Hello, people of the Krosmoz.
This sunshine-filled newsletter is intended to put you in a good mood. And in general, I think, we all need something to cheer us up more than ever. So let's put aside our anxiety, worries and even horrors which may be unfolding around us, and stick with a deliberately good natured approach.
Let's start with a bit of good news: we've got loads of things to share with you during the warm months of summer, and we won't leave anything out!
But before I run through the list of content we've prepared for you, I wanted to tell you that this newsletter will be one of the last.
Rest assured, we don't intend to go back to the same level of silence that you criticized us for – quite the opposite.
We're abandoning the concept of the newsletter because we want to do things better and to go even further. And reviving our lamented DOFUS Mag, as it were… But I'll leave it to Alex to explain the concept we're working on, so you can give us your reactions and ideas.
Before summarizing this newsletter's content, I'd like to take a minute to take stock of the situation at Ankama. We're trying to set off again with a new creative dynamic, all together. This isn't always easy, because it involves some prior explanation. But nonetheless, I sense a change in the winds. In any case, we've all settled on the common desire to redeem ourselves, mainly by responding to your expectations. It's a slow and sometimes complicated task to break from routine, but we've been working in this direction for a few months now, and you'll be able to discover the fruits of our labor in the months to come.
We're currently working towards the end of a Dante-esque year – at every level and on every project. Certain things may not please everyone, but at least you won't be able to say we've been sitting around doing nothing.
On DOFUS, you asked for the Osas and Sacris to be revamped. And you'll have it. I'll let the DOFUS team explain in more depth, and in this newsletter, you'll discover the first glimpses of the Sacri graphics and concepts. Lots of players asked for a new zone; we're working on it. But most of all, in December you'll discover level 200+ and the Ouginak class. On these two subjects, the artists and game designers are cooking up some big surprises. The deployment of ISK servers is ongoing, and most of all, in September you'll discover what we consider to be a huge innovation. Or rather two huge innovations. I'm talking about the interface overhaul and the 16:9 mode. You're going to discover what is almost DOFUS 3.
From September, we're also going to be working on the 2017 Krosmoz theme, and we hope to draw on your contributions.
We promise you a calendar for the start of January.
Let's continue with a quick word about our latest creation: DOFUS Touch. As I'm writing these words, the game has only been out for 24 hours in French-speaking countries. We've encountered a few issues, but overall, we're delighted with the way things have unfolded. I don't know how to describe it to you; playing on it on my tablet yesterday evening and seeing players darting around everywhere, it took me back 12 years (ouch!) to the early days of DOFUS. The team's work is fantastic, and I would like to thank you all for having shared your enthusiasm with them. I'll let Jonquille talk to you about it in more details, but we'd like to thank all of you for having followed and encouraged us with this project.
Regarding WAKFU, after the hefty overhaul of Incarnam, the teams are tackling several large projects. A new dungeon, the Downscaling system, and Chapter 4 of the Quest of Nations… The Ouginak class will also make its first appearance at the end of the year.
The team is moving forward on these themes, but we've also had many exchanges about what 2017 should look like. We're going to set up a new structure to allow the game designers to perform significant changes on major game features: PvP, politics and the ecosystem. I know that we've been making promises about these points for a long time, but they are substantial and complicated changes. And we're all thinking about how we can offer you a realistic schedule from here on. The management have made a deal with the team, and we have agreed to the notion of providing them with reinforcements, provided that we get a schedule and flawless organization. We'll keep you up-to-date with these future developments very soon.
Krosmaga is making incredibly good progress, and the people of the Krosmoz who were able to test it won't even recognize the game. The game design hasn't changed (that much), but we've taken on board lots of feedback so we can push the game's experience and enjoyment even further. Below, you'll find a video and a few visuals which will attest to this. We'll be releasing the first version in September, and we eagerly await your feedback. Personally, I can't wait to give you a good walloping in this game (or the other way round, I guess we'll see).
All the same, I'll take this opportunity to talk to you about Tactile Wars, whose latest update was released on 26th July. The team has added a really crazy feature: bosses. And not any old bosses! Bosses that you can customize to your whims… It's so 'powerfulish' that I couldn't not talk about it here.
