Greetings, KAWmmunity! We asked you to bring us your questions, and you delivered with thoughtfulness and depth. Your questions touched on the core of what Kingdoms at War means to you and we wanted to meet that sincerity with equally careful and thorough answers! Our hope is that this AMA not only provides a unique look behind the scenes, but also helps foster more meaningful dialogue between the community and the developers. Together, we can continue shaping a game worthy of its legacy. Thank you for celebrating ATA Day and KAW's 16th Anniversary with us! –The KAW Team Answers Hello. What’s your plans for future warring in kaw? It’s such a small amount of players that take part. Personally just feels like it’s a heavily ignored aspect of a PvP game. Thank you for taking time to read. -Owl [ATA]Lirael - You're right that wars haven't gotten much attention recently, and we know that's disappointing to those players who really love that part of the game. It's not because we don't care or don't see the value in them, but more that we've had to focus on other parts of the game. One thing that we've been doing recently is experimenting more with our rotating war formats - we introduced clan format as an experiment, which in general players seemed to like, although it came with its own set of problems. We'll be continuing to change these up in order to find what works best over the next few months. We also know that rewards have to be exciting enough so that players feel incentivized to war, so that’s also currently on our minds. In general, our rotating wars are the easiest for us to experiment with. Bigger wars like ASW are unlikely to return in their current format due to technical limitations - they often break and require a lot of manual oversight in order to work. Many of our war systems were originally prototypes that aren’t able to keep up with the expanded features involved with ASW, so we’d need to do quite a lot of work to make them more reliable. We do know that players love the ASW, so a direction we are thinking about is other ways that could replicate the same feeling - we’d love to work with the community to make sure we understand exactly what it is that makes ASW so special, then bring that experience back in another way. We'd also like to find ways for players to enjoy PVP without warring, but one challenge we often run into is alt abuse, which is a problem we haven’t solved far enough yet. Players multi-casting or hitting alts for free makes it very hard for us to reward players who are PVPing in good faith, but not players who are just using alts. This is one of the reasons we stopped doing PVP weekends, for instance. We’re continuing to make progress in banning bot accounts, so this could come back in the future! If players have any more feedback or suggestions on how to make PVP weekends a fairer play experience, we’re open to hearing them! For players who enjoy warring: what do you enjoy most about wars, and if you could pick a single thing for us to focus on, what would that be? (This could involve stability, improving matchups, new formats, UI changes, etc.) Is there any way we can have charm caps on kaw lowered or the impact reduced? Charms have gotten out of hand, and there is no way to get them in the game. It’s basically black market from people who used to abuse the game and make massive stacks. It would be nice if build and bfa were the most important things. Charms are still great, but it shouldn’t be as much as it currently plays a part. On a side note, some people appreciate all you do, it isn’t easy. I know there are many ungrateful people especially on these games, so thank you. (Also, this question could also go on pimd as well, but at least there are more ways to earn it there besides just a few pieces per event on kaw) -Anonymous [ATA]Jean - Adjusting the charm caps is actually something we’ve been looking into recently, and we’re making good progress on it. We just want to make sure we get it right, so we’re taking the time to dig into it properly and talk with the community along the way to make sure we really understand your perspecive. From a gameplay perspective, our goal with charms is for them to be an extra layer of progression, a way to boost your stats further, but not something that overshadows core systems like land progression. That’s where the caps come in, and why we want to make sure they’re balanced well. [ATA]Ripley - Since [ATA]Jean has already covered the way charms affect gameplay, I'll speak about the abuse side of things. You're absolutely right about charm farming. This is something we've been focused on behind the scenes for some time now. While I can't disclose all the details of what we've done to aid in detection and banning of cheaters, we have shipped several important updates to help us stay on top of this, and at this point the issue is a lot smaller than it once was. We have banned just over 2 million accounts in 2025 alone, many for charm farming abuse. We are continuing to improve our systems and detections to level the playing field, and if players have suggestions, feedback or reports on abuse, please do use the Discord or send in a ticket to let us know! How long does it take to design a new pet on KAW? -Anonymous [ATA]BurgerRP - It really depends! Sometimes we have an idea ready to go for the event, other times we brainstorm and try to find the perfect fit for the event. We always appreciate ideas as well! Feel free to send us some cool ideas! Once it’s ready for our artists (who do incredible work), the turnaround can be within 2 months or so. Why in the world would you release new lands when basically no one has the ones you just released fully unlocked? -Anonymous [ATA]Jean - I totally get it can feel frustrating when new lands come out and you’re still working on the last ones, but current player progression actually plays a big role in our decision making process here. When we release new lands, the goal isn’t to leave people behind, it’s to make sure players at every stage have something to work toward. For most players, that means continuing to make progress on their current lands, or working on both at the same time. For the smaller group who are already at the end, it’s about giving them something new so they don’t run out of goals entirely. That said, in a game like KAW that’s been around for so long, I