Community Update 27/05/19

Dear Settlers,

Today, we would like to follow up on the Community Update - 15th of May 2019 topic. As already stated there, please keep in mind that all the next steps listed below represent our intentions, and the final solutions may differ.

Easter 2019 Achievements - RESOLVED

What was done so far?
During the last maintenance, a special script was executed that marked quest-related Easter 2019 achievements as done. It granted the Achievement Points, however, the rewards connected to them (e.g. a "Love Potion" buff) were not added automatically. To address that topic (i.e. no rewards for Achievements), the corresponding items were sent out shortly after the fix was confirmed.

Next steps?
Monitor the situation and work on improvements connected to the Achievements System.

Long loading times and/or Loading being stuck - BEING INVESTIGATED

What was done so far?
After analyzing the logs and troubleshooting the issue, we managed to rule out certain root causes. Yes, this does not deliver a solution, but it helps us to better focus our development efforts.

Next steps?
Potential improvements are identified (some of them thanks to you!), and this topic is our top priority right now. Currently we do not know for sure what is causing the issue, however, we have a few ideas what might limit this unwanted game behaviour (e.g. being stuck at a loading screen for a long time). While our coding department is fully focused on this topic, we are not sure yet if any of those improvements will be ready for the Summer Event version going live around mid-June 2019.

Mountain Clan Campaign Blueprints - IMPROVED

What was done so far?
During the last maintenance, a special script was executed that re-calculated the assigned blueprints and resolved the issue for many players. It seems that not all of the edge-cases were covered correctly, and this needs further investigation.

Next steps?
The development team is fully focused on the game loading issue and potential improvements regarding this topic. It means that most likely we will need to postpone the "blueprints script" investigation, along with a potential solution, to a further date. More information to follow in the near future.

Mountain Clan Campaign Venture #5 (fog issue) - IMPROVED

What was done so far?
The recently deployed version fixed at least one of the edge-cases that was causing the issue with the fog on the Venture #5 from the Mountain Clan Campaign. Right now we know for sure that it did not cover all of the cases.

Next steps?
After analyzing the new reports (thank you for sending them!), we believe we have found the root cause. It seems that in some cases certain values connected to Venture #5 are being set in an incorrect way, and this is causing the fog issue. The work on the fix is already ongoing, and we hope to have it ready for the Summer Event version going live around mid-June 2019. However, it is too early to say it will be included there for sure.

Observatory building - BEING INVESTIGATED

What was done so far?
Majority of the generals are working fine with the Observatory building, except Quartermaster.

Next steps:
We hope to have a fix for this already in the Summer Event version (being deployed mid-June 2019). However, since a potential fix is not developed yet, it might get postponed.

Kind regards,
Your "The Settlers Online" Team

Dear Settlers,

As communicated yesterday in the Community Update 27/05/2019, our development efforts are currently focused on improving the long loading times (1), as well as the Mountain Clan Campaign fog issue (2).

Please find the most recent update regarding both topics below:

Long loading times

Current situation
We are still struggling to find THE root cause of the long loading times that some of you are experiencing. However, we have some ideas on how to improve the overall situation, and we are actively investigating them. As a first step, we plan to adjust the way the game is packing the files. As some of you noticed, certain files required to start the game are exceeding 50 MB size, and we believe some browsers might have difficulties handling files that big.

Next steps?
To address that topic, and hopefully prevent the game being stuck at loading, we decided to introduce a maximum size limit for individual files. The current plan is to deploy the updated version (featuring this adjustment) to the tsotesting.com instance this week.

Additional note
From what we keep hearing from the community, some of the "long loading times" problems can be resolved by switching to other browsers.

Mountain Clan Campaign Venture #5 (fog issue)

Current situation
We believe we have identified the root cause that is triggering this problem. In some cases, the values assigned to certain hidden fields connected to Venture #5 (those fields are not visible from the players' point of view) were not updated correctly. This caused some Venture #5-related settings to do not match the acceptable value ranges (i.e. the ranges the game was expecting), which resulted in the fog issue.

Next steps?
We adjusted the way the game handles "out of range" values for this specific case, and added a few checkpoints to hopefully prevent this problem completely. As a next step, we plan to deploy a new version to the tsotesting.com instance this week.

The improvements can already be checked out on tsotesting.com and we really do appreciate your feedback.
Feedback: Community Update 28.05.2019

Kind regards,
Your "The Settlers Online" Team