Dev's Diary 6/18/2012

Dear settlers!

Today we present you the latest developer news with long-term perspective.
The graphics are representative. The final design may vary.

Soccer Event

The Soccer event has been up and running for a few weeks now. With this event we introduced a brand new building, the Friary. No more slow brewing for your Settlers, this new building allowed you to produce four times as much brew as a regular brewery. The Euro Cup Soccer event also brought all new adventures, buildings, decorations, and buffs.

The Soccer event will be shut down in two steps. The first step will occur on the 5th of July and the second step will occur on July 12th

June 26, 2012 Update
http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/...Kupfermine.png http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/...steingrube.png http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/...deWaltraut.png

• Buildings: The Gem-Pit
• Buildings: The endless Coppermine
• Adventures: “Wild Mary” balancing

While the Soccer Event is running there will be an update introducing two new buildings: The Gem-Pit and the endless Coppermine. The first building is the Gem Pit, which will produce 20,000 Gems over a six month period (Contains 40,000 Gems in total). The second is an endless copper mine that will produce copper without ever depleting. Both of these buildings can be found in the architect section of the shop.

Furthermore, the awards for finishing “Wild Mary“ will be corrected. Compared to other adventures the payout was too high, due to an error that occurred at the end of February. The balancing will be respectively corrected.

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/...rmine1-5-1.jpg http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/...grube1-5-1.jpg

Update July 12th, 2012

The Soccer Event will be finally shut down (phase 2). Unfortunately, we had to delay the new marketplace until August because internal tests showed that some adjustments have to take place before it is ready.

Because of this we will be rolling out some new features and bug fixes on July 12th.
• Buildings: Preview production path / way time
• Buildings: Display how long a buff will last
• Buildings: Upgrade a building instantly for gems
• Interface: Changes and improvements
• Info bar: Population tooltip
• Provision house: Larger interface + display of output amount

You can check out all of these on the Test Server.

Buildings: Preview production path / way time
When placing a new building or selecting an existing building, both production path and time will be displayed on top of the info window.

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/...Empire/1-8.png

Building: Display of buff type and remaining time
A buffed building‘s info window displays the remaining time of the buff.

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/...Empire/2-8.png

Building: Instant upgrade

Buildings can be instantly upgraded for gems.

Interface: Changes and improvements
The UI will be improved and prepared for new functionalities. The tabs for building construction were merged into one icon. The selection window is now wider, and the various groups of buildings can be reached via tabs. The new tool-box is now part of the construction menu and you may permanently keep it on screen with the pin function. The ability to move the building is not yet completed, so it is disabled. Moving buildings is expected to be activated with the next update.

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/...Empire/3-5.png

Info bar: Population tooltip
The info bar gives you more detailed information about the classification of your settlers: The number of employed and unemployed workers, troop’s availability and which troops are assigned to generals or not assigned at all.

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/...Empire/4-5.png

Provision house: Larger interface + display of output amount
In the provision house, after selecting an object to be produced, it will show how many items are produced in total within the production. The interface was also enlarged.

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/...Empire/5-5.png
 
Planned for 2012

• Moving buildings (approx. Aug)
• New trade system (approx. Aug)
• Guild quest system: First the daily quests (approx. Aug), the further parts of the guild quest feature follow afterwards
• Fix for the online display of friends
• Economy overview (approx. Aug)
• New Tutorial (approx. Aug)
• Combat prediction (approx. July/Aug)
• New Info-Window including change log, in game news, events, etc. (approx. Sept)
• Economic adventures (approx. Aug/Sept)
• Features for Level 50+ (approx. Fall)
• PVP (see below)


Combat system

There will be a workaround regarding the combat system. An adjustment of this feature is an important step for the implementation of PVP in the future.

Level 50+

We’ve been working on new elements for high level players in order to increase the level cap in the future. An important part will be the new science system. You can gain skill points and use them in different kind of skill trees. Furthermore there will be new units and new adventures for high levels. We will also be re-balancing the units in advance.


Please keep in mind that the dates are estimations and may differ. The features have to fit our needs in terms of quality and technical aspects and they have to pass several test phases, one of which is the pre-staging test that you’re welcome to participate in.

as you can see on the screenshot, the endless copper mine produce 1 gem from level 1 to 5 instead of the copper ores

and now it produce gc

just found out the bug's king, when you click on a coinage before the mine produce gc, on a stable before and it produce horses.....

The Gem pit is not upgradable - why does it have 40000 gems? Do you get all 40000?

Oh I get it, buy a gem pit, in 6 months buy 2, 6 months later buy 4, etc.

Wow sounds cool, can't wait for the update. I have been waiting for a Gem mine a long time.

If I understand this correctly, from 1 Gem pit, I can produce 6 endless copper mines and still have a gem pit in perpetuity as follows:

Assumption:
Gem Pit costs 20,000 gems
Endless Copper Mine costs 20,000 gems

Day 1 - Buy and build Gem pit
6 months - 20k gems collected, build Gem pit 2
1 year - 40k collected, Gem pit 1 runs out, Gem pit 2 still has 20k, build Endless Copper Mine 1, build Gem pit 3
1 year 6 months - 40k collected, Gem pit 2 runs out, Gem pit 3 still has 20k, build Endless Copper Mine 2, build Gem pit 4
2 years - 40k collected, Gem pit 3 runs out, Gem pit 4 still has 20k, build Endless Copper Mine 3, build Gem pit 5
2 years 6 months - 40k collected, Gem pit 4 runs out, Gem pit 5 still has 20k, build Endless Copper Mine 4, build Gem pit 6
3 years - 40k collected, Gem pit 5 runs out, Gem pit 6 still has 20k, build Endless Copper Mine 5, build Gem pit 7
3 years 6 months - 40k collected, Gem pit 6 runs out, Gem pit 7 still has 20k, build Endless Copper Mine 6, build Gem pit 8
get 20k gems every 6 months moving forward.

Cost to acquire 20k gems - $99.99 (with 4k gems to spare / non-sale)
Effort - minimal (wait every 6 months and build gem pit and endless copper mine)
Likelihood that 6 endless copper mines will be needed - largely depends on new production buildings introduced in the furture.

I'm not sure if I'll still be playing this game in 4 years, but then I thought I would not have lasted this long either. I have to think about this some more.

Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.

Looks awesome, can't wait for some of these changes. Buff timer is a great thing, and I also look forward to skill trees.

Sounds cool.. stuff I like stuff I could care less for but overall good

Very happy to see many of these improvements! Especially • Buildings: Preview production path / way time • Buildings: Display how long a buff will last -- and some exciting new things for the higher level players.

Would still (as would most of the guilds) like to see the issue of Guild Leadership changes without having to disband entire guilds be addressed.

Kate, thank you for always, personally, being so responsive to all of us players. You rock.

SP