MMORPG Tycoon 2 News

Hi everyone! It's been a couple weeks, so it's time to update you all on where we're at with the Progression Update!

Last time we talked, I'd decided that the way I'd implemented our "New Release" mechanics didn't feel true to the game, and I'd made the hard decision to delay releasing the Progression Update until I could figure out how to make that system feel good.

It took me quite a while to figure out exactly why it felt wrong and how to fix it, but I'm now extremely happy with where we've landed, and there's an updated Preview build for anyone interested!

So, some questions and answers:

[h3]"So when is the release date for this update?"[/h3]

I'm still not certain! But I feel like we're really close; I have a couple more tweaks and improvements to make based upon player feedback and I'm sure there will be some bug reports over the coming days which I'll need to fix, but all the big systems are now in place and we're definitely in the final stretch of tweaking and polishing it all!

[h3]"How can I try it out?"[/h3]

All the latest design changes are now live on our public 'test' branch; if you have an interest, please do swap over and give it a go -- I'd love to hear more people's feedback!

To switch to or back from the test build, right-click on the game in your steam library, choose "Properties", and switch to the "Betas" page; there you'll be able to choose which build to download and run! 'test' is the new progression preview build, 'default' is the older usual build).

As always, these test builds are forward- and backward-compatible with the current "default" build, so feel free to bring your old saves into the new build; there's no need to start a new save unless you want
to start fresh with all the new features!

[h3]"Can you write some words about the new design?"[/h3]

I'd love to, thanks so much for asking! :D

What I eventually realized was that it had been silly for the game to restrict players from releasing game updates if they hadn't (for example) placed enough new scenery pieces or walls; that was me getting lost in an elaborate RPG/XP/"Kill the rats in the basement until you go up a level" metaphor and forgetting what real game development is actually about!

Issuing new game updates shouldn't be about whether you've done a tiny repetitive task enough times; it should be about making meaningful changes, and potentially a very small number of them! So the big change in this new preview build is that we no longer care at all about exactly how many scenery items you've placed. Instead, we just care about the big stuff; releasing new regions, setting up new dungeons, adding new player character types, etc.

This is all tracked via "excitement" levels for the different types of major changes which can be included in an update (you can see these in the new "Configure Release" window), and these excitement levels change over time and in reaction to your previous releases, so you may want to check these from time to time to keep your updates exciting!

Also, as an extra little bonus you can now give your updates names (the same way that I do for most MT2 updates!), and you can craft the full text of an announcement post about your update, which becomes part of a whole new release 'celebration' sequence.

[h3]Summary[/h3]

Big, big thanks to everyone for their patience as I've been finding my way through the weeds on this; I'm so much happier with where we've wound up compared against where we were two weeks ago, and I think that you all will be as well!

There's still some bug fixing to be done and some minor cleanup, but I feel like we're now really close to rolling out a really strong Progression Update to everyone!

Talk again soon,
-T

Hi folks!

Last time we talked I was just about ready to roll the Progression Update out to everyone. I said that it just needed to go through a phase of player testing, expecting that there would just be a few bugs to fix and then it'd be ready to go.

Welp.

While overall tester feedback for the Progression Update was extremely positive, several testers felt that the new requirements specifically around making new game releases were too rigid and could even become difficult to satisfy at all, later in the game. And after giving it some thought and further testing, I had to agree with them.

But worse, I realized that the system I had designed was running counter to what I wanted MMORPG Tycoon 2 to feel like to play; instead of empowering players to run their game as they like and to feel like they were engaging with and exciting (or enraging!) their subscriber base, I had set up what was effectively just a series of hoops for them to mechanically jump through every time. I didn't want to release the update with that small but important part of the game feeling like that.

So instead, I've spent the last week cooking up a new - better! - design for how new game releases could be planned and deployed. I'm now most of the way through patching a first implementation of this new design into the Progression Update. Once this implementation is complete, we'll be putting it up for another round of public player testing and feedback. (It will show up as Preview 4 on our public "test" beta branch, once it's ready for testing)

I'm hoping that I've nailed the design for the "New Game Release" portion of the update, and that the next time we talk I'll be announcing the full finished Progression Update release. But if not, I'll be back here in two weeks to give another development update to let you all know where we stand at that point!

