June 12, 2013 - Always in motion is the future!

[Darkhorse]

Hello all. It’s been a long time since there has been a development blog post! I think it’s high time we address that. There have been a lot of questions about what is next for Book of Heroes and a little confusion as to what is coming next. Since this isn’t exactly a secret, I thought I’d make a post letting people know what we’re currently working on, and what might be next on the docket.


But first, a little bit about how we do things. At any given point, we focus a large part of our Book of Heroes development resources on a particular feature or a particular update. However, this doesn’t mean that all development resources are always working on the same thing. In fact, we tend to work on many different features and “stories” at once. Sometimes these features are for the next release (for example, working on raid finder prior to 1.6), sometimes these features aren’t for any particular release (back end server changes, anti-cheating improvements, improving the way we handle downloadable content), and sometimes these features are for something that’s further along in the future (working on PVP prior to 1.6).


In addition to our development team, we have a design and art pipeline. These tasks are generally being worked on a bit further in advance. For example, for quite some time now, everyone’s’ favorite admin and talented artist, Beekeo, has been working on some awesome new sets of armor and weapons which we’ll be showing off in the future. That being said, these aren’t going to be in for 1.7. In this way, we are always working on future releases that may not be coming immediately, but are in the pipeline.


So now that you have a bit more of an understanding about how we develop Book of Heroes, let’s talk about 1.7! What is it? Well that can be summed up very easily.


1.7 is all about Player vs. Player! We’re looking to implement the basics of PVP in an open beta deployed on the live game in the near future. So now some bullet points!


-First and foremost, before some people explode, PVP is completely optional! Our current model for PVP requires consent. As it stands, for the PVP beta you will navigate to our Arena and queue for a battle against another hero. This means no “ganking”, no non-consensual PVP, and no losing your hard earned stuff if you don’t want to fight. We recognize that PVP is not something that everyone wants to do, and we don’t want to force it onto any players who may not enjoy that type of feature.


-1.7 is a beta. What does that mean exactly? It means we’ll be rolling out the basics of the system. Players will be able to fight in a 1 on 1 duel with other Heroes, where one person will come out a victor. We have little expectation that when we release our beta, things will be balanced perfectly. This will take a lot more work, and frankly, we’re hoping that the data we need will be community driven by the people who love and enjoy our game. Hence, the whole reason we are releasing this as a beta in the first place.


-Things that won’t be in 1.7: Ranked fights, new PVP gear, tournaments, rewards, etc. This will all be coming later. Again, we just want to get this feature out there so that people can try it, but we aren’t building out the fully designed system around it quite yet. Currently that’s on the schedule and planned for “the future”. I can’t quite talk about that yet because it’s still in a bit of a state of flux. Some of these things are currently being worked on and some have yet to be designed fully.


-Who will be involved with the beta? Anyone who wants to be involved! You don’t need to sign up or be accepted, the beta will be deployed straight to the live servers, so whoever wants to try out PVP can do so once we deploy it in 1.7.


-How the heck is this going to work? Isn’t everyone just going to take 1 hit and die? Currently we’re doing some work with scaling health pools and various other stats (can’t say much yet) for PvP only. We’ll be able to reveal more as the time gets closer.


-So does this also take energy? Well yes, sort of, but that’s still being completely determined. As it stands, we’ll be implementing a different pool of energy for PVP than the pool that currently exists. This is still early in the process, so I don’t have much to add at this point.


-So when is it coming out? If all goes according to plan, soon! Against my better judgment about releasing information about this, I’m to shake it up a bit. We are aiming to have this out by the end of July. As with anything, this is always subject to change and delays. That being said, it’s currently progressing on schedule. This is NOT a promise, but rather Venan trying to be a bit more transparent than we have been in the past about our release schedule.


So what is after 1.7? Well that’s an interesting question. It's a question that I’m not QUITE ready to answer yet. That being said the general idea is that we are currently working on the following:


-Fleshing out the PVP system and starting “Season 1”
-Letting our players venture further into the Vile Realm and continuing the cliffhanger story we set up at the beginning of the year.
-Bringing all sorts of minor improvements and “quality of life” features to the game.
-Bringing you some other new features that you probably didn’t think were coming.


I know that’s pretty vague, but like I said, “Always in motion is the future”!

[japster]

PVP! Finally a real date! I'm excited!

Thank you Venan for all the quality and hardwork put in!

[Jossaholic]

A+, Venan! And Jared, sir, may I inquire as to whether future PvP stuff is in a state of indigo, amber, emerald, or possibly prismatic flux? (;

[Natchys_Ray]

Thanks for the update. I have thoroughly enjoyed Book of Heroes for the past few months. Keep up the good work!!

[Lord_Nabren]

A+, Venan! And Jared, sir, may I inquire as to whether future PvP stuff is in a state of indigo, amber, emerald, or possibly prismatic flux? (;

Hahaha. the same thought went through my head when I read that!

[Nixtro420]

Thank you for the update and thank you for all the work the Venan team does to produce such a fun, quality game. Question in regards to pvp, will players be matched up against players with a similar might score? I think that would be most fair, but I'm sure you developers know what you are doing. Thanks again!

[Elgabri]

Pvp in energy style games like this really make me think mafia wars. Or other zanga games. I love pvp... But. There is always a but; I hope this doesn't come down to pay to win. Lets say we have a 15 yr old he can't pay for energy or top notch gear from lvl 1. But someone 18+ might. I don't mind pay to win pve, but pay to win pvp really bothers me. I might be the unspoken majority of people I know, but there is my 2 sense and I hope you can clarify this matter.

Dave

[My_Starlight]

-First and foremost, before some people explode, PVP is completely optional! Our current model for PVP requires consent. As it stands, for the PVP beta you will navigate to our Arena and queue for a battle against another hero. This means no “ganking”, no non-consensual PVP, and no losing your hard earned stuff if you don’t want to fight. We recognize that PVP is not something that everyone wants to do, and we don’t want to force it onto any players who may not enjoy that type of feature.

Please stay true to this for all us PvE players! Not everyone enjoys PvP

[Brahl]

The real question is what can we look forward to with 1.16?

[Oda_Sadaar]

Just an opinion, but adding another energy timer/pool is really just complicating things. We've already got multiple currencies in the game, and now there going to be multiple types of energy? No thank you.