Dev Notes: Week of December 1, 2014

[RhythmNBruise]

Hello, MW players!

I'm the producer for MW, and I wanted to introduce you all to a new thing we're going to try: dev notes! I know you guys feel like we're not very good at sharing information, so I'm going to try to keep you up to date with what's going on over here at GREE headquarters.

This week, we're working on a few things:

5.0 Release!

5.0, with a whole bunch of bugfixes, performance improvements, and new features, is coming soon! (A more detailed post on the features is also coming soon.) The iOS build has been submitted to Apple for approval. The Android beta just wrapped up on Sunday, and we're working on smoothing out some rough patches. Some of the features we're introducing will require back-end updates, so we're going to hold the release until both platforms can go live at the same time. (Thank you to our iOS and Android beta testers!)


In the Works

- iOS load time issues (5.0 has lots of improvements, but we're still looking for ways to make it even faster)
- investigating issues that come in through the ticketing system (right now I know the engineers are looking at some counterintuitive WD results and energy purchasing problems, among others)

How's It Work?

I wanted to give you guys some insight into the process we use around here (since someone asked in our last AMA), so I'm going to include a short snippet here about how we do things. This week is "what's a producer, anyway?"

I'm the operations arm of the MW exec team. I make sure that everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing, and how long they think it's going to take them. I set up tickets and meetings, and try to make sure that no one is blocked when they need to get something done. I'm not the person who's picking the features we work on, I'm the person who makes sure that they process of developing them runs forward smoothly. (Alternatively, I'm a raging tyrant who's constantly pestering people for where they're at with whatever they're working on - I suppose it all depends on your perspective!)

Let me know what other questions you'd like answered. I can't promise to answer them all, but I can at least take a look.

RnB

[Jaded Fusion]

Please more details on the new features coming out.

1) minimum requirements for wd prizes to be award while in a faction. Does a leader set up the minimum? What happens if we have a member on vacation? Or time away?

2) will there be valor weapons to buy for our soldiers?

[Clementine]

Please more details on the new features coming out.

1) minimum requirements for wd prizes to be award while in a faction. Does a leader set up the minimum? What happens if we have a member on vacation? Or time away?

2) will there be valor weapons to buy for our soldiers?

We have an AMA this Thursday (post will be opening for questions Wednesday evening) and that will be a great place to ask your questions!

http://forums.gree.net/showthread.ph...g-December-4th

[psyconaz]

Will we get any compensation for all the guys who was locked out???

[I Will Merc You]

The data consumption is currently enormous. Playing MW while using cellular data is simply out of the question.

Will 5.0 address this issue? If not, do you guys on that end think it is something that can be resolved in a future update, or, is it simply a non-issue?

[RhythmNBruise]

The data consumption is currently enormous. Playing MW while using cellular data is simply out of the question.

Will 5.0 address this issue? If not, do you guys on that end think it is something that can be resolved in a future update, or, is it simply a non-issue?

We have taken several steps to reduce data usage in 5.0, including changes to how our server communicates with the client and updates to advertising SDKs.

We will continue to try to improve our data usage and loading times going forward, but I think these changes should help a lot.

[sister morphine]

We have taken several steps to reduce data usage in 5.0, including changes to how our server communicates with the client and updates to advertising SDKs.

We will continue to try to improve our data usage and loading times going forward, but I think these changes should help a lot.

If you could work out a way iOS users could delete the cache without the need to delete and reinstall the game it might be the single best thing you could do right now. I don't know the situation with Android devices, but those too if needed. The games get awfully bloated very fast. Thanks for starting this Dev Notes thing.

[Agent Orange]

If you could work out a way iOS users could delete the cache without the need to delete and reinstall the game it might be the single best thing you could do right now. I don't know the situation with Android devices, but those too if needed. The games get awfully bloated very fast. Thanks for starting this Dev Notes thing.

IOS doesn't cache data in the sense that I think you are describing. Funzio built the documents and data file into the game which contains game data and graphics. Lots and lots of data, mine is currently just over 3.2GB and though I can go into the system and nuke it, just like taxes it keeps comeing back so you wind up having to redownload the entire mess depending on how long you have been playing which bumps up your data useage. On IOS the app seems to need at least 1GB of free memory in order to load properly especially when new data is being pushed from their servers.

The other issue with 4.5.2 is that there may be corrupted data or incompatible data in the current data set which causes the game to choke when it tries to rebuild a deleted dataset. This is what I believe is the root cause of log in issues with players on non IOS 8 devices at the moment. So removing that dataset can lock you out if you had been limping along up to this point, I proved this on two of my three identical iPod touch 4th gens and a test iPad 1st gen by updating to 4.5.2 and subsequently bricking them as far as this app is concerned.

On the Android side, the app does not flush updates properly and as a result as time goes on these updates use up all your available storage space and must be manually deleted. One sidenote to this is that low memory (system) not storage suffer a lot from drawing issues because they cannot load all the graphics required by the app to display your base! This has been an ongoing issue on one of our test devices for over a year.

[plavine]

We have taken several steps to reduce data usage in 5.0, including changes to how our server communicates with the client and updates to advertising SDKs.

We will continue to try to improve our data usage and loading times going forward, but I think these changes should help a lot.

Thanks , but $15 I could have spent on gree games just went to Verizon for an extra gig so I can play this weekend

[What?]

Thank you very much for the information. I look forward to it not taking 3 minutes for the game to load in iOS.

[Merc_mw]

Could you provide an outline of the postmortem of what went wrong with 4.5.1 & 4.5.2 that has ruined the player experience for so many. That insight will help many of us decide if the go forward product is worth reinvesting in. thank you.

[East Coast Bias]

Thank you. Can you tell us what the producer does? You manage the actual game development, you are the coder, you are the what? Rather than us try to guess, please tell us what your role is in detail and how your role on the forums will change our experience from clementine and the unpaid useless mods.

[RhythmNBruise]

Thank you. Can you tell us what the producer does? You manage the actual game development, you are the coder, you are the what? Rather than us try to guess, please tell us what your role is in detail and how your role on the forums will change our experience from clementine and the unpaid useless mods.

I'm basically the project manager for the game. I manage the schedule and keep track of everyone's workload, along with attending design meetings and working with the community team.

I can't guarantee a specific level of participation in the forums - when I'm here, I'm not working. I'll try to check in now and then, and you'll see me in these threads and in the AMAs.

(Also, you'll note that my replies are coming in bursts -- I'm trying to block out time around other stuff going on here in the office. Please be patient if you don't get a reply right away.)

[Paisthecoolest]

I have been locked out after downloading mw 4.5. I am running iOS 8.1.1 on an iPad mini and an iPad 2. I transferred the locked out account from my ipad2 to a working account on my iPad mini. It is now locked out. I started a new account on my ipad2. It is working fine.

Are we sure that version 5 will fix the fix that was pushed out of the fix the fix that was pushed out to fix 4.5.2 which was to fix 4.5.1 which was to fix 4.5?

[Weasel]

I don't play MW, but I felt the need to comment on this thread.

"Dev Notes" appears to be a great addition to the forum, however, it is too far beyong long-overdue to be properly appreciated. This type of thread should have been a forum staple launched alongside every newly launched title. Which means you guys are about three years late to start this ball rolling.

Better late than never, I suppose. Now let's see this added to all current Gree titles. At least in some of the other titles there aren't any current issues approaching critical mass... Or is that what it takes to get one of these threads started?