The launch of the Alpha 4 and Medieval Age went well - without critical crashes - although there were plently of bugs related with medieval buildings, units, techs, etc. Today's update fixes a large number of those issues, as well as shedding some light on our current progress.
Today's update changes
- Huts/Houses/Cottages - There will now be 10 buildings allowed per age and their bonus is 1% per level. However, the reduction of construction time capped will be as low as 50% (was 20% before)
- Hut and Tower construction times and prices are roughly reduced twice
- Awareness ability now gives +2 cells per ability and has a proper description (icon to follow soon)
- Population has increased for Medieval buildings to compensate for the large amount of huts and their bonuses
- Seminary requirements for Theatre and Opera House were swapped
- Palisade level 10 wood price is reduced to fit level 18 Lumber Shed storage limit
- Communality has been renamed to Collectivism
- You can no longer hide resources from plunder with traders. When the enemy attacks and there are no resources to plunder, they will rob your traders standing in the market.
- Descriptions have been added to medieval buildings
- Fixed bugs for various Medieval buildings like storage which were not recognized in various requirements, Seminary hiding tech tab and allowed to be built along with Library and so on.
What are we up to now?
Currently we are working on a proper moderation system which will allow players to report abuse/insults with a single click - which allows us to punish the offenders quickly and easily. This ability is the only thing standing in the way of the team sending out a large number of invitations to those people who have registered on the website and our past players from our other games. If you are one of those waiting for it - hang in there - we are working on it.
We are still working on the long-promised "surprise" that should have been a Christmas present, but it was too complex to have it ready in time. So the Christmas present is the Alpha 4 launch like we had initially planned :) The "surprise" update will come after the New Year.
The future of Alpha 4
Alpha 4 will be here for a long time, roughly as long as Alpha 3. Its main purpose is to test the game with a large number of players, hence the massive amount of invites planned soon. Also, we do not plan to wipe the game at the end of life. Instead, a separate parallel server will be launched with a new version - and the existing server will be locked for new registrations. The existing server will co-exist with the new one for some time before it will ultimately be shut down. This is one of the reasons why there will be no Enkord Cash refunds anymore, so use your existing Enkord Cash wisely and treat the donations as... well "donations" ... and not a purchase of goods/services which would give you some kind of warranty.
The only thing required, in order for the new server and the new stage of testing to begin, is probably the new age (Renaissance). Even though we do not have the new stage ready, we will still be able to introduce other new things without having to reset your progress. New quest locations are planned as part of our regular updates - as was the case with Keepers Village & Ruins of New Kyiv when they were released.
Changes in the team
Starting from 2015 Guro is no longer working for us. He has been with us for 8 years straight but now decided it is time to move on. He has worked on the original Totem Tribe & Totem Tribe Gold, Emerald Tale, and Totem Tribe II: Jotun so far. He was a valuable part of the team and we will miss him. Wish him luck in his new endeavors.
