7.0 Update Preview

[Free2Play]

This update looks less like an update and more like a new version I.e. Airport City 2020

I like the idea of the revision, and it will undoubtedly be a different game to play. I believe this forum could be a very different group of players by the end of this year. Not sure how many of us will survive the changes.

At its core it is still a same game, albeit a more fancy one, no doubt. We've tried to keep in mind that the whole airport management part is there for fun, so for example if you were used to send 10 planes in a row in 3 minutes (random numbers here), that shouldn't change much. Although I imagine with that kind of an update coming after several years of much smaller ones it is going to be a 'love it or hate it' relationship for many players.

Then, again, there's this fella that leaves a one-star review every month in the App Store for half a year now. He tells us how he hates this event, and the next one, and the next event after that, and one could wonder why would he play a game for so long that he hates so much? Oh well.

 

[AJ]

I still don't understand why you guys are not listening, Just disappointed with you Ivan.
I hope AC climbs new heights.
Goodbye

 

[Etshk]

Hi!

About a year ago we’ve thought for a while about Airport City’s future. What could be a major new step for it going forward? What could we do to both please most of our current players and hopefully attract lots of new ones? Of all things, which one should we focus on?

It took a few months of pre-production to figure this one out. First art assets for this update went into production in May, 2018. By late August we had the game design documentation mostly done and some of the art, so our engineers started working on the update in September. It certainly took longer than expected for a variety of reasons: we never did such a big update before, it’s built atop existing game (and we supposedly will not break it for everyone with update’s release), and we did a major alteration of art assets midway through, because the whole thing didn’t look good enough when we’ve started to put it together piece by piece.

Anyway, we’re finally getting close to completing it. Right now we’re targeting late June or early July for a beta release, and August for a release for all players. Below are the in-game screenshots from the latest 7.0 test version with only UI being hidden.

View attachment 20184

Update 7.0 Highlights

• There’re now three areas in Airport City: the city on top, the airport in the middle, and tech area on the bottom. The city part remains the same: a sandbox to build a city of your dreams the way you like. Key airport buildings have moved to airport area and are now pre-built or there's a free space reserved for them at certain places so the airport operations can run pretty much like they are run in real airports. Tech area houses the rest of airport buildings, power plants, and other infrastucture buildings like oil refineries and flight catering facilities;
• All planes are now 3D planes, some of them got a major redesign;
• All new Terminals, Control Towers, and Runways, although some of them got to keep their designs;
• Planes will now use a bit of pathfinding to determine who comes and who waits in line, and it’s done in accordance with general rules of aircraft traffic in real airports; no hassle, though, after you start a flight your air traffic controllers will take care of everything for you, so there’s no chance of plane crash (Airport City is a casual simulator, and we want to keep it that way).

Gameplay Changes

• You can build Boarding Bridges to speed up loading of passengers for big planes;
• Terminals can now be expanded with Terminal Sections that speed up the servicing of planes by ground vehicles that are stationed within;
• Terminals can be further expanded with Parking Lots to increase maximum amount of passengers;
• We now have ground vehicles to service planes! If there’s no Terminal Section next to a Stand, those vehicles come from a Service Vehicle Park which takes some time;
• Hangars are no more (except the Reserve Hangars), all planes, both your planes and guest planes, now use the same Stands on the ‘first come, first served’ basis;
• Control Tower is now responsible for a max number of active planes (i.e. planes in use);
• Rebalance of the XP progression through levels: it will be more smooth in the mid game; the total amount of XP needed to reach level 80 remains the same;
• Rebalance of the reputation XP with new reputation levels; the amount of free gifts you can send daily will depend on your reputation; the max amount will be more than 20;
• 100 per item type limit will be enforced for everyone, as I’ve told you previously;
  
• One level of Runway per plane type, so there’re more levels of runways;
  
• By default, you need to tap a plane to refuel it, to load passengers, and to start a flight (three taps overall), like it was in the first years of Airport City; however, you can automate it by building a (cheap) Ground Control building, so you just tap a plane once to start a flight — like it works on live version now.

