Dev Notes: Week of December 8, 2014

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Thread: Dev Notes: Week of December 8, 2014

  1. #1
    Development Team
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    Dev Notes: Week of December 8, 2014

    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.
    Last edited by RhythmNBruise; 12-08-2014 at 04:05 PM. Reason: Clarification

  2. #2
    Master of Musings Agent Orange's Avatar
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    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.
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  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by RhythmNBruise View Post
    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.

  4. #4
    Banned
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    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.

  5. #5
    Prominent Poet DEWIN NUTTIN's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MW Flake View Post
    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
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  6. #6
    Verbose Veteran Bobar's Avatar
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    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.
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  7. #7
    Articulate Author
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    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?

  8. #8
    Articulate Author Led's Avatar
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    We're working on an iOS 5.1 release that we're trying to get out before Christmas

    Lets not get ahead of ourselves


    **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...
    Last edited by Led; 12-08-2014 at 03:42 PM.

  9. #9
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    The QA was open for around an hour earlier in week G,some useful feedback.
    Think more are planned over next few weeks
    Hobbsie

  10. #10
    Articulate Author
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    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.

  11. #11
    Master of Musings
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    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.

  12. #12
    Verbose Veteran Kefa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Speed ump View Post
    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.
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  13. #13
    Development Team
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    I have edited the original post to address this - please let me know if you have any other questions.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by RhythmNBruise View Post
    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?

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by RhythmNBruise View Post
    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?

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