Hello!

I've been working around the clock trying to improve the game as much as possible since yesterday's launch. I just launched the second round of fixes (v4.00.2), which fixes the highest priority issues that have been sent to me.

I'm reading everything you guys are writing, either in mail to me, on the forums, in reviews, and I even spied on public chat in quickmatch games to try and get a good view into what people are liking/disliking.

Here are the main categories of things people have been sending:

Bugs/errors: I apologize for those -- these get the highest priority, and have been what I've spent most of my time on since launch. Hopefully all the critical ones are fixed now in 4.00.2. If you're on Android make sure you check the Google Play store for an update, as Google has been slow to upgrade people so a lot of people are hitting bugs I've already fixed.

Site html/css issues: I fixed a lot of these in 4.00.2, but I know there are more. Upgrading the site to bootstrap is a big job since there are so many pages, but it's one that had to be done as the site is far better off now.

Coin games: I'm working on a better way to join coin games. I hear the feedback that you can't force quickmatch to use coins, only "suggest" it, so this makes it difficult to get into coin games. The "Create coin game" page allows any entry fee, but doesn't allow open seats, and the "custom coin game" page allows open seats but has a minimum entry fee. I realize now this all amounts to a bad experience for coin players, and I'm working on a solution.

New design/visuals: The feedback on this has been very mixed -- about half of it is positive and half negative. When sending me negative feedback on the design, it needs to be specific to be helpful.

Just saying "it's ugly" does not help at all. For one thing, I don't even know what area you're looking at when you got that reaction -- are you talking about the Android app? The forums? The top navigation? The background? etc etc etc. If I spend time re-doing the design of one area based on this kind of feedback, it could end up being the wrong area which ends up making the situation even worse.

I fully admit my design skills suck. I'm an engineer at heart. That's why I hired a designer. If you can give me specific feedback about what you don't like, I can pass that along to the designer and we can work on something new.

Even better would be if you can come up with suggestions, such as mockups or by changing css in your browser to show me what fixes you think would help.

Thanks for all the feedback, please keep it coming!

Why was the Small Earth auto QM template changed to no army stands guard?

More of a suggestion than feedback, but would it be possible to start Quickmatch with Strat 1v1 unlocked (but disabled by default)?

The newbies who aren't all that familiar with the system will still get to start on Small Earth Auto Dist, but more experienced players who aren't fond of automatic distribution will be able to go to their settings, disable Small Earth Auto Dist, and enable the strategic template they're familiar with without having to play any Small Earth Auto Dist games.

It'll be an easy way of having a simple newbie experience without having a bottleneck in getting older players (or players who don't like automatic distribution) to adopt the new Quickmatch system.

Well: My main issue is that you can't access the dashboard from the multiplayer page anymore. I mean: Having it on the main page under a fall down menu is nice and all, but it increases the amount clicks by 2. For now, I can still access the dashboard on the multiplayer page if I type in www.warlight.net/multiplayer, but still :D My 2nd, minor issue is the 2nd page that opens up when clicking play. The 2nd page is non-tabbable which I find annoying. It would be really cool if I was directed to the game section on the same page I am in currently, but I guess that may be a quirk of Unity hence why it's only a minor concern. Oh and I forgot: When playing on warzone.com in the main multiplayer page there is no "next game button"... Please fix that aswell

Edited 11/14/2017 19:51:42

Why was the Small Earth auto QM template changed to no army stands guard?

It's really just to make it more newbie friendly. One of Quickmatch's design goals to be a new player's first multi-player experience, so making the template as easy as possible is important.

Most people start in single-player, and they may not have gotten very far in before deciding to try out multi-player, and the single player campaign doesn't teach about one-army-stands-guard until a ways in. Therefore, many people jumping into multi-player won't know about that setting, so we want to ease their transition as much as possible.

Army counts are hard to see when deploying.

Clicks are no longer cached. If you move the mouse to fast when clicking the click is registered at the location of the mouse once the server responds. ie. Click one terr's and then click on the target of your attack in quick succession registers both click on the "target" terr.

I cannot inspect a terr during show all mode. Which was the only way to see below the attack arrows to the end result in determining strategy. You can see my irate post about this discrepancy.

The fog territories appearance clash with the other menu's and info making them hard to see.

The inspect a terr feature is localized to the terr, which effectively covers portions of the board.

Boards load tirelessly slow.

