Paratus
-
Content count
238 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
103
Posts posted by Paratus
-
-
Keep in mind that you can still see your speed on your HUD in your chosen units. The speedometers also do show kilometers, but the primary unit (larger number) is MPH.
-
1
-
1
-
-
We're getting close! You can now connect your Steam account to your Identity game account and obtain your Identity game Steam key. This key will add Identity to your library so that when Identity is released, you can download it and start playing immediately without having to do anything else.
To get your key, login on the main site (NOT THESE FORUMS) at www.IdentityRPG.com. You can then go to the Account tab of your profile where you'll see an option to link your Steam account.
You must have BETA ACCESS on your account to claim a key!
ATTENTION! You can only attach one steam account to one game account, and it's permanent. Be sure you're logged into your game account which has the items you've purchased before attaching a Steam account!
While you won't get Identity in your game library just yet, you will very soon. Handing out the keys like this allows us to reduce load on our servers. We currently have 20,000 keys in the system and we'll be adding more.
-
49
-
17
-
3
-
-
Yep, I did tweet that. I plan on using my personal Twitter for less official stuff of note. It's something that the more devoted fans will see and I don't necessarily have the burdens of an official announcement. I don't post directly on the official Twitter account as that's handled by Beach; I posted on the weekend while working from home.
-
6
-
3
-
-
That's right. Signs and car spedometers are in American format as the game takes place in America.
Your HUD and other UI can display your chosen units.
-
1
-
-
7 hours ago, SamTheAmericanMan said:Not true at all. TS is the first module that will be released, yes, HOWEVER they haven't spent this entire time working solely on the town square module, rather implementing and building the framework required for all the other modules, and thus, the game. They have said it themselves that the TS module will be the longest time to wait as they are doing the foundation work for the entire game before releasing and after TS release they expect the other modules to come faster.
Think about it... Town Square is by far the most intensive module out of all of them as it requires the entire foundation of the game to be made in order to be released in working order. While on the other hand, the SWAT or racing module only require to build off of that major framework set down by the TS module in order to work.
This is very much the case. When it comes to the SWAT module, the mechanics are actually quite simple to create in comparison to the back-end that is the Town Square. The Town Square is just a social module but there's a LOT going on behind the scenes. It is our foundation.
6 hours ago, JoelKeys said:Fair enough. I apologise. I believe what I said but should have worded it better, I am just fed up of people wondering why everyone is so annoyed. I am not going to retract my statement about brainwashed people. I am not talking about people who disagree with me, because I actually agree with both sides. I am referring to the people who absolutely refuse to admit any fault on Asylums part and draw every lie and suspicious action down to us 'not being patient' or 'game development takes time'.
No one is saying you just make a game and people play it, but after 3 years we expect a little bit more than what we seem to be getting.
Even with my own position, I understand the discontent completely. People are looking for some depth and words only go so far.
The reason we haven't shown off a lot is two-fold: first, the majority of the work going into the Town Square is back-end and foundation work. It's grueling work which unfortunately isn't fun to look at. It's the first bit we need to take care of, but it's not something we can show in a visual sense. Furthermore, giving detailed information on the inner-workings of our foundation code can actually do harm when that information falls into the laps of the wrong people.
The second issue is one of psychology. Anyone who's been following games for much time can attest to the fact that first impressions are the only ones which matter for most people. This doesn't apply to everyone, but it does for the VAST majority of people; even if people understand something is a work-in-progress when they get their hands on it, the impression they get from that experience will persist.
Fortunately, we're coming to the end of the worst wait in this. I know you've heard something like this before, so it's likely taken lightly, but it's looking quite up right now. In fact, we're not far from handing out the Steam keys to prepare for a Steam launch. Our earlier estimates were well off the mark because we ran into some pretty significant issues with the engine. Keep in mind we have a HEAVILY modified version of Unreal Engine 4. We've done some pretty large changes to accommodate a real MMORPG.
I wish it hasn't taken this long, but we're committed to doing this right. We're not going to take shortcuts and release a product which isn't up to our standards. The wait is almost over and you're going to be getting some fun updates quite soon.
