GamePlanHockey

 

 

This might be further ahead than most of you expected and there's a couple of reasons for this. 

 

First, we simply don't want to make any promises that we can't hold. We have postponed the announcement of a release date for way too long now. I will get into the reasons for this further down if you're interested. 

 

Second, we want to get this right. In all ways possible. We still have things on our todo list but we will also use the extra time to correct some of the flaws that have been subject for several discussions here on the forum. I'm thinking of the goalie endurance issue as one example. 

 

 

About a week before the release date all current managers will be able to sign up and set up their current teams and choose game world. This way you will get the privilege to sign up and reserve your team name and league level before new managers find their way into the game. I know I mentioned an automatic setup way back, but you will have to create a new team and choose a game world. But since you're getting a head start before everyone else you should be able to find your old team name and mascot when you create your team. If there's any conflict we will try to help everyone out in the very best way we can. 

 

All manager history will be kept and still displayed on your manager page but manager reputation will be reset in order to get an equal start for all managers from day 1. But your current manager reputation and league level will still decide what league levels you will able to choose from when you sign up. The manager reputation are also being reworked but I will reveal more regarding this later on. 

 

From the start there will be three game worlds available. One of each speed; Slow, Normal and Fast. Each game world can host 168 managers. And remember that you will be able to manage two teams per account, no need to sign up or pay twice. 

 

And regardless of what we've said earlier you won't have to enter your credit card information when you sign up if you don't like. You can start your 30 day trial without any credit card. But you will in this case be restricted from making any player transactions. This is to prevent players setting up shadow accounts for cheating purposes. But this will give you the opportunity to get back into the game and try things out before making up your mind. Once you've decided you can easily set up a subscription and the restrictions will be lifted. You will continue your trial and have the possibility to cancel your subscription before being charged. And remember that all who sign up within the first month will get the special price of only $1.99 per month. This includes all features and two teams. More regarding subscription plans will be released soon. 

 

That was the important stuff. But if you're interested to read some more about why things are delayed you are welcome to continue reading. I will try to not make too many excuses but I will instead try to explain what I feel have gone wrong since we first announced this big release close to a year ago. 

 

In the beginning of last year we announced that we were going to make a big new release of the game sometime during the fall 2018. At that time I felt really confident that things would be ready by then. I mean, I had more than 6 months - what could go wrong? I remember at some point even thinking things would be ready by the summer. =) 

 

I work as a developer and I'm doing estimates on a daily basis. So how come it's so difficult making estimates for this game? I've been giving this a lot of thought and I actually think I've come up with some kind of answer. As a developer you estimate how many hours, days or weeks something takes to develop. This is hard enough and many times you get things wrong. But I don't think this have been the case in this game. I've got most estimates right for this game when it came to the amount of work required. But I have not been able to estimate how many hours I can put into this game every week. Not by far. In my ordinary work I know I work approx 40 hours each week. If I estimate a task to 80 hours I know I'll be finished sometime in two-three weeks time. But when developing this game it's been impossible to estimate how many hours I can spend from week to week. Some weeks I've been able to put in 10-15 hours. Others only 2-4 hours. Remember that we're only two guys with full time jobs and families doing this on our spare time alone. We have thought about hiring more people in order to get things ready in time but that would have meant that we would have to charge even a higher price right from the beginning. Doing things on our own we have been able to keep the price down and if things turn out for the good later on, we can put more hours in and in the long run even hire some more people. Hopefully this wasn't too much of an excuse but instead it shed some light over what has been going on.

 

One thing is for sure - the release is coming and we're working as hard as we possibly can. We love this game and we want to make it great together with all of you! 

 

Thanks for sticking around and being patient! 

 

/Anders

 

Until then all mascots have been removed from the game. 

We are really sorry about this and ensure you that we’re working hard to find a solution as soon as possible.

 

If you have any suggestions on good mascot providers or artists that allows us to use them in our game don’t hesitate to give us a shout! Send an email to anders@gameplanhockey.com. We appreciate all the help we can get in this matter.

 

Thanks