The home page with all your games often does not load the full render and appears as if I playing warcraft 1 from 1995 or whenever it came out.

Navigation buttons are missing from the home screen, and the game screen.

Clicks on the game map when a delay is processing do not show the user any feedback. User experience is "quit" when a click has no effect. Thats the number one failure point of every app/game that ever died. Even if a process is working slowly in the background, if you dont tell the user...epic fail.

Double clicking a terr in attack mode, randomly attack an adjacent territory.

Player name fonts now appear small and the decorative style make them really hard to read.

Thats all I can think of right now. Will post more as I develop the stomach to dive back into this "new" gaming experience.

My main issue is that you can't access the dashboard from the multiplayer page anymore. I mean: Having it on the main page under a fall down menu is nice and all, but it increases the amount clicks by 2.

I think you mean by 1? It's two clicks now: MultiPlayer, then Dashboard. It wasn't 0 clicks before, unless your computer could read your thoughts :)

Really the trouble with the old sub-tab system was it wasn't mobile-friendly. The links were super small, and there's no way to fit that many links in on a small device without taking up too much space to be problematic. Mobile-unfriendly sites also gave us a ranking hit on Google, so it was a big problem. So the site uses bootstrap now, which uses these drop-downs.

As a work-around you could always add the page to your bookmark bar on your browser you can just click it there.

My 2nd, minor issue is the 2nd page that opens up when clicking play. The 2nd page is non-tabbable which I find annoying

The reason for the new window is a technical one: If there are HTML elements on the same page as the webgl app, they can get focus and the any keystrokes like "enter" activate them and navigate the page away when the player didn't want it to. It's a side effect of the fact that browsers don't put focus onto the webgl elements properly.

The app actually originally launched the Unity app in the same window, in the same window underneath the top tabs, and it was an endless source of complaints and frustration from the community. People kept navigating away when they didn't intend to, so it was a big problem. Once it was changed to a new window without html elements, it solved the problem.

Another issue was the back button -- players would often hit the back button, either accidentally or because they were trying to go back within the webgl app. Both of these would close the app, and since it takes so long to load it was very frustrating. Opening in a new window ensures back doesn't close the app.

As a workaround you can always middle-click the link which will open it in a new tab instead of a new window, or add https://www.warzone.com/Play to your bookmark bar and use that instead. That will open it in the same window, just be careful not to go back.

The new design and name changed seems like it was geared towards children. Not that it needs to be for adults only, but it's surprising that it took a step in the direction of kindergarten. It would have been better to try to streamline the interface instead of adding news things that make finding things more complicated. I do not see a single improvement that was made or that I would consider an improvement. Army camouflage?? Really?? It's all summed up in the name change. It's more bland and even stupider than before. I can't even tell a friend that I like a game called Warlight because it sounds so stupid. Now I definitely will not tell anyone I play a game called Warzone. The name change and theme should have gone in a more different direction other than war and risk. The game has progressed into an abstract numbers game. But you have to be kidding me that anyone who is paying money for this thinks that they are playing in fake war games. That dynamic is patronizing and bad branding. It may get a few new people to check it out at the cost of dumbing down everything to the point of pushing out more serious players. This game should be pushed to people who would like alternatives to competitive chess. Imagine if the one and only chess server tried to get more subscribers by turning all the chess pieces into animated medieval knights and horses. It's not what people want this to be. It should be considered a more intellectual game rather than a game of wicked cool maps that don't make any sense with cards that have explosions drawn on them. You will only draw in stupid people who will shortly leave when they realize this isn't a war game. Unless, actually, that is what you are going for....

Edited 11/14/2017 20:05:21

My biggest issue is with the History right now. Every part of it is slower than Flash.
Also when moving through it it randomly decides to zoom in and follow moves. This should be disabled when it's zoomed all the way out.

And please let us be able to pin the Game Tab (Bottom left) again.

Edited 11/14/2017 20:04:28

Army counts are hard to see when deploying.

Can you send me a screenshot to show what you mean?

Clicks are no longer cached. If you move the mouse to fast when clicking the click is registered at the location of the mouse once the server responds. ie. Click one terr's and then click on the target of your attack in quick succession registers both click on the "target" terr.

I haven't experienced this myself. This is with the WebGL version? What browser? Can you record a video? I also wonder if this is a result of a low FPS -- can you press Ctrl+Shift+E to open the debug menu, click the "Show FPS" button, then tell me what numbers are displayed in the upper right?

