Oh yes, I'd buy those right away. A little to the side of the Christmas update, I'd suggest to them a feature, but I'd like to propose it to you guys before I actually consider the email. So here goes: I'd like to see some more cooperative teamwork, even in survival/single-player. Not to say we don't want new bosses r mechanics, but one that I'd like to see is a teamwork/mercenary feature. In depth, it's a lot like Gun Bros and such, where you can take players from your game center lists and invite them to your party, or use them as a temporary teammate for those solo matches or survival games. And of there's a last thing I want, I'd like to see in-game text chat, or even better, live voice chat. It encourages teamwork, and has been used often in some newer games to provide the same experience.
That sounds good, and if they don't like your specific ideas, at least they know you want an emphasis on cooperation.
In-game voice or text chatting are both fairly contested requests, from what I've seen: while a lot of people are asking for ways to communicate with their fellow players, the primary counter arguments are that text chatting may be impractical given how long it takes to type, and that both forms may allow for flaming from less mature players. I certainly wouldn't complain if they put one of them in with the option to turn then off by default though. I'd be interested to see how that temporary teammate mechanic works, actually: if the A.I. counterpart of your teammate can actually imitate the person's full playstyle, that could result in some devastating effects if your teammate uses any weapon combos. Otherwise, though, you may be at a disadvantage: a lot of us here are skilled enough to survive just about all the bosses with the Thunder Armour, but if the A.I. versions of ourselves don't have that same dodging sense, they'll die before the actual boss fight on Serpent, and possibly other bosses. That, and attempting to use the weapons in the combos separately makes them much less efficient than the M-27 alone, usually. That's all just extra thoughts i had on the matter for discussion -- youve certainly got my approval to send the email as-is for the features you want
Christmas Update: New boss: Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer like Serpent on steroids. Oh wait, there is more than one reindeer pulling that sled -> first bossfight with 3+ bosses. And a Santa Armor would be really nice. @Superion: While the teammate idea is nice, don't forget that this will require alot of effort in terms of AI coding. So I do not really see that happen. Voicechat would be a great addition. If I remember right, I asked them about it months ago, and never got a reply.
For anyone who knows how to navigate the AppStore: can anyone else see a Chinese version of Star Warfare if they view the apps available for download from Freyr? I need to get on a wireless network to see if I can download it... It would also appear that there's a HD version of the game on Android devices, with a slightly different icon (more red lighting, the letters "HD", and some other little details). Haven't a clue what the difference is though, unless Android devices can't run universal apps th same way iOS can... ----------- Edit: regarding the Chinese version of the game, turns out it's an identical app -- except just about all the text is now in Chinese (well, duh >.>). Pity, I thought it might've been part of why we couldn't play alongside players from Asia... ...also, for whatever reason, Serpent's Chinese name is "Seven Inches" -- that thing was a LOT bigger than 7 inches last I looked... ----------- Edit2: Wrath of Mantis --> 黄雀 (huang2 qiao3) --> "Yellow Bird" Poison Pit --> 毒液 (du2 ye4) --> "Venom" Siegfried --> 屠龙 (tu2 long2) --> "Slaughter Dragon" Double Rages --> 逆袭 (ni4 xi2) --> "Rebel Attack" ("ni4" may also mean "contrary", "opposite", "backwards" "to betray"...) Serpent --> 七寸 (qi1 cun4) --> "Seven Inches"
kill dragon instead of rebel attack (this is one possibility) but it could also mean counter-attack. The rest yes... Instead of bird it is a special type but close enough. Serpent is 7 inches... Quite possible, we may be 1 inch tall... WE ARE LEGO MINIFIGURES IN THIS GAME!!! JK.