Other Changes

• UI Updates: main UI, neighbor visiting UI, neighbor visiting loading screen, and possibly some more;
• Updated terrain in all areas;
• Some nice looking tech: Terminals and Control Towers now reflect the clouds passing above, and planes have shader effects;
• Some of the older planes got new names in line with newer ones;
• One new level of Terminal and two new levels of Control Tower;
• The number of Runways is now maxed at two (a tech limitation), so if you have more than that, there’ll be an in-game compensation in coins for the runways you lose after the update; your two highest level runways are to stay;
• Special event planes will move from hangars to inventory until we update those events to be compatible with 7.0.

View attachment 20185

Of course, we’ll try to make the transition from 6.x to 7.0 as smooth as possible. You keep your fleet and all your airport buildings at their current levels whatever they are at the moment of update.

And... That's all for now! There’ll be detailed guides about everything coming later from @Ur-quan on our official Facebook page, but right now most team members are very busy with bringing this update to you, and the rest do some smaller ones with special events.

Cheers,
Ivan.

This is really huge and nice ... Need to know more how to do all this Thanks a lot

 

[vayka1]

Hi Free2Play, at first thanks for sharing the 7.0 update review and it looks great, however i'm an AC-player from the beginning and i've 2 questions for you.
1) Which version for Android is needed for updating to 7.0 version? I'm having 2 older tablets, that's why i'm asking.
2) About the 100-limit: Are we older players ( the diehards) loosing our items which are above 100?
I know you've mentioned earlier we don't lose them, am i right? But i'm still asking you this, because it's not clear written in your preview.
Thanks in advance for answering my questions.

 

[crescent moon (RIP)]

Since we're dealing with "game balance" (ie 100 item limit), along with this exciting update, are those who have 40 Rocket Gardens, Space Travel Monuments, CBMs,, etc., going to be brought down to the same limit as the rest of us? If not, then we're not really dealing with game balance, are we?

 

[Crimdrac]

Free2Play Just a question about the Beta, will it be an open one or possible to sign up for it?

 

[Jgm85]

Will you recompensate the money (real life money not in game coins) and greens spent on now useless upgraded slots?

If not thanks for wasting my hard earned cash...

 

[Jgm85]

Having bought greens with real money, spent them on extra slots for items - which now will be useless is a clear misleading of consumers...

 

[Husam]

I am still saying No 100 Limit and should be without Limited at all for everyone.

 

[Free2Play]

Hi Free2Play, at first thanks for sharing the 7.0 update review and it looks great, however i'm an AC-player from the beginning and i've 2 questions for you.
1) Which version for Android is needed for updating to 7.0 version? I'm having 2 older tablets, that's why i'm asking.
2) About the 100-limit: Are we older players ( the diehards) loosing our items which are above 100?
I know you've mentioned earlier we don't lose them, am i right? But i'm still asking you this, because it's not clear written in your preview.
Thanks in advance for answering my questions.

1) 7.0 runs on the same tech as latest 6.x updates.
2) Nothing has changed, nobody takes away something you have acquired under previous edition of game rules, you just can't get more going forward until you use the items in stock. This is true for all game balance changes — those who have built more than 6 buildings of the same type get to keep them until those buildings are sold or moved to inventory.

 

[volly]

Ive been playing way before the 100 limit. If i get hit with it. Im out. Its hard enough now trying to manage supplies and adding the 100 limit is just too much micromanagement.

 

[Free2Play]

Free2Play Just a question about the Beta, will it be an open one or possible to sign up for it?

It'll probably be available only on Google Play. Other details are to follow at a later date (they can still change as of now).

 

[Free2Play]

Will you recompensate the money (real life money not in game coins) and greens spent on now useless upgraded slots?

If not thanks for wasting my hard earned cash...

I'm not personally recompensating anything and certainly not speaking on behalf of the company, but as far as I know all in-game goods and services in freemium games — and most online games for that matter — are provided 'as is' without a promise of their future use or lack of it.

This is specifically covered by Game Insight's Terms of Use which are shown in-game and are more or less the same as those terms of use in other online games. I'm quoting them not as a means of offence or defense but rather to be sure we're on the same ground here.

