Motown
-
Content count
239 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
24
Posts posted by Motown
-
-
3 hours ago, Frank said:I can't yet say specifically what pistols will be in Identity. We're still adding some, and may remove others. But there will be a variety of pistols, including revolvers. We want handguns to be more common than any other weapon, with automatic weapons being rare enough that they are typically brought out by gun collectors for special occasions, like federal reserve robberies, or bank heists.
We don't expect that players will be roaming the streets with an AK-47 or M4A1 attached to their backs due to the high risk of losing it. Other players, including cops can see the weapons attached to your hip or back, and the deadlier it is, the more valuable target you are for others.
There won't be any sniper rifles or long range weapon attachments beyond a simple 2x scoped hunting rifle. Expect gunfights to be close quarters.
Shotguns are also included. Our ballistics model is pretty cool, and these weapons will quickly become a favorite for those who can afford to carry them.
The whole idea is to keep things realistic. Ask yourself what you'd expect to see in real life when encountering a person with a firearm. You certainly wouldn't expect to see a Thompson Sub-machine gun, or a .50 caliber sniper rifle.
What kind of handguns do you think are most commonly carried in modern day United States?-
4
-
-
35 minutes ago, CalTerranova said:The only thing I want is to hear from the backers who bought the largest one and got to go meet the team. I do believe Identity is in development and is still coming but I feel like if they spoke up on meeting the devs then it would silence a lot of suspicions. That's just me though.
None of the 5, $5,000 backers confirmed their pledge after the Kickstarter campaign ended. We were really looking forward to that experience too unfortunately, and would have already fulfilled that pledge promise by now.
That's part of the reason why we don't offer those tier rewards on our site now. It would be too easy to pledge that amount and then do a charge back through Paypal.
We did invite a guy from the Asylum community who happened to live in Ottawa near where we were working to come hang out with us for a day, but he never showed up.
26 minutes ago, Santoyo said:Yeah I'm not spending a single dime until the devs released another solid 10+ minute showcase video showcasing every feature they've completed so far. I get that they only have like 10 people working on the game, but 2 years has passed and they must have something new to showcase.
We absolutely encourage people to wait to pledge until they are actually able to play the beta if they aren't sure what they are getting into yet. Our pledge options will still be available throughout that process. It's much less stressful that way, for all parties!
-
5
-
-
45 minutes ago, GeneSmith said:While I understand the difficulty in game design and crafting a world from nothing.. Your excuse for the last two years has been that "You're under staffed." While I'm not trying to make a complaint nor a problem I'm simply pointing out that if you were so aware for over two years and raised 200,000$ why did you not just get a staff that would be solely dedicated to your project. Every time this subject is brought up we end up hearing the same thing over and over. When you hired your staff you knew they were freelance and continued to promise announcements you knew you couldn't reach within the time you made. My theory is that you keep saying more is to be announced to keep people here. And Parutus? What is he so busy with? I can see the that he's a leader. Making sure people do their jobs. Making sure people get paid. But how does that take 6 months to do? When I was in the Discord I saw multiple people offer help to you for the sake of the game. You didn't give them an answer and to my knowledge you still haven't. I don't think this is a scam. I just think you're hurting your customers hopes by never releasing anything but pictures. I don't care if the video is a minute long showing off a bunch of blank textures with some buildings placed. At least them we know you and your team aren't lying. Again, not trying to complain just simply making an observation and expressing my thoughts.
All very good questions. We continuously plot our budget to hire as many people as we can (accounting for up to a years pay in most cases) in all essential areas. This essentially means that in order to make more room for more artists or programmers, some of us have to do multiple jobs at once. For instance, I'm both the Community Manager and a 3D artist. Paratus, besides just being our project manager, is also a full time programmer and technical artist for Identity. He's always busy with one thing or another and It's not that he's taking 6 months to do one thing. it's more like that he's actually moving from one priority to another with the video never being at the top of that list. The longer it takes him of course, the higher priority it becomes, and it's certainly far past due now. He knows that and isn't intentionally avoiding it.
We've had a lot of people offer to help us for free, but we've also had a few offer to help for a price. We have hired a couple freelancers in the past from our community on Twitter, but we do have incredibly high standards for our artists, and not everyone is capable of meeting those standards, and that kind of talent doesn't come free. The other issue is that, perhaps hypocritically on my part being the exception, we feel very strongly against accepting free work. With our budget in check, we can't afford to pay these people if they were looking for a paid job, and don't feel comfortable exploiting their services for free. There are a lot of moral and ethical concerns regarding that, even if the person providing thinks they are ok with it. From our experience, eventually they are going to want compensation, which leaves the door open for potential legal issues.
