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The Conquest of Go News

Patch 0.31.2

  • Fixed an issue with marking the progress of Steam Workshop puzzles when there is no standard solution information contained within the puzzle's .SGF file.
  • Added a conversion process for Steam Workshop puzzles that are using the .SGF file's move comment field to designate the move as "Correct". The comment will be converted to the standard puzzle solution information. This improves puzzle completion tracking and also allows the "Show Correct Move" button to be used for these puzzles, which previously wasn't available.

Patch 0.31.1

Fixed an issue with the bulk dialogue import (.CSV) where the scripted battle endings and content type information wasn't being preserved for existing chapters.

Update 0.31.0 - Campaign Story Puzzles, Branching Paths, & Online Updates

New Features
  • Several new enhancements have been made to the previous Campaign Stories update which added custom campaign stories that can be created, played, and shared on the Steam Workshop.
  • Scripted Battle Custom Endings
    • Scripted story battles are matches that are driven by predetermined moves from an SGF (Smart Game Format) file. Multiple moves can be possible at certain points, allowing branching paths to reach different endings moves. There are now three ending types for scripted battles.
    • Main - The scripted battle will be completed when the player reaches the ending move of the primary/root path.
    • All - The scripted battle will be completed when the player reaches the ending move of any path.
    • Custom - Specific moves can be selected which will end the scripted battle when reached. Each of these moves also has completion action which allows the story creator to specify which chapter should be loaded next. This allows the story to follow different paths based on the input provided by the player during the scripted battle.
  • New Scripted Battle Content Types
    • There are several new types of content that are available to be included as a scripted battle in a story.
    • Puzzles - Chapters can now feature puzzles/tsumego for the player to solve. Solving these will affect the fortification level of your conquered regions and also earn resources if no mistakes are made, similar to the standard fortification puzzles in the campaign mode. It is also possible, using the custom endings mentioned above, to specify which moves are a correct or incorrect solution, or the solution can be specified directly in the SGF using the GB[] or GW[] properties. If there is only one branch in the SGF, the solution is automatically assumed. The tree view of moves and AI features will be hidden from the player while they are playing during this mode.
    • Joseki - Moves will be displayed similarly to the opening explorer found in the Learning Center, allowing the player to explore branches of moves. The tree view of moves and AI features will be hidden during this mode.
    • Tutorial - A simple display of moves with the tree view and AI features hidden.
    • Match - This works the same as how scripted battles were previously working, with the tree view and AI features being visible.
  • Previously, dialogue occurring during battles were specified by the move number taking place. In addition to this method, for scripted battles, specific moves can be selected from a move tree which have their own dialogue. This makes it possible to have separate dialogue for moves that occur in other branches of the move tree. For example, move 4 from the main path and move 4 from an alternate path that branched from move 3 can have two separate dialogue lines.
  • After completing a scripted battle, if the next chapter does not contain any dialogue for the campaign map, and is the same content type as the previous scripted battle, a "Next Chapter" button will be displayed on the right side to allow the player to directly load the next chapter and continue on with the story instead of having to return to the map. This can be especially useful for linking chapters together such as completing multiple puzzles in a row.
  • Battles can now specify the player and/or opponent as "None" to indicate that there is no specific character for the battle. The story creator may want to specify the characters for a scripted match, but may not want to include characters in a scripted puzzle or joseki battle.
