Dev Notes: Week of December 8, 2014

[RhythmNBruise]

Good morning, all!

Here are our dev notes for this week. I'm going to un-sticky last week's thread, but I'll still be reading posts there as well as here.

5.0 Status

I'm sorry 5.0 isn't out yet - we're pushing pretty hard, but after all the issues with 4.5, we really want to make sure that what we're releasing is going to make things better.

We've spent most of the last week polishing up 5.0 for Android and running extensive testing on the back end code for both platforms. Since we're not planning on making this a forced upgrade right away, we had to do some last-minute upgrades to make sure that the old system of Funzio account transfers would still work, for those of you who choose not to upgrade right away.

We expect that the iOS 5.0 release will let almost all the locked-out players back in, but unfortunately, fixing the problem there exposed a new bug - new assets won't download correctly from the server for those players. The game will still work fine, it'll just look a little funky (some of the assets might be missing, especially in newer areas/for newer events). 5.0 also includes diagnostics for both that problem and what we think is the root cause of any potential remaining lock-out issues, so we need to get it out and have people play it for a little bit to help us find the problem and fix it. This will not be a problem for Android users.

Edited to add: The asset downloading issues in 5.0 are display issues only, and will only affect a small subset of the players who were already affected by the loading issues in 4.5. Those players will still be able to participate in events and receive rewards normally, you just might not be able to see the art associated with them until we get this bug fixed. Sorry for the confusion!

Other Work

We're working on an iOS 5.1 release that we're trying to get out before Christmas. That will have more loading time improvements, and a fix for the 5.0 bug mentioned above, if we can get enough data in time.

We also ran a really successful AMA, thanks to everyone who participated. We're still poking through that thread, trying to make sure that we've answered most of the big questions we can answer, even if we can't directly respond to everyone who posted something. We're planning to run a couple more before the holidays so you can ask us questions about the features in 5.0 after you've had a chance to play with them some.

How's it Work - picking features for development

There are two kinds of features we work on - big ones (which tend to be shared among all the games) and little ones (which are more game-specific).

For the big features, we rely on our designers and product team to come up with ideas. Then we all sit down in a group and evaluate both how long the feature will take to build and QA, and what effect we think it will have on the game. (Sometimes we want to shake things up, and sometimes we want to iterate on things we already know you enjoy.) We try (as anyone would!) to pick things that can be developed in a reasonable amount of time and still be fun and interesting.

Little features come from all kinds of places - you guys are a great source for those, as well as our QA team, who plays almost as much as you do! Little features we put onto the schedule based on how many engineers are available to do the work, and how much the QA leads glare at us when we tell them what we want to do. Because we know that you guys aren't terribly interested in adding more little features to the game, we're mostly focussing our efforts on fixing bugs and improving your experience instead of building those.

[Agent Orange]

Thank you for such a concise update! It's something we've all been hoping for for a very long time. I think that the solution to the log in issue is a sound approach since actually getting into your account is probably a lot more important at this point. I've had issues with one Android device and it's inability to display items on it's base but frankly I could work around that so let's hope this will help get more folks back in.

[Genen]

Good morning, all!

Here are our dev notes for this week. I'm going to un-sticky last week's thread, but I'll still be reading posts there as well as here.

5.0 Status

I'm sorry 5.0 isn't out yet - we're pushing pretty hard, but after all the issues with 4.5, we really want to make sure that what we're releasing is going to make things better.

We've spent most of the last week polishing up 5.0 for Android and running extensive testing on the back end code for both platforms. Since we're not planning on making this a forced upgrade right away, we had to do some last-minute upgrades to make sure that the old system of Funzio account transfers would still work, for those of you who choose not to upgrade right away.

We expect that the iOS 5.0 release will let almost all the locked-out players back in, but unfortunately, fixing the problem there exposed a new bug - new assets won't download correctly from the server for those players. The game will still work fine, it'll just look a little funky (some of the assets might be missing, especially in newer areas/for newer events). 5.0 also includes diagnostics for both that problem and what we think is the root cause of any potential remaining lock-out issues, so we need to get it out and have people play it for a little bit to help us find the problem and fix it. This will not be a problem for Android users.