Our Games are free to play, but you may purchase virtual items, virtual currency in our Games to speed up gameplay and gaming progress by spending real money (“Virtual Items”). Means of payment may vary; depending on which application stores or platform you make your purchase in. Without prejudice to Section 4 below, Virtual Items cannot be exchanged into real money or refunded. You understand that you do not own Virtual Items, but acquire a limited license to use Virtual Items according to the specific Game’s gameplay; therefore, the right to use any Virtual Item is conditional to these Terms. No entitlement exists to use Virtual Items for a minimum period of time, unless the description of Virtual Item specifies a particular minimum period of time.

You agree that GI reserves the right to manage, regulate, control, modify and/or eliminate, game elements (which may, among other things, make Virtual Items substantially more valuable, effective or functional, or less valuable, effective or functional, more common or less common, or eliminated entirely) – for purposes of gameplay and multiplayer balancing. All Virtual Items remain our property.

 

[vayka1]

1) 7.0 runs on the same tech as latest 6.x updates.
2) Nothing has changed, nobody takes away something you have acquired under previous edition of game rules, you just can't get more going forward until you use the items in stock. This is true for all game balance changes — those who have built more than 6 buildings of the same type get to keep them until those buildings are sold or moved to inventory.

Thanks for your quick response. But i must say, excuse me for it, i agree with my fellow "Diehards" that the 100- limit is a very nasty change in the game.
The developers want the game to balance, but they eventually won't get rid from the cheaters, which are dominating all the rankings. They will find another way to cheat the game, whatever that will be.
Time will learn!!

 

[Tim Shutters]

Hi!

About a year ago we’ve thought for a while about Airport City’s future. What could be a major new step for it going forward? What could we do to both please most of our current players and hopefully attract lots of new ones? Of all things, which one should we focus on?

It took a few months of pre-production to figure this one out. First art assets for this update went into production in May, 2018. By late August we had the game design documentation mostly done and some of the art, so our engineers started working on the update in September. It certainly took longer than expected for a variety of reasons: we never did such a big update before, it’s built atop existing game (and we supposedly will not break it for everyone with update’s release), and we did a major alteration of art assets midway through, because the whole thing didn’t look good enough when we’ve started to put it together piece by piece.

Anyway, we’re finally getting close to completing it. Right now we’re targeting late June or early July for a beta release, and August for a release for all players. Below are the in-game screenshots from the latest 7.0 test version with only UI being hidden.

View attachment 20184

Update 7.0 Highlights

• There’re now three areas in Airport City: the city on top, the airport in the middle, and tech area on the bottom. The city part remains the same: a sandbox to build a city of your dreams the way you like. Key airport buildings have moved to airport area and are now pre-built or there's a free space reserved for them at certain places so the airport operations can run pretty much like they are run in real airports. Tech area houses the rest of airport buildings, power plants, and other infrastucture buildings like oil refineries and flight catering facilities;
• All planes are now 3D planes, some of them got a major redesign;
• All new Terminals, Control Towers, and Runways, although some of them got to keep their designs;
• Planes will now use a bit of pathfinding to determine who comes and who waits in line, and it’s done in accordance with general rules of aircraft traffic in real airports; no hassle, though, after you start a flight your air traffic controllers will take care of everything for you, so there’s no chance of plane crash (Airport City is a casual simulator, and we want to keep it that way).

Gameplay Changes

• You can build Boarding Bridges to speed up loading of passengers for big planes;
• Terminals can now be expanded with Terminal Sections that speed up the servicing of planes by ground vehicles that are stationed within;
• Terminals can be further expanded with Parking Lots to increase maximum amount of passengers;
• We now have ground vehicles to service planes! If there’s no Terminal Section next to a Stand, those vehicles come from a Service Vehicle Park which takes some time;
• Hangars are no more (except the Reserve Hangars), all planes, both your planes and guest planes, now use the same Stands on the ‘first come, first served’ basis;
• Control Tower is now responsible for a max number of active planes (i.e. planes in use);
• Rebalance of the XP progression through levels: it will be more smooth in the mid game; the total amount of XP needed to reach level 80 remains the same;
• Rebalance of the reputation XP with new reputation levels; the amount of free gifts you can send daily will depend on your reputation; the max amount will be more than 20;
• 100 per item type limit will be enforced for everyone, as I’ve told you previously;
  
• One level of Runway per plane type, so there’re more levels of runways;
  
• By default, you need to tap a plane to refuel it, to load passengers, and to start a flight (three taps overall), like it was in the first years of Airport City; however, you can automate it by building a (cheap) Ground Control building, so you just tap a plane once to start a flight — like it works on live version now.