Talk more soon,

-T

Hi folks!

First, I want to apologise for the recent radio silence; work on the Progression Update has been going on for a lot longer than I expected, as I kept finding more adjustments I wanted to make to the basic game structure, and time just got away from me.

This update has taken far longer and includes far more changes than I originally predicted, and I should have been posting updates here in the interim to let people know! Sorry — I promise I'll be better about communicating what's going on with development from now on!

So, with that said, I'm now working on the final few bits and pieces of the Progression Update, and I'm fully expecting it to land into the default Steam build within the next week or two; I have only two tasks left to finish up (both UI-related), and then it just needs to go through testing. So.. we're really close, now!

Anyhow, those were the most important things I wanted to say in this announcement. But if you'd like to know more about what's coming in this update, I've prepared a little sneak peek below, so do read on! (On the other hand, if you'd rather be surprised, then it's safe to stop reading now and I hope you'll enjoy discovering everything I've been working on when the update drops in the near future!)

-T



My main goal with the progression update was to fix up some big issues I was seeing with how players were progressing through the game; how new versions are released, how you acquire new technologies, how new character class slots are unlocked, and things of that sort.

[h2]Introducing: The Changelog[/h2]

The first big issue I wanted to address was the "optimal strategy" of setting up an autoclicker to speedrun version updates by rapidly placing hundreds of tufts of grass, or other inexpensive scenery items. It just didn't feel like a valid representation of what real game development is like. (I wish I could have completed this Progression Update faster by installing an autoclicker! :D )

So, we now show everything you've done to work toward the new release in a changelog window that's visible in the HUD. We still award build points for virtually any sort of edit you make to the game (in fact, we now cover even more edit types than we did before, including free edits like changing character type abilities!), but you can no longer earn all the points for a new release from doing a lot of a single type of edit. Instead, issuing a new release now requires making many different *kinds* of changes.

Additionally, big changes like opening up new regions, adding content for new levels, adding new player classes, new monsters, and other novelties all give extra bonus points in the changelog. Hopefully this will all be fairly intuitive once you see it in action!

Have you ever wanted to write release notes for your game's updates? We've added that as an option, too, immediately before releasing a new version of your game. Alternately, you can use our pre-generated ones!

[h2]Technology Development[/h2]

Another major issue I was concerned about was that I had tied developing new technologies to releasing new major versions of your game. This turned into a problem because the number of major versions could be very limited and they could be spread quite far apart, and many technologies presented were unbalanced, unclear, unexciting, or even outright unimplemented!

In the Progression Update I've flipped the unlocking of technology onto its head. Where you used to have to issue a major new release to unlock a new technology, you can now develop new technologies whenever you want to — just pay the costs and assign some developers to implement them. And what's more, completing new technologies now awards build point bonuses toward your next release!

Additionally, all technologies offered to the player are now fully described and implemented! This involved implementing several unimplemented old technologies, removing a few old technologies which couldn't yet be implemented, and adding a whole bunch of new ones to the list! And I still have plans for a lot more which will get added over time in future updates!

[h2]Character Type Slots[/h2]

We used to hand out extra class/monster/npc slots based on your subscriber count. That worked, but often resulted in you having heaps of unused "player class" slots when what you really wanted was monsters, or vice versa, and the unlock system just never felt satisfying to me, since you as the player had no choice in what you received.

Now, you can instead pick what slots you want to unlock, and do it whenever you want, all via the same new system we're using for developing technologies. Even better, like with technologies you now get build points for adding those new character types to your game!

Psst.. as part of this, you can now (finally!) unlock extra slots for custom-per-dungeon monster types, and custom-per-dungeon bosses. That epic 5-boss dungeon you've been dreaming about ever since the Dungeons Update came out? As of this update you can finally do it!

