Livery editor & Auto-kick
By Jack Basford
Last updated: Sun, 03 Sep 2017 10:42
We're as eager to release the new livery editor as everyone is to have it, although personal circumstances ended up overlapping a lot in recent weeks. I was moving country and then moving house again while two of the other developers had short summer vacations with family. Now the whole team has re-assembled and we're really getting down to work and making great progress. There will be several announcements in this blog.
Livery editor update
The first and most important announcement is that the livery editor update has been in testing for a short time and we are now adding finishing touches, so it should be released very soon (roughly a week from now). It's the biggest new feature we've added to the apps so far, and one everyone is excited for. It will also mark the final stage of converting the web version to WebGL (no more plugins required!). The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed improvements to the management interfaces this week in preparation for the update.
Auto-kick starting later today
Later today I will also be rolling out the auto-kick feature. It will start by removing everyone from leagues who hasn't logged in for 28 days. This will act as a big clean-up operation to boost activity throughout iGP Manager. With hundreds of thousands of players now, it's inevitable that thousands of inactive accounts appear, including league hosts, and this will quickly clean up such leagues and increase activity throughout iGP Manager.
The auto-kick period will not be editable. After much debate on the topic we decided this was the best approach, as the last thing we want is for people to be confused about when they might be removed from a league for inactivity and make an incorrect guess. Making it universal ensures that everybody will know how often they need to login to stay in a league. I am considering reducing the auto-kick period to 14 days in October and including the option to tell the game that you are on holiday. I'd be interested to hear your opinions on this in the comments.
Re-focusing on stability
After the release of the update our focus is going to shift to the stability of the platform again for a short time. We are always striving to iron out bugs and improve stability, but it will be heavily in focus for the next few weeks. There are a lot of things we have observed and feedback we've received that has made it clear how we can further improve stability and support across devices. So we'll be devoting time to that to improve the experience for everyone.
We also have more exciting content and visual updates in the pipeline which we will talk about when the time comes. But for now, the all important livery editor update and stability improvements will be our sole focus. As a very small team, we have to prioritise tasks in a very single-focused manner to avoid becoming over-stretched. But it has its benefits, as we get to be really thorough with everything.
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2/2: The most common concern we heard from players who didn't come with a group of friends was that it was easy to land in a league populated with inactive accounts. This was one of the greatest deterrents to new players, and something we had to address decisively, which is why auto-kick was introduced. The majority of comments are in favour, but as a few days have passed I see there are outlier cases which maybe require some extra thought. The forum will be a better place to discuss this.
1/2: Unfortunately there may be outlier cases where auto-kick affects promotion, but from May when this was first announced until now, nobody expressed a concern, so it went under the radar. I understand that it may be frustrating for the individuals where that occurred, but it's very important that we have a living community with leagues and races containing active players.
eu n vou ser mais promovido da liga elite
quer crescer como assim tirando todos que n entra diariamente alguns entra
pra crescer ainda tem que melhora muito quer ver mais gente online mais prejudica outro so pensa em vcs pessoas que tava mês querendo subir na elite agora vai ter que corre tudo dnv
Very much looking forward to the livery editor, as I'm sure is most of my league!!
I’m very disappointed with auto-kick. Now guys from pro tier in my league are unable to be promoted. In consequence, competition in elite tier also will be worse. Nearly everyday I clean my league form inactive players, so it wasn’t a big problem.
The auto-kick is perfect. This is a very good option.
the auto-kick is fine, but I think at least there should be enough inactive managers to allow active managers to be promoted.
Hi Jack,
Are we still going to see automailer options for League Hosts?
@Chris Albrecht: Yes, hosts can still kick players at any time. However, we will probably be putting some restrictions on this after a couple of outlier examples of hosts abusing this power (e.g. kicking everyone at the last race).
Am happy about the auto-kick. I think 28 days will be an okay time, as it will remove inactive players and leagues. Will league managers will still have the option to kick users out sooner if they wish?