Other Changes

• UI Updates: main UI, neighbor visiting UI, neighbor visiting loading screen, and possibly some more;
• Updated terrain in all areas;
• Some nice looking tech: Terminals and Control Towers now reflect the clouds passing above, and planes have shader effects;
• Some of the older planes got new names in line with newer ones;
• One new level of Terminal and two new levels of Control Tower;
• The number of Runways is now maxed at two (a tech limitation), so if you have more than that, there’ll be an in-game compensation in coins for the runways you lose after the update; your two highest level runways are to stay;
• Special event planes will move from hangars to inventory until we update those events to be compatible with 7.0.

View attachment 20185

Of course, we’ll try to make the transition from 6.x to 7.0 as smooth as possible. You keep your fleet and all your airport buildings at their current levels whatever they are at the moment of update.

And... That's all for now! There’ll be detailed guides about everything coming later from @Ur-quan on our official Facebook page, but right now most team members are very busy with bringing this update to you, and the rest do some smaller ones with special events.

Cheers,
Ivan.

Wow, ambitious update! As a software developer, I salute your team, especially for the algorithm that will convert our airports into different airport layouts and technical areas - that has got to be a total mind-bender.

 

[crescent moon (RIP)]

I am excited to see the new layout, and try the new gameplay. But I'm an old lady, and not so sure if my poor old brain will adapt. But I'll certainly give it a try.

BUT...
As far as I can figure, we're going to end up with 3 classes of players for this game. (maybe 4) The Vontake/facebook players with their nearly unlimited buildings and no need to spend any real $$$. The mid and long term players who may have spent a lot of money, but now see no sense in spending any more and may or may not leave the game, and the newbies, who will spend a bit of money, but when they see they can not compete because of the players in the first class getting first in flights, alliances, and launches, will either leave the game or piddle along without spending any more money. I'm speaking only from the competitive side of me, I like to place in ranking at least occasionally. I'm sure there are many players who just play for the sake of the game and don't care about rankings, and many of those will continue to play & spend money. Maybe that is the audience GI is looking for.

See, I didn't mention the 100 item limit even once!!! (oops )

 

[Capt.S]

I'm not personally recompensating anything and certainly not speaking on behalf of the company, but as far as I know all in-game goods and services in freemium games — and most online games for that matter — are provided 'as is' without a promise of their future use or lack of it.

This is specifically covered by Game Insight's Terms of Use which are shown in-game and are more or less the same as those terms of use in other online games. I'm quoting them not as a means of offence or defense but rather to be sure we're on the same ground here.

That virtually guarantees that virtually nobody here will be buying anymore virtual currency....virtually!

 

[Mouse]

• Rebalance of the reputation XP with new reputation levels; the amount of free gifts you can send daily will depend on your reputation; the max amount will be more than 20

I’m actually surprised nobody mentioned this one. It appears they are reducing the number gifts lower level games can send. Very disappointing if true.

Free2Play, please provide more details on this item. Thank you

 

[exwhy]

Hi!

About a year ago we’ve thought for a while about Airport City’s future. What could be a major new step for it going forward? What could we do to both please most of our current players and hopefully attract lots of new ones? Of all things, which one should we focus on?

It took a few months of pre-production to figure this one out. First art assets for this update went into production in May, 2018. By late August we had the game design documentation mostly done and some of the art, so our engineers started working on the update in September. It certainly took longer than expected for a variety of reasons: we never did such a big update before, it’s built atop existing game (and we supposedly will not break it for everyone with update’s release), and we did a major alteration of art assets midway through, because the whole thing didn’t look good enough when we’ve started to put it together piece by piece.

Anyway, we’re finally getting close to completing it. Right now we’re targeting late June or early July for a beta release, and August for a release for all players. Below are the in-game screenshots from the latest 7.0 test version with only UI being hidden.

