Road Map to Paradise

Scott Hardie | May 21, 2011
Many features have come and gone over the 15-year history of this site. The time has come for more changes. Today, I announce the impending end of one game, and the subsequent launch of another.

Rock Block has been a big success since its launch in 2007. We've all enjoyed playing concerts, collecting cards, unlocking achievements, competing in tournaments, and more. This kind of complex, long-term, multi-faceted kind of game is exactly what I personally love to play, and I'm glad to see more games like it gradually appearing online.

However, it has always had a fatal flaw that would someday spell its end: Copyright. I don't have permission to use the likenesses of any of these performers, nor did I invent the core game mechanic myself. That was one thing when it was just a small game played by friends of friends, but now that I'm adapting Funeratic to attract a larger user base, it will become a problem.

I considered many scenarios for saving Rock Block, most of them either unrealistic or undesirable. In the end, I decided that the best way to save the game was to change it into something different, and something better.

This fall, a new game will take its place on the site: Pirate Paradise! You'll captain a motley crew of pirates, do battle with other players and various AI opponents in search of treasure, square off against legendary pirates to learn their advanced techniques, and more. The game is intended to feel like Rock Block, but with a new battle mechanic that introduces new and more complex possibilities for game strategy. I'm also taking this opportunity to improve some fundamental issues with the format and code/data, so much so that I informally consider it "Rock Block 2.0."

This new game has quietly been in the works for more than a year now. Last spring, I ceased active development on Rock Block, even though the game practically begs for new play rules to keep it fresh. Last summer, Justin won a secret bonus prize with his RB tournament victory; it's that his pirate crew will begin with a head start. Last fall, guests attending GooCon: Champions Gate participated in a "mystery activity" that was (among other things) a preview of an early version of the interface. The game is now about 90% complete, and for the last six weeks, it has been in a private beta with those same GooCon guests, who have given me good advice about what needs to be tweaked before launch. In particular, I'd like to thank Kelly and Steve for really thinking a lot about this.

Among their wise suggestions is that I hold off on launching Pirate Paradise this month like I had planned, and first give Rock Block a real send-off. So, next Saturday (5/28), we'll begin one final summer RB tournament. This one will be based on Don McLean's classic "American Pie," a bittersweet tribute to a bygone era of rock 'n roll. I can't think of a more fitting finish for the game.

After the tournament wraps up around early October, guests at the soon-to-be-announced 2011 edition of GooCon will play one final mini-competition before Rock Block is retired. Approximately November 1st, Pirate Paradise will launch with a slew of format improvements and a clean slate for all players. I have ambitious plans to upgrade the game in years to come; it's made to last.

I hope very much that you'll all enjoy the new game when it arrives in November, and be as thrilled as I am with the overdue improvements. We all have a fondness for Rock Block that will last, but this is an important change that will bring large benefits in both the short and long terms. Here's looking forward to a fun summer tournament, and to the exciting next chapter in this site's history!

Steve West | May 21, 2011
This game is pretty awesome. I hope everyone gets as excited by it as I am. Farewell Rock Block, I hardly knew ye but this tournament should be a blast! And it's successor should be the new king on the block. Arrrr!

Ryan Dunn | June 2, 2011
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Steve Dunn | June 3, 2011
Huh. Just reading this. Wow.

Can't wait to see it.

Erik Bates | June 3, 2011
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | June 3, 2011
And you got a new play rule for it! Congrats! No offense, Steve, but it is one of the sweetest to win. :-)

More trivia: The "defeat Steve West" achievement isn't technically about Steve. It's programmed to have you defeat whoever has racked up the most victories in the game. If Steve retired and someone else took the top spot -- because let's face it, Steve retiring is the only way that would happen -- anyone who had unlocked that rule would then have to defeat the new top player to unlock it again.

Steve West | June 3, 2011
I still find it all a bit hilarious and humbling at the same time. Congrats, Erik!

Steve West | June 3, 2011
But let's talk about Pirates...