I can't summarize everything in this editorial, but you'll also receive news about Krosmaster and its world championship, a debrief with regard to the open days, some surveys…
I wish you all a sunny summer and a good vacation,
Tot
WAKFU
Adjustable Level – A word from Dy7 and Exited
We talked about it in the previous letter to the community. Now's the time to tell you more about this feature which will be available in the next major patch, and to answer your questions! What will it be for? How will it be put into practice? Won't it make the high-level content pointless?
What will it be for?
It will be at the heart of several other functionalities which will be interesting for players of all levels, and for different types of activities.First of all, there are the global and community activities. You'll be able to – at any moment – re-experience any content you've already unlocked, and do it with your friends, even if they're not the same level as you.
Then there are the competitive activities. Thanks to the adjustable level, we'll be able to perfectly balance any activity in the game, so that it's not necessarily the highest-level player who wins by virtue of being high-level.
On that subject, we quickly thought of Achievements which could be interesting for the entire game because they must be completed according to a standard, but we can also imagine different types of content, like a "dungeon race" for example. And eventually, PvP (Player versus Player) should also benefit, since the functionality allows a meta game to emerge with a very specific range of levels and with accessibility for a great many players.
As well as perpetuating the entirety of the game's content, the Adjustable Level will also have a community aspect: it will be easier to find a team member for even a low-level dungeon by having more characters in the matchmaking systems, since a single player can sign up for several dungeons, with multiple different levels.
How will it be put into practice?
That's a big detail we haven't revealed just yet: we're going to link the Adjustable Level system to the "Rapid Builds" system.What's a build? It's all the characteristics that make up your character: your level, your skills, your spells, and your equipment.
The goal of the Rapid Build system is to allow you to completely change your build with a single click, after having created it. You could be in "Fire Damage" mode, with all the appropriate spells, skills, and equipment, and then you could instantly change to "Earth Tank" mode with different spells, skills, and equipment.
Thus, the Rapid Build system is a new interface which will let you create and manage several pages of skills, spells, and equipment, much like the three spell pages you currently have, but much more useful and more developed.
The Adjustable Level will offer you two options:
- Maybe you just want to lower your level in order to play with your friends without too much difficulty: you could use an "automatic" equipment and skill page, which is to say you would automatically receive characteristics adapted to that level, without needing an skills or equipment page for that level.
- Or maybe you want to complete some challenges so you manually create a skills and equipment page for that level, providing the equipment yourself. This method will give you the most customization for that level in order to complete the most complicated Achievements, for example.
These methods ought to suit all the activities in which you'll participate in the game: accessibility and looking for challenges.
Won't it make the high-level content pointless?
For the functionality to be interesting, it's important that the time you invest on lower-level content is not a total loss, and that it allows your character to progress, both in terms of experience and equipment.While the functionalities that we're grafting onto the Adjustable Level will take care of the material rewards (notably Matchmaking and Achievements), the Adjustable Level will allow you to gain sufficient experience while completing any content in the game, advancing your character's real level.
The experience gained won't be equivalent to the experience you'd gain against monsters of your own real level, since you're fighting weaker monsters who will be killed quickly, but you'll gain more experience than players at that level, since you need more experience per level. In other words, a simple formula will increase the experience gained in a way that is profitable, but not overdone.
Mentorship – A word from Dy7 and Exited
We were just telling you about it; we'll be adding several features to the Adjustable Level. The first system we'll be introducing is the Mentorship.
The Mentorship is a system which will offer rewards to established players who spend time helping new players. The aim is to encourage you to give the best possible welcome to new players who show up in the game.
In a sense, you could say that it's a follow-on from the Referral System in the community welcome and game initiation, but has a wider scope, with real, in-game rewards.
The Mentorship is intimately linked to the Adjustable Level functionality, since the goal is for our new players to be welcomed and guided by players of similar power, so their first game experiences aren't completely spoiled by PowerLevelling.
It's also a first step undertaken in the creation of a system that offers the player tools and/or rewards for helping each other, and for spending time together in a game that they enjoy. We will follow this feature's results with interest, hoping that it will bear fruit. This isn't only to see improvements, but also to envisage extending this type of system to the whole game.
Nations and Quests: The Quest of Nations – Chapter 4 and more – A word from RyF
The production of chapter 4 of the Quest of Nations is in full swing; all of the team members who are working on this part of the content are focusing on bringing you an adventure worthy of Brakmar!
