3 Months and 12 days in Summary

Firstly I'd like to say that I'm not trying to imply our dev team has been idle in any way - the sheer volume of updates+tweaks speaks for itself - Illy needs regular attention like that in my opinion.

I'm not gonna lie - my biggest impression of the year so is a marked LACK of any new game content... I've highlighted in bold my "Top 4 Events of the Last 3 Months 12 Days":

So... what have we actually had in terms of new game content?

 - On the 17th Jan we had the end of the 5th tournament which brought us the final tier of undead units, the Dracolichs, as well as our first ever taste of mercenaries and an exciting end to an exciting tournament. Without a doubt some interesting New Content for the community - though at the moment just a one-off treat, not something any of us can really sink our teeth in to.

 - On the 23rd of Feb we had the 5th Tournament launch. Tournaments are great - but aside from a few different locations there was nothing essentially 'new' about this content.

 - On the 7th of March we had some changes to the combat algorithms - I'd call these changes content because they have caused small but still significant and lasting differences to the in-game player experience for everyone in terms of 'how you play the game'. At the same time though you could argue that these changes were just housekeeping (glitch patching).

So we have 1 genuine piece of new game content and 2 more questionable ones in 3 and a half months - and the genuine content we had only last for a few hours and was essentially a delayed feature of content released before 2012.

If I take a look at the "From the News" section I would say there is only 1 item there from 2012 which had me or anyone I know genuinely excited - of course the SC Live Chat - still not content but without a doubt something many members of the community that I know look forwards to and enjoy.

There are a few things I haven't addressed - such as the elemental giveaway, the prestige handout etc. - honestly I wouldn't say either of these were 'bad' (certainly nobody is complaining at free prestige - that is truly generous of the devs since you could argue it delays when people might next spend money and affects their own cash-flow) but honestly I do think stuff like that is just a filler - it has no real or lasting effect on anyone's in game experience.

So here's some questions:

 - "Do you guys miss the days when Illy used to have significant additions to in game content couple weeks or month at least?" [even just small ones like lores+histories? new NPCs? a new quest or two perhaps (even just some random new T1/T2 quests?) or EVEN new undecipherable strangeness in the Herald's "In Other News"?]

 - "Do you guys anticipate that some real and substancial in-game content is coming our way soon... given the marked lack of notable changes throughout the year?"

 - "Although SC&TC have long-shunned any kind of temptation regarding release dates do we think we can pester them into giving some kind of vague teaser at least just to keep us all interested?"

Let me know your thoughts.


Edited by Createure - 12 Apr 2012 at 12:45

*sigh* Miss-clicked the X and lost everything I typed...You're lucky I found this thread so interesting because normally I would have just walked away from the computer at this point. 

This game is a great start but for me it will not last as is.  It has missing elements that the developers have stated they will address.  I think we all like how they have begun but nobody would be asking for more if there were not something they felt was missing.  So the questions are:

Well... I wouldn't say that SC was "someone the company put forth to talk to the customers"... he founded Illy and owns it (alongside TC I guess). He not just the guy liaising with the community - he's part of what decides exactly how Illy grows.

I don't believe Illy or it's devs will align themselves to you worst expectation at all... mostly because we've seen and listened to SC&co. doing their thing, and we've joked about with them on the forums and we know that they are genuinely a few people with a passion for what they are doing.

I mean - who quits their job to take a total step-in-the-dark gamble on designing a computer game?

On that note I'd say SCs 'Island Comment' (at which I too raised an eyebrow on hearing) should be taken for what it is... just part of genuine sense of humor that we've often seen that proves to us that SC and the other devs are genuinely nice guys and not money-making robots.

edit: Luna got there before me.


Edited by Createure - 12 Apr 2012 at 16:20

I won't deny there were plenty of important changes and content changes/additions/improvements last year. This thread is specifically aimed at reviewing 'the year so far' and looking to the near future.

Also I'd rather not start talking about the HoC here or things are likely to get derailed fast. HoC is not new content though, it has been around since before the Second tourney I believe. Frankly SC and TC (and any good game designer) is not going to release 'Dead Content'... it was not inert for all this time and then suddenly started beating this year because it got updated... it started because we did the right things to make it do so. (Thanks to SunStorm for that one I guess).