Updates
  • Several updates have been made to The Conquest of Go - Story Editing Guide to explain some of the new features and updates.
  • The ending of the War in the East story has been updated to demonstrate the new scripted puzzles functionality.
  • When exporting dialogue to .CSV, if a chapter does not have any dialogue, it will now still be added to the export with only the chapter information. This allows for the chapter order to be preserved and allow easily moving dialogue or adding dialogue to chapters that do not have any dialogue yet.
  • When exporting dialogue to .CSV, you will now see a new column for Move ID to make sure that dialogue for duplicate move numbers, but different branches, will be set appropriately when exporting and importing. For new changes, it is recommended to do a new export so your file has this new column, but the old exports will still be able to be imported for content that does not use branching dialogue.
  • The portrait image will now be aligned near the top of the dialogue instead of middle for portraits that are wider than tall.
  • The current story header in the stories menu now better handles displaying long story and chapter names.
  • The "Return to the map to proceed with the story" message has been replaced by a floating story icon to direct the player where to go next, which is either to return to the map or load the next chapter directly.
  • Online Updates
    • The Online Go Server (OGS) recently made some updates to time controls and matchmaking. The updates below were made to The Conquest of Go to align with those changes.
    • A new game speed of "Rapid" has been added to both the Create Challenge and Find Match menus. Rapid is a game speed that is between blitz and live game speeds.
    • Within the Find Match menu, players can now search for multiple board sizes, game speeds, and time controls all at once and get matched to an opponent that meets any of the search criteria.
    • When using the Find Match menu, the specific main time and secondary time, or range of times, will now be displayed next to the selected time control. For instance, "2m + 5x30s" will be displayed for a 9x9 game with Rapid game speed and Byoyomi time control.
    • The Canadian time control has been removed from the Find Match menu, leaving Byoyomi and Fischer. Canadian time control can still be used in custom challenges.
    • The rules preference has been removed from the Find Match menu. Games played through this menu will use the OGS default of Japanese rules. Other rulesets can still be used in custom challenges.
    • In the Find Match menu, all correspondence matches will use the OGS default of Fischer timing. Other time controls for correspondence games can still be used in custom challenges.
    • The default values and value ranges for time controls and game speeds in custom challenges have been modified to match the new values used on OGS.
Fixes
  • Fixed the import and display of story images that are using the same name as a previously imported image.
  • Fixed an issue with the map story icon not displaying if completing a chapter with no battle and the next chapter has no map dialogue.
  • Fixed the size of the text in the story overview menu from being overly large on smaller UI scales.
  • Fixed an issue with the current story header not being updated right away when resetting story progress.
  • Fixed the issue of no reset progress button being displayed for chapters that have no dialogue and match record.
  • Fixed a bug with puzzle move highlighter not showing correct path when undoing a move, manually placing opponent stone, and then clicking the "Show Correct Move" button.
  • Fixed an issue where if the player returned from an automated review straight to a fortification puzzle, messages about the review would be displayed with the puzzle text under some circumstances.
  • Fixed how coordinate areas (e.g. AB[ca:cc]) are processed within SGF files.
  • Fixed the default file name not updating properly in the save/export file panel while reviewing matches and switching between next and previous files.
  • Fixed the Find Match menu allowing the player to click the find button with no board sizes selected.