I think this post particularly is a wake up call for our entire team. As a result of our lack of communication, we can observe how damaging false accusations, like that posted on Reddit can be, especially when noone from the community has been provided anything in support of countering these claims. Worse still, this burden is my responsibility specifically, and I absolutely do feel like I am underachieving by not being able to provide new information to our community with any kind of frequency.
I will work with Paratus to see what we can move around to develop a new strategy for dealing with our PR issues.-
6
-
-
Hey guys, wanted to address this to prevent any further confusion, and to offer our perspective and transparency.
Asylum Entertainment is registered in Canada by Paratus because he is a Canadian citizen and the owner of the company. I spent 6 months in Canada with Paratus and Marc (another programmer on Identity) and then returned home due to a work visa issue related to missing tax paperwork. I am a co-founder but I am not an executive of Asylum, and until I recently requested so, was the lowest paid employee, earning minimum wage (even less than our freelance artists). Around July, I requested that Paratus stop paying me because I didn't feel comfortable taking resources that were better spent towards the development of our project, considering how limited our funding is. Paratus insisted on continuing to pay me, but I stubbornly insisted right back that he not. If there is any reward to be earned for my work on Identity, I prefer that it come after the successful launch of this game. I have always said that I would work on Identity for free, even if we ran out of funding, and I feel a sense of pride knowing that these resources are spent on real progress.
Now on to the Reddit post. The user /u/theafricandream on Reddit who posted that thread is a former member of our Altis Life community who had been permanently banned more than 9 months ago by a member of our volunteer staff as a result of a long history of bans, despite receiving multiple second chances.
Here you can read my reply to a Reddit thread he created 9 months ago after he was banned.
In this thread, TheAfricanDream accuses us of banning players that have donated to Asylum in order to scam and steal their money. Presumably he had donated prior to receiving his ban and in the wake of his upset, created this post. I, nor anyone else that I am aware of besides Paratus, has access to Asylum's Altis Life Paypal account or transaction data, and especially not credit card information. Paypal does not send credit card information to vendors, and we only accept Paypal as a means of payment.
And as for the content on AsylumExposed, It is almost entirely (unless fabricated or untrue) related to incidents that had been addressed as soon as we had discovered them, in many cases, before they landed on that webpage or in the hands of the community. Any time you are managing a community of volunteers, you will encounter people who become comfortable in their position and eventually attempt to test the waters and see how much they can get away with. Abusive actions on the part of our volunteer administrators are treated as an insult to the community and the rest of the volunteer staff. There are numerous ways we handle abuse, ranging from removal from the admin team, to requiring they provide compensation and an apology depending on the severity of the issue. Remember that Empathy is Asylum's goal, and it is extended to both the community and staff.Despite inflammatory commentary and accusations, we understand where users like TheAfricanDream are coming from. Without a constant flow of official information, people rely on external sources wherever they can find them. We blame no one but ourselves and find no excuse for the lack of communication between us and our incredibly supportive and deserving community.
Public Relations is a matter we have struggled with since the start of this project. Simply put, and regrettably so, none of us are experts in Public Relations. I took up the mantle of Community Manager because I was already involved in managing Asylum's Altis Life community for Paratus when he and I got together to conceptualize the idea for Identity. Paratus was a skilled programmer with industry experience, and I had experience with 3D modeling and went to school for it. We both had very ambitious dreams about the type of game we wanted to play and with our combined knowledge, knew we were capable of pulling it off together. The success of Identity's Kickstarter cemented our dreams in reality. It introduced us to an entire universe of people who had the same dreams as us, and provided proof that the market was there for Identity.
Identity's financial situation isn't entirely accidental either. Since Identity's start, we've dodged investors and publishers that have offered enticing deals, as a measure to ensure Identity was completed as close to our original design as possible. To us, accepting many of these deals meant compromise, and we simply haven't been willing to rush features, or give up creative control to push out a product that is any less than what we have promised.
Thank you so much for your continued patience and support. You guys will never understand what this journey has meant to us and how much your support has lifted our spirits.
-
8
-
-
13 minutes ago, Frank said:Sounds great! I know dates are hard to give, so dont worry but in general, do you guys still have ALOT to do for the town square? Also, how is the gameplay video coming along?
I think the major holdup with Town Square right now is that some of the buildings still need interiors. We've been slower at producing those assets than we originally expected. No real reason for it other than our artists being spread thin among other things.
