Beta 6 Development Plans

[KGB]

SnotlinG, Piranha,

The development blog hasn't been updated in a while and now that Beta 5 is out as a quick release to fix Beta 4 issues, what's the plans for Beta 6. Will this be another short release (3-4 months) with a few fixes and a few features or a longer one (6-8 months) with a lot of new development?

Just curious to know what you had planned on doing for Beta 6 so that I and others know what to expect and what we can reasonably ask to have included.

KGB

[SnotlinG]

We have kind of replaced the developmentblog with the News section

Anyway we will have a meeting next week where we will try to more or less finalize the scope of beta6, but the idea is a shorter one (like beta5). I think we in the future will try to avoid such long development phases as beta4, and rather break it up in several smaller "betas".

As for what will be included we constantly check the wishlist, and add whatever sounds like a good idea to our to-do list. Some things might take some time until we get around to implement them depending on how important we judge the change. So keep up the posting there

We are now more or less finished with what we call beta5.1, which were small things we identified to fix in beta5 after the launch, like:
- constant bugfixes of the code
- laddergames generate a wallpost with minimap + statistics of each players production/killed units etc
- possibility to start a game directly through a button in the gamelobby whenever the game is full, i.e. no need to wait for the server to start the game
- Updated history a bit with more information for teammates, like ruin contents
- Fix of de-select unit and auto-popup of search ruin etc to have better logic
- "NaN" on units placed on buildings without a defence value (like goldsites and LookOutTowers)
- Fixes to hosting of scenariogames
- pathfinding calculation for ships updated to take the shipmove into account when calculating how far you get on each turn


For beta6 I can mention some stuff that currently looks like it will be included:
- Small improvment of AI code, might add hero leveling. No major changes though, no ruinsearch or itemhandling.
- Some misc things like optimizing of code on both client and serverside
- Will remove random starts as an option in mapeditor, so all maps needs to have the startingcities set (I think 95% of the maps use this anyway, so this is to simplify)
- Some internal stuff like improve backup routines and versioning control
- Add more options/power to the mapcreator of scenariogames (like checkbox for default defender, maybe some kind of possibility to add unit restrictions on diffrent sides, improve Trigger system etc)
- Update client structure of the mapeditor, it is still lagging behind the latest structure that we actually use in the game.
- most likely some small balance changes on some units
- maybe some new unit, I know piranha is talking about one or two of those

So from a player perspective I think the most noticable changes will probably be mapeditor improvments.

[hungrytales]

New units!

[KGB]

New units!

I think we already have enough now that there is plenty of duplication of skills and abilities. Best to balance what we've got before adding more to the mix.

I would however vote for more heroes. One with say Siege as a primary skill instead of Leadership/Chaos if there isn't going to be the ability to allow heroes to select which primary skill they want (Siege or Leadership, Siege or Chaos).

KGB

[Moonknight]

I would vote for more heroes first as well...but, classic units like the Treant (4 HP), Undead Beast (4 UL), and Iceguard (1 turn Snow bonus) would be sweet to have as well.

[LPhillips]

I'd still favor the idea of hero-building, where you can choose main characteristics and attributes, which cause others to become more expensive. So if you purchase leadership, chaos becomes inaccessible or prohibitively expensive. A hero we could build from scratch would be very welcome. Your game has very far outgrown the 3-hero system you have now.

[Jeremy]

Just a vote in the opposite direction -- I think the current Hero system is fine, and possibly already a bit too complicated. All three Hero types have their uses, and are noticably different from each other.