Other Work

We're working on an iOS 5.1 release that we're trying to get out before Christmas. That will have more loading time improvements, and a fix for the 5.0 bug mentioned above, if we can get enough data in time.

We also ran a really successful AMA, thanks to everyone who participated. We're still poking through that thread, trying to make sure that we've answered most of the big questions we can answer, even if we can't directly respond to everyone who posted something. We're planning to run a couple more before the holidays so you can ask us questions about the features in 5.0 after you've had a chance to play with them some.

How's it Work - picking features for development

There are two kinds of features we work on - big ones (which tend to be shared among all the games) and little ones (which are more game-specific).

For the big features, we rely on our designers and product team to come up with ideas. Then we all sit down in a group and evaluate both how long the feature will take to build and QA, and what effect we think it will have on the game. (Sometimes we want to shake things up, and sometimes we want to iterate on things we already know you enjoy.) We try (as anyone would!) to pick things that can be developed in a reasonable amount of time and still be fun and interesting.

Little features come from all kinds of places - you guys are a great source for those, as well as our QA team, who plays almost as much as you do! Little features we put onto the schedule based on how many engineers are available to do the work, and how much the QA leads glare at us when we tell them what we want to do. Because we know that you guys aren't terribly interested in adding more little features to the game, we're mostly focusing our efforts on fixing bugs and improving your experience instead of building those.

Will knew AMA scheduled anytime soon.
Also could you please clarify when 5.0 IOS will be released. And will be just Beta testing or for all players.
I think people with lock games would be glad to at least get back to their games even with some noted bugs.

[MW Flake]

So which is it? You've been saying for weeks it's been sent to apple and merely waiting their approval, while at the same time saying you are still working on it to get things right, and now adding that you are working on yet another update that will fix the issues. No wonder nobody believes any of you. Nobody has yet to be given a straight answer backed up with concrete facts and actions.

[DEWIN NUTTIN]

So which is it? You've been saying for weeks it's been sent to apple and merely waiting their approval, while at the same time saying you are still working on it to get things right, and now adding that you are working on yet another update that will fix the issues. No wonder nobody believes any of you. Nobody has yet to be given a straight answer backed up with concrete facts and actions.

Excellent catch, I'm surprised that no one else caught this glaring discrepancy.
The answer will not be forthcoming, or will be extremely "confusing" if one is ever given. LOL

[Bobar]

thanks for this detailed informations. thats a nice service to read from a dev every now and then.

BUT! no no no no. Please take your time, bring out a stable 5.0 version. dont mess up with updates right from the beginning again. STOP ALL EVENTS! or at least don´t do that many.

[Greeny1]

Good to know and these kind of posts are helpful, but a release date would be better for those who are locked out so they know when they can actually get back in! Also, how do we become part of the QA team?

[Led]

We're working on an iOS 5.1 release that we're trying to get out before Christmas


Lets not get ahead of ourselves :cool:


**edit**

If 5.0 will not work properly why not wait and have the bugs fixed before you release it? To me this just proves you guys realease updates knowing they have problems...

[Hobbs]

The QA was open for around an hour earlier in week G,some useful feedback.
Think more are planned over next few weeks

[I Will Merc You]

So many suggestions to simply stop all events until all of our problems are resolved.

Great idea, makes sense, and leans towards the FAIR side of things (a rare occurrence)

Reasons why I think this will never happen (unfortunately)

- MW not having an event running doesn't even seem possible...
- Man Power Resources on the fix end vs. Loss of Event Profits on the customer end (nothing great happens without sacrafice)
- Stopping events until problems are resolved....seems possible that every problem could be fixed, and then release the Events......and seems like we would be right back to square one.....

