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Major Change Coming to My Colony 2 - Important
This is an important My Colony 2 update that all players of the game will need to be aware of, so please read up and share with others you know who enjoy playing My Colony 2.
Over ten years ago now, I created my own cross-platform app host called Web App Core, sort of my own in-house version of something like Phone Gap, which allowed me to easily distribute javascript based games across web, android, iOS, Windows and Steam, all using the same shared code base. Over time, Web App Core had become bloated and largely unnecessary, and so over the past year and a half, I have been slowly moving a lot of my apps and games off of the platform, and the time has come to do the same for My Colony 2.
This code migration will be taking place with the next release of My Colony 2 (v0.37.0). This will require extensive refactoring of the base game code in order to remove/replace all of the existing Web App Core related hooks. Luckily I have already largely begun to do this over the past few updates, so it should make the migration a bit easier. Once it is done though, there will be a few implications that players need to be aware of.
New URL
My Colony 2 will be moving off of the Ape Web Apps website and to it's own URL at https://mycolony2.com/. Anybody using the Web version of the game (which is most players right now) will need to update their bookmarks. If you have MC2 installed on your system as a PWA (which is the preferred way to go), the app will not automatically update. You will need to uninstall the old version and reinstall the new.
Game Saves
This is the big one. If you are currently using Cloud Sync or if you have migrated to the new method of exporting your save out of the game and onto your device, no changes will be necessary on your end. However, if your game data is saved into the internal app storage (storage sandbox), your saved data will not transfer over to the new update. Therefore, it is vital that before the next update, you either turn on Cloud Sync, or export your game file to your system by using the Move to Filesystem feature.
I can't stress the importance of this, even if you are using one of the mobile apps. Do not get caught with a game file loss in the next update.
This change will be big "under the hood" but if you take care of the points mentioned above, it should be fairly seamless from a player standpoint. Removing the legacy Web App Core code and decoupling MC2 from the Ape Web Apps domain will help the engine improve and grow, so this is an important move. It is also pretty much necessary if I ever want to spin the MC2 engine off into other games, for instance, an Antiquitas 2 perhaps. I have been wanting to make the change for a while now, and the time has finally arrived.
Please help spread the word to other players!! I will wait a few weeks before I start migrating things so that people have time to get their game saves in order. But don't put it off or delay! If you have any questions regarding this, please reply here to this thread. Thank you!
Over ten years ago now, I created my own cross-platform app host called Web App Core, sort of my own in-house version of something like Phone Gap, which allowed me to easily distribute javascript based games across web, android, iOS, Windows and Steam, all using the same shared code base. Over time, Web App Core had become bloated and largely unnecessary, and so over the past year and a half, I have been slowly moving a lot of my apps and games off of the platform, and the time has come to do the same for My Colony 2.
This code migration will be taking place with the next release of My Colony 2 (v0.37.0). This will require extensive refactoring of the base game code in order to remove/replace all of the existing Web App Core related hooks. Luckily I have already largely begun to do this over the past few updates, so it should make the migration a bit easier. Once it is done though, there will be a few implications that players need to be aware of.
New URL
My Colony 2 will be moving off of the Ape Web Apps website and to it's own URL at https://mycolony2.com/. Anybody using the Web version of the game (which is most players right now) will need to update their bookmarks. If you have MC2 installed on your system as a PWA (which is the preferred way to go), the app will not automatically update. You will need to uninstall the old version and reinstall the new.
Game Saves
This is the big one. If you are currently using Cloud Sync or if you have migrated to the new method of exporting your save out of the game and onto your device, no changes will be necessary on your end. However, if your game data is saved into the internal app storage (storage sandbox), your saved data will not transfer over to the new update. Therefore, it is vital that before the next update, you either turn on Cloud Sync, or export your game file to your system by using the Move to Filesystem feature.
I can't stress the importance of this, even if you are using one of the mobile apps. Do not get caught with a game file loss in the next update.