The last I heard, what remains of the video of the apartment customization was in Paratus' hands (he's a programmer as well as our project lead). I'm not exactly sure what that is because when I saw it a few weeks ago, it was perfect. From my observation, he's all over the place because all of us need his attention all the time, so he's been a bit preoccupied lately while we've also been begging him to finish up what the community has been waiting for the most.-
7
-
-
Hey guys, thanks for your concerns. Identity is absolutely still in active development, but we understand these concerns have a tendency to grow within the community each time we have become quieter than usual. We're a small team with limited resources so we spend a lot of that time focusing on development tasks. Development is our first love, and none of us are really experts at marketing or Public Relations. We definitely owe our fans a lot more attention than we've given, and admittedly, our PR game has been pretty poor.
Until we get that sorted, you can actively find Paratus and I on the unofficial, fan Discord server. Message us anytime for any reason! I'm always around and available for a chat about anything you'd like to talk about. Paratus doesn't seem to check his messages quite as often, and the others don't seem to be very chatty on social networks, but we've extended invites to them for when they do decide to eventually join us.
It's important to know that most game projects spend a few years in development before they are announced to the world. That gives them the added benefit of working without pressure from their communities. But Identity was announced when development started, so we've always struggled with knowing when to prioritize marketing over development being a small team, especially myself being both the Community Manager and a 3D artist on the project. It's been a challenge for me to switch between modes, and I regret that I haven't been very effective at it.
As a quick progress update. Last week, on the art side, we finished up all of the remaining face sculpts, complete with textures and shaders, that you have seen us posting periodically on Twitter, and those, along with about 50 pieces of clothing (we still need so much more) are currently undergoing rigging. And on the programming side, we completed the karaoke feature, which we will test on Monday. I myself am working on 3d modeling a one bedroom apartment, as well as a hotel bedroom. These things will all be featured in the Town Square module as well as the completed game!
Thank you again for all of your support, and I hope this provides a sliver of the information you guys have been craving to hear about!-
19
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, Frank said:Hey Motown! I have a couple of questions.
1. Will there be some sort of little Italy? If not I think it would be cool to have a small one.
2. I heard that there was going to be a casino in the game. Will it be located in Turtle beach?
Unfortunately, there probably won't be a little Italy. Identity's design is primarily focused on contemporary modern life surrounding gangs, drug, and law enforcement culture. While these things do exist in modern life in many cities around the country and world, they don't necessarily fit the design direction we are aiming for.
There will be more than one casino in Identity, and it is very likely that at least one will be found in Turtle Beach-
3
-
-
I can shed some light on this subject!
There are three major cities in Identity's map, which consists of an island landmass of approximately 225 square kilometers, including a few smaller islands scattered around the coast. The terrain is roughly based on the South Eastern region of the United States, centered on the Carolina's where we were originally going to move our development office. We chose this area for it unique cultural and biome diversity. It's also important to know that the concept art image of the proposed island is simply an early proposal of the land mass. While the general shape of the island will remain close, it does not represent the current design our layout of the current map.
The first and largest city, Roseport, is heavily influenced by a mix of Atlanta, GA, and NYC, NY. Atlanta is a great city but didn't quite fit the architecture design and building density we were aiming for, so we splashed a bit of New York City into the mix despite it being a bit further north than our focus range. Roseport is a hive for shady businesses and gangs operating out of low and middle income suburbs surrounding the busy downtown area. We suspect that this will be the place that most players in Identity call home.
The second city, Ash Hill is a mountain town that is architecturally inspired by Asheville, NC. It sits perched up in Identity's western mountain range just below the frost line and is considered to be the wealthiest and cleanest living area in Identity. The Town Square module that most of you have seen by now and are eagerly awaiting is a small cutout of what Ash Hill will eventually become in Identity.
Finally, the third major city, Turtle Beach is a more tropical waterfront city based on the real world's Myrtle Beach, GA, and is located south east on Identity's map. It is a great place to live for residents of Identity most interested in fishing and seafaring activities.
I hope this answers some of your questions about these places!-
8
-
-
Hey guys, I'm really happy about how excited you all are to see these screenshots of the Town Square. They're just meant to be a little something to show you guys how progress is going for that module! You might remember the first screenshot of this location that we published back in may, and will notice that the square has been completely rebuilt from that original version!
Just keep in mind that this is a work in progress with much of the detail, props, decals, lighting and textures still remaining to be added to the scene.
Old Square:
-
19
-
-
There will be more leather jackets and biker gear. The idea is to just cover every theme we can at first and expand from there. The artist responsible for the character sculpting/modeling is Miroslav Disanski (portfolio: http://disanski.com/)!
-
10
-
-
Everyone, please be nice and courteous to others on this forum. Some of the responses I see to threads asking perfectly legitimate and innocent questions are capable of turning people away from this community. Together, we have to show everyone that they are welcome to join in on the discussion here on this forum. Please help us discourage toxic or inappropriate behavior.