Stopping every event is FAIR to the players who have been locked out the past month.....and to players who will inevitably get locked out in the future...... why not code that in? Game doesn't work, stop events until fixed.

[Speed ump]

Based on what has been said, unless your game is locked out, I would not recommend updating to 5.0. If gree implements the new equipment items for wd, you will not be able to get them. If you don't have them you will find that you will no longer be able to find targets that you can hit. Sounds like 5.1 will add the ability to receive those items. So you might get your game back, but it won't be worth much for attacks and defense in wd, at the least.

[Kefa]

Based on what has been said, unless your game is locked out, I would not recommend updating to 5.0. If gree implements the new equipment items for wd, you will not be able to get them. If you don't have them you will find that you will no longer be able to find targets that you can hit. Sounds like 5.1 will add the ability to receive those items. So you might get your game back, but it won't be worth much for attacks and defense in wd, at the least.

I could be wrong, but when he say's "Assets" I believe he means things like your buildings, NPC targets, rival's buildings...

So as long as you are on 5.0 you may be able to play WD and get the equipment items, but if you've been locked out since 4.4.2 you may not be able to see their graphics or hit NPC targets. Likely there will be an LTQ in tandem with WD that will drop equipment items - if you can't see the NPC targets, you may be in trouble.

[RhythmNBruise]

I have edited the original post to address this - please let me know if you have any other questions.

[psyconaz]

I have edited the original post to address this - please let me know if you have any other questions.

Are we going to receive a sorry package or anything for compensation for the people who are locked out?

Also can we have a list of what you will give us please?

[Genen]

I have edited the original post to address this - please let me know if you have any other questions.
When 5.0 will be released?

[Genen]

Are we going to receive a sorry package or anything for compensation for the people who are locked out?

Also can we have a list of what you will give us please?
I do not think that compensation package shall be issued for multiple reasons:
1. It will be hard to identify who was locked all this time, who was partially locked and who is just will be for a ride.
2. It will not be fair to other players who spent gold and time to get their prizes.
3. Relativity few people are locked and in case for example our faction we let most of them stay in faction and collect faction prizes so they missed just indies. So it will be even harder to differentiate.
4. However frustrating and annoying it was to be locked those folks did not spent a single bar of gold so they really did not lose financially.
So solution could be issue package to all MW players. It would be a good gesture but unless they are some tangible items like health or energy regen few stats boosting give aways are meaningless.
One thing I would suggest that people who were locked did not buy gold on sale and probably missed their bonuses. I would issue some sort mid term good gold sale and may be let folks who were locked receive bonuses in the middle of the months if they are been properly vetted.

[Ranger89]

We expect that the iOS 5.0 release will let almost all the locked-out players back in, but unfortunately, fixing the problem there exposed a new bug - new assets won't download correctly from the server for those players.

COME ONE GUYS! WTF

When is the damn 5.0 release coming.... and what does it mean that it will let "almost all the locked-out players back in..."

Why would locked-out players NOT be allowed back in? If I have a iPhone 4S, does that mean the fix won't help me?

[Bob Belcher]

Lets not get ahead of ourselves :cool:


**edit**

If 5.0 will not work properly why not wait and have the bugs fixed before you release it? To me this just proves you guys realease updates knowing they have problems...

EXACTLY: Inguiring minds would like an answer to this very same ? For months now.
I guess what Gree is telling us is that bug free events and updates is out of their realm of capabilities!

[whitepath23]

What is the latest on 5.0. Is it coming or not?

[Jaded Fusion]

I do not think that compensation package shall be issued for multiple reasons:
1. It will be hard to identify who was locked all this time, who was partially locked and who is just will be for a ride.
2. It will not be fair to other players who spent gold and time to get their prizes.
3. Relativity few people are locked and in case for example our faction we let most of them stay in faction and collect faction prizes so they missed just indies. So it will be even harder to differentiate.
4. However frustrating and annoying it was to be locked those folks did not spent a single bar of gold so they really did not lose financially.
So solution could be issue package to all MW players. It would be a good gesture but unless they are some tangible items like health or energy regen few stats boosting give aways are meaningless.
One thing I would suggest that people who were locked did not buy gold on sale and probably missed their bonuses. I would issue some sort mid term good gold sale and may be let folks who were locked receive bonuses in the middle of the months if they are been properly vetted.

