I know this is only vaguely on subject, but I was wondering what will happen when the map fills up. Will new maps open for new players to join or will they be somehow forced into the current maps?

the lost continent of Omega will reappear and usher in a new age of prosperity for the world.

Oh I sense a religious cult in the makings. Will the believers of Omega be required to destroy pagan countries to gain entry into the promised land?

yes, but only the decadent west. noone cares about the eastern continents.

I and my cohorts care deeply about the eastern continents. The eastern lands are home to our lost brethren. We will reunite with you all soon. [/devil]

I was thinking the new map would happen after the beta was through, but I've also thought about the possibility of creating additional worlds (where another is added once one fills up). If I went that route, though, each player could only play on one world at a time.

Another option when we reset would be to increase the size of the map (e.g. 8192x4096 instead of 4096x2048) to allow more room for players, but I think that might take too long to expand. Maybe that's not a bad thing, though.

One "flaw" in the current map is that the spacing between countries was too far apart. Going forward, it's going to be tighter and more difficult for one country to explode out.

Maybe I'll post a poll question on it.

i like this idea and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

- The "Resign" option now blocks a player from rejoining for 24 hours. (There is a warning on the page.)

maybe some advice should now be given on where to place your country. i had a friend put his capital right on my border yesterday, but he was able to just resign and replace it.

Already on the join page.

"It is <b>strongly recommended</b> that you select a location away from large, established countries and closer to newly formed ones. Large countries have more resources and will be very difficult to battle when first joining. Scroll the map to explore."

- Additional statistics have been added to the bottom of the Global Triumph home page. If you have any suggestions for additions, please let me know.

THANKS A BUNCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks - I was going to suggest something like this.

Also, I was wondering if players who resign could have their nations still appear on-screen, rather than disappear completely. They wouldn't be able to access their old nation, but all the tanks/bases/etc would still be in place. I don't enjoy aliens scooping up entire nations and making them vanish.[/sad]

(It would kind of be like an inactive nation, except that no one can access it. I don't know whether it's a good idea to cancel all treaties as well.)

being someone who has had to "clean up" an abandoned nation, I would like it if they would disappear. Just the nations I have taken has been people who just quit playing.

Inactive nations are just as abandoned, but they stick around as well. From a "realism" point of view, I just don't like having entire nations disappear.

On another note, perhaps a "Mass Vacate" screen would be useful. Get one of those pop-up screens - the left side would let you enter in four values - topleft corner, topright, and so on - creating a square within which all of your sectors would be vacated. The right side of this screen could show a map of the area, and would probably work best if a translucent box was drawn over the to-be vacated area.

realistically, troops wouldn't continue to fight after being abandoned.

This would actually open up a huge loophole. A country could join near you, spend all their money on units at your border, then resign. The next day, they could do it again. You'd be forced to spend money to get past units that no longer belong to anyone, while the other person has essentially created a wall at no cost.

That's on my to-do, after having given up a ton of space to a few of my alliance-mates!

Definitely!

- The "Resign" restriction has been altered. Instead of blocking users from rejoining for 24 hours, the game instead blocks users from resigning within 24 hours of joining. (Users who have been playing for a while shouldn't be blocked from getting right back into the game. The new system prevents excessive joining and resigning, but doesn't punish people playing the game legitimately.)

- The World's "Search" function now also returns matching country names.

- The latest <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRw5iP1QwW8" target="_blank">YouTube map video</a> has been uploaded.

sweet

Just out of curiosity, when do you expect to add the next map? I'd be cool if I could take part in a new world, and hopefully things will have calmed down in a couple weeks/ a month. So, depending on the timing, possibly new country for the win.

new maps go up around the beginning of each month.

- Beginning at midnight, countries whose leaders haven't been seen in 37 days will be considered abandoned and removed from the game. (The poll showed overwhelming support for a one month period, and I decided to add an extra week as a buffer.)

I meant another map for countries to populate, not the videos posted on youtube.

when the world's seas run red with the blood of johnny's enemies.

Yeah! I automatically approve of any statement that involves spilling the blood of foes. Also, maybe there could be a subtle shading of the seas from blue to red as more and more units are destroyed in game? That'd be pretty metal.

Normally I'd probably start ranting about how your opinion doesn't matter because you resigned and left me alone to fight against the evil of Golf continent or some such (which isn't really true; i just like ranting), but this statement made me giggle, so I won't.

Once I get the new server and have time to develop and run some map tests, then finish off the last game updates I need to do, I <i>may</i> run a dual map system in the beta. I'm actually still not sure about the details, though, since a lot of it just depends on how much time I have to work on it (since I also have one of those annoying "job" things).

I know a lot of people don't want to give the current map up, which is why I'm hesitant to start up another one. If I do decide I want to start clean at some point, it's just that many more frustrated people. haha

some people don't, but others see your growing nation and would happily just resign to start fresh on a world without johnny or boogra.

Isn't it more fun to try to team up and defeat the big guys?

a team of small nations couldn't take you on, man. 20 people making 30k each day wouldn't be able to hold you back. just the nature of the game. and a lot of people will be hard pressed to join a game just to lose.

this is why multiple maps will be attractive to people. if one is too densely populated, people can start on another where they feel that they have a fighting chance. anyone that drops their nation between the advancing armies of johnny and boogra will soon find themselves in a meat grinder.