View attachment 20184

Update 7.0 Highlights

• There’re now three areas in Airport City: the city on top, the airport in the middle, and tech area on the bottom. The city part remains the same: a sandbox to build a city of your dreams the way you like. Key airport buildings have moved to airport area and are now pre-built or there's a free space reserved for them at certain places so the airport operations can run pretty much like they are run in real airports. Tech area houses the rest of airport buildings, power plants, and other infrastucture buildings like oil refineries and flight catering facilities;
• All planes are now 3D planes, some of them got a major redesign;
• All new Terminals, Control Towers, and Runways, although some of them got to keep their designs;
• Planes will now use a bit of pathfinding to determine who comes and who waits in line, and it’s done in accordance with general rules of aircraft traffic in real airports; no hassle, though, after you start a flight your air traffic controllers will take care of everything for you, so there’s no chance of plane crash (Airport City is a casual simulator, and we want to keep it that way).

Gameplay Changes

• You can build Boarding Bridges to speed up loading of passengers for big planes;
• Terminals can now be expanded with Terminal Sections that speed up the servicing of planes by ground vehicles that are stationed within;
• Terminals can be further expanded with Parking Lots to increase maximum amount of passengers;
• We now have ground vehicles to service planes! If there’s no Terminal Section next to a Stand, those vehicles come from a Service Vehicle Park which takes some time;
• Hangars are no more (except the Reserve Hangars), all planes, both your planes and guest planes, now use the same Stands on the ‘first come, first served’ basis;
• Control Tower is now responsible for a max number of active planes (i.e. planes in use);
• Rebalance of the XP progression through levels: it will be more smooth in the mid game; the total amount of XP needed to reach level 80 remains the same;
• Rebalance of the reputation XP with new reputation levels; the amount of free gifts you can send daily will depend on your reputation; the max amount will be more than 20;
• 100 per item type limit will be enforced for everyone, as I’ve told you previously;
  
• One level of Runway per plane type, so there’re more levels of runways;
  
• By default, you need to tap a plane to refuel it, to load passengers, and to start a flight (three taps overall), like it was in the first years of Airport City; however, you can automate it by building a (cheap) Ground Control building, so you just tap a plane once to start a flight — like it works on live version now.

Other Changes

• UI Updates: main UI, neighbor visiting UI, neighbor visiting loading screen, and possibly some more;
• Updated terrain in all areas;
• Some nice looking tech: Terminals and Control Towers now reflect the clouds passing above, and planes have shader effects;
• Some of the older planes got new names in line with newer ones;
• One new level of Terminal and two new levels of Control Tower;
• The number of Runways is now maxed at two (a tech limitation), so if you have more than that, there’ll be an in-game compensation in coins for the runways you lose after the update; your two highest level runways are to stay;
• Special event planes will move from hangars to inventory until we update those events to be compatible with 7.0.

View attachment 20185

Of course, we’ll try to make the transition from 6.x to 7.0 as smooth as possible. You keep your fleet and all your airport buildings at their current levels whatever they are at the moment of update.

And... That's all for now! There’ll be detailed guides about everything coming later from @Ur-quan on our official Facebook page, but right now most team members are very busy with bringing this update to you, and the rest do some smaller ones with special events.

Cheers,
Ivan.

I'm really amazed at the artworks, a wonderful job there!

Airport operations fascinated me as a kid. I would spend hours at the airport viewing gallery to observe the fueling, loading, taxiing, taking off, and landing of planes. My brother and I even played simple simulations at home using planes built from Lego and drawing the taxiways/runways with chalk on the balcony floor. The new designs make me feel like I'm reliving my childhood dream.

The problem(?) of growing up is that I've become more intellectual even in games. Probably not many could imagine strategising with excel sheets or drawing probability trees. If we strip any game down to its core, it's ultimately a game of numbers - probabilities, economy, cost-benefit analysis etc. These number games could possibly take up players' focus more often than intended, while underrating other features such as graphic designs and depriving players from full enjoyment.

While it's no doubt that "certain quantitative aspects" of the game bother me, I would like to offer an alternative perspective here. Seeing the new designs totally reminds me on why did I choose Airport City over other "strategic number games" right from the start.

