Committed to the Asylum Wow, what a month. This has been the busiest, craziest month we've ever had at Asylum Entertainment and the hard work is really showing. Most of the guys here at the office have been putting in a lot of overtime hours to get the Town Square module ready as soon as possible. I myself have been working half my time as a programmer, tossing some cool new systems together. I really, really can't wait for everyone to see what we're putting together! For the past few days my personal pet project has been a total overhaul of the character control and animation system. We're working on getting new animations entirely, but it's amazing how much nicer character movement looks right now after some extra TLC. In the past Identity videos, you'll notice the camera is always locked behind your character and you rotate the character with the mouse. Now, movement is a little more like games such as Grand Theft Auto in which you can run toward the screen or parallel to it, too. If you're holding your forward run key/stick, it'll play like before. It really adds a much better sense of control. Alternatively, when you're in combat mode (weapons or melee), the view is again locked behind your shoulders. None of this applies to first-person view, of course. We've been putting a lot of time into polishing and enhancing character creation and customization in preperation for the Town Square launch. I wanted to share a screenshot to give you an idea of the extensive customization options available. You can control your gender, race, blemishes, hair and a ton of facial modifiers. You can select from a couple dozen pieces of clothing to start in, too, but most will have to be purchased at a shop. Character creation work in progress I've been waiting a very long time to see Identity in the state it is right now. We have a powerful new server making nightly builds for testing on Steam and everything is beginning to have that good polished feel you expect in a real, released game. There's still work to be done but it's an incredibly exciting time for us here. Sooner rather than later There are all sorts of features we want for the Town Square which were always planned to be added months after release. With art development moving at a faster pace than I ever anticipated it would, given the relatively tiny size of our team, it seems that we might be able to include some of these features sooner than I expected. Some of these features, which should be ready somewhat soon after Town Square is available, include tattoos, haircuts and even the shooting range. Tattoo shop (WIP) Tattoo design and development progress (WIP) A look inside the Asylum In keeping with our committment to transparency and open communication with the community, our new website will soon be launching (even before the Town Square). The new website will have all sorts of shop options for you to check out, but one of the more interesting aspects will be our development tracker. We're going to be showing you exactly where our development stands in regards to each milestone, such as the Town Square release. You're going to see live data showing what we're working on and how long we expect each element to take. Then, following the Town Square release we'll keep this going for each future development milestone. It'll sort of be like looking over our shoulders in the office yourself. 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

How will the servers work will we need to start a new character and start from scratch when we enter different servers or will the servers remember our charactors and all the things we have and earned what's happening with this please

Hello, question is in the title, so, which pass do I need ? Can I use the citizen pass at 23. April or ... ? Which pass allows to play right now ?

This is going to be unformatted and my opinion. I am open and willing to hear all of your guys' voice in the replies, but here's what I need to say. So the release date on Town Square Module is set for March 22nd (I think). At the time of me typing this, it is February 28th or one day before March 1st. Therefore, we have about 22 days and 3 hours until the release (Same time as EST). This is exciting stuff. We have a new and fun game planned to come out in less than a month! However is this a real estimate? I know things always change around and things go wrong, but is it a real date we can look at? In my opinion no. We have looked at things such as the gameplay video which was promised in January, then wasn't delivered. Then promised on February 1st to be done in days. And once again, wasn't delivered. Then after two weeks into the month, we finally got something that in my opinion was very underwhelming and disappointing. So how can we trust that it will come out fully in the month of March? Is it because the devs said so? No. Because the devs also said they were just polishing the Gameplay video on January 22nd. So in all honesty, don't be surprised if no big set back occurs, and your waiting for the month of April to actually get access to the game.

Hey i was just wondering if it was posible to do a tour around the Town Square.

Just read in the newsletter today about when Townsquare is dropping. One thing I wanted to get clarified was the statement: ''We've crunched all the numbers and can now say with fair confidence that the Identity Town Square module will be released, to all backers with a $30 or higher pledge, on this coming March 21st.'' It says that you will get the town square module beta with a $30 pledge but when i go on the shop it says that i will get the beta for a $15 plegde.