Erik Bates | June 3, 2011
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | July 2, 2011
Kelly has long been a walking encyclopedia of classic songs, especially the lyrics, and there have been many times when I've been left stumped as to what she's singing or talking about. But in the last couple of years, I've developed my own appreciation of popular music, and today the tables were turned when I got to talking about Little Feat and "Let It Ride," with which she was unfamiliar. Rock Block has given me a much greater awareness of lots of great music and musicians, even if I didn't always get their ranks right, and that's one of the aspects of the game that I'm most grateful for.

Chris Lemler | July 3, 2011
Make 'em walk the plank, matey!!!!!!!

Scott Hardie | July 3, 2011
I'll see if I can show off a few things from the new game before it launches. For starters, here's the logo:

 

Scott Hardie | August 6, 2011
One of our pirates. He doesn't have a name yet. Ideas?

Steve West | August 6, 2011
Grogmeister makin' copies.

Steve West | August 6, 2011
Soulpatch Pete.

Steve West | August 6, 2011
Schrödinger's Cat. Not a very good resemblance, I must say.

Scott Hardie | August 13, 2011
Rock Block should burn out, not fade away. I have altered the Themed Concerts so that any player can play any theme, even if they haven't unlocked the required play rules. In the past, you had to win a concert in each theme to gain access to the next theme in the category; now, you merely need to play each theme once to completion in order to unlock the next. (You must still have seen at least ten bands in a theme to access it.) For most players, there are suddenly lots of new themes available, from some pretty weird and fun corners of the game, so enjoy them!

If you're a lapsed player who wants to try some of these new themes without being enrolled in the tournament by playing again, please let me know and I'll set you up.

Chris Lemler | August 13, 2011
Pirate Josaphat

Aaron Shurtleff | August 31, 2011
Ugh! Just seeing this. My personal quest to propel Bon Jovi to R10, it appears, must fail. :(

Thus shall the tales of Captain Jon Bon Jovi begin! Arrrrr!?

Aaron Shurtleff | August 31, 2011
That pirate's name...

Mr. Prostitute!

Golly, I sure did love Yellowbeard. *sigh*

Scott Hardie | August 31, 2011
Bon Jovi will always be an R10 in our hearts.

Steve West | August 31, 2011
Pimpslap Pete.

Aaron Shurtleff | September 2, 2011
Scott, let me pose a question to you, and I hope you can answer it. When PP launches (I'm going to LOVE calling it PP), everyone will have a clean slate, right? (Except for Justin, who you mentioned gets a head start, but that's different). So, it won't matter how you end up in RB, right? I was thinking about trying out some wild combinations of trade rules and what not that I was more hesitant to try out when I was losing actual bands I had some sort of (illogical, I know) attachment to, but if it's all going away, I might let loose. This won't affect me in PP will it? If there is possibly some sort of carry-over, I don't want to shoot myself in the foot, you know?

Looking forward to it!!

Oh, in this final concert tournament, will you open up all of the challenges when someone wins? I got started late, so I probably won't unlock them all, and I'd hate to miss out on what the challenges are! By open up, I mean let us see what they are, not necessarily make it so you can try them all out (though that would be cool too!)

Aaron Shurtleff | September 2, 2011
Swishy McPillowpants

Scott Hardie | September 2, 2011
I look forward to calling it PP too. :-)

Everyone will start with a clean slate, except for small bonuses earned by winning the 2010 and 2011 RB tournaments. The only carry-over at all is that your old hexcolor in RB will be the site's default suggestion for your new hexcolor when you join PP.

After someone wins the American Pie tournament, I plan to leave it running so that other players can still play the rest of the trials for fun. I hadn't thought about revealing the rest of the list, but I might just do that, especially when time is almost up. The themes that are brand new in the tournament are currently inaccessible on the Themed Concerts page until you pass their corresponding trial, but I plan to open them to all players when the tournament ends.

Scott Hardie | September 10, 2011
I've been using this drawing as the background image during battles (the equivalent of the concert stage) while building the game. Although I plan to use something else in the finished product for various reasons, I like this: It's alluring and almost spooky, and recedes well into the background.



In Rock Block, I had to cut every stage image into nine 180x220 sections and label each with the space names written on top of it. With 189 themes in the game and various other versions of the stage, all of that cropping and labeling became quite a nuisance.

