Mar 25, 2022 — EventLink

Wizards EventLink Update Log

A running list of updates, new features, and bug fixes for Wizards EventLink.

Mar 25, 2022 — EventLink

Wizards EventLink Update Log

A running list of updates, new features, and bug fixes for Wizards EventLink.

As we gear up for the Streets of New Capenna Prerelease next month, the EventLink and Companion teams are focusing on making sure services are running smoothly and new features are getting ready to roll out later this year. Here’s what we delivered in our latest release.

Strengthening the Timer Service

One of the big improvements we launched last year for players was the event timer appearing in users’ phones through the Companion app. This makes tournaments a lot easier to manage for players, who can now see how long they have until they need to be ready to play again, but put added load on the service that powers the timer. Here is what we’ve added to make sure the timer is working at its best:

  • A new error message will display if there’s an issue with your timer or the service fails. This prevents the rest of your event from being disrupted. While it’s rare for the timer service to fail, if it does, we recommend using a traditional clock timer for the round, like one on any mobile device, until the service comes back up. You can also try refreshing the page, which will fix any caching issues you might be experiencing.

  • Additional monitoring for the timer service specifically has been added. This notifies us quickly if load on the service is ticking upwards or at risk of becoming excessive, which enables us to add resources to balance things.

8-Player Single Elimination Draft

A bug reported by users revealed that single elimination booster drafts with 8 players had broken. This pairing type is particularly popular for running side event drafts alongside larger events, so here’s how players are paired now:

  • Players are assigned a random seat for the draft.

  • After drafting, players are paired against the player sitting four seats away from them.

  • The winner of each match is paired against the other winner in their bracket, while the losers are eliminated from the event.

As an example, the player in seat #1 is paired against the player in seat #5. The winner of their match plays against the player winning the match between seat #3 and seat #7. The other half of the bracket will feature #2 versus #6 and #4 versus #8.

New Companion Design Begins

One of the big pieces of functionality we’re adding to Companion later this year enables players to look up your store and event right through the app. To do this, we first must implement a new menu design to allow us to expand the number of different features a user can choose between.

The work for that started in our most recent sprint (our two-week release cycle). While we have several more sprints worth of work to go before we’re ready to release this work, I wanted to give you a sneak peek of what you and your players will see in Companion once it’s delivered.

Previously the menu was fixed to allow only a certain number of choices users could select between. The new version allows us to expand those options by making the menu scrollable, enabling us to “infinitely” scale the number of new features we can add for users to select. To do so, users can simply slide back and forth to cycle through the available menu options.

While this might seem like a small lift from a work perspective, because the menu system is ingrained in all the features that currently exist, we need to spend several sprints making sure we’ve gotten it right. Once that’s complete, we’ll work on delivering the event and store lookup functionality, which will also allow us to reduce pain points for users in registering for your events.

Keep Your Feedback Coming

As always, you have a critical voice in what our teams focus our effort on next. You can use the “submit feedback” option in EventLink to share feedback directly with us and shape what features and bugs we tackle.

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