Dirty tricks, backhanders, difficult negotiations, treachery – nothing's too vile to get out of the capital of Evil. In both substance and form, you'll be far from your adventures in Amakna and Bonta. It must be said, with a guild like that of Eminerell Lebbocq, a Brakmarian Arkaeologist affiliated with the "Knowledge and Profit" League, you have to expect the worst.
The final part of this chapter of the adventure in Brakmar might surprise a few of you, featuring an unexpected opponent with a good team.
For its part, the key frame of Chapter 5 in Sufokia has been put in place. There are still a few details and feasibility concerns to be worked out. As soon as we have the green light to start the preproduction of the next patch, we'll get on with expanding it and clarifying the game mechanics entailed in this epic conclusion to the Quest of Nations.
But that's not all.
As you may have noticed from the "Reincarnamation" 1.47 update, we're making a point of honor in clarifying and enriching the WAKFU MMO world and its history of the era, so it'll find its place in the Krosmoz and your memory. But that doesn't mean that we're detaching ourselves from what's already in place: our big brother DOFUS MMO, the series, special episodes, comics, books, and the film will still be references to build transmedia links, without them preventing WAKFU MMO from creating its own references or expanding on the existing ones.
Whether it's a new character's first steps with Otomai in Incarnam, in the Stone Perch dungeon with its Wild Tofus, or Moon's secondary quest which completes and enriches the story of the Nyl Crocodyls (part 1 and part 2), we're trying to bring the game's universe and history to the forefront in different ways, without being too invasive and all the while making the most of transmedia and different mediums – the hobby horse and signature of Ankama's DNA.
Ever since the game's release, we've been injecting this type of content – through devblogs, but also the gazette and the first Ultimate Boss quests, now defunct. But the format of the main quests we know today really took off when Chillberg Island came out in early 2013, followed by Bilbiza, Wabbit Island, the Wild Estate revamp, the Astrub revamp, Ohwymi, etc.
The aim?
To better guide you from time to time in the world of WAKFU MMO, without getting bogged down with endless quests, and yet provide you with the game's and its era's elements. That way, you can choose your activities and your story, transparently finding your way to a game zone adapted to your level.
Expressing this objective is easier said than done, but we're putting our full effort into successfully completing this in every update, when possible. Coming up with and creating this type of content is very costly in production time, for an output which is very poor in terms of players' game time. So, it mustn't be done at the expense of other content which would offer more replayability. Secondly, the range of this narrative content and its impact on players and the community cannot be easily calculated with mathematical formulae and classical statistics, unlike with a new class, a new mechanism such as Sidekicks or Heroes, a new zone, a new family of monsters or a new dungeon.
However, that's part of the richness and identity of the game. It's a governing principle which guides and supports you, the players, in your progress. This strengthens the attachment between many of you, the game and its universe – be it consciously or not.
This is why we only produce a bit of this content, even though it's important to us to continue to offer you this type of narrative content.
If narration in general, the main quest and the adventure islands quests really add something to WAKFU MMO for you too, don't hesitate to say so in the comments!
Make sure to keep an eye on the devblogs and Background news, and enjoy the game!
The dialogue below hasn't been translated, but here's a sneak-peek!
A quick glance at some new content
Still in the 2016 theme (Dungeons and Challenges), we'll be adding a new dungeon – this time, on Monk Island! There, you'll discover a strange vineyard and a crypt where a dangerous ritual is being performed… We don't want to spoil the surprise, which is why we're only showing you a few visuals of the concept phase. Warning! Some of the images visible below are concepts that we have already abandoned. That way, you'll get an general idea of what we've got in store for you… but we'd like to reassure you that we'll leave the pleasure of discovering everything in-game for you.
The new class: Ouginak – A word from the Game Designers
Since the release of WAKFU MMO in late February 2012, adding a new class has always followed the same blueprint: firstly, the class is broadly defined, with Tot at the head of the operation. Each MMO then works on a version adapted to its universe and combat system, whilst keeping in close touch with the other hubs involved. Finally, the two versions of the class are submitted to Tot once more for approval.
The Ouginaks' arrival doesn't depart from this rule, and will benefit from what was learned when previous classes were added.