Pirate Paradise is built to use only a single 540x660 background image with the space names as separate transparent images positioned on top of it. Even though there won't be quite as many backgrounds in the pirate game, this change should save me a lot of needless work in the future.

Scott Hardie | October 2, 2011
I'd rather say this now than after GooCon: Pirate Paradise is going to have to launch around January 1 instead of November 1. I've faced a number of delays in planning for GooCon, most of them beyond my control, and it's going to take all of my time between now and GooCon to get ready. Having only one week after GooCon to finish the new game is just not enough time. I'm intentionally extending the launch date further ahead than I think it will take, figuring that either I'm underestimating or I can use the extra time to add some additional features.

Either way, save your arrs and mateys for a little while longer. Here's another pirate who may wind up in your crew:



Rock Block will run through the end of the year. If you've wanted to know what other bands are in the game that you haven't seen yet, wonder no more: Click on a black question mark on any page in the Collection Guide to reveal that mystery performer.

Scott Hardie | November 13, 2011
11% of the people who created a label in Rock Block never went on to play a concert, either because they found the game too confusing or didn't realize that they needed to start a concert in order to play. The battle mechanics in Pirate Paradise are even more complicated, so the problem will be worse if players don't get some help.

That's why I've created a tutorial mode. As soon as you finish creating your pirate crew, you're immediately placed into a battle against a very easy AI opponent (the pirate equivalent of Angel). In each turn of the battle, the page gives you specific advice about which cards you can play where, to take advantage of which vulnerabilities your opponent left open. It's prepared with text in case you lose, but most players should have no trouble winning this easy first battle, after which the page gives advice about challenging a human opponent.

Here's a screenshot of part of the window, cutting off the card-specific advice underneath:

Steve Dunn | November 13, 2011
Very interesting! Can't wait to see this go live!

Scott Hardie | December 9, 2011
Per Aaron's suggestion above (Sept 2), I have revealed all 31 trials in the American Pie tournament, in case you haven't seen them all and wondered what else was out there. The brand-new elements that were played for the first time in this tournament are shown in bold. A number of other elements (Viva Las Vegas, Powder Ridge, You Know They Got a Hell of a Band) were only played by 2-3 people prior and were practically new.

I've also unlocked the tournament-only themes so that they can be played from the Themed Concerts page like any other. Lost Loves (sadly, the theme that Aaron himself suggested) is not available there because it requires programming exclusive to the tournament. Similarly, since it's impossible to get two balanced hands with the cards in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Themed Concerts page can't offer it. However, all other new themes are now accessible, and worth trying out in the next few weeks if you haven't played them yet.

Scott Hardie | December 26, 2011
Pirate Paradise is in the last stages of development now, which means I'm choosing the final artwork. This is the battle grid, where you'll square off against other players in battle:



Originally, I planned to name each of the spaces according to their position on the deck of a ship: Upstage Right became "Forward Starboard," Downstage Left became "Aft Port," et cetera. But these naval terms felt too cumbersome and confusing, to the point where I would have to put diagrams of them on the page just to keep them clear. Since the final battle grid image resembles a map, I've reprogrammed the game to use the cardinal directions as the names of the spaces, which feels much simpler.

Pirate Paradise is scheduled to debut on the afternoon of Sunday, January 1st. I still have about a dozen more little changes to make to Pirate Paradise before it's ready for launch, but the big work is all done and it's 99% ready. I can't wait to start playing this with everybody!

Erik Bates | December 27, 2011
[hidden by request]

Steve Dunn | December 27, 2011
YEAH! Let's do this thing!!!

Scott Hardie | January 5, 2012
Rock Block will be retired on January 14. If there's anything left that you want to do in that game, now's the time.

Steve Dunn | January 5, 2012
Has anyone else continued to vote on promotions while we await the inevitable shuttering of Rock Block?

Aaron Shurtleff | January 5, 2012
I only vote against U2 and Wilco if they come up...

Steve Dunn | January 5, 2012
Aaron, I would vote against your favorite bands, too, except I don't care enough to figure out who they are.

