TGIF! Development News for February 9, 2018

TGIF! Welcome to the end of another week; before we get into this week’s news, just a quick reminder that Valentine’s Day is next Wednesday so if you’re not on top of it better do it soon!

With that, let’s get into this week’s development updates.

Valentine’s Day Sale

Right now we have a big Valentine’s Day Sale going on in each game including some exclusive Valentine’s themed items, bonus FP/UN, different items in the Crates and much more! The Loot items in the Crates will be phased out in early March when the new selection is rolled out, so if you’re into collecting, why not check it out.

We’re also running a contest on our Facebook pages to win a Valentine’s Sale package, so if you haven’t entered yet, make sure to check out any page you’re interested in and drop your name in:

LCN
VC
PC
ZS

User Interface Updates

We’re released some UI changes this week to the games, some more noticeable than others. Here’s a quick rundown of what was changed:

All games got a new Travel menu this week which lays out the various Locations horizontally rather than vertically. The menu was getting a little long and as some forum posters pointed out it would clip off on smaller screens. With our plan to release more Locations this year, it was past time for us to reexamine this and update it for better usability.

We made also made a small change to the War Events save target list where your...saved targets will now display their Division icon next to their name. This previously existed on the mobile apps, but it is now on the desktop versions. Thanks to @Icebreaker for bringing this up last week and for everyone else who has suggested it.

Gift sending should also be a bit smoother now as the send confirmation popup will auto close on the next Send/Ignore click. Give that a try and let us know how it feels!

For our last update we also we also fixed how Loot Chest/Cases are viewed on smaller screen on our mobile app.

We’re looking at more UI tweaks to improve quality of life that might have gone overlooked for the last little while as we’ve tackled larger projects and events. If there’s something you’d like to see us take another look at, please let us know in the comments.

Kano’s Stance on Scripts

Last week there was a bit of discussion around script usage in our games and we’ve seen some discussions around the types of scripts that might be used.

Our position is that we do not allow third-party scripts to be run with our games, regardless of their function.

On top of that, there is always a risk with running someone else’s program on your computer as you don’t always know what is happening under the hood.

So if you’re wondering “is this script or that script OK” the answer is no. Just don’t use it.

Family Day Long Weekend

Just a head’s up that this coming Monday is Family Day up here in beautiful British Columbia so the Kano staff will not be back in until Tuesday, February 13. There might be a slight delay in answering forum posts/Support tickets but our battle station will be fully armed and operational after the long weekend.

Frozen User Count

9

Lame Joke of the Week

Why couldn’t I use “beef stew” as my password?

Spoiler

It wasn’t stroganoff!

 

Interesting that you say "Our position is that we do not allow third-party scripts to be run with our games"

 

I fail to see how it's that interesting. We obviously don't make any, so there is no first-party. We do not condone using anyone else's so no third-party.

 

Some UI changes i think could work -

• have the option to sort adventures by highest to lowest energy requirement or ability to filter so only specific show. IE: matey drops only, missing achievements, weapons.
• boss organize/filter by location. (possibly a drop down menu with boxes to check enabling that boss showing or not)
• moving joined coop bosses to its own separate tab that way you dont have to scroll down as far.
• Location rule possible overhaul in way it is displayed so you dont have to be in select location to see the rule available. have the rule page dedicated to all available rule with said above filters similar to coop boss where there is a drop down menu to choose what ones are able to be seen. This would vastly improve speed at which it takes to buy and go through each location searching for a specific land to purchase. land yet unlocked shows locking similar to bosses that are not capable to be open, only 1 in advance to avoid massive rule clutter of locked options.
• clan page instead of click drop down menu have separate tabs in similar format that you just click on. This would be helpful when viewing your last brought to battle item then going to blacksmith then to profile page rinse repeat. each time going back to the clan page needing to click drop down and parameters to limit search by. (could also be in the style of davy jones page, template is there already and easy/intuitive for people to understand.)
• recently attacked pop up having the same tabs as rival clan to quickly view counters put on another player and pw campaigns currently active.
• challenge sorting, have missing achievement challenges appear at the top similar to adventures with missing achievements appearing at the top of the list first.
• challenge sorting with check box or similar to toggle visibility of ones you wont ever do due to low payouts, this would work well with above suggestion.
  
