Army of Club Penguin

Mammoth, Shamrock Bulletin Headquarters – On July 23, ACP logged on at 3PM EST to Club Penguin Army Battleground and easily swept the floor with every army that came our way, scoring 4 victories in a row. Beach Brawl II is now a memory, the first step on our journey back to the top and another trophy in our decorated cabinet. We proved we aren’t an army in Club Penguin, we are THE Army of Club Penguin. However, it wasn’t all smiles and roses. 

To some, Beach Brawl II was a disaster. Of course, let it be known that our soldiers performed well. Our tactics were great, we performed sharply, and those who were able to stay all the way until the end of the event did well. After a 10 minute delay, we went up against the Revolutionaries, the Lime Green Army, Special Weapons and Tactics, and lastly Magma Clan in the overtime tie-breaker. Of course, we beat all of them! Thanks for asking.

However, the event was plagued by technical difficulties. Prior to the event, a lot of people experienced trouble logging on. The private server seemed to only work well in Google Chrome with a freshly cleared cache, only occasionally stuttering.

Infinite loading screens were the name of the game and it only worsened as the event drew nearer. Being stuck in an endless loading screen remained an issue for the entire tournament, and this absolutely destroyed most of the armies. Some of the other frontrunners for the trophy practically no-showed. One other participating army leader even ended up being banned from CPAB mid-event for a tactic calling for the death of our own General Sidie9.

CPA Battlegrounds’ worth as a good or even a stable private server has been questioned numerous times. CP Armies will continue to claim that they upgraded the servers the day before the event, and that may be true, but stress tests and more time were clearly needed. Holding a tournament in such conditions is very questionable, even if Superhero123 the server’s lead developer, has proven himself as competent before with Club Penguin Armies: The Game.

Some are quick to point to the game’s custom rooms as the cause to loading issues. Since the game runs on Yukon’s code (another now-defunct private server), the only difference would be that, right? In reality, it’s not that simple. To help answer those questions, I interviewed Max, one of the main figures behind the Club Penguin Armies organization, and Superhero123 alongside our own General Sidie9 to give some thoughts on how we did during Beach Brawl 2.

What are your thoughts on how Beach Brawl II went?

Max: It was certainly an eventful tournament, and it didn’t go exactly the way we intended. With two armies pulling out just 10 minutes before the start, the hours of preparation had to be re-done in about 15 minutes. And of course there were the connection issues associated with the game that stopped many from logging on to attend – with some armies impacted significantly more than others. 

What was the main flaw of the tournament?

Max: The connection and lag issues that are still associated with CPA Battleground, despite a major server upgrade the day before. 

Why didn’t you pull the plug after it became obvious how messy it was?

Max: We made the decision to keep the tournament going based on the information we had at the time. Why do you think CPAB struggled so much during the event? As I don’t work at CPA Battleground and am not a developer, I can’t answer this. The best person to contact would be Superhero123, but I know he is actively working on making more improvements. We are very lucky to have him and his support for our community. 

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Why do you think CPAB struggled so much during Beach Brawl II?

Superhero123: CPAB has had known performance issues since it was released. Unfortunately, since releasing it, I’ve had very limited time to work on the game due to work, university, and IRL projects. My holidays started one and a half weeks ago and since then I’ve been working on doing performance improvements. First change was upgrading the server’s hardware to be much more powerful, but it was unfortunately proven not enough to fix the issues. I am currently rewriting parts of the game’s codebase so that they are more optimized and efficient, and I will be changing some of the technologies used in the software-side as well.

Does the game run on Yukon code as I saw someone claim? Are the custom rooms the problem?

Superhero123: Yes, the game runs on Yukon similar to pretty much every browser-based CPPS right now. Of course the code has been modified significantly though to implement army-related features. No, the custom rooms can’t cause these kinds of issues, it’s just using a different image.

Are the game servers locally hosted or hosted by a paid third party?

Superhero123: They are hosted by one of the best server providers in Europe.

What can we expect for CPAB’s future besides what you mentioned already?

Superhero123: From the development side, the first priority right now is obviously to tackle the performance issues. Other than that there are plenty of plans for new features that will help enhance army experience, although I can’t give a date to you yet for when to expect them. From the designer side, our designers are working on some very beautiful rooms and other artwork for incoming events. Since I saw a misunderstanding somewhere regarding this, I want to stress that the people working on the development aren’t the same people that work on designs, and therefore events don’t hinder development in any way.

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Is your opinion on the new “league” the same?

Sidie9: I do think the Beach Brawl II could have been done more professionally. Though there are many factors CPA had to deal with, such as lag and armies dropping out, they should have at least attempted to account for these scenarios. My opinion on CPA hasn’t really changed.

Can we win anything else this year?

Sidie9: Perhaps, I don’t know what other tournaments will be held in 2022 but we will always strive for success! Our Beach Brawl performance was wonderful and I’m proud of everyone, let’s keep that momentum going.

I think the main theme of this tournament is getting back on our feet. For the CPAB team, they are getting back on their feet fixing the issues. And for us, we need to get back on our feet to becoming a major army again and going to the top of the leaderboard, where we belong.

Arne

Reporter and Brigadier General

Filed under: ACP, Army of CP, Shamrock Bulletin | Tagged: ACP, Army of Club Penguin, Arne, clover penguins, Club Penguin Armies, Club Penguin Army, cpa, Max, Shamrock Bulletin, sidie9, Superhero123 |