Our new world 'Lovelace' starts this Saturday. Everyone will start afresh (though, of course, you'll keep any items you've purchased through the Steam store). The world looks much the same but works significantly differently. Most notable changes :
Job system removed - base production buildings like Oil Drill produce at a flat rate cost as long as the building owner/tenant has the required skill
New skill system - differentiation between job and construction skills has been removed. e.g. 'Farmer' skill allows you to construct and run a farm, 'Baker' skill allows you to construct and run a bakery, etc.
Barter disabled
New startup layout - No welfare, start cash or purchasable government buildings, instead we have a Soup Kitchen (thanks Emmie for that idea) and the ability to task for logs and rocks to earn initial cash.
Skill learn times will increase the more you've learnt previously. (See the GFM forum thread for more info : http://gamesformay.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=270 )
Hunger and thirst rates increased ; you need to eat and drink more frequently to stay alive.
Various price limits are now enforced - items cannot be bought/sold for less than their base price +1d or for more than 3x their base price. (Base price is calculated by the game based on the global production figures).
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Once an item has been bought or sold, you can only adjust its price once every 24 hours.
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Once an item has been given a sale or purchase price, you can't stop selling/purchasing it.
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Various new building types and adjustments to the production chains : e.g. Vineyard, rice paddy, poultry farm, stonemasons (converts stone to stone blocks used for construction). Workhouses removed. Production rates have generally been slowed down somewhat.
Construction materials changed so that higher level buildings require more items (e.g. 'Lvl 1' buildings require Stone blocks & Wood rather than just stone, 'Lvl 3' require Concrete & Girders, rather than just girders).
Two starter towns - one residential/commercial, one residential/industrial - new towns will be added by a straightforward silent auction rather than election. (The starter towns will be sold off by a similar method later in the cycle).
(** All of these changes have particularly 'interesting' economic/gameplay implications that I'll be monitoring over the next few weeks - they may get 'adjusted'.)
As this is a single-developer early access game, there has been little testing of the new setup yet ; things may need adjusting as it develops.
With a new world like this, it can generally go one of three ways :
1) Everything basically works fine and, bar a few minor adjustments, the world carries on running for as long as it can.
2) Some things need bigger changes - e.g. exploits/bugs fixed and compensation/penalties awarded - resulting in some players losing out and others gaining, but the world eventually settles down and it runs for as long as it can.
3) Things go terribly wrong and everything has to get reset not long after it starts.
Ideally we get option 1), but be aware of the alternatives so there are no surprises should anything go awry. There is also the outside possibility that the new setup is so unpleasant to everyone that we revert back to Grey, or something like it, but I hope that won't be necessary :]
I'l make some more announcements in the next few days covering some changes to the benefits of the purchased items and EULA.
Questions, suggestions, donations of whiskey, all welcome as always.
Grey gone
That world is now over, congratulations to all those who survived, Clement gets a bonus next round. We're now in a holding pattern for a little while, make of that what you will, details on the next phase will be here and elsewhere soon.
Due to a combination of factors, the current world will end at some point on October 30th.
When this happens the player with the most cash on hand will be crowned as Champion of Grey and will receive a free inter-planetary shuttle on the next world when/if the technology is invented there.
A new world, 'Lovelace', will start a few days after. This world will look similar but have a substantially different setup, particularly in terms of how the economy operates and how players can interact financially.
Warehouses
Advance notice of a small change that'll be coming up shortly - Houses will only allow you to store food and drink. There will be an additional range of new industrial 'Warehouse' building types that will allow you to store everything else.
Existing house stocks won't be affected (you'll be able to remove non-food or drink items but not be able to add new ones), and warehouses will count towards your house ownership limit not your production buildings limit.
Bugfixes..
This week, in 0.74.2.0 and upwards :
- fix for tractor customisation disappearing when screen is resized or when returning from small
- added to-let sign (similar to the for sale one)
- changed price display so sheckle values less than 100s with 0d will show (for example) 9s0d instead of 9s
- fix for tractor customisation not being reset when a player leaves
- fixes for biplane first person cam and tailgunner mode
- trailers no long appear on planes
- tidyups to the high scores screens
- fix for spin rotation of buildings (e.g. windmills) changing if shadows arent enabled
- lighting improvements and fixes for occasional lighting glitches
+ various extra internal/server options to support future economy and tutorial changes.
Meanwhile..
Patch notes for the last few client updates, up to and including 0.74.1.8 posted this morning:
- Improvements and fixes to the biplane / flight physics
- Fix for jitteriness when viewing other player's biplanes
- Fix for player list selection changing when other people join/leave
- Added a little 'for sale' sign next to buildings that are .. for sale :)
- Global export price variation calculation updated so that prices tend slightly more towards the mid-range for an item
- Fix for stockroom transfer list allowing over-stocking of some items, and occasionally allowing items to be lost
- Added confirmation screen for 'demolish building' option on under-construction buildings
- If you've got no job, dollar (well.. sheckle?) symbols show up above buildings that have employment available and that you've got the skill for.
- Simplified shader option
- Fix for 'sell to building' not always showing correct stock amounts for demanded items
- Optimised some of the building render pipeline, and fixed a bug that was causing buildings to flicker occasionally in busy areas of the world
- Fix for change vehicle check not considering trailer inventory size modification
- Fix for fire effects on exploded vehicles and for the flame from the top of the oil refineries taking on the velocity of a player in the world at random. What a novel bug that was :)
Note that the changes to fix remote biplane replication may cause some people on older versions to appear to move a bit strangely occasionally. This'll clear up once their version is updated.
Major changes comin' up..
Advanced notice of a few major changes to the way the game is structured that are planned for the near future..
The first will be a trial switchover to an 'active employment' system - whereby workers will no longer be attached passively to a particular building, and will instead need to actively work buildings to collect wages - More details on this will follow closer to the time, .
Within the next few weeks I'll be removing the separate purchase of the Residence Permit and bundling that in with an initial purchase price for the game. In the near term, those of you who have got the game for free will still be allowed in, and the building restrictions for free players will be relaxed slightly. Those who have already purchased a Permit will gain extra benefits.
Thirdly, players who acquired government buildings during the startup phase will be served with 'Compulsory Purchase Orders', requiring the return of the building to government hands.
And finally, we'll be adding in some new rules regarding the manipulation of the economy through the creation of 'fake' player accounts. Please note that this is considered cheating and anyone found to be cheating in this way will risk removal from the main world and may be denied access to new worlds in the future..
Fix for landscape download issues
A mis-configuration on one of the servers has now been resolved, meaning those of you getting stuck on the 'Downloading Landscape..' screen should now be able to log in.
Apologies for the inconvenience.
Client update 0.74.1.3
Improvements and fixes in the recent Early Access client updates:
- Improved collision checks on buildings
- Extra info on building screens to indicate when a building is full
- Tenant is no longer removed from building when it is sold (Further additions to this system will be added later, including a notice-period for removing a tenant).
- A few rendering fixes (incl. reducing the over-bright crops in farm fields)
- Some fixes for auto-drive/right click.
- Fuel stations can now be built in residential areas.
- Fixes for construction of region-based buildings, such as the limestone quarry and ore mines.
Also added a couple of new decorative items to the store. (Headphones and Wizard's Hat).
New Items: 0.74.1.0
New in the ingame Item Store in today's update :
- Fishing Equipment
- 3 new decorations (Personal Bongochimp, Balloons, Ostrich)
- Movie Camera
- Purple paintwork.
Client update also contains a few bugfixes and an extra option on ESC then O to adjust the nighttime brightness ; for those of you with setups that get a bit too dark at night.
