New Features & Content
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“So… what are these dragons that were mentioned last year?”
- Tim: We’re still working on it:) It’s a big feature, bigger than any of the events we’ve ever done, and for the first half of the year we’ve been building the foundation for it (involving some buildings and other fundamental elements). In the latter part of the year, we will hopefully get to work on the new kind of gameplay stages and the new type of Heroes. There’s a chance that something reaches beta testing very late this year — but no promises yet.
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“Are there any plans to expand the base? Currently there are 2 bridges exiting the base. I’m guessing those lead east and west. Where do they lead?”
- Tim : Heh, we’re not actively working on anything related to the bridges specifically. Can’t comment more than that.
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“You mentioned in last year’s Q&A that, at that time, you had already begun work on Season 5. are you already beginning work on a Season 6? how far ahead is content (potential content, whether ultimately released or not) worked on?”
- Tim: We usually start working on a Season about 6 months prior to its scheduled launch, with some preparatory work with Heroes starting earlier. Can’t comment at all on Season 6 at the moment, though — stay tuned.
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“Loving the artwork in S5 - by far my favourite map (unless AR is on). Each map has a different theme, who drives the inspiration for new map themes?”
- Tim: We start really early on by scoping out the potential themes, which there are a ton of! S5 got together really nicely — we focused a bit more and a bit earlier on getting the Heroes, the map, the enemies and the stage backgrounds aligned into one cohesive package. Having a bit more time on it also allowed us to refine the art some more, and give some complex new things (such as the Amulets) more consideration.
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“Are we going to see more Costumes from ToL or past HoTM?”
- Joel: Many, many past HotMs definitely have a need for them so we’ll try to expand the Costume sets for them as soon as possible! A lot of players have their favorite HotMs, and it’d be really cool to be able to provide extra utility (and hopefully interesting looks) for them.
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“What is the likelihood of having an event around players being able to swap their unwanted duplicate Heros with others who might hold duplicate copies of Heros they desire. Soul Exchange is a great initiative but let’s be honest, freeing up roster space is appreciated, but 15x5 Heros for 1x5* Hero is an expensive choice to make“*
- Joel: Direct Hero swaps between players is something we’re not currently considering for Empires & Puzzles. It was a big push for us to get the Soul Exchange into the game — we’ll continue to keep a close eye on how it functions for the remainder of this year (and beyond).
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“We currently have colorless trainer troops and colorless trainer Heroes. Will you release colorless Titans and colorless Heroes?”
- Tim: As a game designer, I’m obviously quite keen on looking into what else we could do with the elements someday, beyond what we now have… but I have to say we don’t have any current plans related to this topic. Something for the future, perhaps!