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Domination: Earth

July 2018 News


Mr. D

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Hi all,

You may have noticed a period of silence and a reduced frequency of updates from me recently, so it's perfectly natural to start wondering "what's going on?".

Well, the time has come to shed some light on what's happening behind the scenes here at Epic Dragon and also a bit about our future plans! :)

As many of you know, all our games to date were developed exclusively by myself, which means that I am the biggest bottleneck of progress when something goes wrong in my schedule or when I need to attend to other matters (e.g. provide forum support or review cheater reports :)).

For the first time in Epic Dragon's history this is going to change (at last)!
Our team is expanding and welcomes a designated UX/UI expert and a 2D artist, as well as a new developer who will be in charge of the Android & iOS app development.

But that's not all: as I mentioned a few times on the forum I have begun working on some large changes (some of which included a UI update for the new alliance system), one thing led to another and... it's been decided that the current UI as a whole and the underlying app platform are just not good enough (and frankly look a bit too messy to accommodate all the new systems!).

Which is why we've decided to pause all development on "Domination: Earth" 1.19 and our new team will now begin working on "Domination: Earth 2", a brand new app rewritten from scratch using an entirely different set of technologies.
No need to worry, "Domination 2" is planned to be 100% backwards/forwards compatible and all of the accounts & existing progress will remain; once the 2.0 is released it will be distributed as an update to the current app replacing it on your device; any previous versions will remain functional, but simply won't include any of the new stuff. :)

None of the game rules will change, but every single aspect of the game is planned to receive a visual overhaul: we've decided that the new Domination will be a bit more "sci-fi focused" than the current version and we are basing it on the Unity engine (the stuff that our competitors like "Pokemon Go" are running).
This does not mean that the new app will include 3D graphics (at least not initially :)), but it does open a lot of potential for improved interface animations and a more "game-like" atmosphere overall.

There are no further details I can disclose right now as we're in a too early stage of this development, but we do aim to finish it within 6 months and hoping for it to become a Christmas present for all our fans. :)

Of course, I will continue to provide support for the old version while 2.0 is being built and some minor releases are to be expected from time to time.
But all of the larger features (e.g. alliance and combat updates) have now shifted into 2.0 as there's little sense in investing our time in something that will cease to exist after the 2.0's launch.

As always, please do not hesitate to post any questions and I will answer them to the best of my ability. :)

 

 

 

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Well congratulations on getting more staff. That sound like it should help 👍

However imho a complete redesign isn't exactly going to be loved by your many hardcore players. I spent 50$ last week to help my progress well traveling and the idea that the game, mechanics, and graphics could (and probably will) change makes me *extremely* reluctant to

a) play the game with the same vigor and love.

B) spend nearly the cash I have to this point.

C) invite other players to the already incredibly confusing game that will be completely rewritten sime time in the future. 

I need to clarify, will we lose our progress? Frankly this is all I care about, because if we do/will I will kindly be retiring.

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7 minutes ago, Ruvox said:

@Republic of America No need to worry or even retire ;)

Yup. :)
Also just to clarify: the "rewrite" only applies to the underlying tech displaying the user interfaces and all the graphics; the main area this is affecting is performance, stability and "smoothness" of animations / visual atmosphere.

No game rules are going to change, this is not a rewrite of game mechanics, simply a much nicer "skin" to an existing game. ;)
We'll obviously try not to lose any of the existing buttons, but our UX expert will do his best to make things user-friendlier and more intuitive.
I.e. yes, some UI elements will shift around, but the intent is to make things less confusing, not the other way round. :)

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3 minutes ago, Mr. D said:

Yup. :)
Also just to clarify: the "rewrite" only applies to the underlying tech displaying the user interfaces and all the graphics; the main area this is affecting is performance, stability and "smoothness" of animations.

No game rules are going to change, this is not a rewrite of game mechanics, simply a much nicer "skin" to an existing game. ;)
We'll obviously try not to lose any of the existing buttons, but our UX expert will do his best to make things user-friendlier and more intuitive.
I.e. yes, some UI elements will shift around, but the intent is to make things less confusing, not the other way round. :)

Thank you for the clarification. Is there a rough timeline? Are we talking about end of summer, or like end of year or like June of '19?

