False Hopes, Broken Promises

[iClipse]

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?

[iClipse]

Part 2:
Issue 2: Poor communication
There is not enough information available. This is especially regarding the physical cards. People are often outraged by the amount of information available. Physical cards were being shipped in month X (I’m not entirely sure which one), and then only months later, all we get is some posts like: “The cards are shipping now!”. However, over half a year later, there were still multiple people who did not receive their cards yet.
Another example regarding poor communication. Do note, I'm saying a big thumbs up to Kyle for posting this, but it was still a post with false promises.

It's with a heavy heart today that I must finally admit defeat in the scandal over physical bonuses to people that preordered.

Although the card sleeves were finally produced thanks to sub-contracting Cartamundi, the playmats, tokens and collector's tins had numerous manufacturing delays through companies in China. Although we paid a deposit and were given start dates, they constantly failed to deliver on those dates and things got pushed back again and again. After finally canceling the orders and attempting to restart the process by contracting through more reputable companies, the product samples we ordered have been stuck in Vietnam customs for almost two months now due to increased import controls. Again, even a ballpark date when the items can be manufactured and delivered is completely unknown.

The physical world is new and uncertain to us, and we've learned a lot about what went right and what went wrong. The greatest pain is that we couldn't provide updates during this waiting period, as we didn't have any new information to give. It made a lot of people unhappy, and angry that they didn't get what they were promised. Although we've tried to add more and more bonuses, such as the exclusive digital sleeves, that still didn't solve the problem.

So today I have to finally say that enough is enough. We can no longer put the reputation of our company at the mercy of third party manufacturers. It's for this reason that an exchange has to be made on the promises of playmats, tokens and collector's tins. Instead, you will be shipped the premium Zaladar card sleeves and a free Dark Prophecies booster box - a $65 value - when they are produced early next year.

I can only hope that you all sympathize with our position on this, and accept the exchange that we're forced to make. Thanks for your support and incredible patience!

TL;DR - we had to cancel the playmats, tokens and collector's tins. But you'll get a free Dark Prophecies booster box instead!

Note: The people that preordered the Epic Collection and Complete Playsets will still get their limited edition playmats.

So. In some way, we’re still early 2013. BUT: Balance changes are still taking place, so the cards are not being printed yet. When would we get extra information regarding when the cards were going to be printed/shipped? Not at all? By the end of 2013? I’m obviously exaggerating here, but that’s how it has been the past year. Close to no information for the customers, and this makes a lot of people frustrated (and they should be). In the end, it’s something that has been promised, for which they paid. I’m not saying that the physical cards were a bad deal, they were a seriously good deal, BUT if you can’t deliver something (all the bonuses), then don’t promise it.
Situations like the one above are continuously plaguing this game, and they are not seeming to improve. This angers a lot of people greatly.

My suggestion: Put someone in charge over the physical cards who is ALSO in charge of the communication towards the players.

Issue 3: Promises pretty much always get broken

Why do you guys post things like these if you can’t accomplish them?

The foil effect for DP cards is not yet complete, the foreground character is not masked yet and should not be shiny. Don't worry, your foil cards will automatically update in about a week when the work of manually masking all the artwork is complete, no Apple approval required.
The animation was turned off when the card is not moving because of the number of complaints about it, and it simply wasn't realistic looking.

That was posted almost 3 weeks ago. Well, where are they? I wouldn’t mind waiting for them for a bit. I do mind waiting for them when they were promised 2 weeks ago.

Here’s another one. It’s almost hilarious at this point:

The old Merchant for buying and se
lling individual cards should be replaced with a player auction system. It would function like the stock market, and a player can enter the price that they want to buy or sell a card at, or just accept the current market rate. For example, a card might have sell orders like the following (players wanting to sell a card)


Qty Price
1 190
20 200
8 210
3 220


While the buy orders (players wanting to buy a card) are:
Qty Price
10 150
30 140
21 130


If a player just wants to sell his card quickly, he will be matched with the best buy order, which is 150g. Likewise, if a player wants to buy a card, he will buy it from the lowest priced seller for 190g. The card stock market has a real inventory, meaning that players selling cards have it already removed from their inventory, and players putting in a buy order have already spent the gold and are waiting for their card at a good price.


The supply and demand in the marketplace will determine the price that players use. The system will prevent players from sending gold to their other accounts by only allowing trades at the best market price.

We're working on this much-requested feature for v1.28

We’re working on this much requested feature for v1.28.. v1.28 was released over 18 months ago. How can this have taken so long? I mean, even Dark Prophecies was not going to be released before the card market was finished. Yet, here we are, DP released. Not Card Market seen so far.

How is this even possible?

These are obviously just a few examples. There are multiple of these promises floating the forum. Why promise something that can’t be accomplished? And why can’t they be accomplished in the first place? 18 months should have been more than enough time to code a card market.
Also: Where are the epic avatars? They were promised, yet we still don’t have them. Adding in some images into the code can really NOT be that hard!

My suggestion: Hire better coders, so it’s actually possible to promise things that can actually be done.

Summary: These are, according to many of the people in my guild, the most important things that need to be fixed. However, I’m going to continue some more with other issues that are in my eyes also important, though maybe not as important as the ones above.

[iClipse]

Part 3:

Other things:

Lack of features
Why are there so few features? And the features we do have are only half finished. I mean, look at the friend list. What’s the deal of it? It’s just there, but it doesn’t actually do anything.
In fact, we even LOST a feature: Seeing the last 3 games in your history. I know it was removed to improve server/game stability, but it’s still a feature we lost. And in exchange we got… Close to nothing. There is meltdown, true, but other than that?

