Major Game Changes - Need Your Vote

[kevindusi]

New forum who dis?

I vote immediate changes across the board.

Hey, is Dusi Harbor still around? Asking for a friend.

[Brekk]

New forum who dis?
I vote immediate changes across the board.
Hey, is Dusi Harbor still around? Asking for a friend.

No, we renamed it to better reflect its founder—Douchville. It’s great to see you back, my friend, Lord of the Halflings. Your write-ups have been missed!

[kevindusi]

New forum who dis?
I vote immediate changes across the board.
Hey, is Dusi Harbor still around? Asking for a friend.

No, we renamed it to better reflect its founder—Douchville. It’s great to see you back, my friend, Lord of the Halflings. Your write-ups have been missed!

Rude. I hope you get a rash.

[Lord Thanatos]

Hi all.

I hope to see you all in my next games.

I voted for immediate changes across the board.

[davekuyk]

New forum who dis?

I vote immediate changes across the board.

Hey, is Dusi Harbor still around? Asking for a friend.

Kevin Dusi? I thought you were put away for corporate tax fraud in San Diego! Just get out?

[kevindusi]

New forum who dis?

I vote immediate changes across the board.

Hey, is Dusi Harbor still around? Asking for a friend.

Kevin Dusi? I thought you were put away for corporate tax fraud in San Diego! Just get out?

Dave!!

They let me play from my cell.

[Clueless]

He is indeed getting help re-coding it.  But that takes time, a lot of time. As in there are thousands of lines of code to check and re-do. In the meantime balancing the various Kingdoms and brigades will take a few days, the reinforcements,summons and companions adjustments a few weeks, and probably about the same for spells.

And I agree with Charles that the game interface needs to be used in the rewrite of the rulebook showing examples of use.  Or a fast introduction showing same.  I think an "Intro to Alamaze" showing an example turn being filled out with an explanation would be invaluable to a beginning player.

The above statement regarding, "...brigades will take a few days, reinforcements a few weeks, probably the same for spells."

This is exactly how NOT to roll out a new release. You don't see major corporations like Microsoft, IBM, and others say, "Hey, we're going throw in a few changes, see how they work out, then go from there." That's a recipe for disaster, and very haphazard-like and chaotic. It's sounds like a mess.

As a product manager, I'm in favor of waiting for a well-polished release.

In the past, wasn't that how it was previously handled (referring to the Uncle Mike's Corner posts). New releases were designed, fully tested, and well documented prior to implementing those changes to the players. Players weren't whiplashed over a multitude of changes over the course of a few weeks/months.

I know players want new things, so do I, but phasing in a multitude of changes over an extended period is going to be terrible. What will it be like for the players?

Brek mentioned that when he removes the Revelation spell, or make another change to brigades, it'll be immediate. However, what if I'm working towards developing that goal? Develop a wizard high enough to cast that spell, then all of a sudden, surprise you don't get it. Or, doing the same for recruiting companion brigades then all of a sudden, sorry, you don't get those either. Then after a while, say, whoops, we need to tweak that even further because it wasn't fully vetted, so get ready for a whipsaw-like action playing your kingdom. That'll suck and it gives the wrong impression that you're a player-friendly game.

I really prefer to wait for a well-polished, and fully tested release before rolling anything out. As a product manager, it'll be a disaster otherwise.

As for the introduction to the game, as a new player, I can say that the tutorial and rulebook were quite helpful in learning how to play the game. I don't understand all of the negative comments in this post.

There are helpful notes throughout the rulebook (and Help Guides page) on how to play the game with its interface, and tips to be better. For example, I'm in a game currently playing the Sorcerer and the Elf kingdom moved his main group at my capital. I followed the tip listed under the rulebook's "Quick Start Guide (Sample Turn 1 Actions)" to cast the death spell, and it ripped his group apart.

In the same turn, he attacked my capital that has a castle fortification that caused 54% damage to his weakened group. The Elf player really needs to read the rulebook to pick up on its tips. I did, and it just saved me in a game.

