01FEB11 - UI v2 Rolled Back

Hi All,

We went live with the UI v2 at 0100 this morning, and rolled back to the old version just after 0200.

We rolled back because we felt there were too many issues (two of particular note) to keep the new UI running as the "only option available to players".

Please note that this rollback doesn't affect any ingame occurrences (troop movements, building queues etc) - it was a User Interface rollback, not a Database rollback.

At some point today (02FEB11) we're going to post a link to the UI v2 held on a separate instance; but reading the same underlying data. Players who prefer to explore the UI v2 - and especially those players who wish to help us track down the bugs that were experienced during the brief uptime - will be able to.

[edit: see here ]

Apologies, naturally and heartfelt, for this rollback. 

No matter how much one tests things, there's no substitute for having real players from real environments (operating systems, antivirus software, browsers etc) using a system in anger and in volume - and that's exactly what we've just experienced.

Again, apologies.

SC




Hi All,

User Interface v2 Release #1

Yes, my friends... it's true.  We said it'd happen today and - with barely an second to spare - we're into the downtime.

There's a whole bunch of changes with the new User Interface.

However, a quick heads-up.

During the release process, some existing game functions are NOT currently available as they are moved over from the old code base.

Functions that are Temporarily Unavailable in the new Version:

1. Strategic Map (the top level view of the entire world)
2. Alliance Maps (the top level view of each Alliance Member's location)
3. Alliance Forums (both public and private)
4. Relocate City option for New Players (in the Castle)
   
5. Demolish Buildings Page (in the Castle)
6. Send Settlers Page (in the Castle)
   
7. New Player Tutorial (so please be extra helpful in Global Chat!)
8. Faction Standing Graphs (the graphs on the faction standings page)
9. Player Rankings / Leaderboard (individual player rankings are available, just not the whole ranking list of all players)

These functions will be made available again *very* shortly (by which we mean hours or days, not weeks).

Some other things we are aware of and are endeavouring to rectify:

1. Internet Explorer 7 browser does not show Global & Alliance Chat (this only affects IE7, not IE8).
   
2. The Opera browser automatically logs you out of the game at regular intervals and is currently deemed "unsupported"
3. Safari 5 (running on a PC) has issues with navigating around the World Map using the compass buttons after a couple of clicks. This can be temporarily worked around by either pressing "refresh" or by navigating to a different page and then back to the World Map.
   

Whilst we will fix these issues - and ask for your patience in the meantime - these conditions affect less than 3% of our current user base.  If you have access to a decent, modern, properly implemented browser such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari (on a Mac) or even IE8 then please use these instead for the moment.

WHAT'S CHANGED IN THE NEW VERSION?

This shiny newness is almost entirely limited to a different presentation of existing ingame functionality. 

You won't suddenly find unexpected occurrences, or things working in different ways (or at least, we hope not!)

Trade still works the same.  Combat still works the same.  Magic still works the same. 

In fact, pretty much everything still works the same.

But it's slicker, faster, better, more intuitive and prettier.

For example, on the World Map alone, there are:

• More than 70 new city graphics
• More than 200 new terrain tiles
• Many more levels of map zoom (up to 31x31 view: ie 961 squares!)
• Amazing map toggles to show or hide things, and there's a minimap to help you navigate around.

When the Downtime is finished, go check out some of the new buttons and summary pages.

However.

Not all the functionality we intend to ultimately release is in this first version of the UI, and the next few days will see a bunch of further releases.

The key thing about this release is that it drags our entire codebase kicking and screaming out of the late 20th century.

This means that future development tasks will all make use of a common set of code libraries and behaviours to ensure a consistent - and consistently more helpful and intuitive - player experience.

On a purely practical level this means that adding the remaining things we promised in The Newness becomes a substantially quicker task for us.

Oh, before I forget - one new piece of functionality Alliances should be aware of is a New Alliance Role called "Edit Recruitment Status".

Alliance players assigned this role (or SuperUsers) can - on the new "Alliance Recruitment" page - choose whether their alliance is recruiting new players or not.  We're shortly going to bring in some functionality that will allow players to search for alliances near them that are recruiting, as well as for alliance recruiters to search for nearby new players who aren't already in an alliance.  Alliance Recruiters will also be able, in the future, to post recruitment adverts that will appear in the Herald.

So it's recommended that (if you want new players to apply to join your alliance in the future) you should set your Alliance Recruitment status to "Yes".

Finally...

This is a massive change to the way the Illyriad front-end works. 

There are bound to be bugs we haven't caught. 

We know there are some areas that don't look as pretty as they should (the mail system, for example has some formatting still to do), and these will get fixed speedily.

One thing that we know works is the Petition system - so:

• Please submit bugs using Petitions, although
• Please first check the top of the Support page (where you write a New Petition) to see whether we're aware of it already, in which case you don't need to let us know, and finally
• Please hold off submitting Petitions not related to bugs for the next few days, as we simply won't get round to them.
  

With many, many thanks - and hoping you enjoy the new experience.

The Illyriad Team



Edited by GM Stormcrow - 03 Feb 2011 at 01:56