[h3]And another thing[/h3]

And there's a bunch of other exciting stuff in this update as well. To just quickly pick out some of the bigger items:

• More work for game masters! Game masters can now (optionally) respond to user reports of toxic game chat, or of cheaters, and you get to specify the policies they should follow for warning or banning players who get caught.
  
• New 'bug' system! The game's 'bug' system has been completely rewritten. There are now multiple types of bug which behave differently, ranging from causing full-on computer crashes for your subscribers to minor typos, and you can specify how and when your developers will deal with each of them, either as general policies or you can view the bug list itself and manually mark individual bugs to be fixed.
  
• Sometimes you just need to reboot the servers You can now take your whole game down for maintenance (which makes debugging easier and faster), or even schedule regular weekly maintenance periods so you don't even have to remember to do it manually.
  
• Game map preview! When starting a new game, the game now lets you preview the new game's map before you start. It also now shows and lets you modify the map seed, so you can share the seed with other players if you'd like to each begin from an identical starting map.
  
• Game logos! We now have the beginning of a system for generating custom logos for your game; you'll find this in the 'New Game' UI flow, or (for older saves) in the 'Game' status sheet. I'm looking forward to adding more editable logo prefabs to this system in the future, but I feel like it's already a big improvement toward giving your game its own unique visual identity!
  
• More sandbox options! I've added a whole bunch more Sandbox mode options, for folks who just want to get creative without needing to worry so much about the simulation aspects of the game!
  

All of the above plus lots and lots of bug fixes and more than a few performance improvements! Oh, and this new update is still fully compatible with all your old saves. So feel free to keep playing in those if you like!

And finally.. as an extra bonus for the folks who've read this far down.. if you're really keen, we have a preview build of this update up on our public 'test' beta branch right now; please feel free to go and have a play with it and let me know what you think of all these changes!

Thanks again for your patience with how long this update has taken me to work out, everyone; it's taken a lot longer than I intended, but I'm really happy with these changes and I feel like we're very close now!

Talk more soon,

-T

Hi folks!

Short one today with various bugfixes that I didn't want to delay until the upcoming "Progression" update:

• Fixed the 'undo' of destroying elite monsters or monster zones to correctly also restore any quests targeting them that were automatically destroyed.
  
• Fixed the crash reporter ignoring presses of the "Don't Report" button. (I'm facepalming
• so* hard over this one! Big apologies, everyone!)
  
• Fixed scenery items not being placeable on dungeon walls.
  
• Fixed a possible crash if you used keyboard hotkeys to switch between editing tools while in the middle of using an editing tool with the mouse.
  
• Fixed some extremely rare issues which could very rarely occur during new map generation, resulting in invalid map layouts.
  
• Fixed a subtle bug which could result in structures inside a dungeon instance trying to modify pathfinding data when they shouldn't be doing that.
  
• Fixed several multithreading-related race conditions during the game loading process.
  
• Fixed a missing name string for the "Sinister Dungeon Entrance" model. Whoops!
  

...and of course, there's a whole bunch of other, smaller bugfixes in here, too.

And with that, I'm diving back into the Progression Update, which is turning into a larger (and more exciting!) change than I'd initially expected; more details soon!

-T

Hi folks, this is a small hotfix for issues reported after the Feudal Update from a few days ago.

New in this build:

• Fixed a bug which caused a crash when loading certain very old save files if a whole series of criteria all happened to line up in exactly the wrong way. If you had an old save that was failing to load, they should now work correctly again!
  
• Fixed a bug which could sometimes result in a crash if you paused the game and destroyed a player class while a player of that class was in combat and an enemy had a ranged attack projectile already in flight and which was
• just about* to hit the player, AND you then created a new player class to replace the old one before unpausing the game. Now fixed!
  
• Fixed a crash bug that would happen if you were shown a crash report and chose not to submit it.

Big thanks to everybody who's sent feedback and bug reports, especially those who provided example save files for tracking down that first bug in the list! I've been trying to figure out what was causing that one for *months*, and it's only those user-provided saves which finally helped me locate and fix the issue!

-T