Ask Me Anything Answers - Seventh Batch
Note:
Please keep in mind that this is our seventh batch of published answers. Our team continues to process the questions submitted by our worldwide community; additional answers will be provided for selected questions in the future.
Question 64: M_Bishop, US
Why were weapons removed from adventure loot?
BB_Alex: The Settlers Online is an economy-based game which allows you to complete content such as adventures. In a way, adventure rewards containing weapons were working against the original goal and challenge of the game, which is to build such an economy. Thus, the decision was made to remove weapons as loot in order to maintain the core gameplay loop of the game. The Excelsior is a great example for loot that supports economy building. Our Ventures do not offer resources or weapons, which can be produced, but instead reward Magic Beans which can be used to purchase various items, refillers to fuel your economy, buffs to boost it, and rare buildings to expand it. A good gameplay loop for The Settlers online is using the economy to produce the required resources and spending those resources to acquire buffs, buildings and resources that can't be produced to boost and expand your economy.
On the right side, you can see how the weapon loots interrupted the intended gameplay loop
Question 65: kefirek300, Poland
What is the opinion of the Polish TSO team about the landing a man on the moon? Hoax or fact?
BB_Penelopa: It is a fact; Sonya Graham, along with the Intrepid Explorer, visited the moon aboard the Excelsior. Their collaboration gave birth to an accurate map of the moon. Maybe some day this intriguing map will be shared with us all...
Question 66: RaHdar, UK
Why does the production stop during the time it takes to upgrade buildings?
BB_Alex: This happens to give an authentic feel and to offer an additional gameplay challenge while building your economy.
Question 67: Rakella, US
will we ever be able to manufacture grout?
BB_Alex: Grout should remain a non-reproducible resource. The game needs such resources to support the gameplay mechanics, as described in a previous answer. Making grout a reproducible item would require the creation of a new non-reproducible building material.
Question 68: cat_flap, UK
Has BB ever calculated what age someone needs to live to to get to level 75 at an average playing frequency.
BB_Alex: Based on our estimations, most of our players will reach level 75 before The Settlers Online celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2020. The Excelsior and all the content we plan on introducing in the future will speed up the level progression even further.
Question 69: Sattva, Germany
Are there already players who reached level 75? If so, from which country are they?
BB_Pandur: The first 2 players who reached level 75 not so long ago are located in Germany.
Question 70: SnowyExWarrio, UK
Has any player played the game for every single day from day one of the worlds? Just wanted to understand who is the most dedicated individual to TSO!!
BB_Alex: Very interesting question. We also wanted to know if there such a player existed, so we checked our data. Yes, there is one player who has logged in to the game every day since the tracking system was put in place (Nov 2010).
Question 71: Tricky-Hagen, Germany
Will we get different rewards for the daily login someday again? Only Crystals and gems is boring if it does not change from time to time.
BB_Alex: No, we do not have any plans to switch the login bonus rewards from crystals and gems to other resources.
Question 72: Trixigirl, Germany
What happens with a reported bug? Is it assigned to a specific person in the team, are there people who specifically work on bugs, or is there a pool where team members grab bug reports from? What happens if it has to be fixed fast? Why does it take so long to fix some bugs, while others are fixed immediately? Are bugs divided by severity, and who decides how severe a bug is? Why do we see so many bugs on the live server which were already reported on the test server?
TSO QA Team: A bug report is forwarded to the TSO Quality Assurance team. The lead of this department assigns the bug to one of our testers. From then on, it depends on the tester's qualification and workload. The tester verifies the existence of bug and the lead sends it to the production team. From the production team, the report will be sent to the right person in the development team. This procedure will usually take between one and three days.
If the bug is critical or blocks the game completely, the team works on a fast fix which translates into the known hotfixes. Other bugs will be collected and deployed with the different game versions. The production manager decides which bug is important and which bug does not significantly impact the game. We are not able to fix all bugs on the fly, because we also have to develop new content for our players. But there are special meetings to review all existing bugs and assign them to specific deployment versions.
The development time between the test server and the live server is sometimes not that long. The developers are working on bug fixes, but sometimes it takes an additional version to verify the fix works as intended and to make sure it doesn't impact other aspects of the game. The same process exists for localization, which takes time to be implemented in all game versions.