I know you all like a few hints on what’s coming up in Gems of War, so here’s a little bit of info about our next steps after Guild Wars.
The next feature we’ll be adding in 3.1 is the Crafting System! Don’t ask for any details yet, I don’t have anything to share, apart from the fact that something will be craftable, and you’ll use something else to make that happen! I know, I know… that’s not much news… the news is that some crafting is on the way though!
Over the next few months we’re FINALLY going to be moving away from the Adobe Air platform on Mobile/PC, and rebuilding Gems of War on Unity. We’ve been working on this since December, and it’s well underway. We’ll likely bring PC over first, because it’s easier, then iOS/Android 1-2 months later. This literally halves the work we have to do maintaining the game (since we will have one codebase, not two), which means more resources for fixing old bugs, and more resources for making sure there are less NEW bugs! Also, it’ll look a whole lot sexier under Unity!
And to finish this off, some slightly sad news. As Gems has been growing, my time has been getting more and more stretched thin. On an average day, for example, I have 1-2 hours answering player PMs every morning before I start work, and I was typically spending at least another hour later in the day on community-related stuff. Now that we have her awesomeness, Ms. Salty, on board though, it’s freeing up my time to do some of the important stuff that should hopefully keep Gems running for many years to come. You’re not getting RID of me (because I enjoy chatting with y’all WAY too much), but I won’t be stopping by quite as often, and I won’t be able to answer PMs on the forum (in fact if you’ve PMed me in the last 2 weeks, you’ll have noticed you got no response… I apologise for that, but there just haven’t been enough hours in the day).
Souls, give us (me) something to spend Souls on! (please). Once design-a-troop is running, we need a way to get the cool new stuff!
Yay. And hopefully lots of re-balancing activities, and QoL stuff gets included… And the EULA, so I can do design-a-troop again…
This isn’t sad news. We get to deal with the awesome Ms Salty instead of grumpy old Luther Hopefully she’ll have time to pick up the design-a-troop EULA stuff…
I guess you’ll need to stop by now and then to respond on key issues. And did I mention design-a-troop?
I can’t wait to try out the crafting system. It’s the number 1 feature I’ve been waiting for in the game.
Also, congrats on moving to Unity. It’s my favorite game engine to work with these days. I’m pretty excited to see how the game grows once the Air coding shortcomings are long gone.
Does it mean that GoW will not freeze anymore when we do an Alt+Tab?
Are we going to have new animations (like in the new teaser)?
3D models of troops?
You know, that’s sad that you won’t have as much time and won’t be able to answer PMs
This was the first time I’ve had the experience to speak with devs directly and not a community manager. It’s so nice to have a direct link to a developer and not through someone who doesn’t necessarily have that experience / power (of course she’s awesome don’t take that in an offensive way - that’s not intended!). But I understand of course the reasoning behind it. Still sad that the human link is diminishing
But I’m excited for crafting. It’s much needed seeing as how our troop pool keeps expanding. I hope that F2P BS line isn’t crossed because this kind of system is too great for monetization and can easily become a huge money sink. If done poorly it will turn people off. I’m looking forward to seeing our dev teams direction since they have always been fair to us. I’m hoping it’ll stay that way!
I wanna join to @turintuor 's question: does it mean game will be still runing actively (not freezed) when in background (not being the main active window) ? - tagging @Saltypatra to not bother Sirrian with it
They’ve claimed that it was a limitation of Adobe AIR in the past, and from what I know of Unity it should be possible to have the game running in the background.
Congratulations, you get to be Sirrian’s gatekeeper where you get to ask him the especially interesting questions, then get back to us
Unity I’m hoping will allow easy dynamic text in cards. So queen mab have the 13 flash when there are enough blue gems for an extra turn is easy. But I think Sirrian has bigger reasons for wanting dynamic text.
Non-linear troop buffs, something that would require dynamic text. Long requested but previously not possible.
All knights gain 2 life. At some point, increase to 3,4, or 5. Or give an armor, attack or magic boost.
Burn damage normally does three. Can be boosted.
Gem creation based on magic, at some point it takes more than one magic to create one additional gem.
All boost values could custom scale like mana power to mana surge % does. Bone dragon finally properly balanced, good at low level but not ridiculous at end game.
Here’s hoping all of the race condition bugs get eliminated!
Please consider looking over the Hero weapon’s power levels if they might be added to the crafting system. Some are great, but most don’t have any chance to be useful at almost any level, even when first unlocked. Often, because the mana costs on them are so disconnected from the current mana curve.
I know, I know… that’s not much news… the news is that some crafting is on the way though!
- tagging 
* But I’ll still be jumping into threads to answer stuff when I have the chance!
