Utopia Blog - July 1st, 2009

[Fagashlil]

Please use this thread to comment on this week's Utopia Blog :)

[Fate1316]

First

Edit:

We’ll see how it goes over the next few days with the first small group of alpha testers. After that we’ll be in a better position to call it.

Does this mean we can expect an update before next weds?

[Luth]

bah @ you Fate, i was posting in the other thread when this went up.

and after reading the blog, i can't believe there's STILL no estimation of dates here and the alpha testing hasn't even gotten off the ground...

unbelievable, but not surprising i guess...

[tzar]

Alpha has started

[Yadda9To5]

Congrats on launching the aplha! With the entire community impatiently looking over your shoulder it must be great to be able to show some real progress in the form of screenshots!
At the same time, please don't rush the game, when the new code is unstable, you'll effectively have killed utopia (don't want to pressure you.. but still)
Maybe you guys should consider to end the current Wol and Genesis age now, and start a real final age with the old code. Or at the least restart Genesis, which is definitely running too long.

[Sweetiepie]

However we are also thinking about promoting a move away from IRC to in-game instant messaging.

Intra kingdom, yes please. But not between kingdoms.

[Avenger]

"Send Armies", "Wizards"&"Mystics"?
Other than a real KD forum, these useless renames and some visual "theme" changes... don't see much.

[Bijo]

the new code looks great omac great job!!!

i love it <3

all see to work great (for now) i will do alot of test on that new code
you sure did add a few more pages to the game ^^
and again GREAT JOB!!!!

login is alot more faster from the old server :)

[Bishop]

"Send Armies", "Wizards"&"Mystics"?
Other than a real KD forum, these useless renames and some visual "theme" changes... don't see much.

thats the point? its not supposed to be all different...

[ninjin]

Great that the alpha is up and running.

"Send Armies", "Wizards"&"Mystics"?
Other than a real KD forum, these useless renames and some visual "theme" changes... don't see much.

The name changes are welcome. I like the name changes. Links should explain whats on the other side.

Suggestions
Change "Growth" to "Buildings" to make it even better. Changing "Mystics" to "Spells" would also be good and integrate the "Mystic affairs" into same page. Never heard anyone say "I'll put a mystic on you".

For later
Also it would be good to have "latest happenings" summary of your news, the KDs news and and new threads/posts in the forum. That and a select default "landingpage" after login would be good.
Having to look at 3-4 pages to get up to speed on whats going on is a little much.
PS
I hope you removed the forum button. Totally useless button that is.

[Mourhelm]

To anyone that is worried, there are less graphics than in the current version and some nice additions like "sent messages".

PS
I hope you removed the forum button. Totally useless button that is.

It was removed :)

[Avenger]

War Room > Send Armies :))

[Igor444]

probably too early to ask but where does the war forum go? (possibly in the war section?)

[comport9]

Game screens look great. Nice baby step's in the right direction.

Question though: do you know how this will affect Metatron and Angel? I can understand if they need to be changed, but if there's now a script instead of html responsible for the display, will Metatron or Angel even be able to function?

[Ezzerland]

Hrmm.. Why is there a wizards button AND a mystics button? That layout just seems really weird. If nothing was really changed about the game why are there multiple buttons to the 'same' thing?

Similarly there is 'war' 'ceasefires' and 'relations'

They are all the same thing.

Curious, also, about why the change of name from War Room to 'Send Armies' and Thievery to 'Send Thieves' Similarly how you have 'province news' basically in two placed.

needless to say I am very curious about your decision on naming certain links.

In regards to the new message system, it looks great. In the drop menu is there an option to mass message intra-kd?

The interface looks clean, smooth and rather nice. I'm curious about its compatibility with things like angel, and the various php formatters etc.

Does this also mean you have, possibly, fixed minor game issues such as paper bugs, and provinces that are online actually showing as online page by page rather than just the throne page?