Based upon Tot's recommendations, we're going to develop the class while keeping in mind the special features of WAKFU MMO – both in terms of playability and the universe and combat mechanics.
The Ouginaks in WAKFU MMO will be a variation on the same theme as their cousins and ancestors in DOFUS MMO. But they will also offer a panel of special features, letting you distinguish both versions of the class in the different eras and games, like with the Foggernauts, Eliotropes, or even the Huppermages.
We can't really tell you any more for the moment, but we'll communicate information about this new class to you on our site in the coming months. Little by little, in the form of devblogs; then finally, the class will be added on the BETA server once it has passed the minimally playable stage.
WAKFU Season 3
DOFUS
The month of August is synonymous with vacation for most of you... but for us it also means Goultarminator! Let's start with e-sports and PVP...
Goultarminator VIII: It's on! (by Xyale)
The community's most highly anticipated tournament has finally started: the tension on the server is almost palpable and teams are going through battle after battle without pausing in order carry their server into the final phases!
Servers are the heart of Goultarminator: each year, the competition centers on them a little bit more in order to favor the unity at the heart of the teams representing them. And this time around, it's started with the group phases! Anyway, you can find this year's most important changes in the dedicated devblog article and more globally in the tournament rules.
Of course, we've thought about you and your viewing needs: 6 livestreams have been given access to the Goultarminator server so that you may experience the fights live, for the whole duration of the tournament! You can find each of them easily on the Twitch DOFUS page, or on the Goultarminator streaming page.
During the tournament, we'll be proposing different events which will let you gain access to the server as well as being in the front row to watch the tournament's final phases. Head to the Community Events forum to find out more!
Here's a little reminder about the event's dates:
Round 1: August 1stCheck!Round 2: August 3rdCheck!- Round 3: August 5th
- Round 4: August 8th
- Round 5: August 10th
- Round 6: August 12th
- Round of sixteen: August 18th
- Quarter finals: August 21st
- Semi-finals: August 24th
- Match for third place: August 27th
- Final: August 28th
Each night will start at 5:30 p.m. (UTC) until the semi-finals. The match for third place and the final will start in the afternoon, at 1 p.m. (UTC).
Tada! Now you just need to reserve your evenings and weekends in order to follow the new episode of Goultarminator and to continue to support your servers all the way to victory! It will be crazy!
Now, on to the ISK.
After many weeks of beta testing, we started deploying the ISK a few weeks ago on three servers. The happy victims were Bowisse, Djaul, and Danathor. The activation went fairly well, and people were ready for it. Today, there are as many people taking part in ISK fights on these servers as there were during the beta. Of course, not everything went off without a hitch:
- We had a few problems managing memory on the server handling the matchmaking (that is, matching up the 6 combatants for the the fight), particularly on July 14th. The connections opened to the server by one of our tools – which was watching over the system's overall health – ended up not closing correctly, which turned into excessive memory consumption. In short, it was putting the patient on life support that slowly killed it. This problem has been permanently fixed and should no longer interrupt your gaming experience.
- Currently, a very small yet non-negligible portion (around 1%) of the fights started on the ISK are cancelled without any apparent reason. We're currently working on fixing this, so please don't hesitate to let us know if one of your fights is cancelled abruptly: the more information we have, the faster we can fix it!
- Petsmounts and other pets were unequipped at the start of ISK fights. This was fixed a few weeks ago, so you shouldn't need to hop back on your favorite mount at the start of the fight.
- For the moment, experience multipliers are not taken into account for ISK fights. This should be corrected in the coming weeks.
- Some of you have had difficulties finding fights, particularly if they're in the higher rankings or when signing up in teams. Only 10 servers have been set up for ISK for the moment, and although that creates a very large player base, it's still not sufficient to be sure that there's an adversary for everyone in any situation. These problems should happen less and less frequently as more and more servers join the ISK.
And now, let's talk about the future evolution of the game...
About the classes... with Briss
For the Osamodas revamp, the spells are starting to crystallize. We're still planning to provide 3 distinct elemental paths, each linked to a type of Summons:
- Air for Tofus. A path that will be based mostly on mobility and movement with PM bonuses, and spells that will allow you to push a Summons back or trade places with it.
