Weewar blog

Quick update

Ryan — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 00:00:55 +0000

We’ll be doing brief maintenance of Weewar at 5pm PST (UTC-7). Please bear with us, we’ll be back shortly.

[Update: 5:08pm: and we're back!]

Update

Ryan — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 03:51:45 +0000

Weewar will go down today at 11pm PST (UTC-7) for a 30-minute update. We will be pushing live a quick start guide for new players and setting up the framework for adding more guides and exercises in the future. More news on this to come after the update. Thanks for your patience!

[Update: 12:04am: And we're back!]

[Update 8/6: We'll be going down for 5 minutes at 7pm PST (UTC-7) to fix some bugs and update the new quick start guide launched yesterday.]

[Update 8/6 7:02pm: And we're back!]

Unexpected downtime

Ryan — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:54:51 +0000

We’re aware of the server down and are working to get it back up. Stay tuned, we should be back shortly.

[Update 11:28am: And we're back! Sorry about that folks. Our database server ran out of space after trying to do a backup. I cleaned that up a bit and we're back and running.]

Brief downtime Monday

Ryan — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 05:16:39 +0000

We’ll be taking down the server at ~~11:30am~~ 2pm PST (UTC-7) for a brief update. See the time in your time zone ~~here~~ here.

Also, don’t forget to check out the test server to try out the new Cruiser unit as well as the changes to the current unit stats. It will still be up and running as the live server gets updated.

[update 2:19pm: The update is taking slightly longer than expected. Please bear with us.]
[update 2:26pm: And we're back! Apologies for the delay.]

Map search!

Ryan — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:54:22 +0000

We have just rolled out the ability to search for maps onto the live server, so you can now find maps to your liking out of our amazing collection of 6000+ user-generated maps! Looking for the most popular large 2-player maps? Or maybe a small, low-income map to play with three of your friends? Finding one is now as easy as pie. Check it out on the maps page. Enjoy!

Testing new unit changes

Ryan — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:49:26 +0000

Hello Weewarriors. Based on past community feedback and recent data gathered on what you are building, we have decided to change the current unit stats to make units and strategies more balanced and gameplay more diverse and interesting. Rebalancing units is no easy task and we do not expect to get it right the first time around, so we ask for your help in testing out our planned changes on the test server at http://test.weewar.com.

Our main concerns with current gameplay are:

the super versatility and usefulness of the Destroyer,
the dominance of naval units over land units,
the overpowered DFA & mass Trooper strategy, and
the inability to stop Subs squatting in harbors without having a harbor of your own.

We also want each unit to be about equally useful. We’ve been gathering data on what units you all like to build. Here is a graph of the total number of credits spent on each unit (count*cost per unit) over a one week span.

[Update 7/16: Here is the same graph using builds from players who have been with us for more than a year.]

The Destroyer and DFA are used way more than all other units, with the exception of units that can capture. Ideally, what we want to see is a roughly flat distribution in the graph above, without major peaks and troughs, where each unit is useful in many different situations.

To address all of our above concerns, we are:

completely revamping naval battles with the introduction of a new Cruiser unit and modification of the big boats to serve more specialized, counter-able roles,
allowing Helicopters to attack subs weakly,
changing Helicopter movement to 4-2,
weakening high-end artillery strength vs Hard units,
allowing Berserkers to attack twice,
allowing air units to repair on allied bases and airfields but no longer on neutral airfields,
changing the cost of Speedboats from 200 to 150, and
adding the Heavy Trooper to the set of Trial units.

We expect these changes to alter gameplay massively, in both expected and unexpected ways. They will also break a number of current maps. Thus, we ask that you try out the changes on the test server and let us know what you think and of any bugs you find, either as a reply here or via the contact form. We definitely look forward to your feedback.

To test these new changes, go to http://test.weewar.com, make a new account, and just start playing! Please keep in mind that none of your games or points on the test server will transfer over to the live server. This test will end in two weeks (Thursday, July 29), or before then if we feel particular stats need to be changed sooner to allow for more time testing good stats. After the playtest ends, we’ll make changes based on your feedback and launch the test server again.

If you’d like to read about the changes in more detail, check out the forums.

Another Tuesday, another update

Ryan — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 23:01:07 +0000

It’s Tuesday again, which means scheduled maintenance at 5pm PST as we roll out some minor infrastructure improvements to the game. There will be more interesting news (hopefully) in the weeks to come though!

[Update 5:13pm: And we're back!]

Weekly downtime

Ryan — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 00:19:00 +0000

Weekly downtime for maintenance starts now! We’ll be back in about five to ten minutes.

[Update 5:30pm: make that 20 minutes.]
[Update 5:42pm: And we're back!]

Unexpected downtime

Ryan — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 20:12:09 +0000

We’re having some technical difficulties and trying to resolve them quickly. Weewar will be back up in a bit.

[Update 3:25pm PST - And we're back. Terribly sorry about that.]

June 29 Minor Update

Ryan — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:57:41 +0000

We have weekly scheduled downtime today at 5pm PST to roll out some updates to our internal tracking system. Please be patient, we’ll be back shortly.

[5:02pm: We're back.]