DOFUS Touch has now been available in closed beta for around 6 months. The more curious among you have been able to follow its development on the official forums or on the official Twitter account. Today, we offer you an overall glance at how the beta is advancing and a bit more information about the future of the game.

Our objectives



For several months, we've been offering at least one update a week for the beta in order to provide corrections or to activate DOFUS Touch's exclusive new features (you'll discover a few of those further down). Currently, our teams are concentrating on resolving various bugs in order to offer you the best possible version of the game when it's released.

At the beginning of March, the developers finished off the bugs with WebGL on Android which kept numerous players from launching the game. DOFUS Touch should now function on all Android tablets at least 7" in size. For iOS, you'll need at least an iPad 2 running iOS 8 or higher. You should also understand that the quality of the game can vary from tablet to tablet, depending on technical specifications.



The beta in numbers



Jonquille will tell you more about some of the numbers for the beta:





Lots of you are asking how the beta is going: if we're making progress, how the bug-tracking is going, are there enough players in the beta... In short, a lot of questions that I can answer very precisely: with numbers! I've prepared for you a selection to show you that the beta is advancing, and in the right way. Of course, it's not complete, but it will give you a global idea of the project.





For the most interested, Jonquille has amassed more than 20 million kamas. Who's Jonquille? Well, first of all it's me, but it's also the merchant mode made available to players to let them have the highest-level resources as well as some low-level equipment. And at the beginning of the beta, everyone thought that it would be impossible to make kamas on DOFUS Touch! Things have really changed since then, and each one of you now has what they need to buy whatever they're missing.



DOFUS Touch's new exclusive features



Several devblogs are already available to discuss all of the new things in the public area of the official forum, more specifically, here.

You can also discover the follower NPC Joris, who will accompany new players all throughout their adventures in Incarnam in order to ground them in the basics of the game. You'll also see that the character creation interface and the shop interface as well have been completely revised.

Also new, the new Marketplace is now accessible from anywhere thanks to a simple shortcut button.

And to wrap up, a new discussion channel will soon appear for all characters of level 30 maximum. It should assist in better welcoming new players, because some more experienced players will have permanent access. This way, they can respond to the questions posted there.

Here's what the player Tanis thinks of these new functionalities:





I could hardly contain the excitement of my fingers when I came to test DOFUS Touch, the faithful port of the DOFUS MMO to the tablet. The idea of rediscovering the game and starting a new adventure on a new platform were the principal motivations. The application starts and you can't help but smile before that logo that we all know. For my part, after nine years of the game, I felt I'd be on pretty familiar ground: the right reflexes and actions already ready to go.



First shock, the avatar selection is more intuitive than on PC, with visuals that catch the eye, and responsive tools that fulfill our wants concerning color personalization. You can't help but look at Touch with fresh eyes. You may know the game, but not like this. Once your character has been created, Incarnam is unveiled and we ask ourselves what a new player would think of the game. The mission of this area - to explain the gameplay basics of combat and careers - is carried off perfectly. I was happy to find Ganymede, even without his Arachnee. One can't get lost: there's Joris, a follower character who delivers a plethora of advice even though the players aren't nice to him, since you have to hit him to interact with him (on Touch, you have to hit things with your fingers to perform actions). DOFUS Touch takes place in the Krosmoz. Let's be clear: when you know the game, everything goes very quickly, and you pick it up rapidly, and then you marvel at all the particularities that make Touch different from it's elder, like rapid notifications in combat.



The next logical step is thinking about improvements that could make the game even more comfortable... and a lot of comfort is gained by having the portable Marketplace. No matter where you are, you can conduct business with the touch of a button. I rejoiced in being able to buy bread from the middle of a dungeon, and sell my ore directly from the depths of the mine. Here and there, I ventured out into the light of day to find some companions (bots are inexistent in the depths of the mines), and there, the use of space on the screen is vital. Communicating without blocking the entire screen is a challenge that the studio is currently winning with the appearance of dialog balloons. Whether it's the NPCs or the other players, the immersion is more intense. One thing is sure: When you play Touch, you completely rediscover a game you thought you knew, and you end up waiting for the devblogs with impatience.



And our teams aren't going to quit while they're ahead!

, a DOFUS Touch developer, can tell you more:



We're currently working on adding some new functionalities to improve familiarization with combat. First of all, we're adding a bit more color and animation to the combat grid. It will now be animated and more interactive than the old version, where you had to select a spell then tap on the screen to activate it. The new functionality will be "drag to cast". We think that this system will be faster and more intuitive than tapping on the screen. In other news, we're adding target indicators and area-of-effect displays, to help you when you cast a spell. This will include indicators to show you if you're targeting your allies or your enemies when you cast spells with a large area-of-effect. We hope that you'll find these new functionalities nicer and more practical.