Update 0.30.0 - Campaign Story Enhancements

New Features
  • In addition to the new features and updates below, there are several other campaign stories enhancements in the works since the update published last week. To improve the campaign stories playing and editing experience more immediately, the enhancements below have been released first.
  • A new story icon has been added to the game which is displayed beside the Stories button at the top right of the campaign map, shown on the map for a region that is associated with the chapter of a story, and displayed next to the buttons that need to be used to progress the story (start match, review match, etc.). This should make the workflow of progressing the story more obvious.
  • The same story icon mentioned above has been also added to the top right of the Go scene to allow players to hide and unhide the story dialogue panel on the right side of the screen. This panel is used to display dialogue for specific moves, or all dialogue for online matches. The button to hide and unhide the panel will appear after the panel has been first made visible.
  • Scripted battles that have the result field populated in the SGF file will now generate a match record and subsequent map objects afterwards as if it was a normal battle. This will only occur if the match result was decisive in the SGF file (e.g. RE[B+R] (Black wins by resignation) or RE[W+10.5] (White wins by 10.5 points)).
  • In the story editor, each dialogue line now has a header which by default is collapsed and shows a preview of the line of dialogue. When expanded, the full dialogue options for character, move number, portrait, and text in several languages will be displayed.
  • Using the new header mentioned above, dialogue lines can now be reordered by dragging and dropping, similar to how chapters can be reordered.
  • Dialogue lines that have no character associated with them may now also use an image/portrait. This is useful when the line of dialogue isn't from a specific character but there is still a relevant image that can be displayed.
Updates
  • Several updates have been made to The Conquest of Go - Story Editing Guide to explain some of the new features and updates.
  • The dialogue displayed on the right side of the Go scene will now stay visible for dialogue about each move instead of hiding after clicking next after the final move that has currently been reached. To hide the panel while playing the match, the story icon at the top right can be used.
  • The dialogue skip button will now skip to the last dialogue entry of the same type. For instance, if in a scripted battle and the first four moves have dialogue, if the player uses the previous button to go back to the first dialogue, the skip button will now skip to the fourth dialogue.
  • When playing through a scripted story battle and clicking to play the moves directly on the board, the usual behavior of the next stone being played automatically (simulating that a player is responding to your move) will be restricted if there is a new dialogue to read for that move. This avoids the case where dialogue is being quickly skipped because of the automatic move response on the board. The auto response will resume after there is no new dialogue to be read and the player plays the same color stone that was played before being restricted.
  • The text of the review button will now change from "Review Match" to "Review" for scripted battles of a story.
  • The "To continue the story, please proceed using any region of the map" message that is displayed for chapters that don't use a specific region will now be displayed whenever the map is displayed instead of only displaying it the first time the map is loaded.
  • The Set Progress and Delete button in the chapter header of the story editor are now aligned to the right to be consistent with other headers in the editor.
  • The display of the match result text found in SGF files (RE[]) for non-standard result text has been improved.
  • The handling of SGF import for scripted battles and invasions that contain carriage returns and carriage returns as string literals has been improved to be more robust.
  • The handling of empty and null values when exporting and importing dialogue to and from .CSV has been improved to be more robust.
  • When no image is selected for a component of the story editor (character portrait, general preview image, etc.) a "None" label will be displayed above a blank image. While playing a story, if no image is selected, the whole image box will be hidden to make more space for dialogue.
  • Support for non-square portrait images in various parts of the user interface has been improved.
Fixes
  • Fixed an issue that was causing issue with story progress if a campaign story was created with back-to-back scripted battles without map event dialogue.
  • Fixed an issue which was causing the map colors and map object colors to not follow the correct colors associated with the chapter of the story for online matches started from a challenge.
  • Fixed an issue with the same dialogue being shown multiple times if there were several dialogue lines for the same move number of a match.
  • Fixed the resource values for the campaign tutorial started from the campaign map to match the values of the tutorial started from the main menu.