-
7
-
5
-
-
1 hour ago, tozany4u said:how am i able to see anything when a blueprint is just a 2d image? and how does anyone play town square when they didnt even put money down on the project to begin with? You make ZERO sense... your pretty much telling me to go in BLIND and and off off of some blueprints to pick a package and go......must be nice to work for the development team and see everything in front of you every day when yet all of us here on the forums are pledging blindly and have no idea what we are getting... he transparency lately is getting me and a lot of other people very very sick
I'd suggest you wait for the release of the Town Square if you're more comfortable with seeing the floorplans yourself than going off of the blueprint.
As Beach mentioned, you can access a preview of each available floor plan whether you own it or not. Thus, if you have the founder package you will be able to create your character and check them all out before making a commitment.
In the live game, apartment value will come from it's size in that a larger apartment has more storage capacity as well as more bedrooms for co-habitation.
-
The issues which are taking time are not directly UI related. The task which lead to these issues was one with the UI, but each task can lead to problems which need to be solved and dealt with.
I did mention this (in parts) with the last developer blog I sent out. The main issues with the task have been solved. There are a couple medium level tasks remaining and they're just being finished up this week.
We're moving forward quite quickly right now.
-
10
-
-
57 minutes ago, LuckyDuck said:5. If the people don't do the work when at home, then they don't get paid. They get paid when they do the job asked of them. "Freelancer" way of pay.
We use a combination of project management software called Wrike and a time tracker called Hubstaff for all of our remote people. They get paid only for time "clocked in", and it tracks it right down to the second. While they're in work mode we're able to see their screen, and we have a screenshot history from every few minutes of their working going back for months.
We're quite on top of things, but we've found the vast majority of our remote guys to be quite reliable and honest. A lot of the remote people do work dedicated to Identity, but some work on a per-task basis.
-
9
-
-
While you can rent out the houses you buy in the world, apartments cannot be rented. This is because we don't want someone's real-money purchases to give an advantage. For example, renting out that apartment would then translate to in-game currency indirectly.
Some may be concerned about people doing this without using game mechanics, but that would require a transfer of ownership (which you cannot do with micro-transaction apartments) or, if the apartment was large enough, setting someone as a co-owner/roommate for in-game money. The latter could be done, but it would be at a great risk to the person doing it as the primary owner could walk in at any moment and take their things.
When a house is rented through game mechanics, the renting player has ownership of that property as long as they continue to pay; thus, it's as secure as if they were to own it themselves.
As for vehicle ownership, they exist for good reason. The vehicles which we sell are in no way high (or even mid) end vehicles. Similar vehicles will be obtainable quite early on. We've done it this way specifically to stimulate a new economy. The primary benefit of the micro-transaction vehicles is the ability to claim them once on each server. Thus, when a new server is started up, they'll help get resources on the market quickly. These resources will then be used by all players. Without this, the economy would take a few days to get moving and it would not be such an enjoyable experience.
-
8
-
-
To better clarify, do note the numbers in the corner of each image. These as they're seen are the first step in the art development. They're created quickly by a talented digital artist ( check past live streams.. this work had been shown live in the past ) as a sort of draft.
When it later comes time to create the asset, we'd choose the most appropriate of the three and it would be done in high detail with any changes requested by the game designers.
These three you see were based on the jungle mood boards, which is why they all look somewhat similar.
The final product you see in the game won't look just like any of these, but likely close to one of them.
The method used here is called compositing, and it's a great way to get a nice looking result quickly, before polishing.
-
10
-
-
1 hour ago, been0su said:Get your hands out of your ass and tell us why you are using pictures of houses in real life and call it concept art, now i demand an answer.. I have been backing you since 2016, and never thought this was a scam, but i must admit, this is damn fishy. I think you owe us an explanation. Busted
Well, because it's concept art. Artists use the concept pieces there to develop the environment later. The three together are part of what's called a mood board.
This is pretty standard.
-
9
-
-
7 hours ago, Sico1134 said:Paypal isnt working either. Trying to buy some stuff before launch of the module. It especially doesnt work on mobile. The button shows that its pressed down, but doesnt try go to paypal or anything.
I was unaware of this until I read your post. That's a major issue. We'll get it fixed up ASAP. It will work on a desktop browser.
Thanks for the heads up.
PS: For those wondering about the statistics, the number seems higher because the new site shows number of game accounts while the old site showed number of pledgers.
-
3
-
1
-
-
Ramping up
It's been busy as usual here at the Asylum office! For the past few weeks, we've had our testers running through all of the systems in the Town Square and a whole lot of progress has been made toward release. They've done an awesome job in finding the remaining bugs, and our team's been doing an equally awesome job in squashing them.