The time draws near! In the last dev blog I sent out, I mentioned that we were going to announce the release date for our first playable game module, the Town Square. Those of you who follow our Twitter and Twitch streams will have already learned this date. It's a very exciting and important time for Identity; we're fast approaching the time where you'll first step foot in Identity's grand world. We've crunched all the numbers and can now say with fair confidence that the Identity Town Square module will be released, to all backers with a $30 or higher pledge, on this coming March 21st. What will you find in the Town Square? The Town Square is a social game module. You'll be able to create your character, which may be transferable to the retail game after release, and meet hundreds of other Identity backers in the town square of the clean and quaint city of Ash Hill. You'll be able to talk to those around you, add them to your phone contacts and have full phone and IM support to stay in touch. You'll find a completely functional cinema playing full movies around the clock, a karaoke bar to show off your skills (or see me making a fool of myself), a working restaurant, art gallery, shops and more. The biggest single feature is the housing system. You're getting a taste of the full and complete player housing mechanics that you'll find in Identity. Everyone will have access to a tiny apartment, but those who pledged for higher rewards will be able to check out and decorate their larger spaces. It's a preview of what you'll have in the full game. Invite friends to your place and party it up! After the initial release of the module, we'll continue to add features to the Town Square as they are completed in development for Identity. Barbershops and tattoo parlors will let you customize your character further. A garage will let you sample your vehicles. You'll even get to test your ability with firearms in the police shooting range before the SWAT module is released. For me, one of the most exciting parts of Town Square is just to get inside the game and finally get a feel for Identity and how it plays. Check out a few of the Town Square work-in-progress shots we've released in the past. It's been a long road for the development team here at Asylum, but we're almost there! Flexing our new manpower Productivity has skyrocketed with our new office. We're working better and there are now many more of us knocking out code and assets each day. Our programming team has expanded with Charles and we're still hiring more. We've brought three new and incredibly talented 3D artists on board as well as a new technical artist. Brandon, our new Community Manager, has been hard at work keeping you in the loop. These guys are all proving their worth each day and I'm extremely excited about where Asylum is going. Looking to the future With some of our Town Square art wrapping up now, we're beginning to shift a bit of our focus to the second module: SWAT. The SWAT module will be a team vs team competitive shooter using the combat mechanics you'll find in the full Identity release. Expect combat to be slower and more realistic than most similar games. You'll learn much more about this module as work progresses. Above is an MP5 sub machinegun which will be used by the SWAT forces. This particular model was created from scratch in a matter of days by one of our new artists, Dan. The awesome talent of our art team is undeniable! -- John VanderZwet

I have to say i first did lose interest in the town square module but... They have been putting out dev blogs monthly. That has gotten me excited for it again. My thoughts is that if they keep on putting out dev blogs every 3-4 weeks nobody will have a reason to complain. Thanks for the recent Dev Blogs Devs.

It's been over two months since the last update came out. Town Square has been at 89% since I funded, and the website claims Early Access will begin early 2017. Kind of irritating when it feels like my money was wasted. Is there any new news, or should I just get a refund?

Will you ever release the game? Or is it just a fake Website to make money??? I know it's a lot of work to do this game, but you said it will release in early 2017. But now it's late 2017 without any Progress in town square...

So I seen someone else post this and thought I'd get it more spread and known for more answers, relating to release of first module, the module is continuously stuck on 89% and it is not moving, some clarification please? Not assuming any reason myself unless an admin says something about it not moving.

Hello! I would like to ask some questions about the Town Square Module. My question is: Are you gonna be able to play it with friends? Is it gonna be free or is it gonna cost? When is it estimated to come out? Thank you for reading and hopefully responding.

Hey everyone! I'm so excited to play identity ( hopefully this month) during the beta tests. What is everyone gunna do the first time they log into the game? I just want to explore the city and all the features. I'm so pumped to see that first round of people on the game, and hopefully explore an complex and intriguing atmosphere. See ya in the Town Square!!!!!!

Hi I have a question about the Karaoke you've talked about, and about the future possibility of an "entertainment industry" in the game. I am a performer, and have my own stream, which I don't know if you'll be incorporating into this environment, but I can also play directly and sing into VOIP. I'm very interested in the Karaoke part of the game, and probably would spend a lot of time there singing. However it would be nice to see some sort of Entertainment Industry in the game as well. Possibly a venue built with scheduled artists, possibly ticket sales, or some form of way to earn game money in the industry??

