Swirve Blog

And here is this week’s Blog! Comments as usual please:

Good Morning Utopia!

Thanks for all the feedback since last week. Regarding the wiki idea, it sounds like there’s broad consensus, with the caveat that there should be a basic guide or lite version that isn’t as scary as the full thing. More broadly, we agree that any tooltips we put in shouldn’t advise specific strategies but should instead help new players with decision making. We also liked the idea of quests that Mourheim pointed out are used to good effect in UK, and will keep those in mind too.

It was interesting that there was generally negative feedback regarding a potential council of elders - we’ll have to think harder about that. Most posters are well established in both the game and the forum, so it’s possible that they wouldn’t benefit as much as some more junior players from this idea. In consequence, can we hear feedback on how you think the average player would be affected? For example, if we ran elections for the council of elders, we guess that most players would probably just vote according to what the most experienced of their kingdom mates say. Will this essentially lead to an elitist group of people being elected? On a separate concern, what about apathy? Would the average player feel far removed from the effects of the who gets voted in and who doesn’t? If so, what could we do about that?

Bear in mind that the probable alternative to a council of elders is that we would establish a brain trust over time, either formally or informally.

Well, enough of that. On to question time.

tloblaw: Would you be able to provide Utopia Angel, Utopia Pimp, Metatron and Pimp Agent like tools in the future?

We’ll talk more about this below in the context of SpoiledTechie’s questions.

tloblaw: Are there thoughts of allowing kingdoms to merge without using their moves/trades?

Mid-age kingdom mergers. This is an interesting idea. The short answer is no, there aren’t, but we can consider it for the future. It would be one good way to address ghettoization. It would probably take plenty of politicking for two kingdoms to come to terms on a merger, but that’s to be expected. Can people think of any ways that this could be exploited?

Prelude: would you consider actively playing in top kingdoms (different ones, so you observe different styles of play etc) if such an arrangement was possible?

Sorry for misinterpreting your question last week (oops, and also opening a can of worms regarding a council of elders). We would consider this, pending time constraints. We really are very busy with the code, and probably wouldn’t make very reliable kingdom mates at that level. Our cover in this spy mission could be easily blown by our truancy. If we were going to spy, we would probably do it even more covertly, by reading kingdom messages (as tzar suggested).

TheGnu: I would also recommend playing in an uber-ghetto to see what the new players go through.

Where else do you think we’re playing now ;-)

Clampy: How’s the idea of in-game attack calculator going? Expected to be in the new code for next age?

We’ll take this along with SpoiledTechie’s questions below.

Clampy: I was under the impression that next age with the new code wouldn’t include this ages changes, is that still the case? Any ideas on race/pers changes for next round yet? Will they be based on this age or last age?

We’re still just trying to get to a stable point for next age. What we’ve programmed so far is based on the last age, not the current one. When the next WoL age starts on this code base, we might tweak some mods, but nothing too radical to start with. We haven’t yet made any decisions about what those changes, if any, will be.

Clampy: How much time do you spend reading the Suggestions forum? Anyway we can help streamline the process or make it more effective?

We won’t lie, we (Sean & Brian) don’t spend much time on it at the moment. It’s full of good ideas, especially about changes we could make to game dynamics for future ages. However, every time we look at it we end up getting distracted by it. We would be putting the cart before the horse if we spent much time on it right now. Once we get all you guys playing on the new codebase we will turn to it and consider all ideas before we plan out new features.

Regarding streamlining the suggestion process, that’s really something that’s in our court. We hope that over the next few months we’ll be able to eliminate the current problem of good suggestions piling up unimplemented.

Clampy: There was mention before of including more war recovery mechanisms in both wol and gen, is this still happening? Any idea of what forms it will take?

As above, the new code behaves the same as last age’s. We’ll be able to look at this along with other suggestions later.

Clampy: I know the guide is being addressed in other questions, but any more detail about it? Will you be accepting more user input? I’m a monarch in a ghetto and quite familiar with the game and I have to keep telling my players to not rely on the guide, and in many cases ignore it which leaves me to write up mini-guides which is very time consuming. I know of many well versed players who would be more than happy to update the guide or a wiki etc. and are itching for the opportunity.

Hopefully a Wiki guide is the answer you’re looking for.

SpoiledTechie: Since I am the new developer of pimp, is all my time wasted?

We talked a little about the End User Tools program in the Utimes.org article a while back, in summary: it’s an open issue how far the new code will eventually go in terms of providing the features the EUT tools currently do. This is still our position.

Some things, like an Angel-style battle calculator for example, would need careful thought. Usability is one thing, but it wouldn’t be any fun if the game told you exactly what you should do for maximum effectiveness. So, the answer is that we haven’t yet figured it out.

