Playdom's Ben Liu discusses City of Wonder's future through Colonies [Interview]

The Sea Colony
By now, a good amount of players have already journeyed into the new Colonies expansion in City of Wonder. Playdom's most recent content update for the game contains a ton of new features, but what does it all mean? We recently chatted with City of Wonder's executive producer Ben Liu to find out exactly what Colonies is all about. From brand new combat statistics to what this expansion implies for the future of the game, Liu had plenty to say about the new direction for City of Wonder.

What was the process like in arriving at the idea of Colonies for the next content update to City of Wonder?
Keeping with the idea of the game, which is to build your civilization and advance it through time, I think it was really [logical] for us to imagine the fans would want to take their civilizations and expand them to new worlds. It's something that's very consistent with what happened in history as well. Naturally, we looked at what the English did and what great empires like the Romans did. So, we definitely took that as inspiration.

Find the rest of our interview behind the break.

Build the Great Boat
What can players expect to see in this expansion aside from new buildings and technologies?
For the first time, players are going to have access to sea tiles. So, they have a small land area-basically about one fourth of the area of their new colony-and then access to three fourths of the area, which is basically sea. For the first time they'll be able to place not just land-based buildings but docks, boats, islands. We even have a school of dolphins, a blue whale-we have sea creatures that you can place as well.

We also made a change to the PvP (player vs. player) aspect of the game, which is the encounter system. You can do military encounters, cultural exchanges and trades just as you can do in the main city, but now there is a new statistic called naval power. Investing in buildings, ships and other structures with great naval power will improve your encounters with other civilizations.

So, these new islands and sea creatures that you can place on the sea tiles: How will they play into management?
It's similar to managing structures inland. Just like you have Goods buildings on land we also have things like a coconut grove that you can place on water that you'll be able to harvest coconuts from it and basically use that to generate-another thing I forgot to mention is that we have a new currency system. There's a new currency called Sand Dollars and you'll have to use these new structures to generate Sand Dollars to grow your colony.

You mentioned earlier combat changes with the new naval power statistic. How will that change the combat dynamic that's now just about Attack and Defense?
We got a lot of feedback from our fans that they love the current combat mechanic, so we didn't want to make a dramatic change to it. It's basically a bonus multiplier. The more naval power you have it will give you a bonus on top your core Attack and Defense. It will basically multiply your base stats to see how strong your place is in the colony.

We also made another slight tweak to the calculation. In your colony, land is more limited and the nature of encounters between civilizations is changing. So, instead of taking an aggregate of everything that's in your civilization we have a "Best Of." So, your best four buildings or ships will compete with the "Best Of" other civilizations.

And what becomes of those lesser items?
Because everything in your colony has naval power, they still play a factor, but they're less important than your four best.
Great Boat Help
I guess colonies will be the logical progression for the game. So, do you think Colonies will be the basis for future expansions with more territories to explore?
The new plans aren't public yet, but this first colony is a sea-based colony. And when you unlock it, you will a larger map with different territories and you'll see plots for future colonies. I think the current idea is to have different themes and different gameplay in each of these colonies. This is the first of much larger kinds of expansion and many more colonies for your civilization in the future.

How do you think Colonies will change the overall gameplay dynamic of City of Wonder? Will players approach the game differently given new content to explore and later manage?
I think so, because it really changes it from managing one city to managing an empire, a collection of territories and cities. So, it goes from a game that's about managing your great capital through time to managing your empire and civilizations through multiple territories.

Disney / Playdom reaches $3 million settlement in children's privacy case

If you've been one to question whether your information is safe online, then heads-up. Playdom (now owned by Disney) has reached a $3 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission in a case concerning the US Child Online Privacy Protection Act.

Before Playdom acquired Acclaim back in 2010, the company ran a game called Pony Stars, which has since closed down. During its run however, the game drew in more than 821,000 youngsters, with the FTC accusing Acclaim (and subsequently now Playdom and Disney) of collecting kids' ages and email addresses, and then posting that information live without parental consent. Another 403,000 children posted their information on other social sites run by the company. While this is of course disheartening to hear, it seems like after Acclaim was purchased by Playdom last year, that this was more of an oversight than an intentional practice, as Kotaku notes that a report claimed that this was in violation of Playdom's own internal policies.

While this case deals primarily with childrens' privacy, hopefully the high price tag on the settlement will make other social game developers take note. Online privacy is a huge deal, and if you violate users' trust, be prepared to pay the price.

Does hearing about this violation make you change your thoughts about Playdom or Disney's games? Do you allow your children to play online games, or do you keep them from the online space due to issues such as these?