Hello there! Welcome to another "What's Up?" blag post. Kicking things off is a special "guest" segment from Sam in Scotland. You don't have to read it in a Scottish accent but it's certainly encouraged.
Update from the NK Europe Office!
Hey folks!
We hope you're all doing good, and have had an enjoyable week.
Aaron and I thought it might be a good idea to introduce a section in the blog from our side of the world that covers any news, views and updates on the BTD 5 and Battles mobile apps. As always, if anyone has any questions related to the apps, or any suggestions as to what you'd like to see in this segment, then be sure to post them in the comments below. We check them regularly :)
So, here goes!
There's been a tangible excitement this past week in the NK Europe offices. With the release of the BMC open beta (we're already addicted), and some exciting updates for BTD 5 and Battles in the works, we've had plenty to keep us occupied.
Bloons TD 5 News
With the bumper 2.3 update going live last month, we had some great feedback from you all. For those who have yet to unlock the mystery parcel, I will avoid any spoilers, but the new content has really created a buzz with our app users. So much so, that we recorded the highest amount of users since the release of the app, which is really quite amazing!
To show our appreciation for all of your awesomeness, there will be another update on its way this month! So keep an eye out for the 2.4 update in the coming weeks!
Bloons TD Battles News
So there's been a little bit of time between updates with Battles. The 1.3 update was released in October with the new maps and some awesome looking Halloween inspired decals added to the mix, but we've been working on something really exciting for the 1.4 update. Some of you have this already but for the Android players still waiting, your wait should be over soon!
We are aware that some players have been experiencing some connection issues with the Battles app. We have been working hard on this recently, and found out that one of our server relays was the culprit. That particularly relay has now been removed and replaced, so there should be a significant decrease in disconnections!
That's all from us here in Dundee! Until next time, keep poppin' those bloons!
Sam.
---
Thanks, Sam! You can stop the Scottish accent now if you want as I don't have one of those, but feel free to continue using it.
Questions from the Comments
Windows portable NK games
Usage of Windows 8 phones/devices is growing quite rapidly, and we're watching those developments with interest. It's only natural for Windows phone users to want to play a game or two of Ninja Kiwi games and we want to be able to help them.
Firstly, it's great to hear requests for this, as it's one of the better ways we can tell how interested current NK players would be in a portable Windows version.
Secondly, the growth of the Windows platform is great and a platform we're very interested in using.
Thirdly, while it's something we're watching, considering and hoping will happen soon, there isn't much more we can say just yet.
What's up with Clan Challenges, man?
Tosh is the CCM and he's an important piece of the BMC team (as well as the whole NK team).
We mentioned it last week and this week is a repeated Clan Challenge free week.
Future uses for staging
All (technically not all, as the admins keep theirs) staging NK accounts have been removed. We will use staging for testing future games and updates again in the future, and each new game will start from a fresh user-base of fantastic testers.
Will there ever be new towers for computer version(s) of bloons games?
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: Yeeeeeeeess*. Web game focus moves in chunks of time, and game development is time consuming so those chunks are quite large. We have/are most recently in a new game chunk, but the end of that chunk is in sight.
Continuing BMC saving troubles
Many players are having their most recent progress go missing and we're working on getting this fixed. Unfortunately we're not aware of many ways to avoid this, though if you play BMC on multiple computers, make sure you don't play both at the same time, and make sure to log out of one before logging into the other.
BMC Updates
As we also mentioned last week, current BMC focus is on fixing the game breaking bugs, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't expect little changes and
new stuff with each bug fix update.
Thanks for stopping by! We hope you're enjoying these as much as we are and keep your questions and thoughts coming!
Aaron
*sorry, couldn't resist the truly terrible joke.
Hey ninja kiwi! I was thinking you should make a sword monkey, arrow monkey, and my brother was thinking a dragon monkey(or dragon bloons). from croberts010504 scorpion clan. P.S. If you decide to do this favor please let me know you don't have 2 make another game.
well, when we DO have a clan challenge, I bet it will do with BMC.
Having an NK Europe section on the blog to cover the mobile game updates is an excellent idea and I'm so glad you guys are doing that! ----- I do miss the clan challenges though. I hope you guys are able to reimplement them soon. I suppose cloning Tosh is out of the question, so I guess it might be awhile. :P ----- As a topic suggestion for the next blog, can you address whether those little changes to BMC may or definitely won't include changes to the MvM system. At least on my activity feed, that's what a lot of people are talking about.'
I am thinking that you have to buy tracks for MvM. Once you buy that track, then you can choose it for an attack. And if the person you are attacking doesn't have that tile type available, it would be dim (as if it were still locked). EDIT: What about poor Battle Panic mobile? I would like to see some plans for that!
More towers!! Yeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!
Ok, no CC: I'm relieved. There is so much to focus on BMC anyway. I'm very addicted, it's so fun. Thanks NK. I don't hear about wipe-out and I feel very GLAD about it.... I have a very beautiful city and I would be so devastated if it would be about to disappear. Keep up the good work NK!
Just wanted to say Thank You again for the updates, quite informative. Keep em comin'
New stuff...I like it!
Or... what if there was a BMC clan challenge? That would add popularity to the challenge (everyone is playing BMC anyways) and may help the staff find bugs in the game, as more people will play it and possibly find solutions for bugs (like the progress erasing one) or even new bugs themselves. I know that the CC guy is working on BMC but a CC on BMC would be a fair idea.
If they start making CC again,I don't think a lot of people would particpate because bmc came out a couple of weeks ago(well,the open beta)and people are just addicted to bmc because IT IS ONE OF THE BEST GAMES ON NINJA KIWI'S WEBSITE!