, “Hey, honey, I made this for you!”
Getting hold of extra content for Moviestorm just became a whole lot easier. With the release of Moviestorm 1.2.0.2, you don’t have to go to the Web site and dig out your credit card or PayPal details every time you want a new pack. You can do it completely within the application, with just a couple of clicks.
In the Set workshop and Character workshop, you’ll see all the items you haven’t purchased marked with a padlock. Click on them, and it’ll tell you what pack they’re from.
If you’re a subscriber, you’ll also see a panel where you can get a license: choose between a monthly rental, day rental, or a full purchase. Your Moviestorm points will be debited right away - just restart Moviestorm and your pack will be downloaded immediately. There’s no need to go to the Web site or put anything in your shopping basket. If you’ve already downloaded the pack but the license has expired, just restart and you’ll be using it right away.
But that’s not all. If you’ve rented packs, click the Get More Content button in the Moviestorm launcher. This will show you what licenses you have. There’s also a handy Renew button right in the middle, so you can quickly renew any that have expired using your Moviestorm points.
This means you can get right on with making movies, with as little interruption as possible.
If you go to the marketplace, you’ll also notice that we’ve switched over completely to points for content packs. Since the introduction of subscriptions, cash sales of packs have dropped to a trickle, so we’ve made things easier all round by sticking with the more popular points system. So, grab yourself a sub, add on a few extra points if you need them, upgrade to the latest version of Moviestorm, and you’ll have a whole heap of extra content at your fingertips!
The juries have spoken, and we’re very pleased to announce the three winners of Matt’s base pack contest. This was a fascinating competition, which really challenged the imagination and skill of the film-makers. Working with very limited resources, they produced some excellent work.
Matt’s prize went to the incredible Gallowglass, part I by Poulet Noir. We had to watch this over and over again to make sure it really was made with just the base pack. It’s an exciting thriller, and the technical achievement that went into making this without any content packs is simply astounding. Watch it carefully, and ask yourself how on earth he did it!
Moviestorm’s prize went to Love 2.0, a sci-fi short. This was the debut film from sfdex. It’ll doubtless be a controversial winner for many reasons. It wasn’t big on special effects or clever tricks, but just relied on a good story, well told. It shows how much you can do with just the base pack and an interesting idea, and really captures the spirit of what movie-making with Moviestorm is all about.
Finally, the audience prize went to Mefune Akira’s LMAO Studios Half Hour Comedy Hour Crammed Into 5 Minutes Show! The title pretty much sums it up - a fast-paced sketch show that doesn’t let up.
Congratulations to the three winners, and to everyone who took part. And huge thanks to Matt Martin (tkd27) who came up with the idea for the contest and made it happen.
Liven up your movies with this amazing collection of over 200 sound effects from audio specialists Earcom. You’ll get beeps, screams, laughs, creaks, explosions, footsteps, gunshots, burps, doorbells, applause, monstrous roars, and much more in this varied pack!
Following his dramatic last-minute win in yesterday’s Christmas competition, we received this message from mcornetto.
I would like the Moviestorm credits to be divided up equally between the 10 finalists. It seems like the charitable and Christmassy thing to do and I didn’t really do the comp for the credits to begin with. I have enough money to buy packages but some people really need the credits. It’s definitely the Christmas thing to do and will promote goodwill and all that stuff. I’m quite pleased to have just won the comp because that win will help with some major Moviestorm stuff I have planned for next year.
Michael
So, as he asked, we’ve given 1,000 points to each of our ten finalists.
Michael, thank you. It’s things like this that make us really proud of the community we’ve built up here.
The Christmas competition ended up as a closely fought fight. On New Year’s morning, we had two movies tied for first place, so we extended the voting until midnight UK time. In the closing hours, On Christmas Day by mcornetto pulled ahead of ‘Tis Better to Give by just three votes.
We had some great movies, and we hope you enjoyed watching them. Anyway, here’s the winning entry. Well done, Michael!
And all that’s for free. 
