After a fiasco of a launch, we have worked hard these past weeks to make the game what it should have been on day one. Plenty has happened. Among other things, the back end should now be much more resilient against errors.
If you have been active, you have certainly noticed. But here are some of the changes so far:
Added an option to settle with leaving investors cash-first
Nicer domain address for web links
Added log messages for investment targets
Fixed and implemented some new top lists (more to come)
Added buttons to change order sizes
Added clear indicators when buttons are inoperable
Added clear indicator when orders are locked
More useful information is visible in order creation windows
Enforced clear limits on duplicate or disallowed orders
Allowed some common special characters in fund names (' $)
Clearer language in many places
Clarified and updated the detailed trading rules
Current holdings are now ordered alphabetically
Increased the default limit price to +/- 20%
Normalized sound effect volume
Fixed a clock drift issue on some machines
And numerous other polishes, bug fixes, and back-end changes
And one of the major changes, that old players certainly noticed, is the names. Using fictional names for the securities was an idea as old as the game. We thought it would "gamify" the experience, and that the names would be clear enough not to hinder play. In practice, it was a hassle, and not a good choice. It held back the experience. This became clear very quickly. The option still exists, but from now on, we'll just use the standard names.
There is still plenty to be done, and work is in full swing. Now, however, the game is finally starting to feel the way it should have from the beginning. It should offer a smooth management experience. Over the next few weeks, we will make progress on the back end to ensure the smooth operation of complicated market features such as performance fees, dividends, and stock splits. This will be accompanied by front-end polish. Then, we plan to offer more options for how your hedge fund appears online, including a custom free-form description and a customizable number of visible top holdings.
We've had persistent problems with updating some stock prices. That has been a problem with the API we use for data, and it never seems to work perfectly. We're moving to a completely new system soon, to hopefully finally have reliable updates.
Wishing you fun and success on your continued investing journey!