- Earth for Gobballs. This path allows you to better absorb damage and cause good short range damage. It also lets you lock your enemies and limit their mobility.
- Fire for Wyrmlings. A useful path that lets you provide various bonuses in combat: give allies AP, heal them, or unbewitch enemies.
- There will be a spell allowing you to take control of an allied Summons for 1 turn (no matter which). We're thinking about ways to make certain Summons' spells accessible only if an Osamodas is controlling them. We're imagining, for example, a Tofu that lets you trade places with an ally, but that's only usable if an Osamodas takes control of the Tofu.
- Another one of these spells will notably let you sacrifice one of your Summons in order to recover a bit of the AP used to summon it. You could therefore periodically consume a Summons (preferably at the end of its life) to increase your options during the current turn.
In the paths that we've kept for the moment, whenever the Osamodas is transformed, we want its Summons to have a bonus depending on the transformation (MP and Dodge for Tofus, Lock and Vitality for Gobballs, and AP for Wyrmlings).
We also want their Summons to share part of the Osamodas's characteristics when the Osamodas is transformed. For example, if the Osamodas is in the Tofu transformation, their Tofus would gain part of the Osamodas's Agility and Air damage.
With regards to the ways the Osamodas can currently improve their allies' characteristics without Summons, we still plan on keeping that ability after the revamp. For now, we plan on integrating that ability into the elemental paths: certain spells will damage enemies, but boost allies, for example.
Regarding this mechanic, many of you (almost 27,000!) responded to the survey to determine the future appearance of the Gobball and Wyrmling fusions. And we'd like to thank you! You must be impatient to find out the results, so here they are: for the Gobball, 27.49% (7,309 votes) voted for Gobball #4, and for the Wyrmling, 57.59% (15,313 votes) voted for Wyrmling #3, which means these are the designs that will be reworked for September:
Certain ideas are still being considered, but at the moment we have a testable version of the new Osamodas revamp, with each new spell integrated. Now we just have to decide if we're sticking with this version (the internal testable version of the revamp), or if we want to rework certain things before moving on to balancing and integrating animations. This will depend on how the internal tests go.
In any case, we hope that you like these ideas. We'll keep attentively reading your responses while improving the new Osamodas's spells day after day, with the goal of being able to give you the most interesting revamp possible come September.
A bit about the Sacrier revamp. Please note that we're only starting to consider ideas for this class, and we'll focus on it more seriously once the Osamodas revamp is finished.
But until then, here are a few first ideas of changes which might interest you. We're mostly trying to better differentiate the Sacrier's "Berserker" and "Guardian" sides, while reinforcing both roles. To do this, we're planning to use the Sacrier's HP as a resource just like AP or MP. Which means you might have spells allowing you to increase your damage at the cost of some Health Points (a bit like the current punishments), but also the reverse: spells that increase your Health Points but make you less powerful.
Also, we're studying certain mechanics which would be based on the Sacrier's number of Health Points (a bit like the current "Punishment" spell). For example, if the Sacrier has less than 20% of their Health Points, they'll change appearance as well as possibly having some improvements based on the situation. For example:
- An increase in mobility (MP gain, reduced cooldown on movement spells)
- An increase in damage (more damage, reduced cooldown on damage spells)
This is the direction we'd like to go in with the Sacrier. And, at the risk of repeating myself, these ideas are still just being considered, and it's possible they'll be completely set aside in the future.
And to wrap up, as you previously read, we're unveiling the big calendar surprise for December: the arrival of the Ouginak class.
We have a lot of ideas for this class! But we don't want to spoil all the fun of discovery and create a long wait which would just frustrate everyone... that's why, for the moment, we're revealing the visual we're using as the basis for our work designing this class.
Here, everyone is eager to be able to show you more and give you more information! In the meantime, don't hesitate to share your impressions with us on the forums.
And now on to the interfaces, with Furylaxx
The interface revamp project is going well! You can follow its evolution and give your opinions in the Dofus Lab: http://forum.dofus.com/en/1118-dofus-lab/322642-dofus-interfaces-overhaul
Our goal is to redo all the interfaces in order to improve their ergonomics, but you can surely imagine that an MMO that's been around for more than 10 years has more than a few interfaces. So we're going to concentrate on the most important ones first:
- The HUD: center bar + information on the screen such as bonuses, timeline, etc... all resizable and moveable to wherever you want
- Characteristics
- Inventory
- World Map
Once this first part is finished, we'll continue optimizing the ergonomics of each of the remaining features in order to give you the best possible gameplay experience.