Out of consideration for people’s time and effort, our gut feeling is that down the line we’ll want to implement something with the rationale of usability. Most likely this will mean some intra-kingdom intel sharing (though its unlikely we’d include as much info as pimp), and also some level of visual feedback about the likelihood of a particular operation succeeding given known intel. But that’s all with the caveat that we really haven’t thought through it properly yet, and we don’t have anything like this on any plan yet. We expect there to always be a role for 3rd party tools.

SpoiledTechie: Basically, what are your long term goals? To create something like angel and pimp and move away from text and go graphics?

We don’t think we’ll be moving away from text at all. The game is popular on the basis of it being text-based and strategical. Additionally, this means that it’s an ideal candidate for platforms such as mobile, facebook, etc. We don’t think this will change. That said, there’s probably be some prettier themes available down the line, that may have decorative graphics.

Brian and Sean

Sean and Brian have taken the time to answer some of your additional questions this week. Please comment on the thread Here as usual:

Hi All,

There’s been a bunch of follow up questions since last week, which we’ll go through below.

Luth: “my biggest concern is that once it is put out onto genesis for testing, that you give it a long enough period of time before it’s put out onto wol.”

We hear you. There’s always a kind of pressure to move forward with things, but we have no desire to incur everyone’s wrath with an unnecessarily buggy WoL age.

Comport: “you said the same thing ["no pay-to-win nonsense"] with Utopia “Khanwars” Kingdoms… and yet the “pay-to-win nonsense” is front and center in that game.”

UK is a different game than this game and we (Brian and Sean) had no involvement in it, so we can’t comment. Regarding this game, we’re calling the shots for the foreseeable future, and we believe that premium in-game powers/abilities make a game less fun. A game that isn’t fun won’t attract the numbers of new players we’re aiming for.

3. Bishop: utopiaclassic.com [has no one noticed that it's a Jolt-owned domain?]

Yes, Jolt has bought utopiaclassic.com, mainly just to get there before any of you guys. We’re sure it didn’t cost much, and no one’s married to the name, should a better one be suggested (i.e., one that sounds good, is attainable, is clearly to do with original Utopia, and won’t be confused with sister games like UK).

4. Prelude: What are the next things on your agenda with regards to Utopia Classic? i.e. would the domain shift to utopiaclassic.com straightaway, will you be looking at fixing the guide next, developing other external programs for the iphone/facebook, or work on promoting the game?

That’s a long question. To take it piecemeal:

This is also under MUHA. Before we start spending money on promotion though, we’re going to make sure that the game is up to the standard we’d expect of a web game in 2009, so that as many curious visitors as possible convert into full-time players. There’s a lot of work between here and there.

4b. Prelude: do you intend to possibly pick up some top kingdom experience? [to help with game design changes]

If we’re hearing you right, this is another question about whether we’ll consider instituting a “Council of Elders” that could act as a kind of representative system, and who could act as an advisory panel on game design issues. This is definitely an interesting idea, but a complicated one!

We’re not opposed in principle to this, but would only set it up if we were sure that the players that make it into the council were selected fairly (e.g., by election); that there was sufficient transparency; and that the unavoidable politics and in-fighting that always happens when people are elected to things wouldn’t get in the way of us doing our jobs. What do people think?

5. Luth: … do we have an ETA yet on completion and installation onto gen?

Here we have some bad news. We had an unexpected setback last week when we had to reconsider some assumptions we had made about how WoL and Gen servers would co-exist on the new servers, how accounts are handled, archived rankings etc. (basically cross-over issues between the software architecture and how we’re going to deploy it in production).

The upshot is that we had to re-organise a bunch of code, which set us back about a week and a half. Put together with some other minor slippages and we’re about 2.5 weeks behind our last estimates, and looking at private alpha testing starting in early June, with Genesis deployment in mid-June, and WoL at the end of June at the earliest (so the current WoL age will run for another 5-6 weeks at least).

6. Ningun: Will you make use of an affiliate system? So if you get new people to start playing you get a little real money in your pocket.

We haven’t got this far in our thinking yet, but when the time comes it is quite possible that we will consider offering some kind of incentive for people to recommend the game to friends.

Thanks for reading everyone!

Sean and Brian

Brian and Sean are answering questions posed in the threads about previous blogs this week. Please use this thread to add comments:

Hi All,

OK, so the last couple of blog posts have been short on information. We want to be able to tell you about exciting developments every week, but sometimes programming isn’t as glamourous as it’s cracked up to be. Rest assured though, when we’re quiet we’re working hardest. We still blog every week though, just in case the more paranoid among you (you know who you are) fear that we’ve run off to Bermuda with your account sitting money.

We’ve answered your questions below. We may not be able to answer every question every week, but we’ll do our best.

DHaran: Will you be as terrible as Roisin with a flood of insanely ridiculous changes all in one round? Will you actually put a bit of thought into the impact of changes before throwing them in for kicks?

