Greetings Commanders, FriendlyFixer here!

 

While I've been busy elsewhere at KIXEYE for the last couple of years I'm excited to return as Executive Producer for War Commander and have some things to share with you. I'll touch on the state of the industry, War Commander and our recent past as well as some of the suggestions that have been made through the forum on Discord. I'll cover a bit about some of the upcoming changes we are making to the game and wrap up with a note on cheats and exploits. As always, thank you for your attention.

 

The game industry has never been a monolithic thing that you can describe in one pithy sentence. That said, there have been some common difficulties that have affected both studios and players. It has become enormously challenging across the industry, yet we are still here. Advertising has become more expensive, changing how game companies can acquire new players. Inflation has risen and jobs have become less secure. Yet we are still here. New games have come and gone and yet; we are still here.

 

Why is War Commander still here? Because of all of you. Your dedication to this game has kept it alive for over 12 years and that’s no small feat! Some of you play it for the strategy, some for the ability to dominate and some still for the story. Regardless of why you play, you are the reason this game exists and we look forward to continuing to create more content for you in the years to come.

 

Of course, it hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows over the years. When we create new units, new events and change existing systems we don’t always hit the mark. We’ve made changes we thought would be for the best of the game that didn't always work as intended (I’m looking at you Stat Compression). Still, with the best of intentions we strive to correct these mistakes, even if it sometimes can be challenging to find a solution everyone likes.

 

Part of this challenge is that not everyone wants the same thing. So, we introduced the Discord feedback portal where players can discuss and vote on items that are important to them. Such as these that are currently under consideration for our 2025 roadmap:

But that’s not all! There are larger changes coming to War Commander that we’re excited about. A common complaint is that it can be difficult to keep up with all of the units released in the month, we hear you and will be reducing that number.

 

We’ll be retiring Holdout in favour of a new event focussing on Unique units, as well as making changes to our seasonal structure and creating a 2 month 'Campaign' centering around the factions and their war efforts in the sector.

 

In the coming months we’ll share our 2025 roadmap which contains additional items like optional control updates, a new PVP season structure and event, new alliance activities and improvements to the New User experience.

 

Lastly I wanted to touch on cheats and exploits. In its inception War Commander was nearly completely 'client authoritative’. That meant the game client in the browser was in charge of almost everything. Saving the game was done by the client, packaging up the data and sending it to the server as-is. Over the years we have changed it so the game is almost completely server authoritative. There are VERY few things the client is still in charge of and as a result many of the flat out cheats no longer work. Despite this there is still an impression that the game is rife with cheats and that we do nothing about it. I'd like to assert in the strongest sense that it simply isn't true! We care very much about the integrity of the game and trying to close any exploits and loopholes that we find.

 

A part of the problem is that we have had a policy of not talking about cheats and exploits. This existed at least partly to protect players as we've found that almost all cheat tools contain a malicious component and the amount of people with stolen accounts almost completely matches this number. Unfortunately this also prevented us from talking about when we closed exploits or removed cheats as well as championing those who help keep the game fair. That's something that’s going to change and that we’ll discuss in the new year.

 

Thank you truly for supporting us and continuing to play War Commander. We’re excited for all the new things coming in 2025 and think you will be too! 

Happy Holidays,