List of updates

[Jimmy V.]

2017/03/27 Glastonbury bug corrected

It was possible to use an ACCIO spell after leaving a corner with a DECLINATIO. This was an illegal move as you can never play more than one spell in a turn. This bug is corrected. The player who posted a clear description of the issue on the forum earned 2000 gold coins.
The 6 weakest bots are now slightly better.
Chat windows did not scroll automatically any more to display new messages (at least on Chrome). This is now corrected.

[Jimmy V.]

2017/03/27 New messages notifications

A notification now appears in the top-right corner of the screen for any message posted in the inn or in a private chat. It replaces the flying enveloppe that confused players.

[Jimmy V.]

2017/04/11 Misc.

New link to vote for Happy Meeple
Correction of rules for applying some ads (T2L)

2017/04/21 Reorganization of game page

The game page has a new layout, with a 300x600 ad on the right side. Partner shops links are displayed below. The main width of the game page is bigger (1306 pixels) than before. It is only 1114 pixels wide for games that have a small window (Finito, Level X, etc.)
The ranking page now displays a 336x280 ad.
Correction on the way player names were displayed in the ranking.
Extra ads (T2L)
Modal windows (top-level windows) are reorganized with less padding so as to display better on small screens (request Jamie A.).

2017/04/30 New daily quests

Bug correction: receiving the match history of a player after the profile page was closed led to a (frequent) Javascript error.
We show 10 last matches in the profile rather than 5. Also +5 button is gone.
Daily quests are updated. 7 more daily quests are also created for more variety.
Longer delay (8,5s) before showing Connection issue.
A/B testing #22.
Adding Mensa Select 2017 winner to Glastonbury overview page.

2017/05/05 Responsive design and speeding up

All public pages (login page and help pages) are not working in responsive design. This means that they adapt to the size of the screen (mobile/tablet/desktop).
Massive reorganization and cleaning of Javascript and CSS codes which greatly improves the time needed to load the page for the first time (particularly the index page).
Both changes will lead to a better experience for the visitors and hopefully a better visibility in search engines at the same time.
Deletion of an obsolete line in the news (we cannot use gold to unlock games any more).
The offer page is improved to display better on small screens (request Jamie A.).
Correction of display glitch for large daily quests (10/10 display took too much space, request Jamie A.).

2017/06/14 Lost Cities scoring
The Lost Cities detailed scoring was showing up wrongly when there was an 8-card expedition bonus. This is now corrected.

[Jimmy V.]

2017/12/14 Release of Hanamikoji and Lost Cities bots improved

Release of Hanamikoji, our 9th game.
Improvements of Lost Cities bots. In particular, some of the weakest bots should be stronger and Verboten (the best bot) should be about 30 rating points better.
Food animation at start of game simplified to look better.
Bug correction on new meeple color display in the news. White was always replaced by yellow.

[Jimmy V.]

2017/12/21 Keltis Ór tutorial corrected

The tutorial of Keltis Ór was buggy and could not be completed. This is now corrected.
We also made a few changes to the tutorial text area size to make sure that Spanish and German translations fit perfectly in the Keltis Card, Level X and Keltis Ór tutorials.

[Jimmy V.]

2018/01/10 Facebook login working again

Creating a new account via the Facebook meeple (the blue one) was not possible since July 2017. It was also not possible to merge a standard account with Facebook or register a guest account that way.
The bug is now corrected. Please let us know if you fail to do so!
Correction of another bug: the name of a new friend was wrongly shown as "undefined" in the Daily Meeple when that friend had been added via a shared link.

2018/01/09 Achievements sub-page improved

Improvement of the achievements sub-pages. More stats and better layout. Direct link to corresponding help pages.
Improvement of the "New Meeple" news in the Daily Meeple. It now shows how much gold and how many King's favours were earned.
For consistency, all help icons now move 1 pixel upwards when hovering the mouse.
In the player's profile, one can now see our own longest series even without Magic Potion.

[Jimmy V.]

2018/01/15 Rankings and Profile improvements

A Happy Meeple rotating logo is now displayed when fetching a new ranking list or an updated list of played matches (profile box). This makes it clearer that the request is being processed.
The query for the played matches list (profile box) has been optimized. The time needed to get the results has gone from 1.5 second to less than 0.1 second.

2018/01/12 Game page ad refresh rate

The average refresh rate of the ads shown in the game page has been increased (max. every 30 seconds in some cases). If an ad slows down your computer, please let us know!

[Jimmy V.]

2018/01/16 Minor changes

All obsolete links "Vote for Happy Meeple" are now removed.
When sharing a ranking, you share a web page that is not accessible from any other menu. This page was not displaying correctly.
Minor change in a message display (Magic Potion and stats) at the bottom of achievement sub-page. The text is only shown when appropriate.

[Jimmy V.]

