Official Community Update from Darkis

[cc_Darkis]

Greetings Guys,

Happy Friday and hopefully the weekend is off to a good start for everyone and don’t forget that there’s a Raid Event is all the Buzz right now! Har Har!

Well to say the least this is going to be a bit different type of update due to a lot of factors beyond my control and a few others on the Team.

My Duck’s did indeed not get in a row and kinda left out in the cold this week!

What that means is I don’t have everything signed off on that is being added into the next update which is a big bummer for you guys and another missed opportunity to deliver on things to the Community.

So what can I share? Good question and hard to answer to the level I’d like but hey, let’s give it a shot right?! Right?! right…..


Shop Heroes and What’s on the table? What’s going on?

Let’s start out with the fact that we are working to expand the game into new locations and markets around the world which some of you will have noticed by now started with China.

That one is off to a great start and has been a solid success and we haven’t even turned the jet engines on to push it out to everyone!

That’s also brought a lot of unique challenges to the game overall from localization, technical support and of course having a team on the front lines leading the charge.

Some of you might have recently noticed I was in Shanghai for a good while helping get things in place, tying up loose ends and making sure we are geared for success.

Hopefully, I get time to share more about that trip and some of the great pictures I walked away with.

So the next step is we are launching in a few other places that have never got to experience Shop Heros which is going pretty smooth and is another major milestone for the game.

This is great as we learned a lot of lessons good and bad from before and that has helped speed things along which ultimately frees up the team to get back to development duties.

“That’s fine and all Darkis but that doesn’t really affect me so what’s up!”

Well that would be a misconception a lot of folks have been making lately and has led to some tense moments here on the forums, world chat and you name it.

The Team focused on work with Shop Heroes also has to help get all this stuff up and running, localized and more.

That ends up putting a big hold on game development which has you guys playing the waiting game which is not something we are fans of ever.

It’s frustrating by far for us and I can only imagine how terrible it is for our fans. I want folks to know that we do apologize for that which is why we are making a lot of changes company wide.

I can’t go into much details of that at this time but you will be seeing it shortly one way or another.

All this stuff is typically written up in a nice PR posting on our website (keep an eye out there btw) and same with the game being pushed into new markets.

We should’ve been more on point with that so you guys aren’t left in the cold wondering if we even have the lights on anymore.

There’s some big stuff coming on that front and I’ll be so relieved when it’s finally out of the bag, which you guys will be too!

The Game, Alright back to that!

I’ll just bullet what I know is on the docket for now and once I have what’s in this update nailed down, I’ll continue to update:

Cold War Feature “Coming Soon”

You should see something in game very soon teasing this. It is pretty much what you guys have seen me hint about and put together yourselves.

It’s a big event feature that is City vs City orientated and really changes the game on just how important having a great set of folks to play with.

This will bring in massive changes with how the game looks, blueprints, game balances and all sorts of new things tied to the City.

Some of those changes will be long requested such as having a more robust guild/city system.

I’d love to go into more about it but it seriously needs it’s own dedicated thread to break it all down when it’s ready to show off be it gameplay videos or what not.

New packages and Blueprints

This one is a given but also long overdue in the sense that just about everything is package based which doesn’t help out those who do not purchase them.

A lot of the new features coming in will have stuff added that fleshes out the game further but also adds in more content for those that have itchy crafting fingers.


Enchantment Feature . *Very close to being in this next Update

Oh yeah! Something discussed quite often as it greatly changes up the gear to sell and the gear your heroes wear.

Not to mention it adds value to all those mythics you don’t want to just throw out. More to come on this soon!

Gear Set’s

Pretty self explanatory on this but yup, long time coming and will be very important to some of the new features we are planning to introduce.

New Heroes….!

Yup, and let’s say they should be pretty sweet from what I’ve seen. Some are very close to being ready and will be released when the time is right.

But what are they? Tell us! Sorry I can’t but I can tell you they are some epic fighters not to be taken lightly be it sword or spell.

Raid Improvements

We’ve heard the feedback loud and clear so we are going to be adding in better rewards overall and making it more worthwhile to do.

