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In approximately 4 days, Conquest! will be officially released on the Android and iOS stores. I delivered my final builds today, albeit not without some minor bugs, and they are queued up and ready to go. I don't want to take the chance of resubmitting because Monday is a US holiday and I want to release Wednesday @ 8am CST sharp. They are minor formatting issues, so it can wait until the first patch.
I have already created the configuration files for the server which has new names for: Artifact locations (based on some of the great beta testers Conquest! has had), heroes, the secret city, and the secret component. Once the game launches all players will be wiped and it will start with a lone player in the game. I started a version 2.0 list on the forums, based on work Krees and I have discussed as well as player feedback during the beta. I don't have a timeline for a release; it will largely depend on how well version 1.0 does. This week saw many changes to the server, some based on my observations during beta. The NPC hordes now scale based on a player's level: 1-3 = 50%, 4-5 = 75%, 6-7 = 100% and 8+ 125%. This should make it easier for new players to establish a footing and makes fighting them much more predictable. Aeolous cast an Alter-Reality (AR) spell and it was a great test; AR randomly assigns a class and level for all players. Unfortunately, it revealed several issues. All combat broke (formation bug again) but I was able to get that resolved. The larger problem was a flaw in the spell itself. Since promotions are based on percentage of land controlled and AR didn't alter that many people were demoted each season, since they had level 2 or 3 land but were made level 5 or higher. This was not an issue before last year as the game would simply "create" land so you were not demoted. Now AR only modifies a player's class, levels remain the same. It may not be as interesting as before but it's better than having everyone in a constant state of demotion until they return to the appropriate level. There were several quality of life improvements as well. I added a push notification for movement points earned every 15 minutes. This was actually very simple and left me wondering why I didn't add it sooner. Additional improvements included a message if you have already promoted this season, transfer all failing mid-way due to insufficient MPs, and adding the level abilities are unlocked to the Book of Skills. I also removed an odd game mechanic where spies didn't show signature troops. I've long forgotten the original purpose behind this but when you are attacking surprises are never good (the troops are shown when you attack). Similar to fixing the horde size, this should make battles more predictable. Over changes included overhauling the code for invasions to make it more consistent not only in terms of the movement point cost but also how it works behind the scenes. Originally it was calling the commands for sail, engage, and attack as if the player initiated them. This made for some redundant checks and duplication of code. With the overhaul, the functions are called (not the commands). To further increase the diversity of the player classes, the odds of success for questing for signature troops and praying at the church is now based on player class. For Barbarians, the odds are affected by the ratio of battles won to battles lost. For Vampires, it is based on the time of day (the closer to midnight the better). All other classes use honor, but to a varying degree (Clerics require more than Mages). Finally, there were changes to many of the in-game messages to make them more consistent. Overall a very busy and very good week. I'm really looking forward to the next "debut" of Conquest! June 1. Sign up for the Conquest! mailing list here and follow the journey on Facebook or Twitter. Until next time, I hope to see you in the game.
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With major development wrapped up, I've been focusing on fixing nagging issues and bugs prior to the code freeze on May 25th. After the code freeze only critical issues (showstoppers) will be addressed, as I have to allow enough time for my builds to be approved by Apple and Google. There were several additions this week, for both the client and server, so let's dive in.
First up, the inclusion of using the unique identifier provided by Unity to identify devices. When Conquest! was on IRC, the server used the IP address of the player to identify possible duplicates. With WiFi and cellular connectivity, IPs change frequently and are no longer a good indicator of a duplicate. Conquest! has a general rule that only one player is allowed per person and this enhancement will help enforce the rule. I also added capability to the server to save the last combat report. This report allows players to see the outcome of a battle which occurred when they were offline. The server records all world events to a text file which can be viewed here. This log is rotated at each New Year Season. Hordes were renamed from "Weak", "Mediocre", "Strong", and "Mighty" to "Small", "Medium", "Large", and "Huge" to better reflect their size (50%, 75%, 100%, 125%). I also capped reinforcements to Small (except when artifacts are used) so they will be more predictable. Player's can view their own reinforcements from the Combat screen and those for other players when spying. I also increased the minimum amount of land each continent will contain when a new age is started. This increases the land players have to control for promotions, since these are based on a percentage of the total land on the continent. Timezone issues were also addressed. Seasons occur at a player's local time and all log and chat messages are normalized to that timezone. I discovered there was an issue handling DST times, which meant these normalized times were off by an hour. This should now be corrected and the client will also periodically send an update to the server, in case the timezone changes. Several commands were removed from the server. Most of these were maintenance commands used by owners ("Titans") to show information about the game or other players. The functionality was moved to a single command. I removed the "reprieve" player command, as this information is now displayed when you spy on another player. Finally, I was also able to remove several unused global variables which were hanging around for some reason. The tutorial was moved from a separate data structure to the player structure. This simplifies the creation and storage of tutorials and also prevents "orphans". The tutorial itself was expanded to include several more hints and information about the game, based on user feedback. A special thank you to the community at BetaBound.com who have provided exceptional feedback. If you are a developer looking for help I would strongly encourage you to check them out. Sign up for the Conquest! mailing list here and follow the journey on Facebook or Twitter. Until next time, I hope to see you in the game. |
AuthorJames has been working on Conquest! since 1993. Archives
June 2024
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