I want those reindeers too. I want them to come with Serpent's teleporting charge as well. ...except I want them as regular enemies, not bosses. And I want them bombarding the players left and right. *CHAOS ENSUES*
Yup, I see the Chinese app, too. I always wondered about that, why I see so many Chinese-only applications... If I remember right (I do not care much about Android, so I do not really pay attention), the maximum size of Apps in the Android store is much smaller than on iTunes (where the current 1GB limit is becoming a problem already) . Also, HD on Android devices? How many different screen resolutions do you need to take into account there? Apple is getting ridiculous for developers already (with at least 4 different resolutions across devices), and with the Android fragmentation I assume it is even worse there.
I would've thought they could just make universal apps similarly to how iOS does it, though I suppose that probably also jacks up the filesize... On that note, that might be why there's a separate app for Star Warfare in Chinese: while most of the inner core workings appear to be the same, they've simply changed all the text to display Chinese, minus a few exceptions (Title Screen logo, weapon names, etc). One thing I've found quite interesting though: the core contents of the installation files aren't actually identical between the English and Chinese versions of the game. I'm swiping between the two apps on an iPad 3, and I can see some noticeable quality differences between the two apps when you pay attention to the graphics: some of the textures on the Chinese version of the app appears more pixelated and blurred, whereas the English version of the app has much sharper detail and definition of things like armour panelling and the details on some of the weapons (the Laser Cannon looks somewhat messy in the Chinese version).
I do not understand Chinese at all, so no point for me in buying a Chinese-only app. Well, the characters look a good measure of awesomeness better than Latin alphabet
The font they used here for the Chinese characters looks fairly standard: it's a bit like the Chinese equivalent of "Arial", so to speak -- nothing quite as fancy as the customised font we've got for the English version. Arrow0x: the funny thing is, this time both products come from the same vendor. In exchange for sharper graphics, the actual text and language is slightly off in the English version, so there's sorta a trade-off either way
yes, that does happen. but still, it's not about the text. you trade off the graphics, then you simply take something out of the game. I simply don't understand, just why do you have to make Chinese stuff look worse?
See, I don't think they deliberately made it worse: what I think happened was one of the following two possibilities: a) The Chinese version is a repackaged version of the English game, and some of the graphic quality suffered upon recompression. To get an idea of what I mean, open a jpeg file in an image editor, and then save it as another jpeg file -- it's compressed a second time, which causes some degeneration in quality. b) Alternatively, the Chinese version of the app came first, and it's actually the English version of the game which is the newer and improved version. A sign which supports this theory includes the fact that the textures are rendered at a higher quality in the English version of the app, suggesting that the English version was re-optimized for the iPad 3 (you likely won't notice the graphical differences on a smaller device like an iPod Touch). Additionally, the Chinese version of the app is slightly bigger than the English version, which is what can happen when you keep on saving over an old archive, as opposed to putting all your raw data into a new archive and saving it as a new file (try saving a powerpoint file multiple times, and it'll gradually get bigger and bigger, even if you're not adding new content). ------------- Still, it's something worth asking Freyr about, given that it's effectively the same game: I'm not even sure if they've noticed themselves, given that I actually confirmed it by swiping between the two apps while they were both active. I'm just exploring both of them and trying to find the differences, though it looks like the actual way the game runs is pretty much the same -- I even got my current save file to sync over onto the Chinese version, so it's definitely the same core game.
That begs the question: So if the games themselves are compatible and able to sync saves between them, why aren't the servers the same way?
The games themselves are essentially identical app files with some modifications to the user-interface. It's sort of like renaming Google Chrome into something like "Chrome Browser" and making everything display in a different language, but the core functions and protocols are absolutely identical. You don't need to go to the AppStore of a different region to download the Chinese version of the game: both the English and Chinese versions should be available from most AppStores (I daresay Asia can probably download both as well). Still though, an email to Freyr about the player segregation sounds like a good idea, we've been guessing at it for plenty long enough on our own now... -------------- I actually remember someone saying somewhere that he suddenly couldn't play with his friend, and he had been holidaying in Asia at that time when he asked for help. It's definitely not the English/Chinese app version that's causing the segregation -- it's something else.
