We have known for a while in private conversations that Rovio has been working on expanding it’s Cloud Sync System (Rovio Accounts) to all Angry Birds apps, including the initial release of Angry Birds Go a few weeks ago.
At first glance, this easily could have been another false go-live (it happened twice with ABo). But @PJng dug a little further and noticed that a new achievement was added to ABSW2: Galactic Network — Sign into Rovio Account.
This achievement also appears in iOS’s GameCenter, which means it cannot be removed. Therefore, we believe this is a true go-live of the Rovio Accounts! Unfortunately, the sign-in button seems to have been lost along the way, so there is currently no way of signing in to the system. We expect such technical details to be ironed out shortly.
Update (9 Jan.): According to Rovio, they are starting the release by soft-launch, presumably by region. Assuming no major programming or server issues, we should see this soft-launch expand toward a worldwide launch in time.
@AMslimfordy We're bringing Rovio account to the game, but start with a soft launch to make sure everything works fine :)
— Red (@AngryBirds) January 9, 2014
We explain how Rovio Accounts work in tremendous detail in our ABo release post, so definitely take a look at that before going whole-hog into Star Wars 2’s system when it’s fixed. But we want to briefly highlight a few tips.
Even geniuses like Rovio’s technical employees can make mistakes. It’s just part of life. Therefore, backup via any and all means possible before you create or sign into a Rovio Account. Some platforms are easier than others, but it’s worth it. Use iTunes and/or our Ultimate Backup Tutorial.
We always encourage you to backup a minimum two files: highscores.lua and settings.lua. But if you have a Rovio Account, you should also backup highscores_<hash>.lua and settings_<hash>.lua. These are the Cloud files, where “<hash>” is an Account-unique hexidecimal value. If your data doesn’t transfer when you sign into your Account, we may be able to help you. Please drop us a line before you proceed on your own.
In general, we’ll assume you’ve already registered with a Rovio Account from the original Angry Birds app. Once the sign-in button is added to SW2, you should be good to go! Click the button, enter your email address and password, and you should be well protected against device crashes with Cloud storage. (Forget your email or password? Open ABo to figure out which email you used, or use the “Forgot Password” feature!)
The first time you sign-in on a device, you’ll likely be asked if you want to upload that device’s data to the Cloud. Doing this on multiple devices should store the highest score on a given level from any of your devices, allowing you to compile your scores in the best way possible.
Rovio Accounts are not perfect, but we (AngryBirdsNest) are trying to work with Rovio to improve the system. At this time, we have the following major request pending:
As the system currently works, any gameplay done while signed into a Rovio Account is not stored locally on the device. This is likely a purposeful design, allowing multiple users to maintain separate Accounts on the same device without overlapping progress. However, it is also a design flaw in that if a user is offline (e.g., on an airplane without WiFi) all of their progress goes missing. We propose the work-around of adding two buttons to the Rovio Account page: A force-download button (which will download all Cloud data to local device storage) and a force-upload button (which will manually upload all local device data to the Cloud). Additionally, a third “toggle” button could be added asking whether the user wants all online-gameplay saved locally as well.
While we may be a bit biased, we truly believe that Rovio is one of the better companies out there in terms of listening to its customer feedback. A Cloud Sync was a user-requested feature from years ago and Rovio is actively working on making it happen everywhere. So if you have an idea on how Rovio Accounts could be improved, drop them (or us) a line!
