Hey there Robocrafters, There's no Dev Jam this week, instead we wanted to let you know about some very important changes coming soon™ to your Robocraft account, the Robocraft website and forum. So think of this blog post as a Public Service Announcement (PSA) rather than a Dev Jam.

New Unified Authentication System

As developers we're always thinking ahead and looking at the different ways we can make the playing experience across our current and future games better. One of the ways we can do this is to have a 'Unified Authentication' system in place. Unified Auth offers many benefits including the ability for players to login with a single account across multiple games rather than having to register each time we release a new game. Another benefit, one that's been requested for a while, is the ability to change your in-game name. Currently it's not possible to change a player's username once it has been created and so if a player creates an account with a username that isn't permitted, we need to suspend access to that account. With Unified Auth, we will be able to change a player's display name without breaking their account! Players will be able to request a change to their display name by contacting support and we will change player names on a case by case basis. In order to accommodate the new Unified Auth system, we need to make some changes to how player names are displayed. We will be adding a unique ID at the end of player names in the form of a four number hash eg. #7474. Anyone who has a battle.net account will already be familiar with this system. Unified Auth means that usernames will no longer be unique; so there may be many "toastymike" usernames but there will only be one "toastymike#2341" or "toastymike#5735".
New display name in-chat   In-game, usernames will now be displayed as [username]#ID eg. toastymike#2341 and you'll need to ensure you enter the full player username + ID when directly communicating with players via the in-game chat or inviting them to a clan or party in-game. Important changes to game login: Currently you can load into Robocraft a number of different ways:

• Robocraft Launcher with your username & password
• Through Steam with your username & password
• Through Steam with your Steam ID (by clicking on the sign in with Steam button)

With Unified Auth, this will be changing to:

• Robocraft Launcher with your account email address & password
• Through Steam with your Steam ID

Don't worry if you can't remember your registered email address, you'll still be able to login to the game using your legacy username in the short term. You'll also be able to view your registered email address by logging into your account via the new Robocraft website. Steam users with both an email/password and a Steam ID linked to their account wishing to login with their email/password will need to use the official Robocraft Launcher (Windows only). Steam Linking will be removed when Unified Auth launches. New players coming to Robocraft via Steam will be able to login to their Robocraft player account and link an email address via the new Robocraft website. This will then allow them to update their account details and manage email subscriptions.

New Website

There's no denying the fact that the Robocraft, website is looking a bit tired and somewhat dated now. Robocraft is five years old and while the game has been improved and updated during this time, the website hasn't. So we're going to give it some love as part of our continued drive to improve the player experience both in and out of the game. We've got a gorgeous new website for you that is in-keeping with the other Freejam Games websites, Robocraft Infinity and CardLife. The new website will still have all the latest Robocraft news and info so should remain your first port of call for Robocraft-related info. You'll also be able to access your Robocraft player account through the website and access the new forums. Currently, if you want to update your registered account email you need to contact our support team. With the new Unified Auth system, we're putting the power to update your registered email and password in your hands! You'll soon be able to do this via your account page accessible via the new Robocraft website. You can also subscribe/unsubscribe to any of our newsletters from there too.

New Forum

Just like the website, the Robocraft forums are looking a bit old now and so with the Unified Auth changes and new website we felt it was the perfect time to update the forums too. The new forums will be powered by vBulletin which allows us to add some cool community features that aren't available with the current system. The new forums won't have as many sub-categories as the existing one as we'll be retiring a few of the less-frequented sub-categories. What about the old forums? It isn't possible for us to merge the two forums together but don't worry, we're not deleting the old ones. For now, you'll still be able to view the posts and link to them, but you won't be able to post new threads or comment on existing ones.

Coming Soon™

So when can you expect these changes? Well, if all testing goes to plan and there are no project-breaking bugs that prevent us from launching, we hope to make the changes within the next two weeks (as of 23rd August). We will let you know a definite date/time once we're happy with everything.