7.0 Update Preview

[Mudchute]

Amazingly classy words from an apparently self-proclaimed legend. How can anyone ‘like’ that?

Keep up the good flying, @Mudchute , I hope you reach every goal you set!

Thank you @Wasted Eagle
Yes, I am 72th level infant but not treating this game, ranks, alliances so ambitiously, trying to keep game-life balance I enjoy just playing, nice graphics, some achievements and generally peaceful atmosphere

 

[andy8758]

There are currently 2.2 million apps available for the Apple IOS.

With that many applications offering amusement, play, fun, information, work assistance.... the list could well be vast. And GI Airport City is just one game app. For us gameplayers that means, if you do not like Airport City use one of the other 2,199,999 other apps. But for the app developers, they need to make a profit when competing against 2,199,999 competitors.

Of course other game formats are available (even Windows Apps although currently just 669,000 apps to choose from).

With these kind of volumes of apps - developers have to work very carefully to ensure their app makes money - otherwise bankruptcy looms. I expect GI have spent a lot of time and money reviewing their market. If they think a 100 item limit is essential - well there are also 2,199,999 other apps for the lucky Apple user currently playing Airport City.

Loyalty (to customers who buy their product)? From a business? I have never seen that before - they are too busy stabbing competitors in the back. I have spent thousand of pounds buying beer in my life - if a brewer changes the taste of the beer - well there are plenty of others in the market - the fact I have spent thousands of pounds enjoying their product before it changed is irrelevant. The brewer is not going to repay me for having bought the beer I liked just because they have now changed its flavour.

So to players who have been playing Airport City for many years, spent a large amount of money enjoying their game, and now find it is not to their liking. Well you had a great time playing the game, enjoyed yourself greatly playing the game, and did not suffer a hangover from playing it too much - that sounds like great value for your money to me.

Meanwhile - many of you have been very supportive, great neighbours and even friends. Seeing you leaving is sad, but lets be fair, game playing is only fun for so long. I knew you would leave one day.

 

[Mudchute]

There is one more observation. Did you watched the old-new video? Hope that the process of boarding, taxing and departing the plane will not be so significant longer than it is today, otherwise we will not be able to speed up them so efficiently in time and lifting and all animations-which look amazing- may be boring after some time...

 

[LX Air - Teresa]

There is one more observation. Did you watched the old-new video? Hope that the process of boarding, taxing and departing the plane will not be so significant longer than it is today, otherwise we will not be able to speed up them so efficiently in time and lifting and all animations-which look amazing- may be boring after some time...

I’m afraid it will be significantly worse. Don’t forget Ivan said the video was speeded up

 

[ac huang]

I have one question to Free2Play about the runway. Looking at the video, the runway is in level 09, and as the change list, it seems that one kind of runway is used for one kind of planes. Now, the max.level of runway is only 7 which can be used for condor. In updating to version 7, which level will the le

 

[Tito]

I'm amazed. I always figured why do planes land and took off from the runways. I'm glad you added terminals and gates.Ever since I started playing 3 years ago I never knew there would be improvements made. I am a hardcore airline and airport enthusiast and I just can't wait to see the finish product. If you're doing Beta testing I would love to participate.

 

[Kevin1010]

Free2Play

May i ask this without being disrespectfull.
Somehow i can understand you guys want to make the game more honest.
But why only 100 limit? Then you should give everybody the change to get cbm aswel and bring the events back with rotating once in a while.
Same goes for having more than six buildings. Everybody should at least get that change to get the same as others.

Now with only this limit its kinda like hypocrism. You understand what i try to say?
I am not into technics but with all those items being saved it costs much servers i guess. If thats the case, is that the reason?

On a sidenote i think your bosses made a big mistake with the limit in a financial way. But there has been said enough about it.

 

[novagator]

There is one more observation. Did you watched the old-new video? Hope that the process of boarding, taxing and departing the plane will not be so significant longer than it is today, otherwise we will not be able to speed up them so efficiently in time and lifting and all animations-which look amazing- may be boring after some time...