Looking forward to the facelift!

 

[Navigata07]

Hi!

About a year ago we’ve thought for a while about Airport City’s future. What could be a major new step for it going forward? What could we do to both please most of our current players and hopefully attract lots of new ones? Of all things, which one should we focus on?

It took a few months of pre-production to figure this one out. First art assets for this update went into production in May, 2018. By late August we had the game design documentation mostly done and some of the art, so our engineers started working on the update in September. It certainly took longer than expected for a variety of reasons: we never did such a big update before, it’s built atop existing game (and we supposedly will not break it for everyone with update’s release), and we did a major alteration of art assets midway through, because the whole thing didn’t look good enough when we’ve started to put it together piece by piece.

Anyway, we’re finally getting close to completing it. Right now we’re targeting late June or early July for a beta release, and August for a release for all players. Below are the in-game screenshots from the latest 7.0 test version with only UI being hidden.

View attachment 20184

Update 7.0 Highlights

• There’re now three areas in Airport City: the city on top, the airport in the middle, and tech area on the bottom. The city part remains the same: a sandbox to build a city of your dreams the way you like. Key airport buildings have moved to airport area and are now pre-built or there's a free space reserved for them at certain places so the airport operations can run pretty much like they are run in real airports. Tech area houses the rest of airport buildings, power plants, and other infrastucture buildings like oil refineries and flight catering facilities;
• All planes are now 3D planes, some of them got a major redesign;
• All new Terminals, Control Towers, and Runways, although some of them got to keep their designs;
• Planes will now use a bit of pathfinding to determine who comes and who waits in line, and it’s done in accordance with general rules of aircraft traffic in real airports; no hassle, though, after you start a flight your air traffic controllers will take care of everything for you, so there’s no chance of plane crash (Airport City is a casual simulator, and we want to keep it that way).

Gameplay Changes

• You can build Boarding Bridges to speed up loading of passengers for big planes;
• Terminals can now be expanded with Terminal Sections that speed up the servicing of planes by ground vehicles that are stationed within;
• Terminals can be further expanded with Parking Lots to increase maximum amount of passengers;
• We now have ground vehicles to service planes! If there’s no Terminal Section next to a Stand, those vehicles come from a Service Vehicle Park which takes some time;
• Hangars are no more (except the Reserve Hangars), all planes, both your planes and guest planes, now use the same Stands on the ‘first come, first served’ basis;
• Control Tower is now responsible for a max number of active planes (i.e. planes in use);
• Rebalance of the XP progression through levels: it will be more smooth in the mid game; the total amount of XP needed to reach level 80 remains the same;
• Rebalance of the reputation XP with new reputation levels; the amount of free gifts you can send daily will depend on your reputation; the max amount will be more than 20;
• 100 per item type limit will be enforced for everyone, as I’ve told you previously;
  
• One level of Runway per plane type, so there’re more levels of runways;
  
• By default, you need to tap a plane to refuel it, to load passengers, and to start a flight (three taps overall), like it was in the first years of Airport City; however, you can automate it by building a (cheap) Ground Control building, so you just tap a plane once to start a flight — like it works on live version now.

Other Changes

• UI Updates: main UI, neighbor visiting UI, neighbor visiting loading screen, and possibly some more;
• Updated terrain in all areas;
• Some nice looking tech: Terminals and Control Towers now reflect the clouds passing above, and planes have shader effects;
• Some of the older planes got new names in line with newer ones;
• One new level of Terminal and two new levels of Control Tower;
• The number of Runways is now maxed at two (a tech limitation), so if you have more than that, there’ll be an in-game compensation in coins for the runways you lose after the update; your two highest level runways are to stay;
• Special event planes will move from hangars to inventory until we update those events to be compatible with 7.0.

View attachment 20185

Of course, we’ll try to make the transition from 6.x to 7.0 as smooth as possible. You keep your fleet and all your airport buildings at their current levels whatever they are at the moment of update.

And... That's all for now! There’ll be detailed guides about everything coming later from @Ur-quan on our official Facebook page, but right now most team members are very busy with bringing this update to you, and the rest do some smaller ones with special events.

Cheers,
Ivan.

It looks amazing! Keep up the great work.