DOFUS Touch has now been available in closed beta for around 6 months. The more curious among you have been able to follow its development on the official forums or on the official Twitter account. Today, we offer you an overall glance at how the beta is advancing and a bit more information about the future of the game.
Our objectives
For several months, we've been offering at least one update a week for the beta in order to provide corrections or to activate DOFUS Touch's exclusive new features (you'll discover a few of those further down). Currently, our teams are concentrating on resolving various bugs in order to offer you the best possible version of the game when it's released.
At the beginning of March, the developers finished off the bugs with WebGL on Android which kept numerous players from launching the game. DOFUS Touch should now function on all Android tablets at least 7" in size. For iOS, you'll need at least an iPad 2 running iOS 8 or higher. You should also understand that the quality of the game can vary from tablet to tablet, depending on technical specifications.
The beta in numbers
Jonquille will tell you more about some of the numbers for the beta:
DOFUS Touch's new exclusive features
Several devblogs are already available to discuss all of the new things in the public area of the official forum, more specifically, here.
You can also discover the follower NPC Joris, who will accompany new players all throughout their adventures in Incarnam in order to ground them in the basics of the game. You'll also see that the character creation interface and the shop interface as well have been completely revised.
Also new, the new Marketplace is now accessible from anywhere thanks to a simple shortcut button.
And to wrap up, a new discussion channel will soon appear for all characters of level 30 maximum. It should assist in better welcoming new players, because some more experienced players will have permanent access. This way, they can respond to the questions posted there.
Here's what the player Tanis thinks of these new functionalities:
First shock, the avatar selection is more intuitive than on PC, with visuals that catch the eye, and responsive tools that fulfill our wants concerning color personalization. You can't help but look at Touch with fresh eyes. You may know the game, but not like this. Once your character has been created, Incarnam is unveiled and we ask ourselves what a new player would think of the game. The mission of this area - to explain the gameplay basics of combat and careers - is carried off perfectly. I was happy to find Ganymede, even without his Arachnee. One can't get lost: there's Joris, a follower character who delivers a plethora of advice even though the players aren't nice to him, since you have to hit him to interact with him (on Touch, you have to hit things with your fingers to perform actions). DOFUS Touch takes place in the Krosmoz. Let's be clear: when you know the game, everything goes very quickly, and you pick it up rapidly, and then you marvel at all the particularities that make Touch different from it's elder, like rapid notifications in combat.
The next logical step is thinking about improvements that could make the game even more comfortable... and a lot of comfort is gained by having the portable Marketplace. No matter where you are, you can conduct business with the touch of a button. I rejoiced in being able to buy bread from the middle of a dungeon, and sell my ore directly from the depths of the mine. Here and there, I ventured out into the light of day to find some companions (bots are inexistent in the depths of the mines), and there, the use of space on the screen is vital. Communicating without blocking the entire screen is a challenge that the studio is currently winning with the appearance of dialog balloons. Whether it's the NPCs or the other players, the immersion is more intense. One thing is sure: When you play Touch, you completely rediscover a game you thought you knew, and you end up waiting for the devblogs with impatience.
Access to the closed beta
No fewer than 6,000 were given access to the closed beta, across several different methods: contests on the DOFUS and DOFUS Touch Twitter accounts, contests with different partners (jeuxvideo.com, JeuxOnLine...), YouTube and fan site contests, and finally through our SurveyMonkey questionnaires.
The beta testers will be rewarded with an exclusive title in the game and on the official forum, and by free Bonus Pack days depending on how much time they spent in the beta. At the moment, we can't tell you what will be in them.
Community life
The ambiance in this beta has been excellent, with everyone helping one another. We'd really like to thank all the testers for their kindness and their involvement.
It's also due in part to a project that we started with the collaboration of certain testers, which you've surely seen being discussed in the public part of the forum: the welcome guild. There will be an article on this subject in the weeks to come and will be renewed for the official release of the game.
The leader of the beta's welcome guild, Cait Sith, will tell you more:
Several in-game events have been offered to the testers not only by our community management team but also by the community itself! Manhunts, "dungeon races", raffles with different prizes to win for Saint Potrick, quizzes, and even more.
We were also happy to see the first fan site emerge, created by Cait Sith, and we invite you to go take a look: Papycha.fr.
Also, we'd like to take advantage of DOFUS Touch's launch to bring your attention to some new YouTubers. For example, Asilaron, who has already done several videos of the beta. Asilaron's next videos will be available on the official game site and also on the Papycha fan site.
And finally, DOFUS Touch welcomed the beta's first level 200 player in mid-April, a player named Hera! Congratulations on the accomplishment; he'll get a special title once the game's released.
DOFUS Touch: meet up!
Last Friday, April 22, 4 of the closed beta's most invested players were invited to Ankama:
- Cait-Sith, leader of the welcome guild Au Bazar de Papycha
- Choupa-Chou, the welcome guild's right hand
- Asilaron, DOFUS Touch YouTuber
- Blowndie, DOFUS Touch YouTuber and streamer
They had the opportunity to visit the company, located in Roubaix, before testing out some new features that hadn't yet been implemented in the beta. Among them: the follower NPC Joris, dialog balloons, drag & drop in combat, and the new map loading.
Then there was a first debriefing during which our four guests were able to share their impressions of these new features with Okajin (Tester), Furylaxx (UX Designer), XyaLe (DOFUS Community Manager), Nyom (DOFUS Touch Community Manager), Jonquille (DOFUS Touch Producer) et Poupik (Lead Community Manager).
The morning then finished with a roundtable during which the players asked us all their (numerous!) questions about the game and how it was evolving. An exchange that lasted no less than an hour and a half!
At the start of the afternoon, Jonquille, Blowndie, and Asilaron led the first DOFUS Live focusing on DOFUS Touch. On the program: a presentation of the game and a question and answer session. You can by the way find the entire replay here.
Finally, another debriefing with all the participants brought the day to a close. It was a very instructive day, as much for the players as for the staff.
We hope to be able to do this sort of thing again in the future, and we'd like to thank our guests again for their enthusiasm and for the moments we shared around DOFUS Touch!
Find out what Cait thought on the fan site dedicated to the game: "Un vendredi à Ankama!"
Check out Asilaron's video: [Asilaron-Dofus Touch] News + Visite des locaux Ankama!
DOFUS Touch release
The game will be released in Canada at the end of May before arriving in France, where we're targeting the first semester 2016. When the game is released in France, the players of the relevant community will start on a new server and won't be with the Canadian players. The beta will close its doors definitively once it's released in Canada.
As stated in the letter to the community, the game will start in Canada for two reasons:
- it will allow us to launch the game in two languages at once (French and English), in real conditions;
- new players, who have never played DOFUS, will be able to give us feedback not only on the game, but on the universe in general.
At the moment, we can't give you precise dates. We'll keep you informed as soon as we have any more information!
We hope that this letter answered your questions. If there are still things you want to know, please consult the FAQ or pose your question in the comments below.
We'll see you soon with even more news!