2/27/2023 - devlog
The New Player Journey has wrapped up, and check out the new Name THAT Planet community poll!
Michi (molp)
I was finally able to finish the implementation of what we call the new player journey. If you haven't been following the devlogs lately, you can read up what it is and what we want to achieve with it in the last few devlogs.
While the first three parts of the milestone were about implementation of faction contracts, new screens and UI tours, the last part was about cross-cutting concerns and clean up.
If you set up your company in the last year or two, you might remember the HINT command. It basically opens a buffer with a helpful comment once in a while when you reach certain milestones in the game. Since pretty much everything that was covered by the hint system is now in the UI tours and respective faction contracts, we removed the HINT command entirely.
Another change we implemented is that the status of the tours is now reset when the respective company is being liquidated. We did this because the faction contracts that go hand in hand with the tours have monetary and material rewards that can be used to get a second/third production building way faster than before. We think shortening the time to the next production building is a great motivator for new players to stay in the game. If a player restarts though, it would be unfair to not give these benefits again, just because the tours do not reset.
Unrelated to the tours, but not unrelated to the factions, is another change I implemented this week: generated faction shipping contracts now prefer routes to the closest commodity exchange for new players. That will make the shipping contracts more attractive and lucrative, since new players need to bring their products to the commodity exchange for sale and replenish their consumables in any case.
We'll soon be releasing the update, you can find the release notes in the forums.
Nick
Last week we had one of our latest influencer videos release from YouTuber Kokoplays MB. You can check out the video here. We think he did a great job at explaining the game to new players and highlighting what makes it special. I hope to get more influencers like this in the future that will put more time and investment into the game before doing a video.
In other news, there is a new Name THAT Planet poll where you can vote for your favorite unnamed planet to receive is own special moniker. If your planet is not already mentioned, just post a comment below and I will add it to the list. May the odds be ever in your favor!
As always: we'd love to hear what you think: join us on Discord or the forums!
Happy trading!