Dev's Diary 6/18/2012

[Jewel]

I'm reserving judgment on the new features. Or rather, I'm not holding my breath until they appear. If they are actually implemented they'll be cool. I've checked out both the gem pit and the endless copper mine on the test server. Both are very cool looking buildings, but neither of them are worth $100. That is currently what they are going for on the test server. 20k gems/$100. Although I have a hard time even thinking that BB will bring the copper building over to the live server at 20k, I won't be surprised if they do.

The extra cue slot isn't worth 3k gems, but they brought it over at that price anyway. Happy spending for you guys that bought that.

This game is becoming very expensive, but only because people keep spending money on gems to buy overpriced items. Stop and think a moment about how much you've spent, if you have. Would you pay that much on another game? A typical computer game is $60 plus $10 - $20 for DLC and expansions, if there are any. Yes, I do know this game can be played for free, but it's becoming more and more of a disadvantage to do that. I have nothing against buying gems, but like myself, you have to decide how much is enough, or too much.

Thanks Dev team, for another promise of updates that have been promised since the first of the year.

[bergluns]

I have to say that the gem pit building is a brilliant bit of marketing. Assuming it does indeed cost only 20k gems and produces 40k over a year, then BB will make a killing off of it. SO many players will drop a $100 for gems knowing they will "get back" their investment plus have an extra 24k in gems to play with over the next year, and that way those players either commit to playing the game for another year or they have wasted their money. Anyway you look at it BB wins, I bet they are kicking themselves for not thinking of this earlier.

Oh ya, and the person who said the option to buy multiple gem pits will exist is dreaming, at most you will be able to purchase 2 of them and even that is super doubtful because they would be self sustaining after 3 months.

[Hobknocker]

I spend about $100 per month on this game, and get many more hours of activity from it than other games I've purchased for the $60 ~ $80 you referenced. Most of those games are closed, in the sense that they have an end-game goal. This one doesn't, though the steep cliff at level 50 is perhaps an excellent substitute. But I got off the leveling-up hampster wheel and found a couple other things to keep me interested.

Ultimately though, I'm like Jewel - reserving judgment for the things that are up-coming. I'd love to see a more direct path to them, (hint: fewer soccer/holiday/whatever events and more focus on real enhancements), but I'm being patient ... for now.

[MEPH]

Tis june 26th... nothing has changed yet..

[AdamWest]

Yeah were is the update?

[Jett]

What they said ^^

It is the 27th.

Where are the cool new buildings?

[bombcar]

That is probably the dates from the European server; we get maintenance tonight.

Yeah:

6/28 12:00 am PT

We have added two new buildings to the Settlers Online. 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.

NEW FEATURES

• New Building: Gem Pit
Can not be upgraded nor buffed

• New Building: Endless copper mine
Can be buffed and upgraded

[Oabol]

IAssuming it does indeed cost only 20k gems and produces 40k over a year, then BB will make a killing off of it. SO many players will drop a $100 for gems knowing they will "get back" their investment plus have an extra 24k in gems to play with over the next year,

Surely 40k-20k = 20k, not 24k?!?

[YeOldeMan]

Surely 40k-20k = 20k, not 24k?!?

The $99.99 gem package gets you 24k gems. That's where the extra 4k comes from.

[laRochelle]

This is probably a little late to start saying this but I was playing on the test server and the new building interface is pretty annoying. By far the most common things you build as the game goes on are wells, fields and mines and none of those things are basic buildings which is the standard menu that pops up when you click the building menu. That means that instead of just clicking on the menu and then the building, you have to click one menu, then another and only then can you select the building. I know it doesn't sound like much of a difference but when you're building a few of them at a time (which happens a lot) it's kind of annoying.

I vote you keep the building interface the way it is now.

I know this is kind of an oldish post, but I just wanted to mention that I tried the new interface out over on the test server yesterday and it actually saves you clicks when building several of the same types of buildings at once. Open the menu you need, click the little pin so it stays expanded, build all your wells/fields, then unpin it to collapse the menu. Sure, it takes up some screen real estate while it's pinned open, but not a tragic amount. It definitely seems to make the whole well/field-building process much smoother.

Of course, hotkeys for selecting wells/fields would be best! But the new interface is still a step in the right direction I think.