2013 conclusions and plans for 2014

2013 was a very labour intensive year for the developers of Totem Tribe II: Jotun. The work done over the past 12 months has been crucial  for the fate of this project.  Releasing both the new website and alpha stage 1 was a huge turning point for the development team as our project started to shape up like a real game and not just chunks of code and content here and there.

The Website

We finally launched the website and started accepting donations from our loyal fans which meant that after 3 long years we were able to start investing money back in to the development of the game. It was a very important moral achievement for us - we are providing something that people want and people are willing to part with their money to support us even without trying the game.  You don't come across that much trust too easily these days.

For us, the website has been an integral part of the game right from the start.  It slowed the game development down a bit which is why it took us so much time to release the alpha, but it was essential in order to provide the necessary infrastructure for when our first testers started to play.  They had  already shared accounts in the game and on the forum, so adding their heroes avatars was not that hard when we came to the launch.

After receiving a lot of feedback on the website, we made a decision to start the closed alpha test earlier than planned, in order to start receiving feedback on the game itself as soon  and as fast as possible.  We had initially planned to release the alpha with opposition hideout and advisor quests in place but decided to launch it as soon as the tutorial was ready and it was well worth it.

Alpha 1

Releasing alpha 1 was a big eye opener for us - we were getting feedback from different angles and perspectives, some of which came as a bit of a shock for the developers here at Enkord.

1. Our interface was terrible. Sure it was rough and we knew it, but after launching the alpha we realized that it needed to be scrapped and we started developing it again from scratch. This was no easy task, but it was imperative that we got it done asap. Hopefully when we release alpha 3 we will start redesigning parts of it. The major problem with it is not the layout of the interface itself, but rather the inflexibility of it.  It has been hard to tweak so we have decided that we need to programme a new one.
2. Online is not that scary. Going all the way back to when we first announced that the game would be an online only game, we got all kinds of complaints from the fans  of the original Totem Tribe saying that it wouldn't be a true reflection of the original game and that it would ruin the originality and ruin the experience that they had loved so much.   It has turned out, however, that most of our testers are really enjoying the online experience and aspect of the game eventhough it is still loaded with bugs and only gives them a small taste of what the finished product will be like, which we are sure wont disappoint.
3. The game is very buggy. The number of bugs was shocking - although we expected there to be a lot of bugs, we were hoping that it would be quite manageable to fix them. But life just aint like that:).  We have to postpone our plans for adding new content as it is going to take quite a bit of time to sort out all the bugs our testers have come across.
4. Turns out that the sandbox design  is a hit with our testers.  The ability to build up your country, even when there isn't much point in doing so, has gone down very well with some of the players.  A lot of the testers have several countries on the go all at once and a few of them are in the process of developing their 10th country!!. When the game is released it will be packed with quests and story-related adventures, and it is important to us that  the dynamics and elements, included in the sandbox country building aspect of the game, is equally enjoyable and adds to our players questing/adventure experience. 

Alpha 2

For alpha 2 we added a new quest location - the Opposition Hideout, as well as a new batch of advisor quests and  more importantly to us - the Cash Shop.  The Cash Shop is necessary to help finance the development of the game  and  we were quite nervous as the performance of the shop would indicate whether or not this game will be a financial success. If Totem Tribe II: Jotun isn't as successful as we hope it will be and we make no money from it, we will certainly go out of business. 

However the feedback we are receiving is very encouraging and I am slightly worried that some testers are actually spending too much money for us ;).  The games dynamics are far better than our previous online game and although peoples financial circumstances have changed drastically over the past four years,  we have reason, given the support we have, to be quite optimistic. 

This time around we invited more hardcore players to see if casual and hardcore players could coexist in the competitive multiplayer environment. Although things are going quite smoothly, and our theory that these two groups can co exist in the same game, we have encountered a few bumps along the way so we will be keeping our eye on them and will be doing some tweaking.  Our hunch that this would be possible seems to be spot on :).

Alpha 3?

So what next? 2014 stands ahead of us and we still have an enormous amount of work to do, and I'm guessing you would like to know what we have in store for the coming year.

1. Fixing the bugs that were discovered in alpha 2 will take up some of our time so the release of alpha 3 may be delayed, but it's still a bit early to say just how long that will take. We managed to release alpha 2 earlier than we had planned, but its hard to say how much work any particular bug will take to fix.
2. When alpha three is released it will have an awful lot more content than has been released so far and we are hoping to at least be able to include the classical age when this happens.  We are also hoping to  include some new quest locations in alpha three aswell - . Hopefully we will be able to pull all of this off.
3. The interface rework is a very important milestone and it will take quite some time to sort it out. We are definitely working as fast and hard as we can on this, but it is looking unlikely that it will be done by the time we release alpha 3. Some parts of it will be reworked and thankfully its looking like the interface does not require a complete wipe again, so we are hopeful that we will be able to change it via regular updates.
4. As always your game will be completely wiped when stage 3 is released and testers will have to start from scratch. We also plan on inviting some new people to take part. Any Enkord Cash that you have spent in alpha 2 will be refunded so those who donated and purchased Enkord Cash will receive the full amount of their spent cash back.
5. We also need to tweak the Cash Shop, which is looking promising already.  We intend to add special offers and bonus rewards in alpha 3 as currently the price of items is quite expensive and the shop needs to  provide more value for money for the player.
6. For those people who really need some kind of time frame even if it's only an approximation just for the sake of giving you something, I can say that alpha 3 will need AT LEAST as much time as alpha 2, so a few months minimum.

So what are we working on now as we speak?  At the moment I am completely reworking the building balance to make the players progress more dynamic - buildings will cost more resources but will take less time to build and upgrade them. This way you will be able to spend the resources faster which will hopefully result  in there being fewer instances of having loads of resources that cant be used because higher level building upgrades take so long.  Plus it  makes more sense to max out resource production buildings,  as they are barely upgraded in the new towns at the moment.

The new balance changes will be available in the next update.

Hopefully this news post is a good place to sum up your personal experience of the games progress over the past year.  Why not  tell us whether it has surpassed or fallen below your expectations.