As you likely noticed when following the Dev Tracker on our website, we're down to the testing stages on one remaining task. We've been working on this one for a while as there were a couple significant bugs encountered. These bugs were deep in the engine and were show-stoppers. Fortunately, we've recently defeated them and put them behind us. We're now knocking out the remaining minor issues being found by our testers and things are looking great.
With the new website online (more on this below) we're soon going to be handing out Steam keys for those with access to the Town Square. This doesn't mean you can play just yet, but we're getting close enough that we're going to be bringing you on board in preperation.
If you're wondering how it's going to work, it's really pretty simple. Once we launch this feature shortly, you're going to be able to log into your game account on our website. You'll then see the option to link your existing Steam account. Once you've linked your account, you'll be given a key which, when entered into the Steam client, will add Identity's Town Square to your game library. You won't need to log in to play, as we know who you are based on your Steam account.
I'd recommend following us on social media (Twitter and Facebook especially) to watch for this coming announcement.
Gangs and Warfare
We're changing the Identity Insider format! Instead of larger insiders once in a long while, we're going to be sending out more frequent updates. We're talking a few each month! These Insider updates will paint a detailed picture of Identity's full gameplay experiences.
To kick this off, we posted the following update on our new website just yesterday:
Identity Drug Cartel Concepts (click image for more)
You've made stacks of cash pushing drugs and the odd robbery, but when push comes to shove, you'll find strength in numbers.
A gang is a group of ruffians with the goal of obtaining power and infamy through the domination of those around them. Gangs are often at war with one another as they compete for limited resources, whether it's turf, drugs or blood.
There's no shortage of criminal activity in the world outside of gangs, but true power belongs to the syndicates and cartels with the strength and fortitude to rule over their rivals.
Comradery
Identity is all about working together with your friends, and gangs are the social structure geared towards crime. You can belong to only one gang at any time, so choose where your loyalty lies.
Your gang has a full rank structure and the leaders can control access levels for each member based on that rank. As your gang grows, it can also unlock additional perks for all members.
The gang leadership can designate any home owned in the world as the HQ, giving access to all members of the gang. Hang out with your gangmates and stockpile weapons, drugs and anything else you can get your hands on. Your HQ, like your personal homes, can also be used for respawning on death. This makes it an important rally point when *#!% hits the fan!
Cartels
Cartels are conflict areas which are controlled by one gang at any time, providing the owners with control over trade and traffiking of their related substance throughout all the land.
To the victor goes the spoils. The cartel zone is a functional HQ for the current owners.
Turf
Identity Turf Neighborhood Concept
Take control of city neighborhoods with gang turf zones. While cartels control substances across the world of Identity, the gangs who dominate a neighborhood have direct influence over criminal organizations in that area, such as drug dealers.
Lookouts in the area will spot rival gangs in the streets of your turf and text message members of your gang in the area.
Controlling gangs get access to a safe house in the area, tightening their hold.
Warfare
Dominate gangs who cross your path and prove your strength. Declare war on your rivals and hunt them down.
Gang members who are at war are completely vulnerable to one another through the stress system, and so you need to be on the lookout at all times. Prey on your enemies until they submit to your demands.
When declaring war on another gang, the other gang must accept the spoils set by the agressor. The spoils can include cash, turf, real-estate and more. When one side has had enough and ends the war, they forfeit those spoils to the stronger gang.
In Identity, most items people carry can be taken if they're killed. What's theirs, is yours. War is hell.
New website is finally here!
The Identity website has had an overhaul to prepare for the Town Square release and Steam integrations.
The new website brings all kinds of cool new features, mostly for the game account systems and the Identity shop! We're also going to be filling up the About page with all sorts of new information from the Insider releases.
Now that the website has a true and proper shop, you can now get your hands on cool new items without having to buy entire packages.
The shop now has all kinds of exclusive items, including apartment pets! You'll be able to get your hands on friendly critters for your home in-game as well, although those featured on the shop are only available there. Some of these items are only available for a limited time.
Some of the new items include:
- Custom T-Shirt Graphic - Upload an image which can be placed on T-Shirts you create in-game! Each image can be used on 10 shirts.
- Vanity License Plate - Show your style with a custom license plate, visible on your in-game vehicle.