Scott, suggestion: upon acceptance of a battle, there could be a 50/50 coin flip to determine who goes first.

Aaron Shurtleff | January 5, 2012
Let's see...I believe the intarweb trollz would say YOU MAD, BRO? :)

Samir Mehta | January 5, 2012
[hidden by request]

Aaron Shurtleff | January 5, 2012
Ooh! Scott wouldn't tell us what happens at negative gold until someone did it! Now we'll get answers!!

Sorry about your luck, though. :(

Scott Hardie | January 6, 2012
Steve, thanks for the suggestion about the coin flip. I'll keep it in mind for a future technique. The floor is open for any ideas you all have for techniques, publicly and privately. I will repeat a few good play rules from Rock Block and I have some ideas for good new ones, but I will definitely have room for player suggestions along the way.

There will probably be no further RB promotions. The code that I used to execute them no longer works, and it's not worth spending the time to fix it at this point. Thanks for continuing to vote up until now; that data really did help me throughout the game. In hindsight, I should have closed voting, but if I started thinking about all of the parts of the game that I could have shut down early, it would have taken a lot of time and possibly led to chaos.

Samir, that part of the "negative gold experience" is not supposed to be that way. I've adjusted the Challenge form so that you can still play for a wager of 0 gold coins. There is, however, only one way to earn your way back into the black...

About the "hire a pirate" form problem that Aaron and Steve described, I have it narrowed down and I'm working on it. I'm curious: When you manage your crew, there's a form at the bottom to get a random suggestion of a new hex color. If you randomize that a few times, does it work? The code is almost the same between the two functions, and I'd like to see how that's related. I guess I could ask in private, but I'm tired. :-) Thanks.

Aaron Shurtleff | January 6, 2012
It does not work at all for me, randomizing colors. :P However, it says error on page at the bottom when I try. For the pirate hiring, it doesn't even seem like that link does anything at all when I press it. No link at the bottom, etc. At least with the randomize color button, the button looks like it's doing something when I press it.

Don't know if that helps, but...

Steve Dunn | January 6, 2012
I suggested the coin flip because I wonder if there is an inherent advantage based on play turn. I remember we talked about this in the context of RB but I don't remember if it was clearly proved. Any data on that, Scott?

Steve West | January 6, 2012
Depressing the button does nothing. Unlike Aaron, I get no error message. I like that "coin flip" notion, BTW.

Scott Hardie | January 6, 2012
Aaron and Steve West, that helps me debug it, thanks. I'll get back to you.

Steve Dunn, I understood. There has long been a belief that the defender has an advantage, and all other things being equal, that's true by design. As I've said elsewhere, the idea was like how when you split a piece of cake with a friend, one of you cuts and the other one chooses. The challenger gets to set the terms of the match that might be favorable for the challenger, and the defender gets the first play and last play. There is data to back up the notion that the defender has it easier: Not counting forfeits and tournament concerts with randomized cards, the concerts that ended in victory were approximately 55% won by defenders, 45% by challengers (5748 vs. 4365 to be precise). This was just a quick lookup in the database, so I didn't factor in Random or Backbeat or Overtime.

So why not fix it in Pirate Paradise if it's broken? Because personally, I don't think it's broken. It's possibly tough to imagine in these early days, but that challenge script will grow a lot more complicated with techniques and expanded crews, giving the challenger back the advantage of crafting a challenger-friendly scenario. I actually thought about reversing the order of play this time so that challenger sets the terms AND goes first and last -- it would make a little more logical sense in the AI battles, where you "attack" a merchant and should get the first move, and where you're attacked by the royal navy or ghost pirates and they should get the first move -- but that would make the game way too lopsided in favor of the challenger; few players would accept challenges. This way, you have an incentive to issue challenges, because if you don't, your treasury will grow more slowly, an incentive that didn't exist in Rock Block. Plus, there's the automatic battles, which will give participating players equal time in both positions. For the players who really insist that the defender's advantage is just too great, there will sooner or later be the "coin flip" discussed above, and the pirate equivalent of the Backbeat play rule from Rock Block, to shake things up.

Steve Dunn | January 6, 2012
Makes sense, Scott. I know you've always thought it through!