Ivan said there is a building that will help speed up the process.

 

[AJ]

If they think a 100 item limit is essential - well there are also 2,199,999 other apps for the lucky Apple user currently playing Airport City.

We can leave, no issues about that but why should we leave a game we have loved for so many year's when there's a solution to our problems? Ivan just talked about the best possible solution which should have been in place but one person's arrogance is not letting it happen.
Even if we are promised now that this building will be coming in future update which will let us increase our storage, then I am more than happy to stick around.

 

[Free2Play]

Free2Play Since you are giving example of market games Implementing limit in the game, Here's another side, They also give option to upgrade that storage(See PI2 of GI), Where's that option? You guys had 2 year's to develop that option but you guys didn't, Where's market examples now? Instead you were busy giving cosmetic makeover to the game majority of time, Yes a lot of good upgrade has come to the game over this time, but can't a building be developed in 2 year's to let every player upgrade his limit with hard work? I mean you guys were so desperate to make an additional building that you removed current feature of single tap to load planes and require a building to do that in 7.0, What's the necessity for that?
Why are you guys always late? You find VW wrong after 6 year's, You get to know that game should have a limit after so many year's, Golden dice is too good after 5 year's.
It took you guys more than a year to fix red launch fuel bug after you were made aware of it.
I don't know how many year's have passed, not even a draft idea of Mars is out.
Alliance is without chat till today when every game with Alliances feature has it, Alliances are like Airport city game without this forum, Don't you think Alliance chat was more important than these new cosmetic makeovers?
We need more important things in the game rather than these, Don't launch features which are not completed, There should be option to increase limit as you progress in the game, Please request that legend max or whoever it is to think atleast about player's who have given thousands of hour's and $$ ofc.
Sorry for ranting, but it's not aimed at you alone, it's for whole team because they deserve credit for everything whether good or bad.

I distinctly remember you were saying goodbye five pages ago, AJ

(@AJ was a very active player and a moderator on our Facebook page for a few years, a great help for our community manager, but was so upset about the inventory limit that quit that job a long time ago).

Why we're always late is a philosophical question. I've been working on videogames for more than 10 years now, and you always work with what you have: the team, the budget, time constraints, a huge amount of conflicting opinions that come from members of the team, management, and players — thousands, sometimes millions of players. Obviously, no one has time or resources to do everything you/they want, so once in a while you set yourself a set of achievable goals and after doing some of them you measure their success somehow: those might be the solid numbers of increased revenue, or more players playing the game, or less players leaving it within a certain timeframe, etc.

The point here is that big features and critical bugs are always the priority, because without big features it's hard to explain to both the management and the players what you've been doing lately, and you can't release the game with critical bugs that break the game like a player's profile being corrupted after updating to the newest version. The rest of the features, fixes or game design fixes are done in-between when you have time to do them, and since there're hundreds of them, more often than not fixing one huge bug — that nobody will know about because you've fixed it before update's release — wins over fixing or improving five or ten other things you could fix or improve. Game development is always about trade-overs and changes along the way. Some of them affect all players, some of them affect only low level or high level players, for example, manually loading fuel and passengers sounds fun when you just start playing the game — and then, an hour later, you could automate that all with a building. And why would the draft idea of Mars or any other unreleased feature be out, when it is covered by NDA? Those ideas and documents that contain them are the property of the employer, whether they're being released or on hold.

 

[Free2Play]

There is one more observation. Did you watched the old-new video? Hope that the process of boarding, taxing and departing the plane will not be so significant longer than it is today, otherwise we will not be able to speed up them so efficiently in time and lifting and all animations-which look amazing- may be boring after some time...

The process is indeed longer, especially when it comes to landing guest planes, but speeding up the flight with fuel is instant (it works the same way as now), and the flight time starts at the moment the plane leaves its stand. Most of the time you don't need to stay in game and watch the animations unless you specifically want to watch them or you're landing many guest planes one after another.