A few small nations, no. But, two large alliances like HAL and MCXA fighting could be awfully enjoyable, no?


<i>if one is too densely populated, people can start on another where they feel that they have a fighting chance.</i>

That's a definite plus to having additional worlds (as is the fact that many more players can play the game at once). I'm also worried, though, that people will just start bailing on a world as soon as one player/alliance gets too big instead of banding together to fight.

I suppose that could always end the world and the alliance would be declared victorious.

then save the map, and the people from that map could all move to other maps

Remind me - I have an idea about land bases that I'm going to post later on. I'm hoping that making things easier for the defender will keep people from running at the first sign of war.

That would be a spectacle that I'd highly enjoy watching.

My apologies to everyone who is waiting for a reply to a note. I have a number of them stacked up, but I haven't had much time to keep up lately.

With the time I do have, I've been trying to make progress on converting and updating the game to function with multiple worlds on the new server.

One change I wanted to note is that the game will have more color options (37 instead of the current selection of 20) and that the colors will be slightly darker and more pastel. One of the things I noticed when playing is that some of the countries can be a little too bright on the eyes when you stare at them for a while (settings attacks and whatnot), so I think the new colors will work better.

Yes, mute down that red a bit.....[/laugh]

lol i figured i waz blocked or something. maybe if you know ur going to be busy, you could put up something on the main page and say you will be busy and expect delay? idk its just a suggestion

Below are previews of two new worlds I've developed for the updated system. The first is a 2048x1024 world and the second is 8192x4096. (For comparison, the current world is 4096x2048.)

[uimg=1260084662-world2-0-640x320.jpg]

[uimg=1260084667-world3-0-640x320.jpg]

It's hard to imagine how big that second one is until you start scrolling around the map. It's <i>insane</i>.

with the size of the maps, how will nation placement work?

with the current map, one nation dropped first, i'm assuming it was yours, and then everyone had to drop a nation within 100 squares of a nearby nation.

who gets first starting point- the first nation to sign up? will the following nations have less or more of a radius to drop within the preceding nations?

four times bigger than the current map? that's going to be a beast.

I personally think that 25% would be more fun to play on than 400%. There would be more engagements and attacks could come earlier in the game. The way that you previously stated where you have to be within 80(?) sectors of 2 countries would compact us and force attacks and less treaties.

If it is too early to have varied topography, then it would be nice to have a lot more waterways dividing the land up, forcing people to carry construction trucks with them on their advances...

I would love to see the big map reduced to the small map size. Just squish it all down, don't crop it. I think that you would see more people fighting and less people conceding to boundary lines when there is limited areas to expand into.

I would also like to see "spawn points" on several islands and have a week of placement before any troops or whatnot can be created so that a lot of us could start fighting at the same time, all across the map. You might allow us to move our countries around within that week as well.

I see Johnny has eliminated the gigantic oceans, which so far have proved to be an impediment on his attempts to reach the eastern continent. [/tng]

yeah, i don't like that aspect too much. i know that people have asked for more islands, but now the maps both look entirely too cluttered, and there aren't any real oceans to serve as natural barriers.


i agree with tim that the smaller map would be more fun to play than the larger- unless nation placement restrictions quadrupled as well. larger map can have the "within 100squares radius" like the first map, but the larger map should at least allow within 300squares.


and i still think that mines with super-heavy resources should be added, as an added way to start wars over territory. deadlocks will be easier to come to between a couple nations without them, and they would drive some of the politics of the game.

Each world will have "spawn points." The small world has three, and the large one has eight. To join, you have to choose a location within 100 sectors of a spawn point or 100 sectors of <i>two</i> countries. This will ensure expansion in a tighter honeycomb-ish layout, rather than the possibility of expanding in a straight line out.

I thought so, too, but the poll showed overwhelming interest in an 8192x4096 world. So, this will give people that chance!


<i>then it would be nice to have a lot more waterways dividing the land up</i>

I did put two rivers dividing that huge mass that goes from the NE corner to just SW of the center. I think they're somewhat visible on that small preview image.

I can probably insert more, though more realistic peaks and valleys terrain support will come with a version two of the game.


<i>I would love to see the big map reduced to the small map size.</i>

The big map has a lot of detail that would be lost if shrunk. Island chains and whatnot. I think that will make expansion more interesting, and I've gotten a lot of complaints from people being bored sending ships across huge expanses. I thought these maps might help alleviate that problem.

I'd like to hear any feedback people have, though, so I can make adjustments before the new launch.


<i>You might allow us to move our countries around within that week as well.</i>

That could open up a loophole to get around the distance limit. Let's say country A and B drop near a spawn point, then C drops near A and B. Then A can move his country to the other side of B and C. Then B, then C, etc.

I have yet to make a serious attempt to each the eastern continent, but I think it's time I try. Part of me playing to test is to see what works and what doesn't, both in terms of the coding and the strategy. So, I need to see if getting across a big ocean is feasible.

I expect you guys will make it a challenging test, as well. [/tng]