Access to the closed beta



No fewer than 6,000 were given access to the closed beta, across several different methods: contests on the DOFUS and DOFUS Touch Twitter accounts, contests with different partners (jeuxvideo.com, JeuxOnLine...), YouTube and fan site contests, and finally through our SurveyMonkey questionnaires.

The beta testers will be rewarded with an exclusive title in the game and on the official forum, and by free Bonus Pack days depending on how much time they spent in the beta. At the moment, we can't tell you what will be in them.



Community life



The ambiance in this beta has been excellent, with everyone helping one another. We'd really like to thank all the testers for their kindness and their involvement.

It's also due in part to a project that we started with the collaboration of certain testers, which you've surely seen being discussed in the public part of the forum: the welcome guild. There will be an article on this subject in the weeks to come and will be renewed for the official release of the game.

The leader of the beta's welcome guild, Cait Sith, will tell you more:



When Nyom contacted me to talk to me about the welcome guild project, I was immediately interested, given that it's already a bit what I was doing when the beta started. Then throughout the discussions, tests, and observing the system in game, I really saw the potential of the welcome guilds in terms of communicating our passion to newcomers in the universe of Dofus. Thanks to various exchanges with the devs through the Community Management team, and their strong interest in creating a successful game, we've managed to create some features exclusive to DOFUS Touch which will permit, I'm sure, seasoned players to play alongside newcomers. The principle of a welcome guild will fully make sense once the official release comes, and I'm more motivated than ever to take part in this adventure!



Several in-game events have been offered to the testers not only by our community management team but also by the community itself! Manhunts, "dungeon races", raffles with different prizes to win for Saint Potrick, quizzes, and even more.



We were also happy to see the first fan site emerge, created by Cait Sith, and we invite you to go take a look: Papycha.fr.



Also, we'd like to take advantage of DOFUS Touch's launch to bring your attention to some new YouTubers. For example, Asilaron, who has already done several videos of the beta. Asilaron's next videos will be available on the official game site and also on the Papycha fan site.



And finally, DOFUS Touch welcomed the beta's first level 200 player in mid-April, a player named Hera! Congratulations on the accomplishment; he'll get a special title once the game's released.

DOFUS Touch: meet up!



Last Friday, April 22, 4 of the closed beta's most invested players were invited to Ankama:





Cait-Sith , leader of the welcome guild Au Bazar de Papycha

, leader of the welcome guild Au Bazar de Papycha

Choupa-Chou , the welcome guild's right hand

, the welcome guild's right hand

Asilaron , DOFUS Touch YouTuber

, DOFUS Touch YouTuber

Blowndie, DOFUS Touch YouTuber and streamer



DOFUS Touch release



it will allow us to launch the game in two languages at once (French and English), in real conditions;



new players, who have never played DOFUS, will be able to give us feedback not only on the game, but on the universe in general.



They had the opportunity to visit the company, located in Roubaix, before testing out some new features that hadn't yet been implemented in the beta. Among them: the follower NPC Joris, dialog balloons, drag & drop in combat, and the new map loading.Then there was a first debriefing during which our four guests were able to share their impressions of these new features with Okajin (Tester), Furylaxx (UX Designer), XyaLe (DOFUS Community Manager), Nyom (DOFUS Touch Community Manager), Jonquille (DOFUS Touch Producer) et Poupik (Lead Community Manager).The morning then finished with a roundtable during which the players asked us all their (numerous!) questions about the game and how it was evolving. An exchange that lasted no less than an hour and a half!At the start of the afternoon, Jonquille, Blowndie, and Asilaron led the first DOFUS Live focusing on DOFUS Touch. On the program: a presentation of the game and a question and answer session. You can by the way find the entire replay here Finally, another debriefing with all the participants brought the day to a close. It was a very instructive day, as much for the players as for the staff.We hope to be able to do this sort of thing again in the future, and we'd like to thank our guests again for their enthusiasm and for the moments we shared around DOFUS Touch!Find out what Cait thought on the fan site dedicated to the game: "Un vendredi à Ankama!" Check out Asilaron's video: [Asilaron-Dofus Touch] News + Visite des locaux Ankama! The game will be releasedat the end of May before arriving inwe're targeting the first semester 2016When the game is released in France, the players of the relevant community will start on a new server and won't be with the Canadian players.definitively once it's released in Canada.As stated in the letter to the community , the game will start in Canada for two reasons:



At the moment, we can't give you precise dates. We'll keep you informed as soon as we have any more information!



We hope that this letter answered your questions. If there are still things you want to know, please consult the FAQ or pose your question in the comments below.



We'll see you soon with even more news!