Hey everyone, just over a week until we move into the next round and a new version of the site... very scary for both us and I'm sure many of you who are used to the game as it is. Where's the fun with no change though?
Today I'd like to announce that we've made the decision not to continue supporting the current version of the game as "Gangster Nation Classic". We don't think that the new version will upset too many people because it has carefully been designed to feel almost identical to existing players. So given that we've worked so hard to make you guys feel at home in the new version, we don't think that the current version is going to attract too much attention. In fact, to be brutally honest, it will just be a place to breed those who want to throw their toys out of the pram when they get killed on the main version.
One of the main reasons the website has been getting developed from scratch for the new version is that the previous version was just so rocky. I started the website back in 2005 when I barely knew anything about web development and since then the code has simply been built upon. Fast forward 6 years and the code has become a mess to work with, I could have sorted this out bit by bit but it was easiest just to throw everything out and start on a blank canvas. It's actually quite annoying because as any web developer will tell you, you're constantly learning new things, so even as I speak now the Version 2 code feels "out of date" to me but it's a hell of a lot better than what the old site is like.
So, how does this relate to you, the player? Well, the old site, running old code, was such a pain to work with that I didn't feel like updating it much. It just wasn't nice to work on such an awful website. The idea of starting from scratch again is to breath new life into the development of Gangster Nation. I've barely got the new site in the state that the old site is in now but it's moving forward at a fast pace and in coming months I can finally build upon Gangster Nation - bringing you new features, the changes you want and the tools we need to make sure new players come to the game and stick around.
As many of you know, it's just myself (Mike) and Keiza (also known as Blondie) behind the website, with me doing all of the web development side of things. This is fine but it does mean that I have a lot of work load just for this game sometimes. I would rather spend my time on this game improving the main version of the website, not last years old version for the few who wish to use it. I think most would agree with me there too, though there is no doubt that some will complain as they wish to hold onto the "old" site before even giving the new one a go. My goal from now on is to build the best gangster game online. Spanning off into different, old versions is not going to help this at all, at least at this stage. Spanning off into other languages, improving features, adding in more fun - now that will help build the best gangster game, if you don't already consider Gangster Nation the best gangster game.
This post will hopefully explain a little more about the new version, what I'm trying to do and where we're going as a company. If you haven't noticed already, our company is no longer interested in branching off and doing other things, we've renamed to "Gangster Nation Ltd" and have full concentration on building this game to be bigger and better. I do run another, separate business with a friend but a good chunk of my time will be committed to this company and your game as always.
This time next year, I hope for the website to be much busier in terms of traffic and players.
See you in Version 2 (more information on what to expect is coming soon).