I cannot inspect a terr during show all mode

You're right, you're the first to mention that! I will fix this. As a work-around, you can click "skip", then press the left arrow on your keyboard to bring up the last turn in history, then you can inspect territories while also seeing all orders from the previous turn.

The fog territories appearance clash with the other menu's and info making them hard to see.

Can you send me a screenshot of this?

The inspect a terr feature is localized to the terr, which effectively covers portions of the board.

That's true, but it also means we don't need a left column always taking up space. So you effectively have more screen space for the board, which was necessary to make the game fit on devices of all sizes. It's a tradeoff.

The home page with all your games often does not load the full render and appears as if I playing warcraft 1 from 1995 or whenever it came out.

Can you send me a screenshot? I loved Warcraft 1 and played it a lot as a kid. As long as it's not one of those levels where you don't get a base and can't build units. Those were frustrating. But I'm not sure what you're seeing.

Clicks on the game map when a delay is processing do not show the user any feedback. User experience is "quit" when a click has no effect. Thats the number one failure point of every app/game that ever died. Even if a process is working slowly in the background, if you dont tell the user...epic fail.

I'm not sure what you mean. There should be what I call the "wait dialog" in the middle of the screen whenever it's working. It's the text with a spinning circle to the left of it.

At the moment the browser layout doesn't seem to fit at all for mobile.

Here's an example:

(Inlining image didn't work)
http://www.directupload.net/file/d/4906/trqmkoxy_png.htm

I also have to scroll trough the whole list of blogposts and highlighted forum posts just to get to the ladders section of the dashboard. There is no zooming out so i can see it all on one view. Same goes for player profiles. I want to see the whole thing and then zoom in for the places i care about in case they were too small.

I can't open games on the app by clicking on the link on a browser. No matter if i use flash or unity.

The colours are messy. A clean black or white would be really appreciated. The actual (i guess it's supposed to look military green?) colour isn't appealing at all.

I always use my phone on warlight and the need of 3 clicks just to see my games isn't really what i like. Having just multiplayer which opens your games would be enough. You could still navigate from there to your past games or to the create games section.

Edited 11/14/2017 20:15:51

To make the full page used (for https://www.warzone.com/forum* but not forum threads):

html body.bodyArrows Div#AutoContainer.container.bg-green.p-4.mt-3.mb-5 table div
{
    max-width: unset !important;
    width: 100%;
}

e.g.


To make the textarea for posting and editing full size (for https://www.warzone.com/Forum/\d and https://www.warzone.com/Discussion/?ID=\d ):

textarea[id*="TextArea_"]
{
    max-width: unset !important;
}

e.g.:


I like the font you chose for displaying code.
I might send more code with examples later.

Edit:
Thanks for fixing the overflow of posts!

Edited 11/14/2017 22:28:37

Georgia army cap template is doubled in QMs
setting boot time in unity show days in decimal format, i think that's not intuitive
Filter/refresh buttons are in different locations in my games screen and open games - that's a bit confusing
Open tournaments are so well hidden - why not better advertize it - at least above 'my tournaments' (and hide those declined by player, but there aren't many open tournaments anyway. ( i know it's nothing new, but still :D)

Edited 11/14/2017 20:23:33

And i just wrote the 3rd time in 2 games on the 3vs3 ladder in the public instead of teamchat cause the chats are too easy to confuse with the colours. Also the textfield goes over the coloured boxes so there is no double check while you write. Only when you're ready to send you see it again which is too late (for me)

Edited 11/14/2017 20:24:52

Did you do something with the width of forum posts? They're now ridiculously wide on my screen (1366x768 resolution).

"Why was the Small Earth auto QM template changed to no army stands guard?

It's really just to make it more newbie friendly."

Giving them a game that's different than 99% of all open games is not newb friendly.

Knyte, that's a result of DanWL posting a screenshot at 1280x682 resolution.

Edited 11/14/2017 20:23:21

Huh so it doesn't just add scrollbars to screenshots anymore and instead lengthens all the posts? Seems like a bug.

http://www.directupload.net/file/d/4906/68432iar_png.htm

On rt qm games clearing picks doesn't work properly

Works fine for me, its not near commit, it's a sub-button of the game button, you have it closed in that screenshot.