Game development - future planning

[Captain Jack]

Greetings everyone,

As promised, here is a sketch of our plans for forthcoming updates /features in the game. I must say that a great deal of our planning has been heavily affected by the playerbase voting here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=406

This time, you don't get to vote but feel free to express your opinion; I feel that written comments backed up with reasons can be more helpful at this stage.

Present time

Today we moved into Version 1.1 with the new voodoo cards.
Alongside with them we introduced 4 (scripted) new card abilities. Some of these abilities will be copied to existing cards in the forthcoming voodoo revision. There will be one soon where, according to your feedback, we will tweak all the voodoo that need it. Things like rarity, turns cost, abilities, even card effects may be tweaked. So get your suggestions flowing in the voodoo card.

Next Feature

We have already started adding small features and improvements to the game. We always do this in between major features. Every such bit increases the version by 0.0.1 while major features increase the version by 0.1
There is not really a schedule for small features; we do them on player requests but most of the time the new major feature requires them.

The next major feature in planning, is tutorial missions for newcomers. We had to give this the top current priority in the expense of the Hideout, Gold resource and Banks (Treasure Hunt already done) for a series of reasons.
First, we have some open design issues with Hideout/Bank/Gold Resource details. We need to define some rules first that are not easy to define (more details below).
Secondly and most importantly, we need to create a better newcomer interface in order to increase our retain percentages. The game is getting better and better but regarding newcomers, we are still using (at large) the system from the first period of the game. It isn't really helpful.

This update will not only come with improvements in the interface; It will also come with tutorial missions and perhaps a couple of new game elements, just to make the game more interesting for the newcomer.

Given the chance, I would like to ask everyone to keep helping in the game getting/retaining new players. We are still in the growing phase and if we want to get bigger, we are going to need your help. The more actively helping, the better.

This major update will move the game to version 1.2

Hideout/Gold Resource/Banks progress

->It is worth noting that Hideout has already completed design phase and some code has been written. Administrators already have partial access to it.
->Gold resource is already scripted but it needs the Hideout to be enabled. We are also in lack of some ruling on how exactly gold resource will work.
->Banks will be a Hideout building, so they need the Hideout too. However, we also are in great confuse on how most things about banks will work. In fact, the new cards are expected to help into the necessity of Banks as more wealth will be generated from everyone. More wealth will also be needed for the Hideout buildings which will be expensive. Any ideas about banks, post here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=215

The topic about Hideout is here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=393

Nonetheless, this will be the feature that will follow Tutorial missions and will move the game to version 1.3

Ship Specialization

Combat needs to become more specialized. Ship specialization is the highway to achieve this. Picture every ship as a unique character; This is what we always wanted to achieve. Some great progress has been done from the community in this chapter so we won't lose much time in designing this one.

What can be discussed till then, it is Fleet tactics perhaps which is a subject not yet opened. At any case, it can be added later to balance ship specialization. Here is the topic about it: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=579

This will move the game to version 1.4

More features

From hereafter, we don't have any specific priorities yet. This will be shaped in the near future as we progress. It is worth noting that the above priorities might also change, nothing is definite, but the probability of such is indeed low.

Features such as Nation Control (needs more user input, we got some ideas ourselves), Patrol & Escort (This will need to wait for Ship Specialization and continue from there), Pirate Code war (guild diplomacy too), Parrot Feature, Game News and Random Events are all considered as Major features and some of them will be picked till version 2.0.

At version 2.0 and beyond we will have to consider ultra major features such as IC extension and Foot Battle.

Let's not forget all the improvements of current features and some great ideas that already exist (ie more usages for Governor daughters) as well as needed interface upgrades (a mobile version of the game) that will still trouble us at some point.