There was an awesome thread about features a while ago: http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....light=features

This thread is 10 months old. It’s FULL of awesome ideas. Yet we haven’t seen a single one of the things mentioned on the ‘road map’. Simple things, such as a different toggle for sounds and music is still not available. I was recently watching the JIRA, and I did see something mentioned there about having a sound to play at the start of a turn, and thus having a different toggle for that one. So that’s definitely good, but it’s still not here yet, and it would only be the first thing of a very long list to see the light of day.
Auction house, campaign, tournaments, improved rating system, …. are all epic features that could definitely make people play more and thus pay more money.

Also: Where are the daily play bonuses? They were in the JIRA a year ago, but they never came through. They are one of these things that would make people play a ton more.

The forum:
This one is more personal. In my eyes, the forum isn’t as interesting as it used to be. Nowadays the forum is used primarily for tournaments, and announcements. Only, there aren’t many announcements, and if you don’t regularly play tournaments, there is little to do on the forum.
In general, while it also often makes for very heated debates, balance changes are something very interesting to talk about. As an example, the latest balance changes (and those are only 2 very minor changes) made for 2 threads. One of 45+ pages, and another new one for 11 pages. Other than big tournaments and announcements, we rarely get to such amount of posts on one subject. Having more of these is interesting, keeps the forum lively and inspires more people to keep on playing. As a Starcraft fan, and an avid visitor of the site Teamliquid (teamliquid.net), I often see popping up balance changes. And they ALWAYS get the most responses in the shortest amount of time. That’s because they are interesting, and spark a lot of debate.
Of course, with physical cards, I understand this is not always possible, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to make the forum more attracting. For example: Card creation contests. Remember Dimension Ripper? Armor of Ages? Those are cards created by the community (or Martin in this case). I’m of course not saying that the community should design the next set, but having 5 of these over the course of the 5 weeks for example would make the forum already more interesting for example. Even with contests like that, the DT can STILL choose the card effect, tailored to the next expansion.
There are a ton more complaints from other people in the guild (like: How is it possible that Serena doesn’t work? It’s literally copy pasting of code. Was the update tested at all before it got released?), but I think I made my point by now.

Anyway, if you’ve made it so far: Congratulations. Please let me know how you think about the issues I touched.

[lynx c.]

big +1 to OP

except:

(like: How is it possible that Serena doesn’t work? It’s literally copy pasting of code. Was the update tested at all before it got released?)

no and no and no

this is not a first example showing how amateur coding behind SE is, there is no way abilities should be hard coded and then copy/paste ... then you end up having sooo many bugs after you release something changing how original ability works and it also becomes a nightmare to test every single card instead testing how particular ability behaves

no serious coder does copy/paste ... well, at least not in application like this, there are occasional cases when things are better hard coded, not SE though

[a player]

big +1 to OP

except:



no and no and no

this is not a first example showing how amateur coding behind SE is, there is no way abilities should be hard coded and then copy/paste ... then you end up having sooo many bugs after you release something changing how original ability works and it also becomes a nightmare to test every single card instead testing how particular ability behaves

no serious coder does copy/paste ... well, at least not in application like this, there are occasional cases when things are better hard coded, not SE though

Except it wasn't a copy/paste issue. Someone had mistakenly used the card-value for CotC Serena way back in the day, rather than going through a label-name, in one routine. Nobody noticed a problem until they updated the equates to include the new card art, and learned that new Serena was broken....

[Caitlyn0]

Except it wasn't a copy/paste issue. Someone had mistakenly used the card-value for CotC Serena way back in the day, rather than going through a label-name, in one routine. Nobody noticed a problem until they updated the equates to include the new card art, and learned that new Serena was broken....

so you are saying... that the old code for very old serena is still there and they referenced the alt art serena to that? thats even worse than copy/pasting the code. thats extremely bad housekeeping.

[a player]

so you are saying... that the old code for very old serena is still there and they referenced the alt art serena to that? thats even worse than copy/pasting the code. thats extremely bad housekeeping.

As I understand it, they thought that when they updated the EQUATES, new art Serena would mimic regular Serena, just as the other new-arts do.

However, there was a test in the attack routine that checked for Hero = se010 instead of Hero = (Serena).

This is just the impression I received from Kyle's comments when the bug was found, expressed as p-code, so please don't read too much into it....

[Airact]

Couldn't have done it better myself.

Hard to comment on specific things when I don't know if I'm allowed to T_T


Now let's hope this doesn't get swept away like a damn lot of things did.

[CyrusKhane]

Massive +1, interested to see what Kyle has to say about this thread.

Edit, cause Demnchi had to call me out on my +1:

I wholeheartedly agree with the entire post, but I definitely wanted to say something about the physical game pretty much halting the digital game's progress. Shadow Era, in it's current incarnation, has absolutely no place in the physical game market. There's too many more well-established games out there for anybody to find an interest in a small game like SE. I get that Wulven wants to establish a physical game, but now is NOT the time. I would suggest waiting until they have perhaps 5-6 sets out (not counting DP, as DP was an expansion to CotC, not really a "set" of it's own) before even thinking about the phys. game, as well as making sure it's in their budget to change and reprint cards that may be gamebreaking.

[SamuelJ]

Skimmed and agreed.