Zorg

I'm going to try and explain how the new stamina system will work. If you understand what I mean and can think of a simpler way to explain it in our news post then please post. I'm having a hard time coming up with a way of explaining it clearly in a short amount of text.

The total amount you earn per hour will remain the same, you'll just get given smaller amount more often. Instead of ticking every 60 minutes and giving you your full hourly gain of Stamina, Gold and XP. The system will now tick every 5 minutes and give you part of your hourly gain.

On top of this the 5 minute ticks will now happen at exact 5 minute intervals around the clock, so 5 past the hour, 10 past and so on.

The complicated part is what the system does if you put on or remove equipment that has a bonus to stamina gain. The new system when it ticks on a 5 minute interval will work out how much stamina you should have been given (based on the items you're wearing now) and compare that to how much you have been given (which it tracks) and awards you the difference.

This means if you put on your stamina gain equipment before the final hourly tick, the system will calculate how much you would of earned if you were wearing it for the entire hour and give you the difference on the final tick. So you can still switch in to stamina gain equipment on the hour if you wish to get the bonus.

Similarly, if you wear stamina gain equipment for part of the hour and then remove it. The system will now be calculating how much you should have been given based on the new lower stamina gain value and will be giving you a lot less stamina for the remainder of the hour.

The result of this system is, we give you the same amount of stamina in smaller chunks (which is what we wanted), but you can still put on stamina gain equipment on the hour to get its bonus for the full hours worth of stamina (which is what you guys wanted). I'll be damned if I can explain this in a nice simple and straight forward way though.

There is no reason NOT to collect a potion if you are using instant finish. When on earth would you instant finish a potion and not collect it? If you don't want to collect it now then you also wait with the instant finish and pay less. I don't want you to add another button here, just change the functionality.

 

Virtually yours,

Zennaro

Yes there is, some people want to instant finish and collect and some people want to instant finish and discard...

Instant finish (all) still does not collect the potion(s). :-(

 

It is annoying that "new template" is now in the  top in the pull down menu. This is used rather seldom whereas I keep the one I use all the time on top by naming i "111".

 

And then there is still a bug in the log: I usually keep a tab open with the log and when I come back it the message that lets me collect the potions does not appear the first time I refresh the page. It was like this before and still is.

 

I like the discard button. But I would like a button that collects and destroys (all) the potions in one click.

 

Virtually yours,

Zennaro

You can instant finish & collect / discard in 2 clicks though. One extra click for me was better than covering the screen in buttons for every possible series of actions you could possibly wish to perform.

As for the 'New Template' option it's now at the bottom instead of the top.

Ok, vote on what you want to see implemented. They'll be addressed in the order of votes as long as they get enough support.

We've set-up an official Hunted Cow IRC channel if you guys want to come join us and chat. The channel is hosted on Freenode and called ##huntedcow for those already familiar with IRC. More information and instructions can be found in the link below.

http://forums.hunted...hunted-cow-irc/

We've set-up an official Hunted Cow IRC channel if you guys want to come chat. I'll be in there all day every day if you want to leave me a message.

If you're not already an IRC user I've provided links to some free clients below. Plenty of guides exist online on how to set them up. If you're not feeling up to that you can use the web based Freenode client at the bottom without installing anything.

Downloadable Clients:

HydraIRC: http://www.hydrairc.com/

Nettalk: http://www.ntalk.de/Nettalk/en/

QuasselIRC: http://quassel-irc.org/

So the first discussion is over, I've selected the ideas I think have a lot of potential. Below are the ideas I've selected and my personal thoughts on them.

Firstly, the 5th gang idea. I'm not going to waste a lot of time shooting this idea down again. Basically, it's a temporary fix and given a few months people will be tired of a new gangs politics just like the old gangs. I am however going to throw a different take on the 5th gang idea in to the mix that I think could work.