Actually not hard to indicate who has been locked out. They will use peoples last login date in accordance to the release of v4.5. And those people are owed something considering it isn't just prizes they missed. They (locked out people) are owed a ton from gree. And no I'm not locked out.

[Hobbs]

Doubt there will be any package,find it hard to imagine they would give to some without all!
What about some who were locked out but are back in now?What about some who are just getting logging issues affecting how they can play events?What about the Android users who missed Wrapper on last events with a lock out?
Be nice if GREE done something but with so many errors occurring where do they start/stop.
I was locked out but managed to load the 4.4 version which works fine,I hope you guys get your game back soon.

[I Will Merc You]

What could possibly be done to be fair to all players who have suffered this current lockout?

.....too simple....

Should have axed every event during this lockout. The players who have not been locked out would not have been able to get a month head-start on the people who have been locked out, therefore, no compensation packages would be needed.

No, people who have not been locked out probably shouldn't have to pay the price for the people who have been locked out, but on the same token, players who have been locked out shouldn't fall behind in the rat race because of an error on the programmer end.

No events during crisis = no compensation packages.

[Majesty]

I'd like to think Gree would give us something for being locked out so long. Many of us not able to get back in. Checking on cash collection may be another method to see who's been out so long. They must know when it last happened, since they still give me the messages to boost my defense buildings and get revenge! If only I could do that...

And it would all be so much easier if we could just get in...

Or know when the release might be coming...
but...nothing.

[Majesty]

A decent approach Merc, but too late for that on this round.

[Hobbs]

What could possibly be done to be fair to all players who have suffered this current lockout?

.....too simple....

Should have axed every event during this lockout. The players who have not been locked out would not have been able to get a month head-start on the people who have been locked out, therefore, no compensation packages would be needed.


No, people who have not been locked out probably shouldn't have to pay the price for the people who have been locked out, but on the same token, players who have been locked out shouldn't fall behind in the rat race because of an error on the programmer end.

No events during crisis = no compensation packages.

Now that I agree with,some have gained an advantage while others are locked out,however some have had to do more then their share to compensate for those locked out.
Another reason compensation cannot be just for a few,the shutdown of all events while this has been going on would have been the best solution,sadly never likely to happen....

[Captain Buck Slayer]

I appreciate this update very much, THANK YOU

[786TRYX]

Why do i not care any longer?

[RhythmNBruise]

5.0 is here!

5.0 for iOS should be available to everyone now, and Android will see a phased roll-out that we're expecting to be completed by around 11 am tomorrow morning. Please keep in mind that we're in Pacific time, so all dates and times should be adjusted as appropriate for your local time zone.

We know that this build might have some issues (as noted above) around asset downloading for players who were locked out, but please do update and try to log in if you were experiencing those issues. We've put in some logging that will help us diagnose any remaining problems.

Thanks for sticking with us - I know this has been really frustrating for a lot of you, and we're working hard to try to regain your trust.

(You can see the build notes for this version here: http://forums.gree.net/showthread.php?102457-Build-Notes-Modern-War-v5-0)

[Ninuzzo]

good morning,
I've just updated the game, the new style on "My Profile" or "Rivals Profile" are improved, now whe can see the complete stats.

can you just put a . in the stats??

example: it show my attack 1052635706
can you set a different view like: 1.052.635.706
in the IPH too... it's so lame if we have to count manually all stats every time!

thanks
(sorry for my english...)

[iYoungblood]

Commas ... He means, learn how to use commas. Do I need to post the code?

[Bluehavana2]

Amazingly Gree knows what commas are, they use it in the store and inventory showing cash, gold and valor. Why they won't put it on the stats page is a mystery