New Nav. Bar and a Sprinkling of Forum Changes
Earlier today we updated the navigation bar at the top of ninjakiwi.com. It was only a few small changes: moving "blog" to a drop down "social" button with "forums" and adding links to Facebook and Twitter, as well as adding a dedicated "store" button for all your NK store visiting needs. Oh, there's also a new redness when you mouse over things, but that's by the by.
We've also changed some stuff on the forum's back-end, namely making it far, far easier to manage the profanity filter. I don't think anyone ever noticed, but sometimes a person's post would be blocked if a word or words had some profanity embedded in it. With this change we can add words to a white-list (and black-list) with a few key strokes and button clicks. If you come across anything like that, let us know (emailing support is the best) and we can get it fixed in a jiffy.
Behind the scenes we've been working on a bigger forum update to give you more space for reading and writing, more tools to express yourself and general design changes to make everything work better. As we introduce these features the forums will become a more pleasant place to hang out and discuss what truly is up at Ninja Kiwi (protip: the ceiling)
SAS: Zombie Assault 4 - Private Matches and Bug Patches
This week we finally got private matches into SAS4. We've been working on a number of other cool features over the last couple of weeks, but because they still require more time to get polished and balanced, we cut a private match sized chunk out and put that up for you to sink your teeth into. Join up with friends to play any mission you want. Good for grabbing achievements, seeing wondrous zombie creations or even just playing with people who won't run off down the street and aggro a bunch of the undead.
As always, the update featured a few bug fixes (and more in the last couple hours) and some balance changes. These balance changes were mostly around different gun fire-rates. There's a more complete change log in game, so load SAS4 up and have a look.
Questions from the comments
Aaron, do you read and answer the blog questions or do you just make up good questions and answer them?
Good questions? Sure :) They're real though. Really real.
Any planned updates for BTD Battles?
Yep. There are one or two tweaks waiting for Defend mode, but otherwise nothing to share.
Any new information about the Portal Artefact (in Bloons Monkey City)?
No.
Any info about future games?
Nope.
When will development of BTD6 start?
When it starts. (There's a lot of potential in BTD5 and its off-shoot games. While there are a bazillion and one awesome ideas for BTD6, we can only do so much at once)
Why does BTD5 Deluxe still have less features than the online and mobile versions?
The mobile version of every game is an entirely different code base. Because of that, anything made for mobile has to be fully remade for the web/Deluxe version. The mobile versions of our games gets significantly more players and so more time can be spent on it.
What is your favourite thing about working with the Ninja Kiwi community?
As simple as it is, you guys are just fun to talk to/be around. Lots of friendliness and passion about NK games.
Will there be changes to the existing Honor system in BMC in the near future?
There will be changes, but whether it's near or not is still unknown.
Will you add a search function to the new NK forums?
There will be something eventually, but currently our energies are focused on making them nicer to use on a thread/post/commenting level. Search (that is passable) is rather complex and I don't feel it adds as much value as the changes currently getting worked on.
Thanks for reading everyone!
Remember: you need more achevements for BTD6 than BTD5
I think it's safe to assume that Aaron will let us know when anything new comes up about the Portal Artifact. Poor dude's been asked about it so much...
How is your tier determined in Contested Territory?
Please NK, hurry up fixing the BMC honor system...
Will there be BMC Mobile?
derp
Speaking of BTD6... will there EVER be ANY info on a Bloons 3 this/next year?
I've noticed an alarming number of users telling mods to ban users for hacking... Could you inform us all of what powers mods have?
search is actually a basic function, it is a pain to find a thread about a subject you, or finding an old BTD5 DC forum thread (having to scroll over dozens of pages, and worse in case the thread have been reactivated later on making it unfindable). As a suggestion it might be nice to have an auto-thread for DC's with consistent titles and descriptions and that can be accessed from in-game. Also there is not way to follow a thread you posted in and even finding it manually can be hard if the related section is very active (like for new games where threads about the same subject get opened twice a day and you stop knowing in with you posted).
Any plans on making new missions in SAS4?