Week 10

Submitted by

Mat on Wed, 2017-04-19 03:40

Cześć!

First thing first: Happy Easter to all who celebrate it and sorry for the small delay it has caused on the weekly report. My family literally forbid me to work over the long weekend. :)

But the weekend is gone and the report is here. It will be a relatively brief one - our 10th week passed quietly, was a day shorter (due to a national holiday) and for the moment, we spent far more time on server-side development & hosting than we originally aimed for. Still, even though the shift in our focus wasn't our true interest but rather a necessity, I'm mostly pleased with the results as they'll fit to the monthly plans nicely.

Will they please you too? Let's find it out!

^{Behind the scenes: the life of an artwork. We usually start with a very rough concept - like a meeting between the peers and the king.}

Weekly Status

Game Client

I was only able to spend like two days of the week on the game client, so I'm still updating the UI elements and making fixes to the final GUI layout.
I decided to add some extra elements to the Codex view of the CoA creator for the release, as some regions (especially the summary on the right page) seems like it could be vastly improved. I was in the middle of doing this when Unity ate the scene (just like a few weeks back), but I'm not to be retreated on this matter. I still can't deliberately reproduce the issue or find the root cause, which is quite annoying, but I've only lost a tiny bit of work - fortuntely it happened about an hour after a backup.

^{When the basics seems good, Sándor starts adding details...}

Platform & Game Server

Through the past weeks, we've slowly checked, tested and chosen the appropriate server infrastructure, licenses and settings for our Platform & Game Server logics and gave all info to the appropriate person. We expected (as we were told so) to get the necessary permissions in a matter of days, but unfortunately, it wasn't the case and we were waiting all week. Fortunately, we had a presentiment that things would never go to the easiest route, so Steve and I started week 10 in the office, discussing a Plan B in case we wouldn't be able to setup the server. This plan has been started to be executed on week 10.

^{...and we usually change a few things. Like we wanted these mighty lords to be more equal, so we asked the king to up his royal arse.}

Steve implemented the cross-platform bug reporting endpoint we have outlined on week 9. This means that once the client is also prepared to use it, testers could send simple bug reports (with auto-screenshot from the client) from the app straight to our internal project management system. We hope this would simplify and streamline giving feedback to us for all but the most difficult issues.
We've also started working on the Account Inventory & Collectibles features. Short term, this will allow us to unlock the extra cosmetic items for our vanguards and supporters, so they'll get some of the things we're promising for a while. Long term, this system will be responsible for every kind of unlockable items, from the purchasable cosmetics and private game sessions to the in-game unlockable rewards (like game achievements, dynastic goals, and the like).

Website

We've created a development clone of the website and started to integrate the Player Module to it. It is currently work-in-progress.

^{...and leave the crown at the royal tent for a bit. Small details can quite change the dynamics and the "sublimal" message of the depicted situation.}

Next Step

We'll continue running on Plan B until we get every necessary licenses and permissions for the hosting, at which point we'll pause everything else and setup the Platform for "live". Week 11 is coming to be a short week again, with this Monday still being a national holiday for the majority of the team.
I'll continue working on the Client as it's mandatory for the release.
Steve will continue working on the Platform - Website test integration. If he would be ready before we are able to host the Platform, he will focus on the Account Inventory & Collectibles.

^{Once the details are decided, Sándor can finish all the details. Here comes the finalized art - the king is almost indistingushable from his peers.}