 

[zoutron]

The process is indeed longer, especially when it comes to landing guest planes, but speeding up the flight with fuel is instant (it works the same way as now), and the flight time starts at the moment the plane leaves its stand. Most of the time you don't need to stay in game and watch the animations unless you specifically want to watch them or you're landing many guest planes one after another.

I was going to mention this, If the flight time starts when it leaves the stand then the time would be pretty much the same time it is now, but seems like you beat me to it. Besides that you saying it caries far more weight than me speculating over whether it starts when it leaves the stand or when it leaves the runway.

I do have a couple of further questions
1) The building to allow automated loading of pax / fuel without multiple clicks. Which currency will this use? (gold, greenies or tokens?)
2) with regard to the runways. How will this operate with guest planes? Will we have to have free stands to fuel / pax them? How will they interact with our planes landing / taking off. Will we still be limited to two?
Cheers for all the info on the new update. I have a few reservations. (not that one, I am already limited) But I can't wait to get my hands on and try it during the beta.

 

[amir77a]

Quite agree with @ArGi1981
Besides,
1. Two months isn’t that long, AC time
2. Other buildings or expansions are much more expensive than that (eg CT11, terminal11)
Be patient and keep collecting coins.

I'm at lvl3.. In a constant deficit of fuel. So I've decided to improve that issue

 

[AJ]

I distinctly remember you were saying goodbye five pages ago, AJ

(@AJ was a very active player and a moderator on our Facebook page for a few years, a great help for our community manager, but was so upset about the inventory limit that quit that job a long time ago).

Why we're always late is a philosophical question. I've been working on videogames for more than 10 years now, and you always work with what you have: the team, the budget, time constraints, a huge amount of conflicting opinions that come from members of the team, management, and players — thousands, sometimes millions of players. Obviously, no one has time or resources to do everything you/they want, so once in a while you set yourself a set of achievable goals and after doing some of them you measure their success somehow: those might be the solid numbers of increased revenue, or more players playing the game, or less players leaving it within a certain timeframe, etc.

The point here is that big features and critical bugs are always the priority, because without big features it's hard to explain to both the management and the players what you've been doing lately, and you can't release the game with critical bugs that break the game like a player's profile being corrupted after updating to the newest version. The rest of the features, fixes or game design fixes are done in-between when you have time to do them, and since there're hundreds of them, more often than not fixing one huge bug — that nobody will know about because you've fixed it before update's release — wins over fixing or improving five or ten other things you could fix or improve. Game development is always about trade-overs and changes along the way. Some of them affect all players, some of them affect only low level or high level players, for example, manually loading fuel and passengers sounds fun when you just start playing the game — and then, an hour later, you could automate that all with a building. And why would the draft idea of Mars or any other unreleased feature be out, when it is covered by NDA? Those ideas and documents that contain them are the property of the employer, whether they're being released or on hold.

I distinctly remember you said a point about having a building which would increase the limit which made sense
Don't you think Alliance chat would have been a better use of resources and time of your team than a building which reduces plane tap from 3 to one?
I definitely think that if a new player starts playing the game and joins an alliance, he would be more interested in talking to Alliance members about game than wondering about those 3 taps. Since expanding alliance is easier for these new alliances, it would be better if an expanding alliance can communicate in-game.
If communicating here made this game a better experience then just think what effect it would have when you could communicate in the game.

Now, My problem is not the limitation but the way it is designed especially targeting old player's. There should be mechanism to upgrade storage just like everything else in this game. Please talk some sense into the mind of "Airport city pro player" who took this decision.
And yes I quit because of 100 limit and no action against ydl(which was taken ultimately, Thank you for that)

 

[Madge59230]

Free2Play The graphics look good, but i have a very practical question. Your runway looks very long. So do we need to change the layout of our airport land. Many of us are more square than long. We might gavr the space but all the other buildings are in the way. When the game updates i assume, the runway goes into our storage until we make room to put it in. Or what!? Or are you going to tell us how much land we need to free up?

