The famous ZZT company Eagle Rock Interactive has recently been subject to a series of big changes. It all started with their president, Vertigo (also known as FreeZerBurn) left ERI behind and quit ZZT as well, because he's busier with other hobbies right now. He said that he might still make a game in the future, but it all depends. After talking to a few people, he handed ERI's presidentship to Fishfood, who used to be in ERI several times in the past, for quite a while. However, this isn't the only thing that happened to ERI. Blazer (who designed ERI's current homepage) quit ERI at about the same time as Vertigo's departure. Also, Breakout left to form his own new company, called JESUS Inc. and Mike Renner (Tseng) quit, because he's no longer really interested in ZZT anymore. He handed his ZZT project, Emerald Fusion, to Knightt, who may do with it whatever he wishes. Some other members may or might be out as well, but we will see so soon, as Fishfood is holding a member check. Visit the ERI page here.

Jacob Hammond has released version 2.0 of his Game Creating System, ZIG! This is a complete version, with no known bugs. You can download it directly here. This is, of course, good news for all people who have been waiting for this for a long time. Visit the ZIG Page here.

Viovis, ex-president of Eagle Rock Interactive, is still working on his game, PPDVII. This news article will tell a bit about it.

PPDVII (Purposely Protected Dynamic Visualties II) is a sequel to PPDV. It was made for other people to view and comment on only to continue with their lives with the aspects of those general-speaking characters in them. What does it promote? Peace, Loyalty, or a third point of view of an ideal? What the author's intentions are is all of this, and pointless humor that may have not been used yet that is so horrible laughter may rise. Frequency of ZZT editing results in this, his best of his compiled works, and although worked on for over a year and a half, does not have a major downwritten outaging due to the process. There should be new plans, new ideals within it.

The due date is hopefully some time in the Near future of March. He wants it to be seen and appraised on the month he was condemned on this Earth, or condemned further, because this is the main month of criticism... April is the most controversial Month in the author's point of view.

Anyhow, he has done a hatelife (http://www.hatelife.org/view.php?user=ppdv2) account for the reservation of posterity in a creation. This'll tell you the stuff done day-by-day and hopefully it'll remain preserved once completed. It'll also have basic generalizations about how it contributes to the qualities day-to-day life.

Lastly, please send Viovis any PPDV2 fan art for the fan art collection, as more information regarding this is located at the livejournal zzt community.

EmalkaY joined Interactive Fantasies a few days ago, taking up the final open spot in the 'MZX division' (which means IF currently has no open spots). EmalkaY is known for MegaZeux projects like Tactix, Nonsense and Smash Time. Info on his current upcoming titles will be up soon, along with some additional member info and his IF member interview. EmalkaY also recently quit Daytime Hallucinations, Spazz's MegaZeux company, which may or might be turning into a multi-platform company soon.

Knightt wrote the following about The Lounge Act and The Gathering on zzt.org: "In a wild turn of events, The Lounge Act is dead... however, this is a good thing, because The Gathering has returned! The Gathering is the same thing The Lounge Act would've been, though, except it's in #darkdigital, now (still mIRC Austnet), and the time is 9pm est on march 10th. For those who believe chuck's a horrible op, I've known him for over 2 years, now, and he's great at running the place. #DarkDigital has been a great ZZT channel for several years, now, and, during it's greater years, has been a beautiful and marvelous part of ZZT history (and it may return to being that way, soon)."

Fishfood, author of Dark Soul and general famous ZZTer, joined Knightt's company Random Inc nine days ago. However, he left shortly after, due to a little incident with Knightt, the president of the company. Random Inc still has 12 members and Dragonlord and zzblue have become the vice-presidents.

Fishfood and Lord Igsel have refounded #/mefallsover on Austnet (IRC). Quoting Fishfood: "After over a year #/mefallsover has come back to austnet. #/mfo evolved into #mofo early last year, but mofo has been taken over by lemmer. #/mfo holds true to its roots. It doesn't believe capital letters will kill the community - and if you dont like caps you should stay away. Ops included Igsel, Fishfood, Dragonlord and Benco. Whee!"

joshdw1 is hosting a new Weekend of Zeux contest. The contest starts on saturday March 23rd, 12:00 AM CST. For detailed information on the rules and how to sign up, go here.

Knightt is bringing "The Gathering" back. Here's what Knightt said about it himself: "On March 10th, at 8:00 PM EST, I'll be holding "The Lounge Act" in mIRC Austnet's #LoungeAct. There, we'll have a huge gathering of ZZTers, as well as hold BKZZTs (like mini-24hozzts; make a game about a topic within a select time, usually 20-45 minutes). I want to get as many ZZTers as I can in, from newbies to oldbies (maybe I can even get in the creator of Rhygar... I'm gonna be inviting many old ZZTers as well as new, as I said). If anyone remembers #darkdigital's "gathering", this is basically a new age one, n' stuff. Please come and take a look; for all we know, this could be one of the most memorable moments in community history, if everything goes well. #LoungeAct is always open, though, so you can come in then and whenever you want." This is good news to the ZZT community, of course, and hopefully it'll turn out to be a succesful event, like the old gatherings in #darkdigital.

Flimsy Parkins won the Comedy 24 hours of ZZT contest, hosted by Dsone and D. of Akim Productions, which was held on January 27. The topic was "vegetables" and Flimsy's entry, "Kamikaze Cucumber" won. Insane Moose came in 2nd and Raichu placed third (note that there were 7 entries in total). The judges were Dsone, D., Knightt, NMZmaster and zzblue. You can view the results here and/or download the entries here.

Apple McTom has joined the ZZT company Fellowship of the Z, run by ZZTyrant. Apple McTom recently entered the community, but has been paying some attention to ZZT for quite a while. He is a real-life friend of Hydra, who taught him the ways of ZZT. Also, Apple McTom has been a reviewer for IF's review archive for a while now and he recently released "Mysterious Art" and "Battle Maze Advanced" (a FotZ release). Mini_Maul, the brother of EvilMario, joined FotZ recently as well, but quite approximately 15 days later. He has now formed a new company together with WaaaghBoy - Conquores of ZZT.

Knightt's ZZT company, Random Inc, recently attracted three new members. First of all, Atrocity (formerly known as PresHGSI) rejoined them. A few days later, Ryosuke and DarkShadow joined as well. Visit Random Inc's page here.