English Translation for the Community Day in Düsseldorf by DSOSim
On October, 13th 2017 Blue Byte held a “Community Day” and invited 12 players from the German gaming worlds, including me (FeddaHeiko).
Honored because of the invitation I was jumping on the train. But it was Friday the 13th and something had to go wrong. I missed my connecting train in Cologne and arrived 45 minutes too late at the BB-headquarters.
But I was lucky and aside from the introduction and a small date failure (2018 instead of 2017) in the NDA I did not miss anything, thanks to my call and the whisper down the lane everybody knew that the "feat Heiko" will arrive a bit late.
Once BB_Pandur handed out a few small forms, while we visitors had some really tasty sliced sausage and cheese bread, we started our little studio tour. Pandur was showing us around the entire house.
We started with the "History Wall" that showed us that Blue Byte is almost thirty years old and that they developed a lot of successful games since the founders started in their parent's garage. After this, we walked along the duck pond towards the DSO-Developer offices. Over there we learned how buildings got modulated and how the music and sound effects are created.
Next, we had a little break and listened to a talk about a top-secret project that the BB staff is developing at the moment and which I am not allowed to talk about. Of cause, we also tested an early Alpha-Version of it which was interesting and made a lot of fun.
Actually, a small notice ahead of time would have given me the chance to prepare a bit with my battle simulator.
But thanks to a special test environment we had a lot of fun even though we could not much go into detail because of lack of time.
Nevertheless, we had an hour of time to test and we filled a little survey later. Following that where coffee and cake which gave us the opportunity to exchange feedback with each other. I am happy that our suggestions were listened to and that they maybe influence the further development of the project.
Of cause the BB Team was not only talking themselves - we also held a few talks towards them starting with the DSOTalk-Team which was represented by four men and one female during the community day. We learned a lot about the long history of DSOTalks and a lot of personal information about each team member.
Next was Soralia and she was showing us her stunning pencil drawings. You can see them as digital copies in the forum. But I can't write much about them.
The third talk was held by cAmou who is not a member of the DSOTalk-Team but the administrator of the website siedler-vision.de.
He was explaining us his motives and goals:
He was one of the first Beta testers and during that old times, he was informing other players fast and competently about new features when BB was not able to do that. And to that day he is still reporting about updates that have been made to the Test and live server. We would be screwed without him.
The last talk I contributed myself about the topic "Why the DSOSim was created?"
I was talking about the beginnings of die Siedler and about my favourite battle simulator back in the days. Sadly it was switched off so I had to create my own because there was none with a Hall of Fame.
Slowly the day was coming to an end and we left the Blue Byte studio to check into a hotel close by and to meet with six DSO-developers at the Brauhaus.
There we had food and drank a lot of Altbier on BB's expenses.
On top of that we got a lot of presents:
- an original Blue Byte-Pencil (with the new logo on it): you can write everything with it and even remove it later.
- an original Blue Byte Pen (with the new logo): writes a lot more but you can't remove it!
- one original Blue Byte-Streichholzheft (with the old logo, two raws of matches and a pixel manikin on the back!)
- one Siedler-Keychain (with the new Ubisoft-Logo on the back)
- not one but two DSO-Cup-coasters with the loved motive of the Excelsior
- one DSO-Cup, that you could even put into the dishwasher (but don't ask how it looks after)
- a framed DSO-certificate with the name of all folks from BB that develop on the game and the signature of the six people that joined us during the evening
- one boring and unimportant DSO-Gem card with 11,002 Gems
The only sad news during that evening was that the promised DSO-T-Shirts were not available. BB_Pandur was grumbling that they run out of fabric. But we got a BB-bag (with new logo), that needs way less fabric compared to a T-shirt.
But even without the T-Shirt, we had a cosy evening, drank a lot of beer and we're talking a lot.
At all a really great idea that offered us a very interesting perspective on the work of BB.
I can just repeat it here again: Thanks a lot for the invitation and the great experience!
English Translation for the "Mountain Clan Campaign" by DSOSim
Hot infos about the new frosty campaign
Updated: 23.10.2017
During the Community Day in Düsseldorf, we could not only see how BB works, but we were also surprised by a big announcement: a brand new campaign for the Excelsior! And this campaign is not only designed more beautiful, has harder enemies and larger rewards. No, it also has much less water!
Yes, you read correctly: less water. Because this campaign starts (like all other adventures) at the coast, but soon you will leave the cold tundra at the coast and move forward to the even colder mountains in the hinterlands – where the water promptly returns, but this time in the form of snow and ice, instead of its liquid form.
