Release Notes and Game Update: June 22, 2016

Today we've fixed a number of bugs, many of which were a result of the switch to the 8 gear cap.

BUG FIXES

1) Creatures like Raging Vines and Rotfeeder now receive their ability modifiers before "On Enter" effects occur. Now playing a Rotfeeder into a Shard Caltrops or Vial of Fire while there are 10 creatures in your graveyard will result in a damaged 5/5, not a dead Rotfeeder.

2) Steelbane Overwatch will no longer take damage from Shard Caltrops.

3) If you use Dravkas' Manufacture on a gear while you have 8 gear, nothing will happen (this will still use the charges).

4) Acquire can no longer be played if you already have 8 gear. It now has casting requirement of having at least one gear slot open. (No longer causes an error)

5) If you play Relic Hunter while you have 8 gear she will not steal a gear. (No longer causes an error)

CHANGES

1) The Advanced Tutorials now properly award 10 card, new Core packs.

2) Legacy Constructed tournaments are now properly labelled.

3) Acquiring Wilirus now awards Hexlifter Cleric instead of Thoughtful Cleric. The change from Thoughtful to Hexlifter in Core happened late in development and we missed this when the change was made.

WHAT'S NEXT

A lot of people have been wondering what is next for Kingdoms CCG. We have two announcements to make on this topic:

MARKETING

For the next few months we are going to focusing on marketing Kingdoms CCG to try to increase the user base. With the new Core making getting into the game much easier, it's time to get the word out that now is the best time to be playing the game.

We will be doing this with more advertising, more promotions and more "official" game play videos to get the word out.

You can help as well. Continue making your own Kingdoms game play videos and support your fellow players by checking out those videos on YouTube. If you've got a video that you're particularly proud of, drop us a note at kingdomsccgsupport@ganz.com and if we like the video, we'll feature it on our Facebook page.

How will be making these game play videos? Over the next couple of weeks, watch for GANZ_Karl to appear online. He'll announce which tournament he'll be joining and then jump in with him! Those tournaments will be recorded and highlights posted to YouTube and Facebook. The best part? Everyone who plays a match against Karl, win or lose, will receive 10 Gems per match (quick conceding, byes, match ups after you've left obviously won't count). Karl will be playing to win so bring your A game!

NEXT SET

While we will be focusing on marketing, we still want to give you new toys to play with. On this point we've gone back and forth as to our best next step.

The question came down to a debate over which model is better: randomized booster packs or fixed sets. This question is something that physical games have been wrestling with as well. While a few games, like Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon have stuck to the randomized model, many newer games including Game of Thrones LCG, Netrunner, and the reboots of Doomtown and VS. System have gone with fixed packs.

In the end we've decided to move to fixed set model for now. Our plan currently is to release our next 3 sets this way, combined to make a single "Season One" expansion.

Each set will feature 13 cards, 2 for each Kingdoms plus 1 Unaligned. The rarities will be 4 Uncommon, 6 Rare and 3 Epics.

Now we learned a ton from the Meta Pack. Feedback was pretty resounding that the cards in the Meta Pack were too narrow to make a big difference to the game. In other words, while they were solutions to specific problems, players didn't want to be solving those problems. What players like to do is cause problems for their opponents, and the Meta Pack cards didn't do that.

We also understand that not all players will want to pay for our fixed sets. We do want all of our players to be able to get these new cards, so we'll be addressing these needs as well.

Here are the changes we're making:

1) The cards in these new sets will be much more "active". Many will be cards that you can build around to win games in grand fashion. There will still be utility cards, but these will be of universal value.

2) All of the cards in new sets will be available as Gem singles the day that they are released. We're making sure that buying the full set is an amazing value, but for playing that like to pick and choose, we won't be standing in your way.

We will posting more information on the first of these sets in the weeks to come.

Enjoy, and we'll see you on the battlefield!

Site Down for Arena Deck Fix

The game is currently down to run the script that will unlock all decks currently set to the "Beginner's Arena" and remove all illegal decks from the Limited and Standard arenas.

All decks by all players will be removed from all arenas as part of this fix. When you get back into the game, you will need to reselect your Arena decks before battling.

We expect this downtime to be completed by 11:30 am EST.

UPDATE: The script was running too slowly in the live environment, so we have decided to stop it, make some changes and run it again on another day. The game now open.

In the meantime, if you want to unlock the deck slot that is set to Beginner's Arena, you can do so by doing the following:

1) Go to the Training Grounds
2) Select any Hero Challenge, like the Amorya Challenge in the first area.
3) Click on the deck to edit it.
4) You will receive a message saying that this will remove your deck from the arena. Click "YES"
5) Your deck has now been removed from the Beginner's Arena. You can edit if you like or you can just close back out of the deck editor.