Dynastica official blog

Trick-or-Treat: A Halloween Bling Bonanza Time to raise the...

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 11:09:20 +0200

Trick-or-Treat: A Halloween Bling Bonanza

Time to raise the dead! For Halloween, we got a bag full of treats for you: We have released a whole slew of horrific items and mavens, like a Broom for swift travel, a Jack-o’-lantern giving troops a blazing reaction time boost, a Scythe for deadly attacks and a Mummy commander that boosts the attack and defence of the undead. As if that was not enough, we are also handing out Blings like candy – check your inbox!

Real horrorshow!
P.S. As for the tricks, we trust that your fellow players will take care of that. ;)

Everyone gets Bling!

Sat, 28 May 2011 01:00:00 +0200

The Merchant has opened his shop and celebrates the opening by giving all players up to 250 Blings each! In the shop there are several discounted packages as well as many, many individual items, spells, mavens and even resources. New players will also get some Bling to boost their game!

Changelog

Sat, 21 May 2011 15:55:00 +0200

Improvements

Explorers can now move faster.
Animal move in battle engine improved so that they can take two steps.
New menu.
Camera movement is more accurate.
Bad sound effects have been removed.
Confirmation when a gift has been sent.
Upcoming battles are only shown for battles against cities.

Bug fixes

Fixed: Crash when right clicking on an object that is close to another object.
Fixed: !-symbol does not work on login.
Fixed: Enemy explorers visible in the upcoming list.
Fixed: Free text areas in Gift Window does not work well.

New features! We have launched a bunch of new features! Most...

Thu, 05 May 2011 17:26:34 +0200

New features!

We have launched a bunch of new features! Most buildings are now upgradeable, with up to three levels for some buildings. We have also created an upcoming events overview with estimated completion times for buildings and armies.

Maria the advisor got company! Several new advisors have been added, such as Bob, The Mayor and Army Guy – all eager to assist players not to stray from their paths to glory!

Additionally, we have made a lot of small improvements such as better color coding of the minimap, graphics for the wall and guardtower in the city screen, scoreboard has links now and items that are about to expire are marked with a warning sign.

Ps. In case you missed it, solo mode has been launched! There are no permanent alliances and everyone are out to get you. Try it today and start meddling in diplomacy!

There have been requests for a high-resolution image of the...

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:56:00 +0200

There have been requests for a high-resolution image of the skills graph, so here it is (click for original size of 2600x2600 px) – enjoy and have fun plotting your strategies!

Dynastica Beta 2.0 is here! We have released Beta 2.0 today. It...

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 18:59:00 +0200

Dynastica Beta 2.0 is here!

We have released Beta 2.0 today. It is a major update of Dynastica and features many exciting content additions, better looking graphics and numerous balancing fixes.

Preparing for Beta 2.0 In preparation for Beta 2.0, no new games...

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:02:00 +0100

Preparing for Beta 2.0

In preparation for Beta 2.0, no new games will be started before the launch. This new release will bring many gameplay and graphics improvements to the game (see the sneak peek of the new skills graph above). We are very excited about this release because we think the Dynastica experience will be more solid and better than ever!

Beta 2.0 will be launched within a few weeks. Stay tuned and help spread the word about Dynastica!

Changelog

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 04:43:00 +0100

Improvements

A new scoreboard.
The sections in the How-To are highlighted to make it more clear.

Bug fixes

Fixed: Resource mining stops occasionally.
Fixed: Crash when a city is overtaken (in the old worlds) and a third player is watching.
Fixed: A crash bug that occurres sometimes if you see enemy cities burning.

Pillage, plunder and destroy Major changes of alliance play and...

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 18:48:55 +0100

Pillage, plunder and destroy

Major changes of alliance play and city battles are put into effect for all new games starting today and onwards.

There will be six alliances with six players in each alliance from now on. Also, all players in an alliance will be placed together in clusters on the map making cooperation easier and more fun. Additionally, we also allow magic towers, forts and cities to be built on unclaimed land.