So, I disagree that the intro to the game isn't any good, and that the rulebook is lousy. Sure, improvements can be made in just about everything, but I feel that it was one of the better aspects to the game (compared to others). Alamaze is very complex, providing tips on the behind the scenes that new players wouldn't know about, is a great aid and makes the game that much more enjoyable.

Going back to this thread's topic, hopefully, after reading this some players may agree and feel that waiting for a well-polished and fully tested release would be better for the whole community.

[FitzandtheFool]

Hi guys.  Fitz here.
I'm of two minds about the changes:

I'm leaning towards immediate implementation, but the idea that things change in a random trickle without a heads up is going to skew every game between now and the end of the changes.
Imagine going to war against an army and using a tactic like flanking that suddenly no longer exists for that kingdom.  Or a spell that vanishes.  That would be frustrating and if it happens over a year it's far from ideal.  In a high strategy game like this, those details will for sure have a major impact on the course of games in progress.

How about a hybrid option: updates can be monthly or quarterly.  Before each update we get a brief e-mail or post like this:

Major Gameplay changes:
Red dragon gets an extra reinforcement on turn 5.
Revelation spell removed for all kingdoms below magic level 1
Tyrant armies change from defense above average to defense average
Order 720 is replaced by order 716
Flanking now works for centaur companions
etc..

This post can highlight the major changes of the coming update in advance.  It'll still affect games in progress but to my mind:
Once in a while is better than updates trickling in at random every few days.
We get the benefits of the most important updates with less chaos to current games
People who take the time to read the upcoming changes can plan for them.
Changes can be done in sensible batches (Next week all kingdoms get rebalanced for military strength)

I don't think this makes extra work (though if it does forget I said anything).
Thanks for asking your community and making this awesome game for us.  As a player I really appreciate your work.

[unclemike]

Wyand,

Changes impact all games, old and new, immediately. I want to be clear on that. The current changes have already be vetted, but kingdoms will continue to receive updates live.

For example, if I remove the Revelation spell, it disappears at once. If I add one more dragon brigade at turn 15, and you are on turn 14 heading into 15, you will receive that brigade on the next turn. If you are on 15 and heading to 16 or later, you will not receive it.

Adjustments to recruited troops will work similarly. These will take more time, and I may need to manually update older games to align with new companions and related changes.

Spells become active for a kingdom as soon as they are implemented. I should also add that we have computed the strength of each brigade, and those numbers will be released soon. These values are not likely to change. Both Option 1 and Option 2 already include these computed strengths.

Please ask questions, and do not forget to vote at the top.

Hey all, it's Uncle Mike! Don't hate me forever :>

I got the broadcast about a new release. Brek, I wish I could help out, but I've been really busy this year. I think the last conversation that we had was about making the websites more secure with SSL and changing the websites from fallofromegame.com to something with Alamaze. New players may think that you're running a scam operating a game under another game's URL. Let me know if you need anything with this new release, but it looks like you have things under control. That's good!

About the vote on new releases, Rick and I had problems rolling out partial releases in the past. Despite giving advanced notice and documenting the list of changes to everyone with plenty of time to prepare, players didn't like having the game modified over an extended period. It gave the impression that you're pulling the rug from under them. You may want to consider giving advance notice and fully document everything before actually changing the code base.

We've found that making a well-polished release with plenty of notice was better for the players than updating things as you go along. But it's up to you.

You could also do what JohnnyUtah mentioned about a test game. That's what Rick and I did with Experimental Game #300 that introduced new game mechanics from cannons for seapower battles to new spells like Disintegrate. That way, the new changes would be fully vetted, and you won't affect the other games. But that was way back in 2nd Cycle days leading into 3rd Cycle. We were using XML files back then rather than a SQL database. If Cypher (Dave Pitzel) is still around, perhaps, he can make some suggestions back when he was handling things with the ancient Clipper code.

Anyways, sounds like Alamaze is still going strong which everyone wants to hear!

[Brekk]

Good to hear from you, Mike! If you’re ever willing to implement a new map, let me know, I had Ralph create two. I’d also like to add a few spells that are essentially variants of existing ones (e.g., Wall of Sand mirroring Wall of Fire) so we can add more theme with less coding. Let me know what you think!