The Future of Empire War
Firstly...
Please accept my personal apologies for how quiet EW has been over the summer. The reasons for the inactivity of much of the staff team at various points over the past few months are many, and I won't bother trying to explain everything. However, the point is that now I am free to properly lead Empire War into a better place than it is now (which shouldn't be too hard).
Having said that, Empire War isn't in a catastrophic place at all. Donations are still strong, and there's plenty of reserves to keep us going for months yet, even in the unlikely situation that we get no donations. Enough preamble then, what is the plan?
Well, I've basically divided up the rest of the year into three areas, and you can find out more about them below.
September Update
This is the update you should see coming in the coming weeks, and we really are on the brink of completing everything necessary. It'll include things such as:
- An entrirely new Helm's Deep, with new classes such as Uruk Ladderer, Uruk Crossbow and Elven Archer.
- A new point shop on every map, with 5 perks buyable for 1 hour each: Double Ladders, Extra Arrows, Constructor Upgrade, Extra Projectile, and Extra Food.
- A major upgrade to the "Stairs" area of the Halls of Moria map, to be followed with more updates to Moria further down the line.
- Entirely new custom team lobbies on Osgiliath and Dale (along with the new custom lobbies on Helm's Deep).
- One or two new classes utilizing the Trident as a weapon... if you have suggestions on how these will be realised and which maps they should go on, feel free to suggest ideas (preferably on the Forums).
- Map winrate will now be recorded, so that the staff team can better work out which maps need more overall balance.
- /nextmap progress indicators will be shown in chat.
- A points happy hour on Fridays and/or Saturdays.
- Multiple general edits to classes, such as outstanding damage oddities after the 1.13 update.
- Try to fix the issues with Erebor, so that it can be re-added!
I've tentatively tabled the next major update for our anniversary in early November. This may seem like a while away, but there are some major additions we have planned for here. But of course, it could easily be brought forward. The list of possible additions for this update is more vague, but you can cautiously expect things such as:
- At long last, integrating the Hero system into the normal game, and fleshing out the heroes we have. We still have some brainstorming on how this will be done, so again feel free to suggest any ideas you may have.
- An /faq command and website page, followed by pages on the website detailing maps, classes, commands and so on.
- Some sort of custom achievement/advancement system made using 1.13's datapacks.
- More constructor & support classes, including placable objects and perks.
- Look into changing the Troll class somewhat, including adding rocks.
- Consider more map types, like the re-introduction of a Core map, and addition of team deathmatch maps. This last one is very tentative, but we think it could work out well.
This third class is the far future, and it's generally pretty unwise to plan this far ahead in Empire War terms. But I may as well show off some of the ideas we have for then, and making this public will hopefully put pressure on us to fulfil our obligations!
- A monthly leaderboard and more stats for the leaderboard. A monthly leaderboard has been our plan for so long, but a few things have got in the way. This would probably end up being in-game rather than on our website.
- Double point boosters from the score (possibly).
- Add more eastereggs and possibly riddles like on our old AoW server.
- Completely update and rebuild Minas Morgul, as well as looking into how to improve the gameplay on Thorin's Halls.
- If you have any other big ideas for the far future, suggest away!