know the gap can start to feel really big. It’s something we’re mindful of, and we’ve been looking at ways to make earlier lands faster to progress through so it’s easier to catch up and stay competitive as new ones come out. What’s the current roadmap for new releases? -6 [ATA]Jean - One of our goals is actually to start sharing a more ongoing roadmap with the community so you all have a clearer picture of what we’re focused on. We’re not quite there yet, though, so for now, I can share a few highlights of what’s currently in the works. Just a quick disclaimer: none of this is fully set in stone, and things can still shift around. This also isn’t a full list of everything we’re planning or want to do longterm, it’s more of a look at the very short-term things, that are least likely to change. With that said, here are a few of the things we’ve got our eyes on right now: - Charm cap changes: I know there was already a bit of a leak on this one, so it’s probably not a surprise! - Plates: We’re looking into how they’re being used and exploring mechanics changes that would make them more focused on building progression again, which would also reduce exploits, and open the door to rebalancing gold from other sources like EBs. - Banners and equipment: We're doing some work on both of these exploring some better ways to keep these interesting and exciting. - A new item set: A new set to replace the Prismatic Cluster items, which have been around for... ever? - BF & Holidays: A lot of our work right now is getting things ready for Black Friday, and some fun extras for the holidays! Do you actually read the support tickets? / What percentage of support tickets are handled by a bot? -Katie [ATA]Ripley - All support tickets go into a queue and are answered by a real person. We have an intake bot that points players to FAQs they may have missed, and if those aren't useful, the bot gathers some info up front to put in your ticket to help us answer it as quickly as we can. The folks answering tickets pass along feedback and questions to the wider team on a daily basis for consideration. We look at the ticket ratings regularly to identify areas for improvement, as well as spot checking the tickets themselves. If there are any specific types of tickets that are falling short for you, please let us know so we can look into it. Why was top 10 50 100 banner removed from events -defi-beef [ATA]Lirael - Our events are constantly changing, and we haven't had any LB banner rewards for a number of years now. We're unlikely to return to doing the same format as before, but exploring new ways to make banners more exciting is something we've been actively working on, including the unique banner designs for ATA day! Jordan reminds me of someone who likes classics. Does he like old Top Gun or the new Top Gun? -Halo [ATA]BurgerRP - I think he’d like the original, but replace the volleyball scene with football. [ATA]Ripley - Jordan is a mysterious individual, no one really knows his media tastes. I don't know if he likes movies, or music. He might prefer stargazing and dishwasher noises. Heck, I'm not even sure he eats food, he might just rely on photosynthesis. I'm pretty sure he is bipedal, but honestly I'll have to double-check when I see him next. Does ATA Ripley often get called ATA Nipley? Hehehe. Also do devs have nicknames in the office? -Hebrews [ATA]Ripley - We don't call each other our dev names or puns of our dev names because because we really only use them with players. However, some devs do have nicknames/aliases they go by! Generally we call anyone whatever they want to be called, and try not to give people nicknames they don't want as it's too reminiscent of highschool, and we're all nerds here. What’s your favorite fundraiser that you implemented into KaW? I have seen a few fundraiser badges on players from years ago. I thought that was very kind and passionate of y’all. New fundraiser idea: Help Hebrews get more plates. Each dev inputs 200 Pallumen Plates to my account. So hire more devs so I get more Ofcourse 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊 -Hebrews [ATA]Ripley - Ooh interesting idea! I think we can improve upon it though. How about... instead of what you said, we set it up so that every plate you earn has a 50% chance of being auto-donated to someone you beat up on in PVP without mercy? I like it. I think it's workable! With all the Recent bans on alt abuse and there being nothing listed in the TOU about what is acceptable and not acceptable actions to do with an alt besides automation. Can you elaborate on what the expectations are for alt use to avoid people being banned going forward ? -Kali [ATA]Ripley - Great question, thanks for asking. While it's difficult to provide a full and accurate list as behaviors change over time, it's a pretty small list of things to avoid that will keep people on the right side of the ToU. We don't go after players using an auto-clicker to repeat tap the attack button in an EB, or open boxes or other small conveniences. We simply care about not having it be necessary to do any of the things on the following list to be competitive, or powerful. Avoid: 1. Having more accounts than any one person could reasonably play 2. Taking advantage of exploits and loopholes 3. Automating gameplay actions (except the zero impact on others "simple repeat tap on the same spot X times while you watch" conveniences) 4. Account / currency / item trading / selling outside of the game, or theft / extortion 5. Using new accounts to harass people, bypassing ignore / block functions 6. Reverse engineering or bypassing the game client, running external scripts and programs What’s the most ridiculous feature idea you’ve ever joked about but secretly wished you could add to the game?👀 -Anonymous [ATA]Ripley - One idea I'm not convinced is ridiculous, but probably isn't kosher; letting players arrange 1:1 wars where they stake taking a big debuff on their account if they lose, so players can get official bragging rights. Maybe losing puts a big stamp on your profile, the other person gets a cut of your rewards, maybe you can't talk in world chat unless you say "<Other Player> is the best player, I am the worst". Who knows! Spectators could have a little side action on who's gonna win, support their clanmates... or not. Sabotage them maybe? Sounds like fun to me!