This thread was created to cast a poll of the general idea of what members believe will be the release era. I understand there have been few threads released like this, but I would just like to take another poll after the recent release of "Dev Blog #007" (not officially listed under Dev Blogs, to view see HERE). In the blog, it states that they have very few things to finish before Town Square release, leading me to change my beliefs upon the release. I personally believe that sometime within the next month we will see the debut of this game (hopefully). What's you're opinion? Fill out the poll above! ~ SummitsEdge // Mob-Mechanix Founder && President

For the past month or so, I've noticed that the progress meter on the page for the town square is still on 89%. I don't know if it just isn't being updated or it's actually just taking especially long. I just want to have a basic idea of what's happening.

Hi guys! My name is Azka, I'm new to the community. For a long time I've been looking for a realistic/real-life game. The closest thing to it is Bethesda's Fallout series, the social interaction in that game is spectacular. I wish the best of luck to the developers. Can't wait to see you all in town square

Identity's development has been moving at a pace we've never experienced in the past. With added full-time programming and art talent, we've been able to produce more content in a shorter time than expected. With all of the base features of Town Square in place, we've now been building up the supporting systems; the menu interfaces, server selection systems, character creation and more are well underway now. You'll get a good preview of the character customization soon! Ridable bicycle; work in progress Some exciting progress is also being seen beyond the Town Square! Our vehicle systems are starting to get fleshed out. We found the integrated Unreal Engine vehicle subsystems to be inadequate for the realism and fidelity we seek, so Identity will run on an entirely rebuilt vehicle physics engine. With this you can expect extremely realistic handling of bicycles, cars, vans, motorcycles, semi-trucks and more. We've got the Twitch Game development is an exciting career that many gamers aspire for. Just a couple of weeks ago we had test run streaming our development live on Twitch. In our first stream, our character artist Miroslav added different eyebrow varieties to Identity character head models. These are some of the eyebrow options you'll be able to choose when creating your characters; get an inside look at the work which goes into even a small detail as this. While the task Miroslav had at the time might not have been the most exciting, we're in the process of setting up a schedule for very regular streams from a variety of development departments. Keep an eye on Twitter and Facebook for stream time announcements. Click the preview below to watch the recorded stream. It runs at just under an hour in duration. Identity's first Dev Stream: Miroslav's Eyebrows You can find our Twitch channel at Twitch.tv/IdentityRPG. Follow us there to get notified when an Identity developer starts streaming! Path to the Town Square Town Square early revision; work in progress A lot of Town Square work has been accomplished since the last dev blog! From interface to animations and more feature polish, the Town Square is shaping up into a genuinely interesting social environment. We've been making everything we can in the environment interactive. If it looks like it would have some sort of purpose in reality, we're making it useful (or at least entertaining) in Identity, too! Grab a newspaper for the latest happenings, toss a coin into the fountain or grab a can of soda from the machine. Visual dynamics have been added as well. Simple things bring immersion to the environment. The clocks on buildings and towers show the real in-game time, the cinema marquee sign shows the movies playing with real times (which can be adjusted by owners of community servers in retail Identity) and more. We're making the Identity environment, and thus that in Town Square, feel alive and interactive. A hotel lobby at night -- John VanderZwet

Will we be able to customize a house in the Town Square Module if we've payed the $30 to play? Or do we have to buy one of the packages that includes a house?

Hey, I was wandering : Will the upcoming module be there on time ? Because a lot of stuff in Identity were delayed (Especially the full game that was supposed to come out in early 2017), and, since the Town Square module is supposed to be released in a few days, it'll be nice if we could get more information on whether or not the module will arrive on time.

These are the messages off of discord Arky-Today at 5:38 AM The module has been delayed DRAGONFLY TODD/AUSTV-Today at 5:38 AM I know Arky-Today at 5:39 AM So that's months off. Don't worry about it for now man DRAGONFLY TODD/AUSTV-Today at 5:39 AM M O N T H S ? Arky-Today at 5:39 AM That's what I heard Motown-Today at 5:39 AM Send me some questions Dragonfly and I'll respond! Arky-Today at 5:39 AM They're putting a video in its place while they finish it up Motown- rea

Quick Q. why has the town square been at 76% complete for past months seems like it will never move up.

Hey there developpers, I recently consulted many sources and they all aren't saying the same: is the BETA stage(the one you receive access for when you pledge more than 30$) going to be available the pledgers AFTER the Town Square module is released or at the END OF THE YEAR(2 weeks or so before the expected release date of IdentityRPG)? Thank you for clearing these for me and have a nice day! Cheers

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