UltraCorps: Change Log

UltraCorps Change Log

We've been keeping a private change log for UltraCorps for about a year now, and maybe someday we'll copy the most important milestones over here just for their hi storical interest. But that log is about as exciting as watching paint dry, so here we'll try a more narrative approach.

June 25, 2006: Docco Docco Docco

One of my pet peeves with online games is the documentation. It never seems to keep up with the changes made in the game . . . could it be that even the most popular and money-making MMOs don't have a full-time staff updating the docco? Or . . . I imagined the devteam carefully concealing its work from the documentors, sneaking in at night to upload new features when nobody's looking. "Hahaaaaa! Got three new character classes past them!"

I still think it's a serious problem with most games, but now I have a bit more sympathy for the problems of ongoing documentation. Our development team here is exactly two people, and we're both playing the game regularly. And Kira wrote a very nifty content management system that lets us update all rules text on the fly. And still it takes work to keep the docco in synch with the game as it's being played.

For instance, tonight I made two docco tweaks:

The description of autofleets was corrected . . . from the way I thought it worked to the way it really works. Now I know why my autofleets were misbehaving . . .
The "Homeworld Defense League" feature, which orders production on your homeworld for you under certain circumstances, was documented. We added that a while ago as an experiment, didn't document it when it was first added (since we kept tweaking it) . . . and didn't go back and document it later. Until now.

I think the moral of that story is to keep a separate list - maybe a hidden file in the docco section - of features that exist but have not been documented because they're experiments. And check that list regularly!
-- Steve Jackson

June 18, 2006: Badge Blitz

Yesterday afternoon we ran a blitz game, primarily to test the new badges feature. You win badges during a game as you reach certain milestones, such as capturing an enemy world (or homeworld!), amassing a lot of population or firepower on a world, or owning a lot of worlds. Check out the "badges" topic in the help files for more info on those.

The blitz was fun, and most players managed to gather a few of the victory badges over other races. I got one for each race in the game, plus a homeworld-captured badge (sorry Jenn!)... at least, before Rommel invaded and destroyed my empire. :)

You can collect badges now in your currently running PUB games.
-- Kira

June 12, 2006: New Features For PUB Games

We've added several new features in the last week that should help out PUB game players (and owners).

The first is an email-tick-notifications option in PUB games, for you to receive e-mail after your game has ticked. Handy for those auto-tick games. Set it on your "Empire" page.

And we've also added a "tick after X hours" feature for auto-tick games. The owner of the game can set it up to automatically tick a certain number of hours after the previous tick... whether everyone has clicked "Done" or not. Game owners can configure this in the PUB admin/edit tick schedule area.

Your "Player News" page (Com-Net) now shows how much time remains until the next tick, if this feature is enabled.
-- Kira

June 3, 2006: Kilroy Ends; Players Can Now Quit/Be Booted

The main news of the day, I suppose, is that Kilroy ended...

But in other news, you can now quit a game (PUB or Mega)... if it's not going well, or the game owner forgot to start the game, or whatever reason.

PUB game owners can now boot players from their games, too. The PUB game admin page shows a list of who's playing, and when they last logged in. I recommend you only boot folks who are idle...
-- Kira

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	*UltraCorps* Change Log We've been keeping a private change log for *UltraCorps* for about a year now, and maybe someday we'll copy the most important milestones over here just for their hi storical interest. But that log is about as exciting as watching paint dry, so here we'll try a more narrative approach. June 25, 2006: Docco Docco Docco One of my pet peeves with online games is the documentation. It never seems to keep up with the changes made in the game . . . could it be that even the most popular and money-making MMOs don't have a full-time staff updating the docco? Or . . . I imagined the devteam carefully concealing its work from the documentors, sneaking in at night to upload new features when nobody's looking. "Hahaaaaa! Got three new character classes past them!" I still think it's a serious problem with most games, but now I have a bit more sympathy for the problems of ongoing documentation. Our development team here is exactly two people, and we're both playing the game regularly. And Kira wrote a very nifty content management system that lets us update all rules text on the fly. And still it takes work to keep the docco in synch with the game as it's being played. For instance, tonight I made two docco tweaks: The description of autofleets was corrected . . . from the way I thought it worked to the way it really works. Now I know why my autofleets were misbehaving . . . The "Homeworld Defense League" feature, which orders production on your homeworld for you under certain circumstances, was documented. We added that a while ago as an experiment, didn't document it when it was first added (since we kept tweaking it) . . . and didn't go back and document it later. Until now. I think the moral of that story is to keep a separate list - maybe a hidden file in the docco section - of features that exist but have not been documented because they're experiments. And check that list regularly! -- Steve Jackson June 18, 2006: Badge Blitz Yesterday afternoon we ran a blitz game, primarily to test the new badges feature. You win badges during a game as you reach certain milestones, such as capturing an enemy world (or homeworld!), amassing a lot of population or firepower on a world, or owning a lot of worlds. Check out the "badges" topic in the help files for more info on those. The blitz was fun, and most players managed to gather a few of the victory badges over other races. I got one for each race in the game, plus a homeworld-captured badge (sorry Jenn!)... at least, before Rommel invaded and destroyed my empire. :) You can collect badges now in your currently running PUB games. -- Kira June 12, 2006: New Features For PUB Games We've added several new features in the last week that should help out PUB game players (and owners). The first is an email-tick-notifications option in PUB games, for you to receive e-mail after your game has ticked. Handy for those auto-tick games. Set it on your "Empire" page. And we've also added a "tick after X hours" feature for auto-tick games. The owner of the game can set it up to automatically tick a certain number of hours after the previous tick... whether everyone has clicked "Done" or not. Game owners can configure this in the PUB admin/edit tick schedule area. Your "Player News" page (Com-Net) now shows how much time remains until the next tick, if this feature is enabled. -- Kira June 3, 2006: Kilroy Ends; Players Can Now Quit/Be Booted The main news of the day, I suppose, is that Kilroy ended... But in other news, you can now quit a game (PUB or Mega)... if it's not going well, or the game owner forgot to start the game, or whatever reason. PUB game owners can now boot players from their games, too. The PUB game admin page shows a list of who's playing, and when they last logged in. I recommend you only boot folks who are idle... -- Kira [rss]