Game Development Answers

[Captain Jack]

Ahoy,

I have received some questions regarding the next development plans, for the game. As well as the Development's Team role in this. I will try to answer these two questions while also revealing my intentions for the game.

First of all, I have to underline my biggest concern and this is related to the game interface. I am convinced that a new, fresh interface will improve the game's chances not only in surviving the test of time but also expanding. Therefore, to me, this is the most important development challenge ahead. As it has been discussed before, the current plan is to gradually upgrade the current skin so everyone adjusts to it without major issues.

The second challenge we face, is the game improvement. As the game progresses and as time passes, weaknesses and new ideas come into surface. We have some great ideas already in the forums. Myself, I have some extra ones, which are also very interesting. All these ideas, when transformed into features, they improve the game. This is not something that all enjoy though and we need to always keep in the back of our mind that a part of the playerbase is more skeptical towards changes. Therefore we should always avoid radical changes. Just like we ended up with the skin.


The third challenge is the limited developing time that I currently have and will continue to have for at least 6 months ahead. It always boils down to income and PG income is not enough to sustain a single developer right now. However, as I do not want to sound at all pessimistic, you also need to know that this game means a lot to me and I enjoy developing it so much, that income was never and will never be an issue. So, at the end of the day, no matter what, PG development will continue. Hopefully, we will reach a point where it will be able to may not one but multiple developers and in this way, we will be able to do things a lot faster.


The latest challenge I mentioned, the one of the limited developing time, I tried to manage with two steps:
1)The creation of player admins for the community side of the game. These players would fill my boots for the time I spent in the forums, so I could save this time and work in coding instead.
2)The creation of the development team. Again, I spent too much time in reading every single post and replying to everyone which again happened in the expense of coding.

I hoped with the two steps above, I would have MORE time than I actually had before. This has not worked yet, but I still think it can work. If the two teams work as intended, development can become a lot faster than before. It is not working yet but I think it can work. I am repeating myself because I really believe it. And I know that the time into the new status is not much.

We need to find the right people who will not only have the right mentality and skills but also the time. It is not easy. Perhaps we might need more people to get the job done. No matter what, we will keep trying till we make these two chapters work. They have to work after all. Except if you think that is better for a single developer with limited time also has to read through thousands of posts from the community.

At this point, I am open to suggestions. I do not claim to have the perfect solution here. I am dragged to this solution because of the circumstances that I have at hand.

So, now that the facts and events are laid, let's proceed to the next steps of the plan:

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1)Devteam

The devteam has to complete the top priority task which is the clearance of all open suggestions. Remember, that we need a second Coordinator (Deznutz is the only one right now). The decision for this will be taken once the first task finishes and the person that will be chosen will be the one that have been most helpful during this procedure. Once this is done, prioritization will begin.


2)Player Community Admins

I am thinking to pass the appointment AND discharge of all player admins to the community administrator (aka Meliva). This is only the next natural step to take. I can see that there are some issues right now with FB and Wiki which are falling behind. This is bad and has to be rectified.

3)Development Planning

Right now, we have the following features waiting in line which are prerequisites before we move to version 2.0
a)Flagship
b)Plantation Improvements (workers market sale logs primarily and activation of Guards as a bonus to production and perhaps training)
c)A new chain of quests with a one-time big rewards at the end
d)More improvements to the interface.


Once we reach that point, we have the following options:

1)Create a new game world that will run on the game as we know it at that point. That world will receive no updates. The version after all will be enough to ensure competive gameplay for years to come. This world can have a designated end date and some metrics could be tweaked to make the gameplay more relevant to the remaining time.

At this case and any case, Avonmora will continue as we know it, to the test of time, getting all the development focus etc. Always with the final word on me.

2)Create a new game world, as described above with a key difference; We can try new ideas at that world. Perhaps ideas directly from the dev team.

3)Create one more endless world like Avonmora which will get updates. This time however, only player dev approved ideas (with no input from me).

4)If we get a lot more players, we can have every world have its own dev team which will decide the future of the world.



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The game will be shaped a bit differently as we will move to PG 3.0 and this is why after all the idea of an extra game world, that will retain the gameplay as know it now, should be strong in the options we have ahead. At all cases, a version 2.0 of the game will be kept intact and we will able to launch this version at anytime in the future.


As for PG 3.0 ideas, most have been already mentioned. Here is the latest fresh ideas viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5013
I will also post a new one there, at game discussion, one that I have been thinking lately. At the end of the day, your feedback will shape which (of them and all the rest) moves forward, at least for Avonmora.

[Grimrock Litless]

Isn't that looking way too far ahead?

[DezNutz]

Isn't that looking way too far ahead?

No. You look far enough down the road so that as things come up you can make decisions based on where you want to go. To put it in perspective, you don't drive a car by only looking at the road 6 feet in front of you.

[PFH]

Isn't that looking way too far ahead?

No. You look far enough down the road so that as things come up you can make decisions based on where you want to go. To put it in perspective, you don't drive a car by only looking at the road 6 feet in front of you.

Automatic driving google car tho?

[DezNutz]

Isn't that looking way too far ahead?

No. You look far enough down the road so that as things come up you can make decisions based on where you want to go. To put it in perspective, you don't drive a car by only looking at the road 6 feet in front of you.

Automatic driving google car tho?

Yes. The sensors reach out far.