Our official answer on the topic of consoles is that we have no current plans to release Identity to console platforms, but have promised to do our research into what it might require after our PC launch. This is not a promise that Identity will be available on console, simply a promise to look into it. At the moment, it would be fair to say that it is outside of our scope and budget.-
1
-
-
Welcome to our community @Ariasunshine! It's incredible seeing so many people here from so many different places.
-
2
-
-
17 hours ago, NimdaSlo said:I would like to see some kind of court system to decide guilt and time served
The court system does sort of work that way. Only, in Identity you go to jail first and then request a jury trial to either be found guilty and serve out the remainder of your sentence, or be set free. Players around the map are notified that they are being summoned for jury duty and must rush to the court house to sign in for duty. They'll receive compensation for their time, or possibly become wanted for skipping out. And the accused can even choose to represent themselves or have an attorney speak for them (in case they aren't very social or don't have a microphone).
Counting offline will be a bad idea ad ppl will just commit crimes at night if it is a couple hours(btw u would rather it be a couple hours) and spend no time in prison.
We certainly agree. If our maximum jail time remains at 45 minutes, it wouldn't make much sense to allow time to pass while the player is offline, but if for some reason we decide a player can spend several hours in prison, it might make sense to let them spend that time how they wish. It is a game after all! Also keep in mind that the player doesn't have to leave prison when their time has expired. They can stay and hang out if they want too!
-
3
-
-
Hey NZLKYLE,
if you pledge $15 for the citizen package, you can upgrade later if you are convinced that you want to play Identity during beta! You'd only need to pay the difference for the upgrade, which would be an additional $15 later on.-
6
-
-
On 7/2/2016 at 3:42 AM, Aetion said:No offense but I have a feeling this will die like the Discord chat.
I'd love to see a Discord server!
In the meantime, I'll periodically poke my head in to see if anyone is around this Teamspeak. I'd love to chat sometime!-
4
-
-
@Paratus and I have both been playing Pokemon GO. If Identity is delayed by about 5 years, you know why! #addicted
-
3
-
-
We absolutely have plans to implement VR into Identity. John, our project lead is very excited for that. We're still working out the best solution for movement, but we imagine most people will use it when driving.
VR probably won't be in the first module, unless John sneaks it in before launch. It would be awesome to have it ready for the movie theater though.-
6
-
-
Hey Chaoss, welcome to the Identity forums! We love hearing from other modders and developers. I'm not sure where it is coming from, but It's ok to ask duplicate questions here! You're into VR, have you bought a Rift or Vive yet? We've been toying around with VR development in our downtime, and would like to implement it into Identity!
-
3
-
-
Welcome Olly! I think you made the right choice picking criminal. There is a lot for cops to do in Identity, but the responsibility involved isn't my cup of tea either. I myself intend to roleplay as a hobo serial killer. Just don't come down my alley!
-
4
-
-
I poked my head into your Teamspeak server, and nobody was there.
-
1
-
-
That's old news, and is why it was initially delayed a few months ago. We've already resolved that issue with the Town Square. Now we are updating shaders and materials and trying to prop out the scene to feel a bit more complete. It worried us that feedback had mentioned a difference in quality between interior and exterior shots, and so we made the decision to put more effort into our environments. This will be the first impression for many of our fans, and so it needs to look great.
We simply ask that our fans here have patience. We're a small team of around 9 people at any given time (people come and go frequently) and what's important to us is that we get it right. Speed is not our priority!-
8
-
-
Del! Welcome! I'm excited to see you get back into streaming.
-
1
-
-
All of these things happened 5-6 years ago in Garry's Mod on our favorite server, Exiled. The gamemode is called PERP for those interested. I remember when you asked me to be a part of that last video. Good memories. Welcome to Identity old friend!
I was also the mayor in this video:-
2
-
-
We typically have a 2 week deadline for 3d assets, but don't tell our artists that! That's more than enough time to complete anything we task them with, and we usually get stuff back from the artist much sooner. Simple assets like props may take less than a day, with clothing pieces ranging from 3-5 days from start to finish. If it requires sculpting in ZBrush, it inherently takes longer because the process includes the hi-poly mesh and low-poly re-topology. And if it requires rigging, skinning, and animation, it could take much longer.
Experienced 3d artists might read this and think we're pretty slow though.-
8
-
Text Chat and concerns
in The Town Square
Posted
Text chat will be available to you in Identity! There will be local chat, as well as private messaging. We acknowledge that the convenience of voice chat isn't always what people want in every situation. Whether you are shy, or you want to pretend to be someone else, or even if someone in your proximity is trying to sleep, we don't want to suppress your ability to get a message across, but we do think that those who want and will use voice chat, will inherently have an enhanced experience in Identity.