Patch 1.45.7 preview

HUMOROUS DISCLAIMER: Many Americans might find the bulk of this post boring. If at any point during this post you find yourself falling asleep, skip down to the section labeled "Other changes in Patch 1.45.7"

So, a lot of people have asked what the SAGA staff has been up to as of late. Many have noticed that there wasn't a patch today. So what gives? In a word, awesomeness*.

*I'm assuming awesomeness is indeed a commonly accepted/understood word and accurately conveys the intended levels of sheer awesometude**.

**See preceding explanation.

One of the larger projects undertaken over the last two months is adding Unicode support to SAGA. (Wait, it's not boring, I swear! Keep reading!)

At first glance, that might not sound too exciting. But Unicode means that SAGA will soon see several new features.

Unicode-Related New Features:

SAGA will support the extended Latin character set (so accented characters like à, é, and ñ are supported).

SAGA will also support the Cyrillic alphabet (Здравствуйте!).

Players will be able to use the above foreign characters in chat, nation names, guild names, pretty much everywhere you can type.

Ok, so that wasn't SUPER exciting***. But Unicode is only the beginning. The reason that we've added Unicode compliance is simple. SAGA is now ready to be translated into other languages!

***Except for our European and South American friends, of course, who probably become much more readily enthused over things like accents than the average American.

Translation-Related New Features:

All game text is now centralized into a handful of master files, meaning that any existing English typos don't stand a chance against our interns' keen grasp of grammar!

Any lingering pirate speech written by our programmers will be eliminated once and for all! (Ahh, Raiding memories gone by...)

Translation will commence on SAGA in the not-too-distant future, though no specific announcements are being made at this time.

The translation process, once undertaken, should progress quickly. As an example, check out this half-translated login screen:
My apologies to the French. This half-translated screen doesn't look super-impressive, but it only took me 45 seconds. ('Credits' should probably be Générique,but I'm not a real translator)

Other Changes in Patch 1.45.7:
(For those who couldn't care less about lots of high-falutin' accents)

Mail received in the Pigeon Roost now shows icons for attachments.

Pictures are worth a thousand words, and seeing a Great Dragon icon in your mail is probably worth a thousand other attachments.

The Guild Interface has been re-worked, presenting more information, and adding a few new options (whisper to selected guild member, change Guild Master, a few others)

The New Guild Interface. Nice shiny buttons. Smaller text. More info. More options. More loneliness when the other testers won't join you guild.

The Tutorial quests have been re-done to more amply demonstrate advanced battle mechanics through the use of more images and less chance of dying. They cover more topics than before, such as garrisoning.

The background textures for various windows have been improved.

Particle effects have been added to more buildings (these can now be toggled on/off in settings).

Several systems are getting back-end patches that affect stability.

So what can you expect in upcoming patches after 1.45.7 is released? I've taken a look at the projects assigned around the office, and some of the first items on the list (in no particular order) are:

The new Orcs highlighted last week will be in patch 1.45.8.

Tournaments. The Unicode efforts have fixed a particular crash that Tournaments were getting. Next week, testing resumes in full on Tournaments, and if the QA lead is correct, we'll be able to launch them soon after giving them a final shake-down.

PvP Quests. The first four PvP scenarios have been chosen, and work has already begun on them. Entropy is excitedly working on Dragon Pong, while one of his minions is starting on a scenario similar to Capture the Flag.

Chat upgrades. Specifically, upgrades that will allow you to more readily see and interact with other players.

Well, I can't give away *too* much more just yet. As the Unicode efforts wind down and the next patch is released, I'll try to bring you more information on what's going on around the office.

Coming next time: I (hopefully) get a hold of the player who wrote the War Guide mentioned last time and ask him some thought-provoking and meaningful questions and Elf bashing.