Post by Layla Littlenymph on Jan 9, 2017 16:44:54 GMT -5
The Ardent Monthly Ledger - New Year’s – 2017
It would seem that the rather Mad Otters at V&H have set the stage for a very ambitious year. It's rather a bit much to go into but, I will touch on the highlights, here, and refer you to the full edition of the 2017 New Years edition of the Ardent Monthly Ledger, HERE. Be sure to check it out for a detailed description of everything listed in the following article.
Opening Letter
Farewell, 2016. Hello, 2017! Thank you to all of our players for your continued faith in us, and for, as always, providing this game with such a wonderful community. We are so very fortunate, and we never forget that.
We’ve all made it through another year together, and 2016 was indeed a colorful one for Villagers & Heroes! Ups and downs? Check. Trials and tribulations? Check. Some high drama and memorable events? Definitely. A few things to celebrate and raise our glasses to? Absolutely!
From galloping mounts to some naughty bugs, but a whole new bug reporting system; to the joys of battling Prisma or vowing to avoid Okyris altogether; to the closure of a South American server, but the welcoming of the Brazilian community onto US 1; to sadly saying goodbye to several members of the Otter team, but having a wedding; to new improvements and features, crashes and Internet attacks, a renovated web site and forums, old zones made new again and a slew of other in-game improvements, and of course to the momentous launching of V&H onto Android and the ushering in of a whole new mobile era for this game, 2016 has without a doubt been a wild and significant year for Villagers & Heroes!
We are greatly looking forward to 2017, and hope you will all continue along on this exciting journey with us. On behalf of the teams of Mad Otter and Neonga, we sincerely wish you all a very Happy New Year!
But enough rambling. Anyone interested in getting a peek at what’s coming for Villagers & Heroes in 2017……?
What’s Coming In 2017
Dynamic Gameplay Changes in Combat, Loot, Crafted Items, and More!
As many of you probably remember, last spring we had planned to implement an array of exciting new changes to the combat aspect of Villagers & Heroes. However, after much deliberation and detailed feedback from our testers, we ultimately decided that it was best to postpone the somewhat radical overhaul of mechanics we had put into motion until we had solved and perfected a number of different issues that we felt at the time would hinder the success of such a build.
Since that day last spring, the Otter team has never stopped working on these gameplay changes to Villagers & Heroes. And now, we’re very excited to announce that within the first few months of 2017, not only will we be implementing fundamental improvements to combat, but, to go hand in hand with these changes, so that all mechanics work together as an integrated whole, we’ve re-designed other crucial gameplay schematics of V&H as well, and put it all together into what you might call, The Ultimate Package – a truly dynamic build, one which we believe will greatly elevate the quality and overall gameplay of Villagers & Heroes.
We hope you all will be as excited as we are! Here is a brief overview of what you can expect:
* New item system featuring a great deal more variety in gear choices, and much more interesting loot hunting.
* Gameplay changing items, e.g. you are off adventuring, and find an item that fundamentally changes the way you play the game (at least until you find the next item!)
* New item slots for your character
* Improvements to legendary crafting
* More player builds and ways to play your class
* Brand new talent trees and talent system
* Combat tightening – more responsive controls in combat with feats and other actions, making combat feel more snappy and fun
* Improved visual effects for all feats and spells for all classes
* New slim, sleek, and easier to understand tooltip interface
* Improved under-the-hood efficiency changes which will reduce server lag
V&H Expanding To Multiple Languages
While Villagers & Heroes has always been an international game, that is to say it has long been played in countless countries around the globe, it has not truly been accessible to so many given the language limitations. (Currently, the game is only available in English, German, and Portuguese.) But that will be changing in 2017!
For some time now, our programmers, one of them being a particularly avid fan of machine learning, have been hard at work implementing a global auto-translation program into Villagers & Heroes. While machine translations can of course never compare to the superiority of human translations, the implementation of this feature will nonetheless open our game up immensely to a great many people around the world.
We will be rolling out into different languages gradually, as there are still a number of kinks to be worked out, but the process will be starting in our very next live build in January – V&H will be available in French and Spanish! And as 2017 progresses, more and more languages will follow. (Russian, Turkish, Polish, and the list goes on and on and on!)
New Lower Level Content
As you are all probably aware, V&H is an on-going work in progress, meaning we will always be continuously adding new lower level content until all of the storylines eventually meet up with the high level narratives.
So to that end, in early 2017, we will be releasing the next installment of the on-going ‘Black Thrush Story,’ which entails a long and involved quest line, one in which players will learn about the history of King Leo and his murdered queen and much, much, more. This new content will take players from level 15 up to level 25, and will have them traveling to a great many locations. Several existing older zones have been given revitalizing new make-overs, and get ready for some brand new dazzling sights, especially in the coastal region!
V&H Goes Live On iOS
The all-around guru, Clark Fagot, has been working fast and furiously to finish porting Villagers & Heroes to iOS. Soon, we will truly be a mobile game in every sense! Though a good deal of testing still lies ahead, we hope to have V&H on iOS by late February, and are very eager to welcome even more new players into our community!
A New Server
Either just slightly before or just slightly after V&H launches on iOS, and after we’ve added a number of other improvements to the mobile version of the game, we will be opening a new server.
We are informally thinking of this new addition as ‘The Mobile Server’ – a pristine new world where new players can plant their stakes, forge brand new guilds, create mighty villages built from scratch, and all experience the game together from the very start on mobile! (This server will of course be available to all PC users as well, but will be the default server for new mobile players.)
Surprise Project
Well now, we can’t go showing you all of our cards all at once, now can we? Instead, we’ll hold this one back for now, as it’ll be a great deal more fun for you all when we unveil it later! We can tell you that we are working on a rather large project that will be released at some point in 2017, and which will give players of every level a large dose of extremely lively, challenging, repeatable content!
Possibly... Adding An Optional PvP Zone
We debated about putting this on the What’s Coming In 2017 list because we have not entirely made up our minds yet, but felt that in the interest of full disclosure to our community, we should let you all know that we are seriously considering adding an optional player-versus-player zone to Villagers & Heroes.
It has been one of the most requested features for a long time now, and we have the tech for it. So for competitive players who enjoy facing off against one another in combat, and all the intrigue and dynamics that go with that, this would certainly fill a need, and would add a colorful and zesty new element to our game. But again, to repeat, this would be a completely optional zone. There would be no PvP at all outside of this designated region. We have no desire whatsoever to force PvP onto anyone in our game, nor would we ever. But for those who do enjoy it, there would be an energizing arena for them to indulge their skills and wits in.
However, we are well aware that having even a separate PvP zone in Villagers & Heroes could potentially change the atmosphere of the game in terms of player behavior, and possibly disrupt the unity of the community — which is why we are treading extremely carefully before making any decisions.
As always, we welcome your feedback!
Also in this edition of the AML:
* Behind The Scenes With Damon, The implementation of an auto-translating program into V&H.
* Ardent Stories.
* Dance Contest Winners, 2016.
* Player Interview, Heartsfang
For the full edition of this months AML, please go HERE.
~LL