We have also changed the rules for battles against cities. The attacker will now pillage and plunder resources after a won battle against a city. The attacker can also choose to try and destroy the city after a successful attack, by leaving the army next to the city causing gradual destruction.

Big changes, they are a comin’ Here is a work-in-progress...

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 09:59:00 +0100

Big changes, they are a comin’

Here is a work-in-progress update as we are making some important modifications to the game. We aim to improve teamplay, adjust balancing and make the game more fun in general.

We have often emphasized the social aspects of Dynastica and the most important component for social gameplay is the alliance. Here are three major modifications of alliance gameplay that will be released soon.

We are reducing the size of alliances and increasing the number of them. There will be six alliances in total with six players in each alliance and all players in an alliance will be placed together in clusters on the map. This change makes it easier to get a sense of the strength and size of alliances and also make strategic choices in planning of constructions and expansion.

Regarding balancing and gameplay mechanics, we are changing the rules for battles against cities. After a won battle against a city, the attacker captures resources from the city and if the attacker leaves his army by the city – the city will eventually be destroyed. Additionally, we will change some of the rules for where magic towers, forts and cities can be built, e.g. allowing magic towers and cities to be built on unclaimed land.

More upcoming features

Restructuring and balancing of skills graph
Updated content

Changelog

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:41:00 +0100

Improvements

Cities under attack flashes on the minimap.
Treasures are yellow on the minimap.
Mouse-over explanations in all windows.
The players name is now a link in the chat and notification windows, which opens a new private chat.
Quick buttons to give gifts and to go to a players country added to the chat window.
Disable companies if there is not room for more in the city garrison.
Progress circle added to the build queue in the city.

Bug fixes

Fixed: A memory problem which caused crashes if you had a large visible area.
Fixed: Two small bugs when destroying pins.
Fixed: Impossible to select treasure chest if too close to another object.
Fixed: Impossible to join if not enough space between army and company.

Give a hoot and contribute Get heard in Dynastica, a...

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 09:54:00 +0100

Give a hoot and contribute

Get heard in Dynastica, a browser-based 3D strategy game.

Dynastica is the first game to use Soundcloud to stream the in-game soundtrack and now we want to invite the Soundcloud-community to try and create sounds for the game. Sounds must be downloadable and licensed under a Creative Commons attribution license. Your help is much appreciated!

Join this Soundcloud-group and share your sounds
http://soundcloud.com/groups/dynastica-give-a-hoot-and-contribute
(Not a part of the Soundcloud community? Sign up here!)

Dynastica is free to play and currently in open beta.
Try it here!

Wishlist of sounds

Default click sound
Sounds for selected buildings
- Farm
- Lumber Colony
- Ore Colony
- City ambience
- City under attack
- Magic Tower
- Building under construction
Sounds for selected units
- Army
  - Idle army
  - Army in battle
  - Army walking
  - Set path waypoint
  - Set destination path
- Explorer
  - Idle explorer
  - Explorer walking
  - Set path waypoint
  - Set destination path
  - Set destination path to treasure chest
Sounds for placing items
- Default place item-sound
- Place item on city
- Place item on lumber colony
- Place item on ore colony
- Place item on farm
- Place item on explorer
- Place item on army
Open magic book
Open skill graph
Open chat
Various sounds in battle replay window (see example below)
- Ambient sounds
- Effects

ps. we will also consider community-contributed in-game music themes :)

Changelog - First updates 2011

Sat, 08 Jan 2011 04:12:00 +0100

If you thought we had taken a long vacation you were wrong…

Balancing and configuration (affects new games only)

The Company Transport does not require food anymore.
Fixed: Silver Leopard takes too long time to build.
All build times for companies decreased
Master Merchant does not depend upon Marketplace anymore
Fixed: The build time for Beast Master is 0
Fixed: The build time for Bard is 0

Improvements

The shields grow in size when zooming out.
The client now disables the objects where an item/maven is already present when assigning an item/maven.
Shorter tooltips that appears instantly for the HUD-components.
You can not give a city if you don’t have more than 3 yourself.

