APOCOPLAY Acquisition Announcement

As you all know by now, the rights to Alteil reverted back to its original developers – a company called Core Edge.  As for Alteil US, after a number of companies have tried to manage it, so I guess everyone’s been wondering who’s next?  Sony Online, maybe? Blizzard?  Pets.com? As it turns out, they’ve decided to leave it to… er, well… me, sort of.

So I formed a small gaming startup with a buddy of mine from high school, who’s a software developer, along with a few other developers he went to college with.  This company is called ‘Apocoplay LLC.’  It’s pronounced like ‘Apocalypse’ and yes, I know it’s not a great sign that I have to explain that every time.  At least you know we’re more interested in selling Alteil’s name than our own for now. And now that we have Alteil US, what exactly are we going to DO with the thing?  I’m glad you asked…

First, we’re going to run the old game, and hopefully make a few changes to it.  This process is what we like to call THE BAND-AID.  Yeah, I know it took a while to make that happen, but there were a few obstacles we have to overcome first.  One thing is that when Gamepot took over Alteil 1 year ago, they installed the Gamepot account system.  The Gamepot account system was installed into Alteil in kind of the same way back alley-cybernetics were installed into people in gritty cyberpunk novels from the 80’s and 90’s. And guess what, ripping out the Gamepot system from the game had about the same messy effect that ripping out cybernetics would have on an unwilling patient…  So let’s just say there was some surgery to be done.

This is why for the past year, in order to make an Alteil account you had to make a Gamepot Account on their site, and use their currency system called Potcash.  Well, we have no more Gamepot Accounts and no more Potcash (although if you do want to spend Potcash, Lupos told me you can always do it in Washington Square Park).  The good news is that everyone has an Alteil account, even if they didn’t know it.  After you made your Gamepot Account, the Gamepot server would go ahead and make an Alteil account for you, with the user name being the name you see ‘in game’, IE your Iczer name.  And, in more good news, your Alteil account stores all the important info, like your cards, your level, and your gran.  Basically, all the Gamepot account stored was your password and your Potcash.

Since we’re reverting back to the pre-Gamepot days, you’ll find your account password has reset to what it was one year ago.  If your account is less than one year old, or you’ve forgotten your old password, then you’ll probably have to reset your password.  We’ll have a couple of ways of doing this to make things as smooth and as safe as possible.

But I know what you’re thinking… (Will I ever get tired of opening like that?  It’s like Emerald Carbuncle for paragraphs.) There was a ‘first’ leading four paragraphs ago, so I guess it’s time to explain what the ‘Second’ and while I’m at it, the ‘Third’ corresponding parts to our Master Plan are.

Running Alteil US is mostly a means to an end, as we will be concurrently running the ALTEIL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT (The ‘second’ step) with the ultimate goal of producing the next ALTEIL game (The ‘third’ and final step… excluding ‘take over the world,’ the assumed fourth step of any good plan).  The Alteil Development Project will be a DEVBLOG and BETA SITE with hopefully consistent beta releases (once things get rolling).  We will be creating components of the next Alteil game, which is of now defined as a game that preserves the Core Alteil Game Dueling mechanics (meaning the “rules” of the actual duel will be the same, including the stack, SP flow and management, and support for all existing skills and cards) but improves upon everything else. That means, other than the dueling, everything is up for grabs, including the game’s monetization system and card collecting system. And all of it will be re-coded from the ground up as a modern online game portable to various platforms (let’s face it, the original Alteil is like 8 years old and looks – and operates – like it).

For now, the Shop and Cashier have returned in mostly their original form.  And with it, another subtly important change is that from now until we can launch an all-new next generation Alteil, all payments will be treated as donations… which means, other than we will appreciate them more, we will also disclose what we are spending money on each month. I’m talking about software development, hiring coders, and otherwise turning the money into stuff for you, the user.  May not seem like a big deal, but it means a lot to me and all of us at Apocoplay.

Okay, that’s it for now! The whole Apocoplay team will be making more detailed posts like this in a DEVBLOG format as we go.  We want you to know what’s going on every step of the way and to be a part of it.  Thank you for all your support going forward!