Don't hesitate to let us know what you think – we're all ears!
DOFUS Touch
Before launching this title worldwide, we recently finished the second phase: the release in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxemburg. And there's no one better than Nyom and Jonquille to tell you about this great moment!
The French language release, as experienced by Nyom...
After several months of waiting, DOFUS Touch is finally available for French speakers! The wait was interminable for certain among us, and I definitely sensed that on Twitter (where, admittedly, I played with your nerves a bit!). I assure you, I've also been waiting for this moment since September 2015, when I started working on DOFUS Touch. July 21st, 2016 will stay etched in my memory for a long time.
The good news is that the French launch was a success: as I'm writing these lines, DOFUS Touch is still ranked 3rd among the best free games in the App Store of the relevant countries! Since its launch, we've had an average of 18,000 players connecting to Oshimo each day.
It didn't take very long at all to see the first level 100 characters and professions, and the rewards associated with these achievements will be distributed in time. The competition is fierce!
For those on the Grandapan server, it's become our international server. It also benefitted from the francophone launch because the number of players has greatly increased. As soon as DOFUS Touch is available all over the world – by the end of october, normally – this server's population ought to explode!
We'll be back at the beginning of August with a 3rd note and a more complete evaluation. Until then, enjoy DOFUS Touch!
...and from Jonquille
8:30 a.m. in Japan (1:30 a.m. CEST). Start of the day. I haven't slept as well as I normally do, and my first thought was: "It's today!" I still have a few hours before everything starts; I'll have to work hard in order to think of something else!
10:00 a.m. in Japan (3:00 a.m. CEST). I'm there. My timeline is full of impatient players. It makes me happy, but also a bit dizzy. I get comfortable on my couch – it's time to get started on an unusual day. On our big screen are statistics for Grandapan, and also the Twitter timeline that displays every 3 minutes. It's rather calm for the moment, surely because of the time. Yup, in Japan, it's 7 hours later!
1:00 p.m. in Japan (6:00 a.m. CEST). Still 4 long hours before the launch starts. Let's eat – that'll be better. I haven't managed to think of anything else since this morning anyway.
4:10 p.m. in Japan (9:10 a.m. CEST), 4:20, 4:30, 4:33, 4:34... Is it 5:00 p.m. yet? My French colleagues are at the ready. Everyone's coordinated, prepared, and even though everyone's scrambling a bit, we're going to get it done!
5:00 p.m. in Japan (10:00 a.m. CEST). And we're go. I authorize the countries on the Apple and Google stores, I take my two tablets in front of me, and refresh them until I see the apps. I refresh, I refresh... everyone – the players and the devs – is waiting for my signal to open the server. THERE! It's THERE! AH! Panic, quick, open the server, alert everyone! Have I forgotten anyone? No, it seems ok. Ah yes, quick, Nyom! Oof, it's done. All the devs are milling about Blowndie's stream, which is being displayed on-screen for the occasion. With the sound on! 24 non-stop hours of streaming on tablet – frankly, that's worth checking out, don't you think? We do, so we're enjoying it for a few minutes.
8:00 p.m. in Japan (1:00 p.m. CEST). Everything's finally there, everything's up and running, and players are running everywhere in Incarnam without noticing my Tofu face. It's nice to see so much life! A quick glance at the servers, at your responses, everything's going well. Phew! The team is congratulating each other, a big smile on each face. Bad jokes due to fatigue flying. We finish the last checks, and we can finally go home, happy we pleased you. Hopefully the night will go well, otherwise we'll have to react and fix it. But we're confident!
Krosmaster Arena
On 16th July, the second Krosmaster Arena World Championship was held!
There were no fewer than 20 players – some of the best in the world – who came to represent 5 communities in this summit tournament. For over 12 hours, they faced one another in the summer heat of Seville (Spain), until there remained only one.
Each player had their lucky team: some already known to the world of tournaments, other rather original ones such as Anna Tommy and Kerub Crepin, or a pair of Foggernauts including Argon Gass and Arthur Bine. After a few hours of play, the first round of the tournament determined the event's 8 finalists. The fights were intense, complex and epic, each person giving their best against opponents who weren't going to be outdone.
