WarLight has just been updated to version 2.09.1! This is a small update which adds just a few small features and enhancements.

Yearly membership option

WarLight memberships can now be purchased for one year, at a reduced price of $14.99. This will get you all the membership benefits, such as the ability to play without ads and the “M” next to your name for one year.

The lifetime membership option is still available for purchase, but its price has been increased to $34.99. If you already purchased a membership before this update, you’ll still retain your lifetime membership.

Membership also comes with full access to all WarLight ladders, the ability to set the luck modifier in games you create, the ability to create 20 player games, and extra vacations. If you purchase one year of membership, these benefits will continue forever as a free gift — they will not expire after the membership expires.

You can purchase a year of membership via this link!

Top-right account bar

WarLight.net now shows an account bar in the upper-right corner that shows information about your current account. This is similar to the bar that always existed on the single-player and multi-player tabs, however it’s now present on other pages of the website as well.

It shows your name, level and level progress, whether you have unread mail, and contains links to sign in or out of your account.

This is a first step towards a larger WarLight.net redesign I hope to do in the future. Eventually, this top-right bar will probably be the only way to sign in and out of accounts.

Other Changes

– The automatic boot timer can now be set to lower values. Previously, the auto boot timer could not be set to values lower than 5 minutes. Now, it can be set to values down to 3 minutes. This is useful if you’re combining it with banking boot times, where it’s common to set the core boot time to a low value and increase its flexibility with the bank.
– Profiles of players in the United States now show which state they’re in when hovering over the flag on their profile.

WarLight has just been upgraded to version 2.09.0! This update improves the ladders based on the recent poll, and adds a few other small features.

Real-Time Ladder Improvements

After joining the real-time ladder, if you stay on the Real-Time Ladder page it will now display a loading icon. Once the ladder invites you to a game, this icon will change to a link to that game. Additionally, a check-box exists that will tell the page to make a sound when the game starts.

This streamlines the process of joining the real-time ladder, as you don’t need to continually refresh the My Games page anymore. Instead, you can simply leave the main ladder page open in the background and wait until you hear the chime.

When you finish a real-time ladder game, the page will automatically change back to the spinner within 30 seconds, and will again make a sound when the next game is created (if the box to do so is checked). Therefore, you can simply leave this page open in the background and it will always notify you via the sound when a game is created.

There’s also now a link to the real-time ladder page in the Open Games page, as long as you have unlocked the ability to join the real-time ladder and at least one person is currently playing in the ladder.

Mobile App Linking

In the latest update to WarLight’s iOS and Android app, the app now has the ability to open game links from your web browser! These kind of game links are often used in WarLight’s forum for sharing and discussing games, and you’ll also see them in the e-mail notifications that WarLight sends out.

A game link is one that looks like this: http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=1000045. If you click on this link on your device, it will automatically switch to the WarLight app and open the referenced game.

This will only work if you have the app version 2.08.0 or higher installed. Android and Kindle Fire devices got this update a while ago, and iOS devices should receive it soon. If you want to see what version you have installed, just tap Settings from the main menu and scroll to the very bottom.

Ladder Changes

All of the changes announced previously are now live!

Changes to templates won’t change existing games — they’ll just take effect for games created after this update.

Misc Changes

– The 2v2 ladder page, when you’re not currently joined to it, now shows the most recent team you played with instead of the oldest one.
– In a game lobby, it’s now possible to click the host’s name and open their profile. This is useful if someone creates a game but does not play in it themselves.

WarLight just launched on Kongreate.com!

This is a scaled-back version of WarLight intended to attract new players to the game. You can view it here: http://www.kongregate.com/games/FizzerWL/warlight-multi-player

If you have a Kongregate account, it would help a lot if you’d pop over and give the game a rating.

Back in 2011, a single-player version of WarLight launched on Kongregate to great success — it attracted a lot of new players to the game. This just included the six main single-player levels as well as the ability to create custom single-player levels.

This time, players can play multi-player games right on Kongregate.com. It also contains the single-player levels, and has more features and a better interface than the 2011 version.

It’s worth noting that the games are kept separate — Kongregate players can never play in the same game as a player on WarLight.net and vice versa. However, some Kongregate players may decide to switch over to warlight.net to take advantage of the additional features and maps available there.

You voted, and the results are in! This blog post outlines the changes that are upcoming to the 1v1, 2v2, and real-time ladders.

• 1v1 ladder: Players now must finish 20 games to qualify for a rank, instead of 15.
• 1v1 ladder: The luck modifier will be decreased from 16% to 0%
• 1v1 ladder: The matchmaking range will be decreased from 30% to 20%. This just means you’ll get games with players that are nearer to you in the ladder.
• 1v1 ladder: Games will now expire after 5 months instead of 3. Existing expired games will not un-expire, this will just delay the expiration of games that are currently not expired.
• 2v2 ladder: The map will change from Medium Earth to Final Earth
• Real-time ladder: The boot time will change from 5 minutes to 3 minutes, but with an initial bank time of 5 minutes. This means you can exceed the new 3-minute boot timer for a total of 5 minutes throughout the entire game.
• Real-time ladder: The Season II and Season XI templates will be replaced by China and Treasure Map.

These changes will happen no sooner than a week from the time of this blog post, so all players have a chance to practice the new settings if they choose to do so. It’s also worth noting that existing games will not be modified — these changes will only take effect for new games that are created after the update. Also, the changes to the 1v1 and 2v2 ladder templates will also be changed within the Strategic 1v1 and Strategic 2v2 templates, which means the auto games will change as well.

WarLight has just been upgraded to version 2.08.0! This update adds flags onto profiles that show you where a player plays from, and makes a few small fixes and improvements.

Country Flags

When viewing a player’s profile, WarLight now shows a flag next to their name indicating which country of the world they play from. This allows you to see where your opponents are located. You can hover your mouse over the flag to see the name of the country.

The country for every player is automatically determined based on the IP they access WarLight from.

For now, the flags are only available when playing on the website at WarLight.net. The flags will appear in the Android / iOS clients in a future app update.

“Last seen” on profiles

Player’s profiles now have a line that says “last seen”, and indicates how recently they accessed any part of WarLight.

This replaces the old “inactive for” line. The old line only appeared once a player was inactive for more than a few days, and this activity was only based on how recently they entered orders into a multi-player game. That meant it was very inaccurate for people who didn’t play multi-player, such as those who only played single-player or only chatted on the forums.

Other Changes

– Fixed a bug that caused the left and right history buttons to be cut off in some operating systems.
– When banking boot times are enabled for a real-time game, if the bank percentage is 0% and you have no banked time left, the clock will revert back to its normal mode of counting down even after you commit your turn.
– Fixed a bug that caused round-robin tournaments to not create games in some circumstances where it could have.

WarLight is running a poll on changes to its ladders! All players who are eligible to join any of the ladders can vote.

Vote here!

All questions on the poll are optional, so you can vote for ones you care about and leave the rest blank, if you wish.

If you don’t have access to the poll, but are interested in what the questions are, you can see them in the top post of this thread.

This poll only covers changes to the existing ladders. Adding new ladders will be done in a separate poll at some point in the future.

Please vote just once. You can’t edit your responses, so feel free to think over your votes thoroughly before making them! The poll will stay open for at least a week, and any changes to the ladders will be announced at least a week before they take effect so you have a chance to practice any new settings.

You can discuss the poll in this thread if you’d like to sway players to your point of view.

The responses will be posted on WarLight ladder forum. Happy voting!