Hey Hemperors, sad news: we have shut down the Cafe forums, and we'd like to clarify a few of the FAQs in regards to why we chose to move away from KTPlay.
Why are you getting rid of KTPlay?
The Cafe/forum part of the game was developed by another company and it has come to our attention that it will no longer be compatible with our future updates. It was not an easy decision but we had no choice but to move forward with removing the forums from our future updates. This means that all posts, likes, follows and private messages from the KTPlay forum will disappear.
Are you removing the forums because it was expensive?
Not at all. The removal of the forums was sudden for us as well and what pushed us was a technical issue. To develop Hempire, we use a development tool called Unity which we need to keep updated as a requirement by Google. When we did that, we discovered that the forums stopped loading in our internal builds. When we tried to contact the forum developers (KTPlay), they were not able to provide us with a version that will work with the latest version of Unity that we had to use.
Because of this, we were left with 3 options:
No longer supporting Android devices with game updates
Continue updating Android devices but having an unresponsive Cafe building
Providing redirection towards Discord for all devices so we can continue having an active community platform
After carefully considering all our options, we have decided to go with the latter.
Why can't you just leave the forums as is?
Technically, we could have released the game with the incompatible forum version. But even if we released it as is, nothing will happen if you tap the Cafe. Creating our own forum system is also a possibility, but building something as complicated as a forum or even a global chat in the game is very difficult and will take an enormous amount of time and resources, which we do not have the capacity for at this time.
Is this going to affect other parts of the game?
Will the Community/the Café building disappear?
No, this doesn't mean the community will disappear! We will be migrating the community over to our existing platform called Discord, where we are currently making changes to make the environment similar to the old forums. We will be moving our announcements and contests there as well. Contest entries in the forums Cafe forums still count until we make the full move!
Will Enterprise Chat stop working too?
Enterprise Chat is a separate feature, so it will not be affected! You will still be able to chat within your Enterprise and send/receive products. Come join the Discord and see if you like it firsthand and help us shape it to fit the community. Otherwise, if you have further questions or feedback, please let us know in the comments or send us a message.
Why did you choose Discord?
Of course, we considered other options and we are aware that Telegram is very popular among the community but considering our short timeline, Discord was our best option. Telegram is ideal for smaller group communication (like communicating with your Enterprise) but it is not suited for posting information, growing large audiences like a community, and having tools to moderate and facilitate multiple conversations and topics.
Discord also has high customization capability without the need for a third party, which means we can directly make changes as per the community's request.
Why do I have to download a separate app to use Discord?
We understand this can be an inconvenience to some players but unfortunately Discord does not provide a way for us to directly integrate the server into a mobile game.
That being said, we are looking at all our available options to ensure we are choosing the best long-term solution for our community and its needs.
When will this change be taking effect?
We have already implemented the change as of our 2.16.0 update. We apologize for the inconvenience, as KTPlay was a big part of the game for many players. If you have any questions or have any suggestions to improve the new Discord server, feel free to message us any time!
