So launch week has come and gone. It’s certainly been...exciting?  Anxiety producing? Wonderful? Crazy exausting? All the above? 

Brad is currently taking some much deserved time off with his family, and, with v1.06 out the door, the team is about to do the same. We’ll be back Monday, but before then, I wanted to bring everyone up to speed on what we’re working on....

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1. The Mega Feedback List
We love feedback . Good, bad, ugly, whatever...this is as much your game as it is ours, so it’s with great excitement that we visit countless forums, lurking in the shadows as Elemental is discussed. Hear a muffled cough as you discuss the magic system on forums.penny-arcade.com? Just us   No reason to be afraid.

As suggestions/complaints/bugs are posted, anywhere, they get cobbled into a master feedback spreadsheet with a column called “Count”. The more an Issue is complained or talked about about, the higher it climb on the list, giving a better view on how the entire WORLD feels about the game..it makes me feel very Adrian Veidt.

Current major issues being addressed internally...
- Magic System Numbers (currently rolling 0-x, meaning high level spells missing)
- City management screen
- Cursor/Selection Funkiness in Tactical Battles
- More informative UI across the board
- More Maps
- Overall balance (overpowered late game units, overpowered peasants, etc)

2. Performance Issues
People with awesome rigs are getting crummy performance. This is the next major ‘bug’ on our list, and we’ve made some major headway. Most of the issue lies with the LOD on zoom technology that fades things out as a zoom percentage is reached. As overall zoom range, specific LOD levels, and new tile diesigns are tweaked and added, the game seems to be displaying many objects, in general, when zoomed out. Code is being tweaked to make batching faster and tile designs are being tweaked to simplify better as the user zooms out...

Debug Message:  *** TD Details: F_Town_02 ***
Closest:0
Closer:0
Close:19
Mid:44
Far:14
Farther:3
Farthest:17
Total Objects:97

The fallen Town, for instance, clocks in at 97 objects, many of these being dupes that get batched together. Unfortunately, we don’t start fading out objects until the ‘Mid’ zoom level...right before the cloth map is enabled (at its default value), so even zoomed out pretty far we’re still displaying all 97 objects when we could probably get away with 40-50.

So while there’s no ‘silver bullet’, improvements across these areas of the LOD system should help performance issues considerably.

Oh, wait, Jesse just fixed some code and is now seeing a 10-20 fps boost...so apparently there WAS a silver bullet...and apparently he’s saving the details for his own change log    But good news, regardless! (jesse: so hovering over a city that used to give me 25fps now gives me 42-43)

3. AI Prep
Brad may be off the grid, but I can only imagine the AI plans he’ll come back with. To that end, we’re going to be cleaning code to make it easier for him to access specific circumstances that the AI can intelligently react to (how many times have you gone back on peace treaties, how many wars have you started, how many wars have you successfully fought back against, etc).

4. Playing the Game and Brainstorming for the Future
This is what I’m most looking forward to. We’ve been in 100% ‘make the game’ mode, giving us no time to enjoy our creation (I’ve snuck in a few hours, but always feel guilty about it). Now that we have time to play, we also have time to brainstorm what WE want to put into the game. Many times this will synch up with what you guys want, but it’s amazing what the team will do, even in their free-time, to make the game better (my ‘wouldn’t it be cool’ feature is a spell that locks escape routes, making a given T.Battle a fight to the finish).

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So that’s where we are, three days after release. There are other issues being addressed - we’re on the lookout for future Win7 64bit ATI issues, and balance/pacing will remain high on our priority lists, but more than anything, we look forward to hearing what you guys have to say about the game....for good or ill...in the weeks and months to come!

Now, seriously, time for bed.