Game Upgrade

Future Plans for Major Command Risk

by

We Have Future Plans

Many of you have been asking and wondering what the future plans of Major Command Risk will look like. So let me give you a glimpse in to some ideas we have been working on.
Future Plans Major Command Risk

Short term Plan

In the short term we plan to have a few surprises and fun stuff. There will be some special events where the whole community, including grunts, will be invited to participate. There will also be some long awaited additions to the site for everyone to enjoy. And of course, for our Strategists and Commanders, whom we greatly appreciate, we are planning to reward you for your long standing dedication and tolerance of all the ups and downs.

Long Term Plan

In the mid-long term, we plan on embarking on a major overhaul of the entire website. The result should provide seamless gameplay, fast responsiveness, and best of all, a whole bunch of new features that will provide endless amounts of enjoyment. This rewrite will include a whole lot of game testing and include community ideas and suggestions. We will be announcing in the future exactly how you can participate in shaping the game and the features you really want to see incorporated. Stay tuned for more announcements about the development which should start at the end of summer.

Meanwhile watch the DISPATCH for new announcements regarding some of the fun stuff we have planned!

Major Command Risk Sheriff The Sheriff.

Bug Fixes: Stuck Game and 0-Troop

by

Major Command Risk Bug Fixes

Major Command Risk Bug Fixes

It looks like we have the two most detrimental bugs under our proverbial thumb.  Marcos, our resident developer has identified the issues and we will be implementing few bug fixes within the next 24 hours.

The first of the few planned bug fixes will be for the “stuck game” bug, where a player will eliminate all others, but the game won’t end.  Instead, displaying “jump to next” rather than “game over”.  These games remain permanently stuck.

The second of the few upcoming bug fixes will be for the 0-troop bug, where a region will have no troops on it, preventing the game from finishing.

We are making these bug fixes directly to the production server as there is still work to be done on the dev server.  This is important. If you encounter these two bugs going forward, please post the issue and game in this forum thread of the bugs forum.

We hope there are no unintended consequences, but you never know, be on the lookout.

Thank you all for your patience.  We will also work to unstick currently stuck games.

Next on Major Command Risk?

by

Major Command Risk Bugs

So as many of you know, things haven’t been running smoothly in the Major Command Risk. This site is sorely in need of a game engine recode to live up to its full potential and get the hell out of beta. Over the past 6 months, I have set out to find the right developer who can accomplish this task.  After a few false and drawn out starts, we have a new recruit up to the task. Cory is an excellent developer, and will be dedicating his Christmas vacation to getting us out of beta. Future Plans for Major Command Risk

Major Command Risk

While there are some bugs around tournaments and some other issues, the single biggest issue is the game performance. The current code is not up to par and for a modern web game to take so long and crash so readily is unacceptable.

We’re going to try to avoid patching up our current problems and instead to start over on the nuts and bolts that make up the game experience. If you are interested in the details, we will be continuing using PHP but using Symfony or CakePHP, we’ll be changing to a Redis for live games, and MySQL for the historical data. Flash will be dumped for html5 using canvas as well as jQuery. If you are a developer with experience in any of the above and interested in participating, let me know.

This all begins around the week of Christmas holidays and I promise to update you all as I know more about the progress and development. I’m not going to put an exact time frame on it as I’ve found that’s often inaccurate, but will keep y’all in the loop.

In the meantime, we will try to manage the issues as best as we can. We’ll be keeping an eye on the servers and errant scripts. I apologize in advance for any future issues.

And for all those people who have supported Major Command Risk by becoming a subscriber … Santa has come a little early this year.

Thanks for everything,

Badorties

Risk Game Nuke Map adjustment

by

Risk Game Nuke map update

When we launched the Major Command Risk game nuke map a few months ago, it quickly became one of the most popular maps on the site, to the tune of over five hundred games played since its debut. However, after feedback from users, we’ve come to realize that the map lends itself a bit too well toward stalemate in two-player games. Specifically, the Spy regions are a bit overpowered, which can drag games out preposterously as the chances for the Spy to take out either the President/Premier or Target regions, thus preventing a nuclear launch, grew to well north of 90%. See www.majorcommand.com/wiki/Nukes.

Major-Command-Risk-nukes

The creators of the map have spent some time discussing potential fixes, and we think we have the overpowered Spy problem sorted out. Thus, we are rolling out a slightly altered version of the map which will replace the current map.

NUKES! will play virtually the same, with the following slight gameplay alterations:

  1. Each country, instead of having two Spy regions, now has one Spy Agency region and one Military Intel region.
  2. Spy Agency regions, represented by the GUN symbol, can bombard opposing “people”, the President/Premier and Research Centers
  3. Military Intel regions, represented by the EYE symbol, can bombard opposing “tech/equipment”, Targets and Satellites.

By splitting up the power of the Spy regions, the map now requires players to properly counter their opponent’s moves on the other side of the map, rather than just parking a giant stack in one Spy region and dragging the game into the stalemate. Also, once the Fog of War setting is implemented, players will be able to bombard their opponent’s Satellite, rendering their opponent blind.

This change will go into effect on 3/24, giving people ample time to prepare for the changeover. This should have a minimal effect on active games, and by simply altering the existing map we are preserving everyone’s Unique Defeated Opponents.

We firmly believe that this small changes will virtually eliminate the stalemate issue in two-player games. As always, we welcome feedback from everyone on Major Command Risk. We understand if people preferred the old version of the map, but rest assured we’re only making this change after around two months of discussion, both privately and publicly.

Thanks

Badorties and the MC Cartoteam.

Updated Images

Brief

New Map: The Twelve Domains map

by

The Twelve Domains map

The new twelve domains map has arrived. We at Major Command are starting off 2012 in style with our gorgeous new map designed and executed by our Studio chief himself, Shepherd.

Isn’t it pretty…

The Twelve Domains Risk Game Map

 

Now the twelve domains map is quite different than other maps so you should understand how it works before you jump right in. In this video, Shepherd fills you in on the mechanics and how to use those dreadful dragons.

There is more info on its wiki page and also a thread in the forums.  So let us know your thoughts on our first conquest map.  Enjoy!