Update 0.29.0 - Campaign Stories

New Features
  • Campaign Stories
    • A new "Stories" button has been added to the top right of the campaign map screen.
    • Using this new menu, players can create, share, download, and play different stories that take place in the campaign mode.
    • Stories can vary in length and content, and can be a simple one chapter quest or a detailed story consisting of dozens of chapters.
    • A four chapter story titled War in the East has been uploaded to the Steam Workshop to demonstrate this new campaign story functionality. This story has been translated into all languages that are currently supported in the game.
    • Each chapter of a story is usually comprised of several sets of dialogue between characters and playing a battle (Go match) between characters of the story.
    • Each battle can be a standard battle that would normally take place in the campaign, an invasion, which is a match that starts from a predetermined board state, or a scripted battle, which acts more like a match review where the player also reads through different dialogue as each move is reviewed.
    • For standard battles, the player can play as a normal match against the AI, an ally match, or a match against an online opponent. For invasions, the player will play against the AI.
    • The player detail cards displayed while playing a Go match now feature the character name and portrait during story battles.
    • Dialogue during online battles is displayed in a way which does not prevent the player from taking action (playing moves, chatting, participating during the stone removal phase) and allows the player to read the dialogue at their leisure.
    • Existing campaigns are compatible with these stories, and multiple stories can be played during a campaign. Progress is saved for each story, and stories can be paused and resumed as needed. Only one story can be active at a time however.
    • While accessing the story menu and selecting a story, a list of story progress will be displayed, allowing the player to review which chapters have been completed and to also reread past dialogue.
    • While a story is active, the standard campaign invasions are turned off to not interfere with the battles that take place during the story.
    • Dialogue Controls
      • Dialogue can be progressed forward, backwards, played automatically, or skipped by using a set of buttons to the right or below the dialogue text.
      • Clicking more or less anywhere outside of the above mentioned buttons will move the primary dialogue to the next line of dialogue.
      • Keyboard controls and the scroll wheel can also be used to progress through dialogue. The keyboard controls are the same as the controls used for navigating moves in a game, such as the arrow keys, home, end, page up, page down, etc.
      • Controllers and the Steam Deck controls also use the same navigation controls such as using the d-pad, R1, L1, or B and A face buttons.
    • Creating and Sharing Stories
      • The basics of creating and editing a story are below, but for more detail, please visit the full guide.
      • A full story editor is available for players from the same Stories menu on the campaign map.
      • Stories can be created and saved locally for your own use and testing, but they can also be shared to other players by uploading them to the Steam Workshop, which now has a new category for stories.
      • A story is comprised of the following:
        • General Data - The basic information about the story such as title, description, a preview image, supported languages.
        • Characters - Each character from the story with a name, associated nation, and a portrait image. The game comes with a set of 35 fantasy portraits, but custom portraits can also be imported.
        • Chapters - Each chapter of the story consisting of a battle (Go match) and/or dialogue.
        • Battle - A match of Go that will be played. The characters participating in the battle, the type of battle, and outcome of the battle upon win or loss can be customized.
        • Dialogue Sets - a set of dialogue for any of the phases of a chapter (campaign map, pre-battle, battle, battle loss, battle win, post-battle).
        • Dialogue - Conversation between characters that will be displayed in the phases above.
      • All text fields such as chapter titles, dialogue lines, etc. allow for localization to multiple languages.
      • Bulk editing of dialogue can be done with a .CSV file by exporting the dialogue, making edits, and importing the new .CSV file back into the game. The export and import function can be found at the top of the chapters menu. This can be especially useful when your story has a lot of dialogue in many languages.
      • In addition to creating full stories with characters and dialogue, the story editor can also be used to simply create a series of custom invasion battles that can be played and shared with other players on the Steam Workshop. The 19x19 Invasion Pack has been uploaded to the Steam Workshop to demonstrate this.
  • Save File and Export File Enhancements
    • A new "Copy SGF" button has been added, which will copy the SGF contents to the clipboard, allowing them to be pasted in other areas of The Conquest of Go or into other applications.
    • A new "Save as Starting Position" option has been added, which will treat the current board state as a starting position for a match instead of each individual move as a sequence. This can be useful for creating your own invasion type battles where each side starts with a set of predetermined stones on the board.
Updates
  • The data provided in automated reviews has now been streamlined to a single line containing the predicted match score, move score loss, and move rank to be able to see the information quickly at a glance. The existing paragraph form is still displayed below it.
  • The Steam Workshop upload form for uploading puzzles and other .SGF files now uses a static field of "Other" instead of a free text field to specify a different category.
  • Subscribing or unsubscribing to Steam Workshop items while the game is running will now be automatically refreshed in game for Steam clients that are no longer using Steam overlay.
  • The review progress bar in the Go board scene has been switched from the right to the left side of the screen to make more space for other panels.
  • The default value for text playback speed has been adjusted and the range of allowable values has been adjusted within the Playback Settings menu. Players who have not modified their text playback speed will be updated to use the new default value, but players that have customized this value will retain their custom value.
  • The custom nation color selection within the Board Settings menu now uses the nation banner icon for each color.
  • Campaign Tutorial
    • The campaign tutorial now has an additional section to briefly introduce the new campaign stories.
    • Required actions to proceed in the tutorial are now displayed in a bold font when there are more than one sentence in the tutorial text.
    • The starting resource values in the tutorial have been increased to 8000.
Fixes
  • Fixed an issue where the player clock would still count down after an online match was completed by the opponent losing by disconnection.
  • Fixed an issue where players could not use the resume play feature to start a new match from the practice board if the board position was setup using the very first node of the tree via the "Play Black" and "Play White" modes instead of alternating colors.
  • Fixed an issue with saving an SGF file from the practice board if the player placed setup stones using the "Play Black" and "Play White" modes.
  • Fixed an issue where if a match was started with initial stones on the board of both colors and the AI player had the first move, under some circumstances the AI would try to play where stones already existed.
  • Fixed an issue with AI analysis where if SGF commands were used to alter the player color turn order instead of following the standard turn order, the analysis was not displaying the correct values in cases where the player color did not match.
  • Fixed the import and parsing of SGF files from BadukAI.
  • Fixed an issue where under rare instances, it was possible to resume a match from a different region when trying to start a campaign invasion match.
  • Corrected translation errors for Spanish, French, and Chinese languages.