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My Colony v0.87.0 Released

As I'm sitting here putting the finishing touches on the My Colony v0.87.0 patch, I realize that there must be something seriously wrong with me, for this is the second update in a row where I have decided to just totally go in and rewrite or change large parts of the game engine. I have to apologize if I am making you all feel like guinea pigs, although I suspect that My Colony players are going to be used to that by now. So what all has changed in v0.87.0? Let's find out!

Firstly, I had introduced a ton of engine changes in the last update, and game error/crash reports started filling my inbox as soon as the release hit the app stores. Luckily the reports were quite helpful and I was able to fix a ton of problems in the code, some of which led me to long-standing issues that I didn't even know existed.

I also isolated several memory leaks in the game that were causing thousands and thousands of arrays to be created and never destroyed, causing the garbage collector to run like mad. I believe a lot of them have now been resolved, so I am hoping that this comes with performance improvements, particularly on lower-RAM devices like smartphones.

I also fixed an issue that had basically made tourists useless.

The City name size on the Regional view has been reduced a bit, and there is now a toggle button in the corner that you can press to turn the city name display off completely.

Of course, the above is all small peas compared to the main thing I added in this version. If you listened to the latest episode of the My Colony Podcast, you already knew what was coming in this release - Multiplayer Regions. While still in it's early state, I think that Multiplayer Regions has the potential to add a ton to the game. The feature works similarly to how regular regions work today, but there are a few key differences, which I will explain below.

Firstly, when you create a new Multiplayer Region, you are not the owner of the overall region, and the regional game file is not stored on your device. The region and all of it's interconnected statistics are stored on the server. In addition, all multiplayer region subcities require cloud sync to be turned on. You also cannot switch a multiplayer region subcity into offline mode. A Multiplayer Region gets its own charter code, which you can initially set to either public or private. Anybody who knows the regional charter code can join.

There are difference in the way the game plays also, beginning with when you first create a new subcity inside of a multiplayer region. When you create a new multiplayer region subcity, if it is your first city in that region, you will be asked to join the charter of another colony. You can pick whatever colony you want, and what race/civilization you are will depend on which mother colony you choose. As you might be able to guess, this means that multiple species can be in the same region.

On a regular region game, the entire region map shares resources and power. This is not the case on a multiplayer region. On multiplayer regions, the entire map shares only atmosphere. Beyond that, cities are grouped into a new organizational unit called Metropolitan Areas. A metro area is a group of cities owned by the same player that are built right next to each other. So if you start a second city on a multiplayer region and you build it right next to your first city, it is automatically added to the same metro area. Metro areas do share the same resources and power grid, so if you are building multiple cities on a multiplayer region map, it will be a good idea to put them next to each other.

On a regular region game, all of your cities continue to produce and consume resources while you are playing, regardless if you are in that region file or not. This is not currently the case on multiplayer regions, but it will probably be in the future. There are actually some general changes that are coming to this feature on all regions soon, and I was going to wait to implement it in multiplayer regions at the same time that I make the changes to single player regions.

Other than those changes, multiplayer regions are currently pretty similar to regular regions. I wanted to get them out there and running so that I can see what issues people have (if any) and see what kind of features players would like to see added, but off the top of my head, I want to make it so that multiple players can share the same metro area/power grid/resources. Also a sort of regional common trade area, perhaps regional governments. I think this can also be tied in with federations somehow.

This is a feature where I am open to all suggestions. Over the next few weeks I am going to be splitting my work between Colony Wars and updating the My Colony website to take advantage of a lot of the features I've added to the game. In the meantime I will be collecting diagnostics and feedback related to Multiplayer Regions (and everything else for that matter). The feature is still in it's infancy, but I think that it has the potential to add a lot to the game!

That's all for today. The update should be hitting all devices throughout the weekend, so be on the lookout, and let me know what issues you find. Enjoy, and stay tuned for more!
5y
#2
made a test map with some others and it seems like nothing works :(
Questions?
Concerns?
Feeling lonely?
Feel free to get in touch with me via message or heading over to
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5y
#3
why would you play the beta if not to become a guinea pig
5y
#4
cry8wolf9 said:made a test map with some others and it seems like nothing works :(


Nothing as in... like you can't even create a city?
Owner of Ape Apps, LLC
5y
#5
Sort of. It let's me make the city but then it fails to load the city and then boots me back to the main menu
Questions?
Concerns?
Feeling lonely?
Feel free to get in touch with me via message or heading over to
https://discord.gg/tsBg6Ec
5y
#6
bonsoir mon jeu est a jour mais quand je fait un exercice d'incendie sa fait planter tout le jeu
5y
#7
^This one is using the charter for one of my cities
^Tried using the charter code for the multiplayer map too

@bastecklein
here is some video of the problems that a few of my friends and i are having. I figured video would be easier than trying to explain it.

Also some thoughts:
-If someone becomes inactive what happens to the maps? Can there be a voting system to vote them out, like what you said you'd eventually add to the federations?

-I know you said that eventually you want to enable shared resources, but what if by chance some people are going threw a play threw and don't want that? Could there be a toggle to turn it on and off? ( could also tie it into a vote incase people keep turning it on and off to get resources and maybe split the resource pool evenly between the players or based off of how many maps the currently have.)

-I know you probably expected his eventually but....
-since some of the power players have banded together to start a multiplayer map, is there a possibility for having a system to annex more space for the region? Again you can tie it into a vote and even take resources from all of the players to do so.
Questions?
Concerns?
Feeling lonely?
Feel free to get in touch with me via message or heading over to
https://discord.gg/tsBg6Ec
5y
#8
@builderbot salut, malheureusement dans le forum peu de monde parle anglais. Je peux te donner le lien du serveur Discord si tu veux de l'aide plus facilement

builderbot is having the following issue: the game is updated to .87 but whever he does a firedrill the game crashes
Creator of Coloniae
Admin of the MC2 translation project
5y
#9
Just wanted to let you know that the update before this fixed a lot of the saving and corruption issues I'd been struggling with for months and months. Yay!

This new update seems to take a lot longer to start up than previously. Getting into a region, or a regional city can sometimes take 5 to 10 minutes to open. Sometimes trying to get into a regional city will throw me back to the regional overview, but thank goodness this has not resulted in a corrupted city like it did two versions before.

Despite the long loading time, it's fun to play My Colony again. Thank you for fixing so many of the saving and city file corruption issues.
Playing on: Mac and iPhone
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Ape Apps, LLC is an independent software development company founded in 2010 by Brandon Stecklein. Over the years, Ape Apps has published over 400 apps and games across various platforms. You can get in touch with Brandon on Twitter or by leaving a post on his wall @bastecklein
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