- Vanity Phone Number - Want a number that's easy to remember? Get a vanity phone number for yourself or your business.
- More Apartment Floorplans - Floor plans which haven't been available since Kickstarter, including the enormous Penthouse.
- Huge Clothing Packages - Clothing packages including clothes with dozens of original brands.
- Pets! Cats, dogs and more - Pets currently available include sphynx and tabby cats as well as pugs, maltese and the shiba inu (doge?).
Another important note: when the new payment options (aside from PayPal) go live, we'll shortly after be removing all of the old packages. We will at this time never again be selling cash, so there's not much time remaining to get starter cash before Identity goes live. This is not something we plan to sell again in the future, but all who have it in their account will be able to claim that cash once on each server.
The Twitch Clips
If you've been following Identity's development closely, you probably already know that developers stream their work live on the Identity Twitch channel every Tuesday and Thursday. We also use that time to answer almost every question that gets asked about Identity's development and gameplay.
Now that we've been doing this a while, we've answered a lot of questions. Our awesome community manager, BeachBall, has taken the time to compile a massive list of questions linked to clips where they're answered by a developer.
Get comfy and head over to the Twitch Clips Directory forum thread. If you haven't found this already, be prepared to spend a good bit of time listening to all sorts of awesome information. This is the best place to get to know the fine details Identity!
-- John VanderZwet
-
24
-
2
-
2
-
3
-
1 hour ago, nexus said:I believe that if they have not yet released it is why they are correcting minor bugs, like those of UI that are a real headache, throwing something incomplete will tarnish the image of the game, which is something that Asylum does not want at the moment.
This is correct. A game really only gets one first impression, so we have to make sure that it's (for the most part) a positive experience. Even if a game is marked as beta or early access, if the first impression fails people will almost never return. Thus, we're making sure everything is running smoothly.
There were a couple pretty significant bugs with this last task which were the result of problems with the engine, quite deep down. We've worked around them now and things are looking good. Your friendly moderators are testing up a storm for us. There are bugs, but nothing major, and they're being squashed.
-
7
-
1
-
2
-
-
I do agree there's a lot more information on the gang system to be had, so I'll address your concerns.
Comradery
The perks that can be unlocked for your gang are more convenience bits and cosmetics. Identity is being consciously designed in a way that should minimize the need to "grind". You won't feel the need to unlock these perks and many aren't things that you could grind if you wanted to.
The gang HQ is designated when a gang is formed and must be a location in the world. Apartments are not valid HQs. We're still fine-tuning the time between HQ changes, but it's going to be quite long -- days, at least.
The storage in the HQs is controlled by the rank hierarchy. Some people can have access to store items, but not remove them, and so on.
There seems to be confusion on the mechanic, here. Gangs are cartels; cartels are not collections of gangs. Thus, one gang functions as a cartel when it has control of a cartel zone. I can see why you'd think of it as an alliance, given what a cartel is in reality, although for gameplay purposes the one gang "controls" the cartel.
Any house can be used as a gang HQ, and the turf area it's in (if any) is unrelated. Turf doesn't lock anyone out from the region, but instead adds convenience, some additional income for the gang, and can be used to track rival gangs easier. All land is also not turf controlled; it's only within the cities.
The turf safehouse is not a home that can be owned by other players outside of controlling that turf.
As for the police interaction with turf, the police aren't there to eliminate the turf regions. Instead, they can negate the benefits of owning turf if they control the region with effective law enforcement. The income produced by the turf zone is based on illegal activity, so the police can directly influence it's effectiveness.
The cartel owners will have direct influence over the production, transportation and sale of the substances that they control. They don't trigger "missions", but instead affect the related gameplay outside in more fluid and natural ways.
There is a short cooldown on war declarations, but they can't be used as a griefing mechanic because they're consensual. The other gang must accept the war, and either gang can end the war at any time. If a gang is being overwhelmed, it's up to them to either hide from their rivals or to end the war.
Wars are won when one side is tired of being being attacked and ends the war, as described above. There is no need for an artificial mechanic to determine who's won. We fully expect that some gangs (likely larger ones) will keep the war active for a long time. In our experience with similar mechanics (we've implemented similar systems in several other production games, and learned a lot about the psychology and use of the mechanic) it usually doesn't take long for one side to give in. If that's not the case, and they're enjoying the competition, it's there for the fun.
