Bi-Weekly Report - May 2, 2018

[Captain Jack]

Ahoy all,

This is the second Bi-Weekly report. Such reports are compiled approximately every 2 weeks.

Here is the outline of what I will present to you today:
-Main Development: Plantations
-Recent Developments
-Major Features
-New Major Feature
-Goroum
-Playerbase growth
-How you can help
-Epilogue


Main Development: Plantations

These past two weeks, our primary concern and focus were Plantations. It was mostly code writing these two weeks as most issues are resolved. While we expected to finish them completely before this report, there is still work to be done. At any case though, we are nearly done. There is still some code work left, some graphics we need and some needed alpha testing.

Plantations will be launched only to Goroum for a short period, perhaps one week. Then we will open it to the ports that produce food, tobacco, cotton and rum. After a while the rest ports will be opened, with similar functionality and different naming. We find no reason to create different functionality for the rest ports (wood/tools/iron). It is counterproductive to do this after all.

Recent Developments

We really had not much time to do anything else than plantations. There were no server maintenance or concerns during this time. The only other matter we attended to, was some in-game improvements for newcomers and also some marketing ideas in order to improve newcomer signups. There is still a lot of work to be done towards both directions though.

Major Features

Plantations were first published at June 11, 2017. As it seems, 11 months later, they will be an implemented game feature. I cannot recall a similar major feature that managed to make it into the game in such short time. I know that this might sound like a long time to you, but it really isn't. Hideout for example, took 2.5 years.

It requires a lot of work to take an idea into the game, especially when we speak about a major one. Major features are named as such, because they affect the game as a whole. Plantations are more than this, as they also required and require major features around it, in order to work well. You only need to look back to the amount of discussion on the plantation feature and the features around it, to realize the amount of open issues that had to be resolved before hand.

So, by looking back, we all need to realize (ourselves included) the amount of work that major features need. Some, like Ship Specialization, are really huge and cannot be implemented right away. Others need to wait for the features that will open the path for them, before they can be implemented.


New Major Features

It is now time to plot our course for our next journey. The leading candidate is to continue the Ship Specialization major feature. I am mentioning continue instead of start, as considerable work has already been done here.

Other candidates are:
-Port Buildings
-Port Blockades
-Witch Hut
-IC Extension
-Pirate Code Wars

There are other features that are urgent, but they are not major.
Interface and newcomer improvements are not considered major features any longer but ongoing processes. We will work on them regularly. A new Roleplaying Missions Chain (at the fashion of MoW) is required though.

There are also a lot of chores needed and a lot of maintenance work needed as well (ie forums, in-game rp events, etc). These will be continued regardless.

This is a good time to update your Personal Wishlists. Once Plantations are out, we will spend some time to read ALL of them. Then we will take our decisions regarding our focus.

Goroum

Goroum is now out of food. Our planning was that Plantations would be out before this would happen. As a result, we now have an artificial production of 750k crates, produced during daily update for Goroum.

This production will remain even when Plantations come out. Our idea is to keep this for every port that has less than 10M crates. We could even allow nation officials to pay their citizens to get this production.

I will soon post an idea regarding this.

Playerbase Growth

474 new players joined in the last 30 days, this is a bad metric and about half of our usual average.
However, 189 of them joined in the last week, which signals an important improvement.
If last week numbers are maintained, we will reach our usual numbers of nearly 1,000 signups per month. This is also our objective.

Of course, the problem is not really signups but retention. Something where we do see an improvement as well. Our average numbers are the highest in recent time and they match those of Nov 2017. At every case, near at our all time high. We believe that with the introduction of plantations, we will be able to set new records.

Once Plantations are out, we will launch a significant advertising campaign to attract both new and past players back.

How you can help

Like we discussed in the last Bi-Weekly update, our current need is your help with the playerbase growth. However, as I see it now, this is going to be an everlasting need. Therefore we will need to find extra ways for you to help. It is however the best thing you can do for this game, bring other players here or help players who come here to stay.

Perhaps one thing you could do as extra at this time, is to rise awareness to past players regarding the forthcoming plantations feature. So, if you keep in touch with them, I believe they might be interested to hear about a new feature coming. After all, this is a feature designed for veterans so we had them in mind when we chose this.

We will also need help in deciding the next major feature soon and we also have some certain needs, posted underDevelopment thread.


Epilogue

This signals another Bi-Weekly report. Our second in a row! As promised, at May 2. Next Bi-Weekly report is scheduled for May 16. Hopefully, by then we will have Plantations out!

For any questions or feedback, please post!

[TheLoveTiger]

On the marketing side of things, I know you mentioned trying to draw back previous players, do you plan to do this by emailing any player who has ever signed up?

[The Lamb]

On retention, im sure this has been brought up before somewhere, but this is a game of time essentially. People, especially early, may not have enough to do to occupy the time in between the time it takes to _____. Unless your the type of player that purchased a lot of credits early to get ahead faster, and you all know who I am , I mean you are!

What if there were Daily, weekly and monthly challenges with rewards to give people something to do when they are counting down the clock? Obviously the challenges range in difficulty.

You could do the daily's, maybe if you do all 7 you get a piece of a map, maybe when you get all the pieces it leads to a special treasure, or special shipwreck, and you have to search a mini map or, or or...

I was just thinking of other "time" based games.

[VagSmasher]

"This server could not prove that it is s2.piratesglory.com; its security certificate expired yesterday." its that time again

[VagSmasher]

"This server could not prove that it is s2.piratesglory.com; its security certificate expired yesterday." its that time again