2018/01/22 Changing name is possible - Reduction of the frequency of bad connection warnings

We considerably reduced the number of messages displayed when the connection is slow. The same message will not be displayed more than once every 5 seconds.
Games and Inn buttons are now displayed with a white background and a brown circle around. They are also close to each other to indicate that they have similar functions. If the user has and experience <=4, then these buttons are blinking to make it more obvious to new players that they should click on these buttons if they are lost.
Links to "Vote for Happy Meeple" removed from forum and menu page.
It is now possible to change your first name and last name in the settings. The new name is immediately updated everywhere where it needs to be (chat, newsletter...).
We only require 2 characters for the first name now (instead of 4).
No more requirement for the last name (it used to be one character). You can now leave it empty. This will allow players to use their favourite nickname without showing the first letter of the last name followed by a dot (like Jimmy V.). If the last name is empty, it will be ignored and no dot will be displayed.
New A/B experiment on the login page. Now displaying Hanamikoji screenshot for some users.

[Jimmy V.]

2018/01/23 More free play

We have decided to give you much more free play. Here are the two changes:

- The base storage is increased from 16 to 20. It means that even without a granary, you will always have at least 20 food.

- We decreased the food cost the 6 longest games:

Level X: 10 to 9
Keltis Card: 10 to 8
Migrato: 9 to 7
Siberia Card: 12 to 10
Glastonbury: 11 to 10
Keltis Ór: 12 to 10

[Jimmy V.]

2018/01/26 Daily Quests updated

We have added a few new Daily Quests:
- a few quests with Hanamikoji
- a few more quests like "Play x different games" with x from 2 to 5
- a little more emphasis on Keltis Ór
- a few quests only require to play one match of a specific game
Also, in the expanded Daily Meeple (click on the + on top of the journal), old quests now show old they are (1 day, 2 days, etc.) for more clarity. And quest details are displayed in a smaller font.

[Jimmy V.]

2018/02/05 Inactive players removed from rankings

Inactive players (no login for more than 2 years) are now removed from the ranking lists altogether.
We worked on the newsletter to correct some errors and make it work as intended. Some emails had been unduly removed from the mailing list.
We now time database queries. This led us to correct/improve some of the slowest ones (adding indexes too). This should result in an overall improvement in the pages loading time.

[Jimmy V.]

2018/02/09 Changing team/region in the settings

You can now change team/region in the settings. It was already possible to do so in the rankings page, and it is still there too. But it is easier now and more natural.
Please pick the team you want to be associated with! And find people to help your team go up in the ranking lists.

[Jimmy V.]

2018/02/22 Get freebies!

From now on, you will be able to see a card at the bottom of the main menu page. This is a chance to get a reward.
Just click on the card to find out what you have earned!
The cards are free and will be given with a very high frequency (although that frequency is not fixed). So check the bottom of the page every time!

[Jimmy V.]

2018/03/26 Reloading online matches and updated game layouts

Reloading online matches

You can now reload online matches (not training matches) if they get stuck. The match will reload smoothly within a few seconds (depending on your machine). A move counter shows the progress of the reload. When all moves are replayed, the board is displayed.
No food is taken when reloading a match.
We are now archiving all games. So someday, we will be able to offer the next feature: replay a completed match any time and maybe share it with others.

Game page URLs are much cleaner. They only show the match Id for online matches and the game Id and opponent Id for training matches. These URLS used to be very long and unpleasant.

Updated game layouts

As we went through all games to make sure the new feature was working, we took the opportunity to refresh some of the visual effects and animations. Here are the main changes:

Finito
Small sound when moving the mouse over the tokens and squares.
White border around the tokens.
Selectable square in flashing red.
The dice is rotating when rolling.
Small modification of the tutorial.

Keltis card
Wishing stone collection is scaled up then down. It is also rotating faster than before
Buttons are blinking. The Stone button shows a stone, the Discard button shows an X, the Point button shows a 1. This should reduce the probability of misclicks.
Selectable cards (both play and draw phases) are now highlighted with a white circle.
Tiny modification of the tutorial to deal with new animations.

Siberia Card
New animation on resource discovery (vibration)
New eye icon on resource discovery buttons and 1/2 is written on the draw pile.
Men that can be hired now show up more clearly (white circle).
Hired men show up more clearly (blue circle).
Cards played by opponent are moved in and out more quickly but stay longer on screen.

Lost Cities
Active cards have a white glow around them
Discarded cards and main deck show a big white glow around them when clickable.
Small sounds when moving the mouse over clickable cards.
Slightly faster card movements.
Ugly big black shadow around the main deck in now gone.

Keltis Ór
Rolling dice are now jumping and rotating.

Hanamikoji
Small sounds when moving move over clickable cards.

Glastonbury
Faster initial dealing of the cards

Other changes

The "Loading..." screen before any page should now be displayed for much less time, speeding up the access to a new page.
Ads on the menu page are displayed a bit higher than before.