After many battles (including one which lasted almost two and a half hours!), the Italian Luca Zanaica (alias Stroppo) finally carried the day against the Frenchman Maxime Bisson (alias Gaddy), and thus became the new Krosmaster World Champion!
We'd like to thank the whole Last Level Distribuciones team (our distributor in Spain), who co-organized this tournament, as well as the the La Guarida de los Krosmonautas group, who ensured the live match streams. And of course, our congratulations go to the new champion and all the participants who reached this final stage of the competition!
While the championship was happening, we were also present at the Festival Ludique International de Parthenay (better known as the FLIP) to present our board games – both those that are already released and those to come. Our stand was a marked success during the whole festival! Incidentally, you'll also be able to join us in October at Spiel in Essen (Germany), with brand new innovations and giant prototypes. We hope to see you all there!
Speaking of giant prototypes, here's one which is in the pipeline… Soon, you'll be able to touch it "for real!"
To finish off, we'd like to highlight that Krosmaster Arena 2.0 has been officially released in France and Spain, and it'll soon be out in countries which are still waiting for it. Our next season of "Beyond the Grave" is progressively being unveiled over the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for spoilers…
Krosmaga
In the last Letter to the Community, we left you in the middle of the closed Alpha phase of Krosmaga. On that subject, we'd like to give a huge thanks to the 2,300 of you who took part, who informed us of bugs, and most of all, who gave us their opinion on the forum! This allowed us to compare our impressions and your feedback, to see which elements worked, and where the weak points were. We hope that our work over the last few months will meet your expectations. Things have changed a lot since then, and as I'm writing to you now, the team is working relentlessly (yes, even in August!) to finalize a public Beta version for the end of the summer holidays.
Since we have a few months to catch up, let's run through the features that have changed and have a quick preview of some visuals:
Balancing:
It's been a big project since the Alpha, but we're reaching the light at the end of the tunnel! Eniripsa's nerve, overhauling certain mechanisms, integrating the gods Sram, Xelor and Sadida, and in particular the additions of over 90 cards related to the new Infinite card experience system: our game designers have been keeping busy, and we can't wait to see you trying it all out!
We've also incorporated a new mechanism to respond to problems with lack of rhythm that were discovered in the Alpha (notably at the start of a game): prisms. These are objects that appear on the board at the start of a match, and are renewed over the course of the game. A creature which passes over a prism picks it up, and allows the player to either draw a card straight away, or to benefit from an AP bonus to be used later on. This mechanism allows you to increase small creatures' value, to make rush decks more competitive, and to limit the length of games which drag on through lack of drawing cards, all the while giving an extra strategic dimension to positioning Summons on the board.
Graphical revamp:
After the characters, it's the turn of the decor to have a little makeover. The strategic dimension linked to the terrain is Krosmaga's strong point compared to a "classic" TGC, and we wanted to really highlight this point. The terrains have been reworked, and are now associated with the gods played. The cells are better-marked and highly animated, which will allow us to make the game more lively and make it easier to see the different actions.
As for the interfaces, last time we showed you a few bits of research; now the revamp is nearly over, and so we'll let you judge it for yourself:
We took this opportunity to work on all these menus' ergonomics, and notably the collecting and deck-building menus, so that using them feels more natural.
Other information about Ankama
The Letter to the Community is changing!
For a few months now, we've been using the format that you're currently reading: all the exclusive information, perspectives and communications on the range of Krosmoz titles.
It seems that – in light of your feedback – you like this format. But we want to go further…
In the latest edition of DOFUS Mag, we talked about our desire to turn towards digital formats. The Letter to the Community was an embryo, aiming to create a regular form of contact; it will now pass the torch on to a more ambitious format: an e-magazine.
We're working relentlessly on this new digital format, with a more editorial approach, with more exclusive content, more audiovisual content, gifts, and many surprises. And all of this in digital format, accessible on both your PC, smartphone and tablet. And it'll be released in a fixed cycle: every two months.
But most of all, this e-mag is your magazine: your opinion is paramount, so make sure you give us your ideas!
We'll give you more information about this new format at the end of the summer holidays!