Friday, August 15, 2014

Android, my android

Right after the MegaBoss event, PA released the app on Android - roughly 8-July. There have been a few complaints on the forums about problems putting money into the bank, taking money out of the bank, and the like. Others have been anxious to transfer their iOS character to Android - and except for certain cases, you can't. But I've been playing it, and loving it.

I have two android devices at my house - a 2012 version of the Google (Asus) Nexus 7, and a Kindle HD.


UWE on KINDLE HD


I was able to install the app on my wife's Kindle HD, by sideloading it. That's a process where you put the APK file on your computer, copy it to your kindle while connected, and then install it using a file explorer (I used the free ES Explorer). Sadly, the Kindle doesn't work with Google Play services. That means that you can't buy anything. Since you basically only buy FP, that's the main thing I'm saying that you can't buy.

It's not so bad. Having spent nothing, my wife's alt is up to level 60, and has accumulated 75 FP just from in-game achievements. I have to figure that PA will want to make this work, but my guess it that it's going to be a while.


UWE on YOUR PC


I tried to use an android simulator, Bluepipes, to install the game on my laptop. You can install it, but you can't run it. This, I'm guessing, will work sooner than the commerce on the Kindle, because KABAM has a section on how to get their android games to run on Bluepipes. Since they have acquired PA, I expect that they will support the app on that platform someday. Users on the forums think that having the game on Android or the web would result in rampant hacking. I don't understand the argument. I'm sure that they have some reasons for worrying about it, and I'll just suggest that you ask them about it. It's over my head.


UWE on NEXUS


This is what's so much fun for me. I started a toon the day the app came out, and I've had no problems running him up to level 150. He's a squishy heavy - you know that they don't need any skills, right? It's just fun to play. I played him for a month before I added a second account.

I already had a second account on my nexus, because I share it with my son. I had tried to set up the app on his account and got a server error. I read up on the error, and decided that I needed to delete the google account from a certain place on my nexus and then re-enter the same account. Much to my surprise, this worked. I was able to download the app, install it, and do anything with it that I can do with my iPhone (except for the minor differences in the two apps).

The Nexus supports up to 8 accounts, but I was already seeing some lag switching from one account to the other. I did set up a 3rd account, and once in a while when things went just right, I could cycle through the three accounts without much more trouble than using three different devices.

YOUR PLAYING STYLE MIGHT DIFFER

I should mention that this isn't going to make you a great player on a Legend Empire. The time it takes to switch from one account to another, and then back again, takes a while. This doesn't bother me. I take about 5-10 minutes with each account, leave them for an hour or so, then come back and dump the rest of their tokens in turn. I have been able to get 4000 battle points on each account, which gets them 50-60 CC's if my team wins. But this isn't something that I do competitively, and I can't tell you how to be competitive doing it. I just like to build things, sort of the like little criminal version of ships in a bottle.

Which Nexus do you have?


There are two versions of the Nexus 7. Some people call them Gen1 and Gen2, some people call them 2012 and 2013. Mine is a 2012 version, 1st gen. That device is a poor little brother to the 2013 model, which has better graphics, a faster processor, a rear camera ... and more RAM. That's the thing that keeps people from enjoying multi-user activities on the 2012 Nexus 7. It's got 1 GB, the 2013 Nexus 7 has 2 GB. That single Gigabyte gets used up pretty quickly, and people don't like the resulting lag. Including me. I found myself spending 10 minutes trying to switch from one user to the other to get to another toon!

One thing I tried was turning off auto-sync. That helped a bit, but I wasn't running anything but UE and having Facebook stop updating didn't provide that much help with UE.

Until a couple of days ago, I thought that perhaps it just wasn't operationally feasible. Then I discovered two tricks that helped. The first one was a well-documented clearing of cache, that made the battery charge faster, discharge slower, and lag a lot less. Having it hold a charge was great - it had been discharging so quickly that I was afraid I'd never be able to fully charge it.

But I still had a problem with lag. Until I stumbled over the second trick. There are 3 buttons on the bottom row of the Nexus - back, home, and a "recent app list." Displaying that doesn't automatically work like the iOS list of running apps - but in the case of UWE it does. When I am finished with a character, I press the RECENT button and swipe the UE app (it's the only one ever running on my nexus) to the right, which produces a FORCE STOP (thank you PA developers).

If I have even ONE of the other toons running, I get a visible lag. Tolerable, but irritating. If have have TWO of them, I'm running in surf. But if I have the other accounts stopped, I can switch from one account to another in a few seconds. It's wonderful. I don't use it to try to gang up in EvE, but it's a good way to level my guys up. I do visit each account 2-3 times during a game, but these squishy beginners can't beat anybody and wouldn't tip the scales in a contest anyhow. Someday I'll have a lot of demo tho.

I'm saving my allowance so I can buy a refurbed 2013 Nexus 7. There are rumors that Google will announce a nexus 8 this month, and I'm not excited about the Apple-like prices I have heard. But I can't wait to try out the Nexus 7 2nd generation as a platform for a nursery for little toons.

If you have an android device, you ought to be able to enjoy UWE. More power to you!

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