Rogue Viability

Rather than add a 5th gang I like the idea of allowing Rogues to use the Wasteland. So you go rogue, you get a "days as rogue" counter much like the "time as a member" counter for in a gang. Gangs can then white list you against their guards.

So if you're white listed by a gang that gangs guards will not attack you, you will also gain the ability to spawn from their HQ. If you're not on any white lists you will spawn randomly in to the Wasteland. You cannot capture land, but you can help degrade gangs control down to 0% if you sit on a square. You can attack anyone but you'll only be able to phase in to white listed gangs territory or neutral / contested squares.

The idea of this would be both 'Mercinary Clans' that help the highest bidder and an out for players who enjoy warfare but are tired of gang politics.

Warfare Enhancements (Original Post)

I'm not fond of the idea of a smaller Wasteland for non-avatars as it excludes almost the entire current player base. I'm not opposed to expanding the current Wasteland systems with more structures and such though.

Warfare Shop Items (Original Post)

I think this idea is needed as current Warfare Point rewards are mostly irrelevant. I'd like to see new items that cost a small fortune go up but are viable alternatives to Ventrix's items.

Arena System (Original Post)

I like the idea behind this, like who can defeat the most waves of enemies. But I think these sort of concepts would be better incorporated in to the Raid System idea below.

Raid System (Original Post)

This idea needs some work but I really like it. I think players would form groups (the same way they do in Fallen Sword) and then fight enemies in an asynchronous fashion i.e You're in the fight whether you're online or not. This could also be combined with the arena idea, having the group confront enemies in waves and see how long they can last.

Inventory Revamp (Original Post)

It's quite a bit of work but I'd still love to give all players far more item slots and add a proper drag / drop / stacking system to inventory. Maybe with nicer controls for combining crystals and socketing items as well.

Hospital Revamp (Original Post)

Apparently the hospital closing is putting off a lot of new players, maybe it's time we ditched that idea. Very little work but may be controversial.

Crystal Levelling (Original Post)

I think this idea would need to be simplified to be viable. I like the idea of using crystals for more things but I'm not sure I fully understand the mechanics and purpose of this system.

That's a summary of all the ideas I liked from the previous thread. Discuss further then we'll take out a few of the unpopular ones and put it up for a vote!

Thanks for this report, I wasn't generating Arena games in to the equipment level bracket my script should have been aiming for. Resulting in more lower games appearing over time.

This has now been fixed, however it will take some time for the ladder to move back to normal. You can aid this process by filling up the lower equip level games and helping get rid of them.

Wow, I came in to this thread expecting a wall of criticism and complaints but was pleasantly surprised. I'm impressed you guys managed to keep this thread so optimistic for the future.

So I'll address as many of the issues in this thread I can remember from just reading it...

Solar Fleet was shut down?

Yes, we shut it down but probably not for the reasons you suspect. When we moved our servers to cloud hosting we updated to PHP 5, which was quite a lot of software changes in our old code. With Solar Fleet only having 2 - 3 active players it wasn't worth our time to update it all. Our more active games like Legacy, Fallen Sword, etc have all been updated. Cow Play persists because as the first game CowBoy made it has sentimental value, much in the same way I would keep Legacy regardless of player count.

Legacy doesn't have a forum here?

I can re-instate it if you guys want? ... it just wasn't being used for anything really as Legacy has its own internal forums we saw little point in hosting extra forums here.

Can Legacy get more updates?

Sure, I need to draw up a new roadmap really and add Crystal Removal. I've just been distracted with the Eldevin Steam launch at the moment. My work load is thinning out now though, which is good. This whole Hunted Cow site was one massive distraction that lasted a lot longer than expected.

Will I be getting an assistant?

Hopefully, next year I think we'll be recruiting again. Finding someone passionate and skilled is the problem. We always seem to get one or the other. Believe it or not web-developers who made their own online games are pretty hard to find. Macey apply for the damned job!

Road map being delayed?