Bug fixes

Fixed: Object invenstory becomes empty after destoying an object.
Fixed: Treasure chests with “any colored key” does not work.
Fixed: Can’t place army in random placing within country boarders.

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? For the holidays we bring...

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 10:36:00 +0100

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?

For the holidays we bring you this holiday themed re-edit of one of our soundtrack songs. Enjoy!

From the whole Dynastica crew, to all of you: Happy holidays!

Sharing is caring We have been getting into the holiday spirit...

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 17:11:26 +0100

Sharing is caring

We have been getting into the holiday spirit and launched two new features today, making it easier for players to share the joy of glorious victories and invite friends to play in their alliance.

Share battle replays

Players can now share battle replays on their blogs and favorite social networks. By copying the share url or embed code, they can show off their greatest battles, post warnings about strong armies and compare strategies

Play with friends

We have also launched another much demanded feature: alliance invites. Players can now easily share an alliance invite-link with their friends.

Upcoming changes

Better balancing
Improved skills graph
Downloadable client

The holidays are coming! Out of gift ideas? Don’t worry – give...

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 18:01:49 +0100

The holidays are coming!

Out of gift ideas? Don’t worry – give your friends gifts in Dynastica.

We have improved the gift system. Players can now share their wealth and help out friends. By the click of a gift button, players can give resources, items and even whole cities to those in need.

Sharing is caring! :)

Upcoming features

Embed and share your victories and losses on blogs and Facebook
Alliance invites

Monster armies!

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 05:04:00 +0100

A new feature has been launched: Monster armies. They carry black flags and by defeating them, players will receive mavens and friendly troops as bounty! Monster armies are not affiliated with any alliance.

We have also started to roll out a new social concept for Dynastica: Followers. It is in a very early stage right now, but we will continuously improve and add features to it. Go to this page and find players to follow! (login required)

Upcoming features

Embed and share your victories and losses on blogs and Facebook
Alliance invites
In time for the holidays, better gifting comes to Dynastica

Changelog

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 12:01:00 +0100

Bug fix

Fixed issue with the company window that occurred in the latest patch.

Changelog

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:34:00 +0100

Bug fixes

Fixed: Audio samples pile up on each other when clicking the next button in settlements.
Fixed: Game crashes if copy pasting things into the chat that contain linebreaks.
Fixed: Show empty sockets in the company window for fort and armies under construction.

Dynastica art rant part 1

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 10:06:00 +0100

Hi!

My name is Christopher and among other things, I am the art director of Dynastica. I’m here to rant a little about our new buildings in the city window and my thoughts about it.

Early on we decided to show the buildings of a city much like how it was done in the old Heroes of Might and Magic-games. Therefore we left a big portion of the city screen available for building illustrations. Now we have finally completed the task.

Before going into production we did some serious writing about each building. We had to come up with fitting characteristics that would also make them differ from one another. We also considered positioning. The layout of the city had to make sense and if possible, I wanted to mimic the positioning of buildings to the nodes in the skills graph. Because of the limited space available, we skipped the horizon in the background and went with an overlook view, thus maximizing the area for us to build on.

The idea to have different backgrounds depending on the terrain of the city was in our minds from the start. Besides giving much bang for the buck it would also help players recognize cities from one another. The original idea was to make the background landscapes very generic but our artist Rikard went ahead and did exactly the opposite, creating an interesting terrain with rivers and hills. He didn’t have a hard time to convince me.

Most buildings were nailed from the start, having only minor changes done along the way. One building that did change a lot was one of the most important ones, the upgradeable Village Hall in the center. A very small overall change that had great effect was when we lit most of the windows and doorways, making the city more vivid and alive.

Notice how the river runs. It drives not only the water wheels of the forge and workshop, but it also runs past the garden, well and marketplace - buildings that often need water. Most doors are open, but not the ones leading into the magical buildings on the right. Only a select few are invited into these. Oh, and since we are still working on our religion expansion, I will not show you those buildings on the left just yet. =)

Christopher Smith
of Dynastica