W3C - Game News Jan 19, 2015

1. The Simcountry App

The Simcountry App is submitted to both the Google store and the Apple store. It will take some time before they become available. The Androide version will probably be faster. Apple may take some more days.

Both Apps are free.

This first version includes many game functions and it includes the Forum and Chat features. As a first version, it is quite large but some functions remain only available by use of the website.

More functionality will be added in time.

2. Price Reductions

Some large weapons, ammunition and some other large items in Simcountry have been update and reduced in price. The changes include nuclear weapons, the space shuttle and some parts of the shuttle.

This is another step in the long term general reduction of pricing and specifically the reduction of the cost of war.

More reductions, and at a higher frequency, will continue in the coming weeks.

3. Bankruptcies

Some bankruptcies have taken place. We have given players a long time to prepare and repair their countries and messages about possible bankruptcies were showing at login time and on the country pages two weeks ahead of time and then extended by an additional week.

We have also searched through our five worlds and looked for exceptional situations to prevent massive bankruptcies that might have happened on a single day.

The App is now available at the Google store.

Three of my five countries are bankrupt. It looks as though about 300-500 billion was lost in each, respectively. I can pull out of this, but what was the reason behind the cash loss? And will there be anymore of these instances anytime soon?

I never received any notices or warnings about bankruptcies on login, as all of my countries were stable. Kinda caught me off guard.

The messages went for weeks and are on now in all countries at risk.
where the cash is?
It is showing exactly in the cash log. all transactions are there.

From my phone

Check HLW numbers
Numbers should improve starting today

I'll look the logs over and see. I'm using the SC app now. So far so good.

Awwwwwwwwww my baby, Andrew, has been working hard on this new app.

COME ON SIMCOUNTRY!!! GIVE IT UP FOR ANDREW!

Job well done, son.

We are surprised by several (small) issues that came up after today's upgrade.

one was solved quickly, in the direct trading option.
Now another pops up. we will look into it in the morning.

The upgrade hardly touched the Simcountry site so we are surprised.

We added a lot of software for the new App and it might be that there is some influence although we assumed that there is no connection between the web site and the App pages.

we will know more tomorrow.

The HLW tuning did not help much.
A small shift, in a number of corporations but hardly measurable.
we obviously wanted it to be small but not that small.

A next shift will take place next week.

whats the app called on apple ?

oh not an app you go to internet on phone

App no good for enterprises. ..

This sucks.

:-(

The app on the I-phone etc. will be called Simcountry.

It is submitted but not in the apple store yet.

We have done a lot of work for the enterprises part of the App.
Not done yet but will become available.

Yay !!!!!
/me hugs andy !!!

And as promised. Once the enterpise part of the app is running, I wil become a premium member of SC. :-]

/me hugs Andy too!!!!!

The android app has just passed 10 downloads!!

I have so far tested the graphs and the login. I will test it a little more thoroughly on a decent internet connection as it takes forever to load anything. (Eventually loaded).

Base corporation information as per the website is working.

The loading "dot" in the middle of the screen needs to be a bit more apparent as I have only just seen it a number of pages in.

All the base info appears to be there. I have a 4.5" screen and I would say some of the buttons are a tad small. If they could be increased by, say 10%, this would make it alot more touch friendly.

Getting out from a corporations page took me a while to figure out(back button in the top right).

I do alot of trading usually and this is not implemented on KB yet so cant provide info on this yet.

Overall experience, nice, functional, in keeping with the website.

Pros:
- All the data about things is there
- Fairly easy to find things (except the back button)
- Side menu instead of a top menu to control the site (do we really need both on the website?)

Cons:
- A little slow to load (as its browser and not a native app)
- Loading page notification not very visible
- buttons and clickable items a tiny bit too small
- No trade yet! (this will be the decider on if I use it more or not)

Oh.

I tried that chat function. and it took for ever ( 10 mins or so ) for it to load, and when it did, i tried to post and it crashed. ( froze. )

I was on 3G network full bars.

The app only has only 2 minor problems.

The chat doesn't work on the app.
Also the load time is rather slow on multiple occasions.

Other then that i love the layout, interface, and navigation. The detail was fantastic and the ease of understanding the layout was awesome.

I'm sure more will be added soon making it much more mobile friendly.

Other then those 2 minor issues, i love the app and i cant wait till they more features.

You do know that mobile phones are not protected unless you add extra security, which is not easily available because most security systems are dealing with the threat to PC's?

I just read Apple? No hackers touched apple because everyone was on PC...so Apple, only recently, have become targeted by hackers..cell phones are now in the hackers targets due to no one securing their phones like they do with their PC's....You should create a disclaimer W3C?

Ok so this is a BIG bug in my view and requires immediate attention for this app.

I usually use my phone in portrait mode but this affects portrait and landscape.

I click to open a graph and it opens. All good there.

I click on the cross (with my finger i should add really) and it closes, then any link behind it is immediately clicked.

The cross is not blocking access to the link behind it when clicked.

Also the app responds really slowly when compared to a pc. My phone is 1.5ghz dual core using 72mb wireless connection to a 50 meg broadband link. This is the same link i use on the pc (wireless also).

Coming Monday or Tuesday, there will be a next update of the App.

It will include:

- Better performance overall. All pages will become faster.
- The map of the country will be available.

There will be more and frequent updates.

We do not think there is any problem with security.
We think that the app is as secure as the website.

If you have any issue, please give us details and we will check.
I did not find here anything specific. details will help.

Forum scrolling bug.

Summary:
The links themselves are static but the page has scrolled.

Description:
On entering the forum within the app then scrolling to a lower in the list forum, then tapping the link that loads (if there is a link at all in that location) is the one that was at that position in the page when it loaded. This same bug also applies to trying to send a message from the topics being read. The reply has to be scrolled to and the link/element (textarea in this case) is not there to be activated although it is in sight.

Diagnostic info:
HTC Sensation XE Beats
1.5ghz dual core
latest app version

also it would be helpful if we could read our messages from the app. My federation is quite chatty and thatd be very helpful. Love the app.

Thanks for the comments.
I will have an engineer look into them.

@Adam/Forum scrolling bug.

In the App screenshot below, the topic list is scrolled. Do you mean that clicking on for instance "Golden Rainbow" does not take you to the Golden Rainbow Topic?
Which version of Android are you running?

Thanks