Greetings, Trainers!
I’d like to start by wishing everyone a Happy New Year! As exciting as 2013 was for the Pokémon TCG Online, the roadmap for 2014 blows it out of the water!
The first stop on the roadmap is finishing up the UI revamp. Our goal is to complete this project in the next game update, currently scheduled for the end of this month. While many of these updates are purely aesthetic, several of them bring some significant improvements to game functionality (check out the October Community Update for a great example). As we worked through the UI revamp, we called out a number of improvements to add to the backlog, many of which mirror the requests made in the Feedback and Suggestions area of the forums. These improvements will be scoped and prioritized, and then scheduled for future game updates.
Before I move on to another topic, I wanted to share a preview of the updated gameplay screen.
http://media.pokemontcg.com/public/photos/5559/playmat.jpg
As you can see, we’ve made a number of changes to this screen. Here’s a quick summary of the changes seen on this screenshot:
The playmat is now viewed from a higher angle, allowing the player to get a better view of the opponent’s side of the table.
The global nav bar is replaced with a menu button in the upper right of the screen. This button will give a player access to the Help, Settings, and Concede buttons while a match is in progress.
Chat and the game log can be accessed from the menu button in the upper left of the screen. These are separated by tabs in this menu, allowing a player to quickly switch between the two.
The time clocks have been separated and placed below each players’ avatar to create a more clear communication of which player is “on the clock.”
The action menu to the right of the screen now contains a unique icon for each action. When the menu is minimized, the text slides to the right and the icons remain.
The Pokémon in the Active position has been increased in size to allow for greater legibility. The cards attached to the Pokémon remain the same size and can be zoomed independently, should they require additional inspection.
Keep an eye of for additional improvements when the UI updates release later this month!
In addition to the UI improvements, the next game update will include some significant changes to how the game builds card files. These changes have resulted in notably faster load times for matches. We’ve also seen a considerable drop in system resource usage when loading areas of the game which contain a wide variety of cards, such as Collection and Trading.
After this game update is deployed, we’ll be refocusing our efforts on completing the initial Tournament mode functionality, with a goal of releasing it for public testing early this year. The February Community Update should contain a wealth of information on this feature, so make sure you keep an eye News section of the forums!
Thanks for your continued support!
source:
http://www.pokemontcg.com/forums/showthread.php?39497-January-2014-Community-Update