• the ability to add gifts to wishlist directly from crafting page so you dont have to go back to profile page and click modify wishlist then search through the pages to find said gift.
• search bar on wishlist page so the item you do know to look for can easily be grabbed and put into wishlist.
• search bar on the clan page to easily find items one desires
• removing the alternative version of characters that was temp implemented a few years ago since it is more then likely not coming back (or unlock and allow access for players to purchase again but at a steep discount, 10-15fp tops?). feels unnecessary to have it there as of now.
• KONG ONLY - change the top right profile to the same as it is on kp2/fb since there is no need to have default fp showing when it is clearly visible on the main tab selection.
• achievement overall totals fix for bosses and challenges, ever since the new achievements have been added the display has shown the wrong number on achievements tab. just a slight annoyance.
• hover over adventure item and it has stats next to name so you dont have to memorize name then find it in the clan page. Another option for this is a toggle click on all adventure drops that when clicked expands to show name and stats underneath. A toggle click would probably work best since the hovering and showing stats would mean the need to rename item picture for each adventure to include stats then have separate for clan page. This would be a simple call to database rather then redundant image with stats for name.
• on homepage default all pirates instead of clan since from all who i have talked to use all pirates much more often then the other options. Could have a option in the setting to choose what one prefers to be default though.
• small arrows to navigate this easier then having to click the dots, not a huge concern but makes it more user friendly/easier. -

Off the top of my head these are some UI changes that should make the user experience smoother.

 

Would love to see the boss page changed a bit, it takes forever to scroll through all the bosses

LOVE that we can see the division, that has been a frustration as folks sticky ones I don't normally check.

YAY one less pop up! AWESOME. pain in the rear on the gift screen to close it out each time.

Nice update this week!

 

How about item's needed (amount) for next adventure, which is available on mobile app

• on some adventures not all, no clue why it's set up that way, yet not desktop?
  
• A lot of the times the newest adventure is not the best for crafting and a waste to keep doing over and over.

 

one other is during the war it says -



It should be saying this when the war is going on -

Armada War - Status: Currently in Progress

War In Progress: X:XX:XX:XX
(or time left since above it would be stating war in progress)

 

being able to message non mob would be nice.....

 

1) I don't think it's necessarily obvious that Kano (i.e. first party) wouldn't provide scripts to "automate" certain aspects of the game to its most valuable customers.
2) That still leaves out the second party, the player, so taking both statements at face value, it is therefore permitted for second-party scripts (i.e. player-written) to be used. Of course, determining which player actually wrote a given script would be difficult...
3) The use of a qualifier like "third-party" in your original statement is a typical lawyer-like way of adding loopholes to a commitment.

 

why would you wanna cheat in a clicky game anyway?

 

While you guys working on the new locations.... is it possible to consider a better balance with the boss kill and boss drops? The .... the stats for the last few locations are sad .... the gap between spenders and non spenders is way to big.....

 

read my post in last weeks tgif, i pulled snippets from the ToU and discussed my interpretation of it. To keep it extremely brief, if kano says no that means they are not permitting said use of script meaning it is not legal in game. If kano permits and gives authorization of said script it is allowed.

-
http://forums.kanoapps.com/threads/development-news-february-2-2018.35487/page-3#post-186381

 

Is this going to start all over again? Use the previous TGIF instead of repeating everything.

 

So if you’re wondering “is this script or that script OK” the answer is no. Just don’t use it. umm so why has'ent there account been closed you let it happen you know who uses it but do nothing

 

No ..you are the one looking for loop holes .

Third party refers to anything not created by Kano.

 

Thanks!
How about cleaning up the social feed? Can fight and punch help be combined? Can we get rid of World Boss? (And on that note, can we get rid of asking for help on World Boss? It does nothing but take up room in the chats.)

 

All other things aside - the new travel menu is a great update, thanks!

 

Thanks for the UI updates, especially showing the division for SW.

 

so when are u gonna discuss the alt accounts usage? seems funny how alot of em have them an they never get ban!! have a good weekend all..

 

Great job with the new travel menu. Finally has been done. This was one of the bugs that i also mentioned in the ticket and has been solved in the end. One more that i have been mentioning about and it yet to be solved is opening raid bosses and coop bosses in another tab from their boss lists. Currently opening them in new tab will redirect the user to the home page. It would be a great help when the list gets longer so you don't have to enter the boss page and then go back to the list and search again from where you left and so on. It would be of really great help.