My thoughts on the updates

[JDEKIS]

The company

 

I’ve taken a close look at the two major updates we received and tried to break it down, to understand in which direction the game is going. This is not in any way an official statement of anything that is related to Eonic Gaming or Turf Battles. It’s just my thoughts on the update. Just thought I’d clear that up.

 

First of all, we received the news of a new website. Not for Turf Battles, but for Eonic Gaming. As a company it’s a step in the right direction. With this website, they’re stating that they are no longer an independent game, but a company that makes computer games. For people who are interested in gaming and MMOs, they now have two things to like. The company and the game. The brand “Eonic Gaming” has a bigger chance to bring new people in than the brand “Turf Battles” does. A brand that is “only” a game, relies heavily on the game’s performance, and in Turf Battles case, that performance is declining in terms of population and innovation within the genre.

 

However, the brand “Eonic Gaming” stands for passionate and hard-working developers with proof that they can make things happen. I don’t know if this was an intentional shift in brand strategy, but I like it.

 

Another great thing about this update is eCoins. Simply because the barriers that most of us experience before we decide how to distribute our money, are significantly reduced, at least in the long term. Once Eonic Gaming start to roll out new games, your money will no longer be invested in a single game that may or may not be worth it. It will be invested in a company that you trust. Obviously, this has a lot to do with how the next game will pan out.

 

Removing the old forums was in my opinion a mistake. Locking and archiving them would have made more sense. There is a lot of information on there that we could use for the future. I’m sure Shockdot and Scotty have it backed up somewhere, but for us, the players who most likely didn’t back it up, it’s a huge loss. I’d love the chance to review the forums on older platforms that we’ve used, such as turfbattles.com, and turfbattles.co.uk. For example, Donnie’s forums proved to be a gold mine for us with maps, item stats and whatnot.

 

So to sum the first part of the update up, it signals a shift from the game Turf Battles to the company Eonic Gaming. It’s a smart shift and one that many successful game developers have done over the years, such as Blizzard, EA and Rockstar. It’s great because the target audience can now shift their focus from the game to the company. Take Blizzard for example. You guys think anyone over there is crying because WoW went from 12 million active users in 2010 down to 5,5 in 2015? Or that Heroes of the Storm was a complete bust for a company of that size? At the time they had several games who performed better than ever, and that gave them time to think about the future of the games who didn’t perform as well, and identified what needed to be done about them. They also received invaluable data and consumer insight that allowed them to develop Overwatch. And who even remembers Titan? Blizzard’s most anticipated MMO that didn’t even make it close to a launch. Who’s talking about that today? Nobody. Eonic Gaming just bought themselves tons of time, and opened up new opportunities to outside investments.

 

Seasons

 

Shortly before they brought down the old boards, I made a post in the suggestion topic for seasonal servers. I said I liked it, but it wouldn’t fix the problems that Turf Battles has. I also said this would take too much time away from the developers, but apparently it was well underway. 

 

Short term, this is great for the game. They will probably see a huge positive speak in player activity, which naturally means more revenue, which in turn means more time to work. Long term, for the game Turf Battles, I’d say this is a way of phasing it out. At least the Turf Battles that we know.

 

A seasonal server is great for players because now we can play on our own terms. If we feel that we have time to invest in the game, we can be competitive. And for those who are in it for the long run, playing on the seasonal server isn’t a complete time waste, because you get rewards along with all the items you’ve accumulated during the season. It also opens up for exciting scenarios. It will most likely be a very different game now that we have a time frame. I know my strategy would be a lot different than what I did at the release of OB. I’m excited to see what Turf Battles will look like with a three month time frame.

 

A seasonal server is also great for the company, because every three months there will be increases in revenue and activity, and those are the pillars of developing this game. Every three months they will see what works out and what doesn’t, see multiple different scenarios of how the game can play out and receive quick and valuable feedback from players on new content. It’s almost comparable to mini-betas.

 

Data and consumer insight they will receive from the seasonal servers will give them continuous updates on how to develop their next game, which is great.

 

Like I said before, I think this will eventually phase the old Turf Battles out. But that’s great news. Turf Battles is out dated (Not just talking about graphics). We’ve seen it over and over again. The developers love the game Turf Battles, and I hope in future games the knowledge from this game will be a huge factor in the development of the next game. I hope the next game will be heavily influenced by Turf Battles, and that sounds amazing to me. A next-gen Turf Battles that will have the opportunity to live out the full potential that no version of Turf Battles ever lived up to.

 

Now, I keep coming back to a “new game”. I don’t know if there are plans for a new game at all, but it seems like a logical next step down the road. At least with the information we received about the updates.

 

So, that was my thoughts on the updates. I hope someone found this interesting, but it was mainly for me, because I enjoy doing this type of stuff. I’d be interested to know what you guys have to say about it. 

[shockdot]

All in all, I would say a fairly accurate article ;).

 

One thing though, it's Eonic Games. The company changed names quite sometime ago from Eonic Gaming to Eonic Games Inc ;).

[JDEKIS]

Oh yea, guess I missed that. My mistake