This change will be big "under the hood" but if you take care of the points mentioned above, it should be fairly seamless from a player standpoint. Removing the legacy Web App Core code and decoupling MC2 from the Ape Web Apps domain will help the engine improve and grow, so this is an important move. It is also pretty much necessary if I ever want to spin the MC2 engine off into other games, for instance, an Antiquitas 2 perhaps. I have been wanting to make the change for a while now, and the time has finally arrived.
Please help spread the word to other players!! I will wait a few weeks before I start migrating things so that people have time to get their game saves in order. But don't put it off or delay! If you have any questions regarding this, please reply here to this thread. Thank you!
Owner of Ape Apps, LLC
I have one question to ask: Why exactly are you doing this for?
Best of regards, Wastelander (formerly Architecture), Overlord and Designated Leader of the Earth States.
That's really cool. I guess yeah, if some piece of software is being worked on for 10 years, it can easily become bloated and messy. As for the domain, why not host the game itself on the my-colony.com website? Anyways, huge change. Hope everyone saves their saves.
Have a fantastic day!
~cakedon (formerly itsLiseczeq)
~cakedon (formerly itsLiseczeq)
I was originally going to just put it on a my-colony.com subdomain, like mc2.my-colony.com, but out of curiosity I checked the price for buying the mycolony2.com domain and it was dirt cheap so I got it. I suppose if people really have a preference I could still make it as a subdomain of my-colony.com, I am not particularly partial either way.
Either way I wanted to get the domain, because otherwise some squatter always buys it and either not be willing to sell or will want an extreme price. For example, someone who bought apeapps.com (without the dash) has done nothing with the site for over a decade and I have tried to contact him several times over a sale of the domain with no response. Similar story from whoever owns mycolony.com with no dash.
As for why migrate the game, I have really been migrating my entire web app catalogue to their own domains or subdomains over the past year. The My Colony games are a bit larger and more complicated, so they have not been switched yet, plus it is disruptive to save data. But a lot of the newer PWA related standards that have come out over the years sort of work on the assumption that web apps be on their own domain.
For instance, internally Web Apps that are installed to a system from the same domain will all use the same shared internal storage for files and databases. Service workers also tend to get confused when you have a bunch of apps running from the same domain. In a lot of important ways under the hood, each separate domain (or subdomain) is considered to be it's own application, and so sharing 40 apps on the same domain tends to either confuse the system, or at least limit things you are able to utilize.
There are other reasons for the game to have it's own URL, but the conflicting service workers is the biggest one. Web App Core also comes with a lot of functions that just are not needed for a game like My Colony 2, things like controlling device flash hardware for the strobe light, code for scanning documents with PDF Document Scanner, etc.
Either way I wanted to get the domain, because otherwise some squatter always buys it and either not be willing to sell or will want an extreme price. For example, someone who bought apeapps.com (without the dash) has done nothing with the site for over a decade and I have tried to contact him several times over a sale of the domain with no response. Similar story from whoever owns mycolony.com with no dash.
As for why migrate the game, I have really been migrating my entire web app catalogue to their own domains or subdomains over the past year. The My Colony games are a bit larger and more complicated, so they have not been switched yet, plus it is disruptive to save data. But a lot of the newer PWA related standards that have come out over the years sort of work on the assumption that web apps be on their own domain.
For instance, internally Web Apps that are installed to a system from the same domain will all use the same shared internal storage for files and databases. Service workers also tend to get confused when you have a bunch of apps running from the same domain. In a lot of important ways under the hood, each separate domain (or subdomain) is considered to be it's own application, and so sharing 40 apps on the same domain tends to either confuse the system, or at least limit things you are able to utilize.
There are other reasons for the game to have it's own URL, but the conflicting service workers is the biggest one. Web App Core also comes with a lot of functions that just are not needed for a game like My Colony 2, things like controlling device flash hardware for the strobe light, code for scanning documents with PDF Document Scanner, etc.
Owner of Ape Apps, LLC