 

[Free2Play]

I was going to mention this, If the flight time starts when it leaves the stand then the time would be pretty much the same time it is now, but seems like you beat me to it. Besides that you saying it caries far more weight than me speculating over whether it starts when it leaves the stand or when it leaves the runway.

I do have a couple of further questions
1) The building to allow automated loading of pax / fuel without multiple clicks. Which currency will this use? (gold, greenies or tokens?)
2) with regard to the runways. How will this operate with guest planes? Will we have to have free stands to fuel / pax them? How will they interact with our planes landing / taking off. Will we still be limited to two?
Cheers for all the info on the new update. I have a few reservations. (not that one, I am already limited) But I can't wait to get my hands on and try it during the beta.

1. A cheap building that costs gold that anyone can build early on. As I've said, it's a fun thing for new players, not a way to punish those with a huge fleet of planes by making them tap three times more.
2. Yes, you need free stands to fuel / pax guest planes which is of course different than how it is now, but certainly goes a long way towards being more 'real'. How will they interact with other planes — well, hopefully they will not crash into each other (our AI system will handle all the movement according to the aircraft traffic rules). A number of guest planes for now will still be limited for two, we'd love to have more, but lots of 3D planes might put a significant load on the game engine / smartphone and we already handle 16 at once (14 your own planes with a maxed out Control Tower + 2 guest ones waiting in line).

 

[Free2Play]

Free2Play The graphics look good, but i have a very practical question. Your runway looks very long. So do we need to change the layout of our airport land. Many of us are more square than long. We might gavr the space but all the other buildings are in the way. When the game updates i assume, the runway goes into our storage until we make room to put it in. Or what!? Or are you going to tell us how much land we need to free up?

Please kindly check my original post with a preview. We don't mess with existing layouts, because there'd a 100% chance of our failure with that upon update. The former airport area becomes a tech area with all buildings that were built there (except those that we move) and all purchased expansions. We squeeze in the new airport area between the city and the tech area, and place some of the key airport buildings there.

Because long runways are such a significant part of real airports, we had to completely ditch the old ones and provide players with coins compensation if you have more than two runways. If you have just one or two runways those will be converted to new runways in the airport area with the same plane-handling capabilities, for example, if your old runway could handle Condors > your new runway will have a level capable of handling Condors.

 

[Free2Play]

Don't you think Alliance chat would have been a better use of resources and time of your team than a building which reduces plane tap from 3 to one?

I'm not saying alliance chat is a bad feature, it's just a much bigger feature. It's easy to think that 'everyone has chat', but we're not exactly Facebook or AAA online action game in terms of resources. The building that you mention so much is a 20 minute long feature done by one engineer, the proper chat feature is tens of hours or work of several engineers, it's a 24/7 live server with loads of data to transfer that shouldn't block all other game data, etc. We've already done alliance chat once, and it worked so unreliably that we had to turn it off after a few days. Maybe sometime later we'll get back to it.

 

[Mudchute]

The process is indeed longer, especially when it comes to landing guest planes, but speeding up the flight with fuel is instant (it works the same way as now), and the flight time starts at the moment the plane leaves its stand. Most of the time you don't need to stay in game and watch the animations unless you specifically want to watch them or you're landing many guest planes one after another.

Thank you. Looking forward to see real airport!

 

[Dave]

I'm not saying alliance chat is a bad feature, it's just a much bigger feature. It's easy to think that 'everyone has chat', but we're not exactly Facebook or AAA online action game in terms of resources. The building that you mention so much is a 20 minute long feature done by one engineer, the proper chat feature is tens of hours or work of several engineers, it's a 24/7 live server with loads of data to transfer that shouldn't block all other game data, etc. We've already done alliance chat once, and it worked so unreliably that we had to turn it off after a few days. Maybe sometime later we'll get back to it.

Phew! In game chat would make this place redundant!