As for the police, killing someone in a rival gang is not considered legal in any sense. The penalty is a little less harsh than killing another player who's not involved, but there is most definitely a crime involved in either case. The largest difference is the stress mechanic here; rival gangs are always treated as though their members are fully stressed to your own gang.
Everything about the war mechanic is quantifiable" We've learned through years of experience with similar systems, and we've implemented similar mechanics in games in the way you describe, as well as even having only one side need to start the war. Simply put, when you're at war with another gang you can quickly get overwhelmed and that's not fun for the gang on the receiving end. Gangs are social structures at their core, and nobody should be forced to play in a mechanic they don't want to; in reality, war isn't for everyone. Many players won't have a desire to participate in such worldwide PvP. Wars will most often happen in one of two cases: either some sort of rivalry will form between the groups, and war will be declared as a way to punish the other side, or wars will be declared for the ongoing fun of conflict. Remember, you don't need a war declared for rivalries to form. Identity is all about emergent gameplay.
As for the looting of your victims, there are some items which cannot be looted. Items like weapons, on the other hand, can indeed be taken. Keep in mind here that Identity is built with competition in mind, and a cheap and plentiful weapon can be deadly as fast as a rare and powerful weapon. For example, if you've died recently and lost your assault rifle, that'll set you back. However, having a 9mm pistol you had in storage can still be incredibly deadly if used well. Our goal is to make sure that a skilled new player will be competitive.
-
4
-
-
1 minute ago, Dopeyplayz said:Where is the Dev Blog?
The next dev blog goes out Thursday (tomorrow).
-
3
-
-
The latest Identity Insider, Gangs and Warfare, is here! We're changing up the Insider format to bring you more information at a much quicker pace. In fact, you'll be getting multiple Insiders every month until we've covered most the core features of Identity.
Today's Insider is about gangs and the systems which surround them.
Find the Insider details on the "About" page of our website or, if you're lazy, click this here link.
-
3
-
-
We've had a lot of development progress and are right on the verge of Town Square release. There will be a new Insider very soon as well as a dev blog to catch you up in a few days. Check out the Dev Blog section on the forum here for a recap on those.
On the video front, there are these.
The task tracker, found on the Town Square module page on this website, also shows progress for Town Square release. There's not much need in monitoring it anymore since there's only one task in its final stage, though. When that completes you'll see Identity's Town Square module on Steam.
-
1
-
1
-
-
This is clearly a bug with the system as transactions are handled in the backend in a different way now. There are several bugs with the new website, all of which will be ironed out right away.
-
1
-
-
You will be able to acquire all of these things in the game; however, they are cosmetically unique. Textures/skins and such will differentiate the paid object from the standard.
Most of these assets can also be claimed on each server.
-
2
-
-
3 hours ago, Eriberto said:Yep, and the weirdest part is that if you pay 15usd and then you upgrade to the modules access, you will save 2/3 dollars. It's less expensive than what it was before.
The way it works, and where the confusion is here, is that the prices are indeed the same although when you purchase the other package now, it's not really an "upgrade". The website functions as a shop now, and not a crowd-funder platform like Kickstarter. What this means is you're not just going from package A to C in a linear line, but you can choose additional things and get what you really want.
The reason it seems more expensive is actually because you're GETTING MORE. If you were to buy that package, you'd be getting everything you don't have from that package already and also keeping what you have from the other package. The discount is there if you already have some of the items in that package, as you're not paying for those again.
36 minutes ago, Theezakj said:In my opinion, prices are insane x D 100$ for an appartment? even 300 for the penthouse? That's aloot of money!
It is, for sure. The value is in that the apartment is available to be claimed on all servers.
-
Which key are you referring to? If you've made a purchase and it's not showing in your account it is surely there, but there may be display bugs with the new site.
-
Servers will exist on all continents!
-
4
-
-
The current target is 300 players per server, although with our technology we can go over 1,000. It'll come down to playtesting to what we find compliments gameplay best.
-
2
-
Will multiple people be able to sing at the same time for the karaoke feature? And which songs suit your voice?
in The Town Square
Posted
The biggest difficulty in the technical end here was synchronizing the music with the singer's voice, based on their ping to the server.
We need to do more testing but right now there is only one microphone on the stage. We do have at least one duet song to see how it plays out though.