To survive in this harsh environment is really tough; everyone who played another of the adventures in the northern areas will meet some well-known enemies – but this time a lot more of them. Of course there will also be some completely new enemies, and I can tell you so much: You should dress yourself warmly for them!
Blue Byte rates these new adventures on difficulty level 12-14, which makes them the hardest adventures in the entire games (previously the hardest was 13), which is not surprising, since the campaign is available starting level 65. The high difficulty level will be achieved by 3 components: Tough enemies, tricky enemy unit compositions and strongholds with huge amounts of hitpoints. The last one will increase the time to tear down the camps, which will make blocks much harder.
On top of that, Blue Byte wants to extend the basic concept of ventures with these adventures, the mixture of combat and buffs. Also, we are supposed to gain allies, but how we will achieve that, and in which way they will help us, is still shrouded in secrecy by BB. We were allowed to test the first adventure of the campaign during the Community Day. You can find Screenshots provided by BB around this text. (If you want to see them in all their glory to get a feeling for the ambience, just click on them to get the full wallpaper size of 1920x1080p)
I don’t want to say anything about the perceived difficulty level since we did not have much time for testing. Instead of calculating 2-3 camps forever, I proceeded quickly through the adventure thanks to a huge amount of provided units, assassins, arrows and catapults, and focused on the new mechanics instead. The first thing which caught my eye was the fog-mechanic because at the beginning only the first sector was visible, the other sectors had to be “unlocked”. This was especially interesting at a point where I had to decide between 3 paths since I could not see what is waiting for me on these paths. But even if this “surprise” is interesting the first time you play the adventure, I’m sure it will become less interesting every time you play the adventure. And if you play with tactic maps, you will probably not even notice this feature.
The other mechanic that we could test was the already mentioned dynamic quest.
You could decide, if you want to fulfil sidequests or if you want to leave them. Through this specific game experience, you are able to move the story with your decision and you can enjoy the campaign even more. Whether this brings the desired variety, remains to be seen; the tactic card creators will have fun though - as this will be an interesting change.
This should, however, be even more interesting. Because in addition to the many different & individually skilled generals - now you also have the individual walk through the adventure, which multiplies the number of play variations greatly.
Also new are weather effects that could have a negative impact on our units and Generals. I really would have liked to play this new feature, cause the mechanic reminds me of the altars in the adventure "the lost city" and was really great - hopefully, it is something like this. But sadly I was not able to test it on the Community Day, as either the effects were not fully implemented or would appear in the later parts of the adventures, which I was not able to see. Nevertheless: I really am excited to see it! What if we defy the harsh weather conditions, defeated all opponents and have survived all adversities? Do we just go home then? No, of course not! After all, for all our exertions we want to be rewarded appropriately, and we got plenty of rewards:
The main reward for completing the full adventure series is the Epic Forge.
It works similar to the other Epic work buildings, but is on the melting of ores and specialized in the weaponsmithing.
It can handle bronze, iron, steel, titanium and platinum and gets up to 10 Production chains of 5 stages. So if you want to unlock everything, you have to lead your troops into the cold and harsh north.
For the Meadhall and the fortress ruin, no details are known yet; the obsidian horseshoes will be an improved version of the platinum horseshoes and the will let your general run through the adventures even more. In addition, during the campaign, you will receive a smokehouse which can produce the fish steaks.
So what awaits us?
First a lot of snow and many opponents, then narrow paths and steep slopes, icy cold and
icy enemies and finally big fortresses and big rewards - all in all,
a really interesting thing.
And who is totally interested in the new adventure series but becomes angry, as the level of 65 is rather hight, do not worry! You still have enough time to increase your experience and gain some level. For all the other, get your woolen sicks and thick knit sweaters ready: You'll need them.
Summary- There will be a new campaign, accessible via the books in the purple UFO [also known as Excelsior]
- For players starting at level 65
- Difficulty level between 12-14 (right now the highest difficulty was level 13)
- The adventure series starts in the tundra and leads into steep mountains
- Tells of a journey from the coast to the interior regions
- New, strong opponents who defy the cold
- Fortresses with high health points
- Weather effects create debuffs
- Dynamic quests, means: Decisions have an impact
- Fog mechanics, means: you only see explored sectors
Each adventure of the campaign has a new, unique reward:
- Epic Forge with 10 production chains [can smelt ore and forge weapons for bronze, iron, steel, titanium and platinum]
- Smokehouse: can produce fish steaks (similar to the grilled steak)
- Meadhall
- Fortress ruins
- Obsidian horseshoe