Ui Improvements

Told you those feedback threads are important. Team is working away on some of the request and even more so supporting the features coming out.

Expect a nice overhaul to many of the elements you might be familiar with.

Social Features

I’m sure many of you have noticed a lack of these even when compared against other games.

What you see out there will be making it’s way into the game such as invite systems with rewards, login bonuses and sharing functions.

I’d like to also mention that all this stuff listed comes with new items in the shop for the Shopkeeper, City Skins aka Maps and other items.

And I’ll leave this for last as I’ve written way too much already..

Pets

On a side note folks in regards to Gem Frontier, we will have more to share about that when ready but I’ll let you know now, that’s not developed in house and you would see this for those that have already downloaded and played while it’s being worked on.

I’ll try to answer questions tonight and throughout the weekend into next week.

I’ll be sure to give an update with more information when next update is nailed down.

You guys should also start seeing some new Mod’s joining the forums to help liven things up, be more representative for the community when it comes down to moderating or airing things out.

The first one goes by the name of “Tethys‘’ and will be making their debut next week and sometime after I’ll be opening it up for others more publicly.

P.S Don’t think I have forgotten about the farm update...that’s still more legit than folks know! It’s nothing to Buff around about!

[Tethys]

[Terry]

thx for the sharing

[Shiroe]

8-)

Welcome! Will you be a community moderator or are you a Cloudcade staffer?
(your forum nick not being something like cc_Tethys makes it not clear yet if you'll be a red shirt or a blue shirt. )

[albryant]

P.S Don’t think I have forgotten about the farm update...that’s still more legit than folks know! It’s nothing to Buff around about!

Farm update??? I guess I haven't been paying attention to the forums enough. People are asking for farms? Like EIEIO kind of farms? Like Harvest Moon is coming to Shop Heroes? Not that I mind I love those kinds of games. Uncle Shiroe, do you know what Darkis is referring to?

[Tkshowers]

All of that sounds great, but can something also be done about the constant lag?

[Shiroe]

All of that sounds great, but can something also be done about the constant lag?

This raid the lag seems quite localized, since a bunch of people are complaining about terrible lag, while other, including me (Steam + Android, the Netherlands) seem to have no lag at all.
Perhaps platform + location info of people with and without lag could help them figure out where the problem is and if it's inside or outside cloudcade's network?
(could be overloaded internet routes, could be one of cloudcade's servers acting up and only certain players get routed there?)

[Outlaw Run]

Thanks for the update Darkis, I hope that the response is positive and demonstrates that when we "get a look behind the curtain" we get re-engaged to the success of the game.

As I've and others said, as long as we are getting consistent updates about what is coming and we can align those with some of the suggestions the community has made, the morale will be much higher. Don't be afraid to just be honest and tell it like it is. For example:

"Game is launching in multiple new territories that has stretched our capacity at Cloudcade and we are needing to make some changes to better serve our customers. We expect the new territories to strengthen the future of Shop Heroes and new content will be coming soon. In the meantime, we are committed to showing our current customers that they matter and will be doing more events like Double XP, Free Gems and new packages. Additionally, we are establishing some better timeframes on when the new content is coming and will be posting the progress of that monthly on the forums. I'll keep this thread open and will answer as many questions as I can. "

I appreciate you listening and hope for future success.

[Feone]

Improvements to the social features, gear sets (also prebuilt teams?) would be awesome. Devil is in the details there but overal this stuff sounds nice. In general new mechanics and features could be really nice, would like to know more about the details of these various systems.

Out of all these things how many are going to be in the upcoming patch?

I also have some reservations on the things mentioned. Hopefully "Changes" and "Balance" isn't just code for "Nerfs!" like in the past. Pets and enchantments also tend to be "Spend infinite moneys on rigged RNG for total dominance over people with fewer digits in their bank account!".

Generally I also hope that these new features and mechanics preserve the casual-friendly gameplay, and the lack of options to generally be toxic and hostile to others. It would be a pitty if this turned into another game where people can use pvp mechanics to ruin eachothers days.

[BigNasty]

Any plans to do something about fuse times, cauldron slots, and fuse success rates?