We intend to use Genesis as a testing ground for future changes to WoL. Changes that do not work on Genesis are unlikely to make it onto WoL. This should mean less “insanely ridiculous changes”. We’ll put lots of thought into the changes, yes.

DHaran: Will you actually acknowledge the presence of bugs when reported and let us know they are being worked on, instead of ignoring us for several days like the current system? I really don’t want to have to PM Lydias for every stupid bug.

All bug reports will be first triaged through community support. Once confirmed, each bug will be handled by us directly and we will update the submitter with the bug status.

DHaran: Will you listen to the MANY people pointing out flaws in the trading system and actually try to improve it? For example, my activation email still has the username of the previous player’s account that I traded into 2 ages ago. So using that email, nubs will try logging in with wrong info.

The whole trading system has been redesigned and is being rewritten and the above scenario is no longer possible.

DHaran: Will you make an attempt to not suck as much as the rest of OMAC at running this game? If UC is going to be your baby, then don’t be crackhead parents who try selling the baby for dope. A little nourishment and attention would be lovely.

We know what you really want is a stable, exciting and vibrant utopia managed by a team that cares. We’re doing our best to create that and deliver it to you as soon as possible. Over the last few months we’ve blogged every week, we’ve done an extensive interview with uTimes.org and we’re answering your questions right now. We can’t release the game yet, code takes time, but hopefully you see some evidence that we’re working on it and we do care.

Catwalk: Are there any long-term plans for the game?

In our first blog post we said that we want to attract new players and bring back old players. This still stands. We want to grow the player base. The question is how do we go about doing that and of course there are many answers (e.g. advertising, kill bugs, introduce new features, add graphics, remove graphics, game variations, stop cheaters, create mobile versions, create facebook version etc. etc…). In each case we’d all be better served with a game written using modern techniques which can deliver a game that looks good, remains stable and provides a solid foundation for future features. This is why the focus is on the immediate plan of rewriting the game. Details of the next set of plans will be decided upon and revealed to you all after this release.

Catwalk: When did you (Brian & Sean) get involved with this game, and are you playing it?

February 09. Yes, we both play the game.

Catwalk: Now that it is obvious that UK (Utopia Kingdoms, aka Fake Utopia) bears no resemblance to Utopia other than the name, will you reconsider changing Utopia’s name to Utopia Classic?

No final decision has been made. It’s been referred to (by us) as Utopia Classic, but when released it may have a different name. Feel free to make suggestions.

Catwalk: Will the guide be improved or left as is?

The guide will not be changed in time for the release of the rewrite. Longer term, we do intend to improve it, yes.

Catwalk: (re. NOT putting pay-to-win features into Utopia Classic) We were told something similar about Fake Utopia. It’s been a month since that interview, anything you’d care to share?

It’s going to stay the same as it is currently. We’re going to put in new premium features down the line, but there won’t be any “pay-to-win” nonsense. That was our reply in the Utimes.org interview and it remains valid today.

Catwalk: Will you be answering questions we ask here, or is the comments section just for entertainment?

We may not be able to answer every question every week, but we’ll do our best.

tzar: Have they decided who’s doing the alpha/beta testing yet?

No, we’ll announce to everyone when this has been done. Thanks to everyone who has volunteered.

There were also some general comments about our involvement with the community. We do understand the desire for us to communicate with you more, that is what this blog is all about. We hope that answering your questions today is a step in the right direction. Obviously we know IRC is popular among some of you, but we don’t feel that our time is best served split between programming, blogging and chatting on IRC. For the moment we’re providing the one place where everyone/anyone can read our posts and comment if they so wish.

Brian and Sean

Another Wednesday, another update from Brian and Sean. Please comment on this latest blog on the forums:

Hi Everyone,

Once again, we don’t have a lot to say. Nonetheless, here’s a brief update on progress.

For the last few weeks, we’ve mainly been implementing non-core game features, such as the province messaging, the kingdom and war forums, rankings, browsing kingdoms and so on. At this point, we are basically done with these. We have the following tasks left:

* End of age transition. This means the logic that runs when an age ends, and which sets up the subsequent age.

* Feedback system. This is for easy feedback from you guys on everything from bugs to regular support queries.

* Ad integration. For our monies.

* Premium account/payment and account sitting.

* Sundry account settings. Password reset, email verification, vacation mode settings.

* Site styling. This is about creating the look and feel of the site with CSS. We haven’t really done any work to speak of on this yet, so the development version is pig-flu’ ugly. For alpha/beta, we are planning on just getting the site visuals roughly up to the current level (or perhaps a little bit cleaner), nothing too fancy.

We’re testing things as we go, and are killing all the bugs we come across as we find them. When all the features above are done, we’re going to spend a while doing pure internal testing to find the obvious bugs, before going to alpha to track down the more subtle ones.

Sean & Brian