Progress So Far and Our Goal For April

[ElectricCrow]

I figured, it's 3am EST and now that the Holidays are coming to a close, the dev team is preparing to ramp back up and get cracking on bringing many elements together on the live servers, so I'll give you an idea as to where things are currently as well as future plans.

#1. The overall goal for April is to create a 3D MMO the likes of Ultima Online with some changes and modern enhancements to the systems and concepts. Once this has been achieved, we will then further expand and or re-create some of the elements of the game altogether to fit more in line with what my future expectations are. What this means is, some of the things you will see in Alpha, won't be what we all want, primarily, the crafting system. Right now, it's very much like Guild wars 2 in that it's not directly based on skill of the player but rather the ability to harvest and or prepare materials for combining. In the future, we plan to really dive deep into the crafting system and make some MAJOR changes, but for now, I want a fully functional system. We are doing this because with a limited budget and limited time, I'd rather have a fully functional game in place for the players, than try to attempt something overly complex, not meet our April Deadline, or worse, run out of funds to pay the devs to get it right where we want it. Once the game has launched and we have a steady revenue stream I can use to keep the devs active in furthering the development, then of course we will do so.

#2. Vincent has finished the Grasslands Housing modules/models and is nearing completion of the Desert Lands Housing Modules/Models. Once this has been completed, I'm having him switch gears into the actual land placement/parcel permissions and estate management system. Having the housing options for 2 of the 5 climates already is a nice start and I'm really impressed with what he's done so far. I will just feel much more comfortable having the base system in place before moving on with the models for the other 3 climates. Keep tabs on the Housing Tool as that will be updated every couple of weeks or so with the new additions. I figured doing that will give everyone something they can play with while the game is being developed.

#3. The Base Combat/Skills/Spells system has been completed. We kind of lucked out in that one of the devs had been building a system already exactly as I wanted a system to be built for this game. With some modifications to the code to reflect the new infrastructure, some edits that brought the system more in line with Greed Monger and walla, we have a pretty slick system in place. Now, even non programmers (like me!) can add new skills, spells and the like on the fly! Our system is dynamic in that we have those options and more which will really help the future expansion of the game and really enable us to add new skills on a regular basis.

#4. Switching to the Cloud. After some further research, number crunching and the like, I have decided that once development reaches a certain point, we are going to migrate over to a Cloud based server system. With the expected popularity of the game and the ease of server expansion, I think this will be the best bet for the longevity of Greed Monger. There may be some small changes to our business model but nothing that will break what we've already established. One thing that will happen is number 5.

#5. A 2nd Kickstarter Campaign. Now, this most likely won't happen until after April and will act as preparation for the actual Beta of Greed Monger. Here, we will put up the remaining parcels of the game with some additional options that haven't yet been available. These funds will be used to cover the initial bandwidth costs for the first 6 months until the games economy and our revenue streams have been leveled out and monthly averages calculated. This will also act is a big press/media push to help the launch of the game's Beta/Launch. It will all make more sense later on, but know this is planned. If you have any ideas on things any of you might like to see as rewards in that campaign, let me know.

Over the next couple of weeks I anticipate being able to release some exciting new videos to show off what we have accomplished thus far. I really think you'll like the progress we are making.

We are a long ways away from achieving our goal, but we have a lot of the base systems either complete or near complete and soon to be brought together on the servers. At that point, it's all about the world building and additions of content, monster placement etc.

I KNOW posting this will bring up a SLEW of questions. I'll try to answer some here and there but I may not have all of the answers you're looking for. PLEASE, don't speculate too much or jump to any doomsday conclusions on your own. I know it's a common trend in MMO forums, but it really does bother me when I say one thing and someone takes it to mean something way out in left field. It wont goat me into answering your questions any sooner, especially if there aren't yet answers. I'm posting this to keep you all informed on where things are currently and will of course post updates as milestones continue to be met. Just be patient.

Thank you all for your support and help with these forums. This really is an amazing community!

[Ffolrak Tarannon]

Cheers for the update Jason, sounds like it's all coming together well. It is all very exciting

[Ziel]

All I have to say is YES for the updates. Thanks for a heads up. I know people including myself were starting to wonder a little bit.

[Spider3]

Wow, you did definitely a lot in the last times! Congrats!!! thanks a lot for the update!!! It's really motivating all of us!

[Helnox]

Keep up the good work!

[M.Luminos]

Keep on cruising guys, looking forward to the April Alpha, I think a switch to the cloud is a good move.

As for kickstarters, I think a sprite, or fairy of some sort that sits on the shoulder of the character and hover's around them would be really cool. As long as it doesnt go "HEY, LISTEN" constantly.

[Lar]

I love how you tell us what you are working on, what you are thinking for the future and ask our opinions.
It does make me feel you are really interested in us. Thx so very much.

[Bosh]

Your plans seem solid and in place. Good to see it all in an outline.

[Ziel]

I have a question. As for past few days the issue of PvP and the Volc zone in general has started a few heated topics. It was brought up and how the Volc zones would be able to attract people to them. I know it was started that rare mats would spawn at a better rate in the Volc zone to get more people into it. Are these going to be all level tiers or just high end mats them self. It was asked that if it was high end mats then how would Volc zone attract the lower end people till the point were the high end mats are needed.

Another question that has been sturing up the crowds is death within PvE Zones. How will it be handled. Some are wanting a full item drop on the corpse and a timer that would allow anyone not just the person who owns the corpse to loot it after the timer expires. Some are happy with a decaying system you talked about. It was said that people wanting the decay have no risk on death and so.

I had a idea and will post it here to see if it anyway close to what you had planned.

Player 1 dies in the PvE area. There corpse gets placed on group with all there gear and inventory. For each hour they do not return and pick up there corpse a 10% decay would be layed on there total durability on there gear. (The 10% is based on there true durability when it was crafted, not the state it is in at the time of death.)

So if the item was crafted with 100 total durability then it would be 10% of that. So say the item is used up some and only 43 total durability is left on the item it would take 10% of the 100 not the 43 that is left so after a hour only 33 total durability would be left to the item and so on.

With this system a max corpse timer would be 9hours. Giving a 10% lost on death to start with. So if the gear was in perfect shape it would decay each hour untill no durability is left. At this point the corpse and any mats or inventory would be lost as well as any chance to salvage the broken gear into base parts. This would allow a risk system with a good decay penalty on death and also with 9hour timer keep from the world getting littered with corpses as some fear a timer on them would do.

If this system any close to what you have planed or can you give us a base idea on how the death would work in a PvE zone. It was stated that a Full loot would be in effect for the PvP zone itself, but like I said these two issue has become a pretty heated topic so some voice from you guys could help clear things up and end the topic itself.

PS. on a personal note will the people being invited into the closed pre-alpha test be invited into the testing before the KS2 kicks off. May end up donating a second time after being able to walk around and test a few things.

[Guardas]

This is a great update and great news.

I'm really glad to see the progress.