It was lovely to see so many of you at the Westbridge event hosted at the exhibition centre. I was excited to announce this months progress with you.
As explained at the event, building progress has been slower this last month. We have now assigned Fenston as a Senior Developer for building who has been working hard on organising building tasks and designing a roadmap. He has also been focusing efforts on recruiting new builders for the project to finish off the few areas of the map that need completing.
Programming for this month has propelled forward at a fantastic pace thanks to our newest programmer, Garvis. He has been working very hard on the following progress:
Summary of Progress
- Completion of private sector implementation with player-controlled economy, government taxation and spending.
- Private sector tasks and minigames for employees with director-controlled pay.
- Crime.net completion with black market, OCG properties, exclusive missions and OCG bank accounts.
- Working inventory system.
- The start of environmental crime (ATM robberies)
Completion of the Private Sector & Financial Implementation
This has been an extensive and large project that we wanted to get right. We will be the first ROBLOX community to introduce a complex player-controlled economy to our game.
Pay will be controlled by players – somewhat… Each task completed by employees will generate money for the company, it is up to the company directors to decide how much of this goes to the employee and how much to the business. Companies will have to remain competitive with rivals so players join their company, whilst also managing their own finances to ensure they can pay off rent and taxes set by the government. Companies will also have to balance finances as we intend to offer auctions for companies to buy second locations, new locations and additional vehicles and perks with their money.
Businesses will have specific tasks for employees to complete – these will include a series of minigames. Each task will have a different amount of revenue generated for the company by the game and directors can set the pay amount for each task individually.
Catering companies will have similar tasks given the nature of their businesses. We have tasks for GB Power Networks including 3 repair types with different minigames to complete. We also have Biffa tasks completed. These tasks will consist of different waste disposal types using different vehicles (e.g for residential vs commercial waste disposal). Each route will have a different amount of bins, distance, etc and company directors can set the pay for each route separately.
The government will be responsible for manually taxing and sending rent invoices to companies. Money received by the government can be paid out to both individual players and businesses. Perhaps a benefit scheme for new players? All of this is player controlled and will create new depths to roleplay. This will be expanded post beta according to community feedback and may include separate government department accounts etc.
The financial systems are a completely new thing, so we will be closely monitoring and tracking statistics. We have an admin portal to keep track on each business and government to mitigate against abuse etc. However we plan on financial crime to be a real thing to be investigated – so be corrupt guys!
Introduction of our Inventory system
Next we now have an inventory system ingame. Each tool will have a size value, and there will be capacity values for people, car boots and properties. This will save between servers. You also have the ability to drop items (properly this time). There will also be accessories to increase storage such as rucksacks etc.
Introduction of Crime.net
Finally we have crime net, a fully functional organised crime system. Gang owners can start a OCG ingame and recruit, promote and demote people within their OCG. OCGs have specific OCG properties with storage accessible by the whole OCG.
There is also a black market to purchase exclusive tools and weaponry only accessible by OCG members. OCGs will also have exclusive “missions” they can take part in such as heists which regular players will not have access to.
Each OCG will have a bank account which can be deposited into and will also hold the rewards for exclusive missions which can then be paid out. In the OCG panel, there will be a “log” where you can track your active OCG members by how many heists they start and also track OCG management with what they are spending.
Along with this organised crime development, there has been progress on environmental crime – in particular robbable ATMs. These can be robbed in 3 different ways (hacking device, crowbar, explosives). Each of these methods have advantages and disadvantages such as how subtle they are (time for police to be informed), how long they take and how much cash you get. For example, an explosive device will be quick allowing for a quick getaway however a % of the funds are “burnt” so you get reduced cash. You need to weigh up the pros and cons and decides which is best for you.
We hope this progress is well-received. Any questions please do let me know!
