Disclaimer: This is a long read. There is no TL;DR, so make sure you have at least 15 minutes free time before you start to read this post.
Hey everyone,
First, I’d like to thank A1 into supporting me, and giving me ideas on how to best write this article. Also, before starting everything I have to say that I absolutely love Shadow Era. I want it to succeed, and become one of the biggest Card Games out there. However there are multiple reasons for why it’s not accomplishing what it could accomplish, and I think that most of these things are problems that could definitely be fixed. If there was the willingness to actually accomplish these things, the game could go (or could have gone?) very far. Do note, I’m not trying to talk bad about the people who are putting a lot of effort in this game, I love you all. That doesn’t mean that things can’t improve though.
I’m going to try and break down my post into multiple sections. First I’ll post the things that me and the guild think are the most important things on why Shadow Era isn’t moving forward as fast as it could, as to not dilute the attention too much to other things that also could be greatly improved.
Core issues:
Issue 1: Extremely slow progress.
1.1 Coding
Why is it, that everything in this game needs to take ages to be implemented? Of course, there are always issues that can arise. Unexpected turns, family matters, professional problems, or what have you. But these things are recurring every single time things need to get implemented. There are very often periods on MONTHS without a single small update or a things that has been done (code-wise). As a customer, it feels very much that this thought progress is followed:
“Hmm, it has been a while since we did something for Shadow Era. How about we quickly do this one thing over the course of the week, so the players are happy again for the next few months.” That’s how it often feels. Of course, it’s not always like that, and there are people working hard behind the scenes, but I have very often trouble seeing that.
As to give an example on how slow Shadow Era is progressing, I’ll compare it with Might and Magic: Duel of Champions. That’s another digital card game. It can be found here: http://www.duelofchampions.com/en/index.aspx
I agree that it’s not an entirely fair comparison, since Ubisoft is a big company, with lots of resources at its disposal, so fast and efficient coding is easily done. That said, it’s still a game that is very close to shadow Era, being a full digital card game.
Might and Magic was released the 18th of December 2012. So at this time, it’s out for less than 5 months (not including the beta, which started in the summer 2012).
Release notes from Shadow Era the past year (heck, I’ll start at 1/1/2012 for Shadow Era) versus the notes of the time that Might and Magic is out:
Shadow Era (2012 – 2013):
9th March 2012: v1.503 was released: http://www.shadowera.com/showthread.php?13198-v1-503
26 October 2012: v1.612 was released: http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....-612-released!
14th December 2012: v1.700 was released: http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....ight=drag+drop
14th March 2013: v2.000 (DP) was released: http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....cies-Released!
Now Might and Magic – Duel of Champions (2012 – 2013):
18th December 2012: The game gets released. It gets multiple features, as well as an expansion pack on release date, making it already a total of 344 cards released. And that’s just the release date.: http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php...ber-18th-2012?
17 January: First patch: http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php...Prison-Cavern?
19 March: First update with features. New tournament type + bug fixes: http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php...to-6pm-UKtime?
30 April: Next expansion is announced, and will be live by the end of May. : http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php...LD-OF-THE-VOID
To summarize: Shadow Era got 4 updates in the past 16 months. Might and Magic got 3 (and another one coming at the end of May) updates in 4 months. That’s an update almost every month. At that speed, Shadow Era would have had 12 updates, instead of the 4 we had now. Note that not all updates are big things, and they don’t have to be (2 of the 4 updates from Shadow Era also had close to no content). Anything that makes it feel like that the game is progressing forward is good. But we are getting very little of that in Shadow Era.
1.2 Physical cards
I have the feeling (and I’m not alone in this) that physical cards are slowing down the digital game extremely. In my eyes, the physical part of the game is a terrible thing for this game. Why would a game, that is still in it’s infancy, try to conquer the physical market? That market is over-saturated already as is, with card games like Magic: The Gathering, Yu Gi Oh, and Pokémon already dominating the market. Having these physical cards does 2 things for the digital game:
First: it slows things down immensely. We used to have regular updates to the digital game, but that was before the physical cards were a fact. It was once these cards were introduced that we had months of no updates, no word from developers except on physical related stuff.
Second: With the physical game out, the digital game can never be as flexible anymore. Remember updates like these: 1.24: http://www.shadowera.com/showthread.php?3093-v1-25 or 1.25: http://www.shadowera.com/showthread.php?13198-v1-503. What these updates did, was make cards that were too powerful, a bit less powerful, and buffed cards that could use it. What that did was revitalize the game. It made it so that the people could play longer with the cards they already had, because the game itself changed. And that’s what made the game awesome. Now, especially because of the physical cards, underused cards will never see the light of day, which is sad. Especially if we need to play with our cards for so long.
My suggestion:
Regarding coding: Hire a headhunter, and try and get some decent coders into the company. I’ve heard multiple rumors, but I’m obviously not sure which ones are true. Most rumors do come down to one basis, and that’s that there are not enough coders who are CAPABLE (important word here).
Regarding Physical cards: I’m not saying that the game should get rid of them, but they should be greatly reduced in importance, and only be showcased as a collector’s edition item. In my eyes, the digital game should still be subject to change, even after the cards are printed. It’s what makes the digital game interesting. Why hamper evolution? Why change something that was fundamental in the past to this game?
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