The road map may not have been adhered to perfectly but I did all the updates in it. There may be some delays but at least you guys know what is coming and when. The Fallen Sword road map constantly falls behind schedule as well, it's just hard to keep up some times.

Balance problems in Crystal update?

I don't remember that many balance problems with the new update? ... we had to nerf a few things and buff a few things but that was it. I worked on the combat calculator with the players and together we worked most of it out before anything went live. Riot games employs over 1000 people and still they have to constantly buff and nerf League of Legends for balance, it's not a perfect science and I did the best I could.

Would you sell Legacy?

Probably not because it wouldn't be cheap and it's unlikely to be profitable for the person buying it. Times have changed since 2005, getting new players these days is expensive and challenging. In 2000 I would sit and learn to play a new game for weeks, these days most new players are out the door in under 5 minutes (and that goes for all our games).

I understand peoples concerns and I hope I've addressed some of them. If you want the best possible future for Legacy you guys need to help out with the new road map and make sure I'm working on the updates you guys want the most.

Just a brief run down of some of the many questions I've been asked about Gift Codes.

How do I buy one?

Go place an order for the items you want in our shop, but before you click that big payment button at the end check the box that says "Convert purchase in to Gift Codes I can give to other people"

I don't see the check box on the payment page?

You're either using a gift / discount code and trying to make it a new gift, sneaky! Or you already own the Fallen Sword Starter Pack (or other limited per account item) in your order and as such can't purchase a second, so your order is being forced in to gift mode!

What if I buy a gift code during a bonus sale?

The bonus depends purely on when you claim the code and not at all on when you purchase it. So if you buy a gift code during a bonus FSP sale and use it after the sale ends, no bonus. If you buy a gift code outside a sale and then use it during one, bonus!

Can we trade in game currencies for gift codes with other players?

Of course, as long as you're not scamming people we don't mind. If someone wants to farm a million gold and trade it for a starter pack / subscription gift code then go for it!

Can I use the gift code on myself?

Yes! If you purchase a gift code for your spouse then get a divorce you can totally use that gift code yourself (unless your spouse gets it in the divorce settlement...)

Does thie mean if you purchase a gift of $60 in FSP during a sale that would give you a bonus and the person who redeems it does so after the sale, they will not get the bonus?
 
If this is the case, if you were to purchase a $60 gift when there is not a sale and not redeem it until there is a sale, would you then get the bonus that somes with that sale?

 
Correct, the gift code just gives 100% discount to the items price. Whether or not you get a bonus to your purchase is in no way tied to it, so it just depends when you use the code.
 

I can appreciate the idea of giving to other players, especially around the holiday season, but can I ask why you guys are focusing on small things? In the passed I remember not seeing the online player count go below 1200, and now it's merely a few hundred at most times. Why not focus on larger issues and try to get players back here and/or get some more fresh meat into this place? I find silliness in seeing just small things being fixed and improved when much larger things aren't working so well.

 
The player count on Fallen Sword dropping below 1200 is not a coding problem I can solve by updating some scripts. The updates to Fallen Sword that we think will improve it are part of the roadmap which you're welcome to participate in planning, I did the last road map update a week ago...

Far be it from me to make a Christmas post in September but we're always impressed here at Hunted Cow by the generosity of our players to each other. So as this holiday season approaches we have now implemented gift code purchasing in our shop!

Any item that can be purchased in the Hunted Cow shop can now also be purchased as a gift. Simply check the box below your order that says "Convert purchase in to Gift Codes I can give to other people" and once payment is complete you'll be given a nice shiny gift code (per item) to give to your chosen friend. If you're lucky enough to receive a gift code you can enter it here:

URL: https://www.huntedco...m/shop/giftcode

You can read our Gift Code FAQ by clicking here.

Our server monitoring caught it. Sadly an issue with the network of our service provider and not something we had any control over. I'll be giving out some reserve stamina to all players to compensate for the down time shortly.