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First of all I am very happy to hear that Epic Dragon is growing!:D
Since I play Domination it evolved more and more into my main AR-game so I am always happy to know the game is successful and evolving. You did an awesome job the last year and no other single developer could have made it better you somehow just earned any support you need!

You somehow spoiled us since now with constantly publishing new features, fixing bugs and improving existing mechanics. It might me a little bit hard to wait a whole half year now for big new stuff but I will be patient and enjoy the existing game which is already great. But also hope to keep you as the fast bug fixer and maybe getting at least very little nice gems to sweeten up those six months (nothing like alliance or combat updates but I think there were at least a few smaller things proposed in the forum which would make the game even more enjoyable without too much effort).

Again thank you for your transparency it's always nice to know what's going on.


 

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3 minutes ago, Ruvox said:

First of all I am very happy to hear that Epic Dragon is growing!:D
Since I play Domination it evolved more and more into my main AR-game so I am always happy to know the game is successful and evolving. You did an awesome job the last year and no other single developer could have made it better you somehow just earned any support you need!

Thank you! :D

3 minutes ago, Ruvox said:

But also hope to keep you as the fast bug fixer and maybe getting at least very little nice gems to sweeten up those six months (nothing like alliance or combat updates but I think there were at least a few smaller things proposed in the forum which would make the game even more enjoyable without too much effort)

That is the intent, yes.
In fact, I did implement the numeric trade offer input, action cost description on the contruction UI, "nano" subscription for 5EUR a month and a few other small things last week, but organizational matters took priority so I never got to release the 1.19.4 update. But don't worry, it is coming! :)

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Interesting.  I look forward to what comes next. 

The wait will be long, but the news that our existing time/money invested will not be wasted combined with your previous track record(updates, communication, etc.) will keep me around and eager to see what the next iteration is.  :)

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Wow, good to see, į was acually scared for a minute that you where going to end DE.

Hope i could help with ideas or problems ;) make collab on a Google app or something. I'm also going to buy some more unobtanium for you :)

I'm really happy for you Dan. 

I also have alot for you in Ideas

Edited by Grizzlyfilms
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16 hours ago, Mr. D said:

This does not mean that the new app will include 3D graphics (at least not initially :)), but it does open a lot of potential for improved interface animations and a more "game-like" atmosphere overall.

I know that there are players who are always afraid of battery drainage. So if the rebuild of the app and improved interface animations lead to an significant increase of battery consumption, a battery saving mode would be nice for those who go on big trips, are afraid of big consumption or just have very small batteries. 

I don't think that Domination is such a big battery drainer but I just wanted to let you know about this interest of a part of the community (heard in the discord about it).

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1 hour ago, Ruvox said:

I know that there are players who are always afraid of battery drainage. So if the rebuild of the app and improved interface animations lead to an significant increase of battery consumption, a battery saving mode would be nice for those who go on big trips, are afraid of big consumption or just have very small batteries. 

I don't think that Domination is such a big battery drainer but I just wanted to let you know about this interest of a part of the community (heard in the discord about it).

Until we add any real 3D graphics (which is really not even planned right now :)) I think we should be ok, Unity engine on its own isn't known to drain battery more than our current platform.
Most of the drain comes from active geolocation (i.e. whether the GPS chip is used, how frequently does your phone connect to a different cell tower in the process of obtaining network-provided coordinates etc.), but that algorithm is not going to change (nor there is much we can change :)).

So I'm hopeful that battery-wise things will stay the same or even improve a bit (as we are getting rid of some old problematic code of the framework that I used to build DE).

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25 minutes ago, SebRut said:

That sounds great! To you plan to release a beta version (via the Google Play Beta-program) when the newly developed has all features currently present? 

It is entirely possible, yes. :)
We haven't discussed things that far in the future, but I can't see any arguments against beta so far!

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