Thanks everybody for your feedback in the Community Brainstorming Session. I’d like to do this more frequently to reflect on plans and changes as time goes on. Of course, you’re always welcome to just post to #support:feedback and/or #roadmap:brainstorming at any time.
I reviewed what you had to say along with existing feedback, ideas, and bugs. Combined with my own take on priorities, here’s what we’re looking to focus on coming into 2020:
Interface and Performance
Interface and Performance
IC should be easier to play. It’s that simple.
We can dream up great new features all day long, but it’s all for nothing if we don’t have a proper user experience. It’s been about 3 years since our last major interface change, and we’ve learned enough since then to warrant another overhaul.
Improving the website experience will benefit new and existing players alike, independently of gameplay changes.
Long Term Goals
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Improve the join experience for new and returning players so they can create an empire with less friction. This means more bang for our promotional buck.
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Provide a better first impression for new players so they are more likely to stick around.
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Clean up the interface so that all players will be less overwhelmed by noise. Easier to play means more likely to keep playing.
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Improve the API for better performance (pageload speed) and to better support modern and multiple interfaces, including the mobile app.
Action Items
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Build support for Bootstrap 4.
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Audit all pages for ui improvements
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Audit specific user flows (attacking, building) for ux improvements
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Optimize asset delivery (improve pageload speed)
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Offload user actions to async requests (fewer full page reloads)
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Port async request handlers to the API.
Game Design
Game Design
These are changes to gameplay itself. We don’t want to change the spirit of IC, but some of our longtime flaws require new approaches to old ideas.
Long Term Goals
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Improve the introductory experience for new players.
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Release the updated/rebalanced battle feature.
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Update the battle feature with a proper replacement for morale.
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Make the game more accessible to casual players.
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Reduce the need to be extremely active to be competitive. Activity should not trump strategic skill.
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Reduce the ability to farm and/or lessen its impact.
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Encourage skirmishes during the entire round, not just EoR wars.
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Give players more autonomy. Solo/Self-Sufficient play should be more viable.
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Make it increasingly challenging to sustain larger and larger empires. (“Race to the top” problem)
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Address the underlying imbalances that Unofficial Alliances have exposed.
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Give players more recognition for their playing history.
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Give players more reasons to play than just size/nw rank.
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Find a reasonable middle ground between anonymous and named play.
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Support automation (auto triggers, auto aid, auto builds).
Action Items
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Simplify the current battle formula rewrite, reduce scope creep, and release a minimum viable replacement over the current battle feature.
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Finish and release the first iteration of the Quality of Life feature.
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Build the new Official Alliances feature to address flaws with the family setup.
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Fix Infinitum’s staleness.
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Build history and sharing features to reduce the need to copy/paste information to team members.
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Buff ops to make opping a viable alternative to fleet during war.
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Reevaluate war dynamics and definition, and the balance between flexibility vs structure.
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Revaluate buildings, units, and population.
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Reevaluate production and decay.
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Add criteria for winning a round instead of just an end-date.
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Build new Achievement system to give players value for their past rounds.
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Finish spec for Map Fog.
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When we have enough players, open a galaxy that randomizes its settings every round.
Community
Community
Our community is just as important as the game itself.
Long Term Goals
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Improve communication and transparency around dev plans, work in progress, reasons for changes.
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Provide larger “release” updates between rounds, instead of smaller updates during rounds.
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Rebuild a staff to help manage non-development efforts.
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Define milestones to focus growth and track progress.
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Provide stronger direction: community-wide discussions are useful but should help decision making, not get in the way of it.
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Integrate the forums into the game to better stimulate community interactions.
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Formalize plans for continual promotion to get a steady influx of new players.
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Explore more monetization and funding options to support paid promotion.
Action Items
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Define staff roles and announce recruitment.
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Plan 2020.1 release.
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Define a short term goal for playercount and funding.
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Evaluate dependencies for forum integration.
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Figure out shortest path to get a wrapper-app into mobile app stores.
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Explore Nativefier to get IC into steam.
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Get IC into as many game directories as possible.
This is obviously a ton of work, but that’s nothing new. What is new is how we define, organize, and prioritize tasks.
Some of this stuff is already in progress. If you have questions about anything above, feel free to ask here.
Here’s to a strong 2020!