Hello citizens! It's been too long since our last developer blog entry, so I wanted to take the time today to update all of our backers on Identity's current state of development, as well as give a little more insight into the process behind the scenes. During the first year and a bit of development, most of the time was spent developing key backend systems. Networking modifications, weapon physics, character customization, voice communication and so on. That's all behind us now, and I'm happy to say it's gone as well as we could have hoped. Now and for the past couple of months we've moved on to gameplay development, making those backend features do the fun stuff. This Month in Development In this last month our lead character artist, Miroslav, has finished up everything we need for your characters going into the Town Square release. We're always going to be adding more character customizations over time, but to start you'll have the choice between 4 male and 5 female race options. After selecting your base race you can customize further with skin tones, blemishes, scars, eye color, hair styles, hair colors and tweaks to facial features. Identity is expanding on the usual character customization, though, as some of the options available can only be gotten through achievements. Prison tattoos are an example; if you see someone with such a tattoo you know they've done something to earn it. A lot of work this month has also gone into the player housing systems. In following our previous messages, our home customization system has been in place for some months although we've been expanding the floorplans in preperation for the Town Square module release. Sean, or Motown as you may know him, has prepared the various apartments you will have in the Town Square. If you have made a smaller pledge to Identity and do not have an apartment yet, we're going to be giving you access to a temporary (small) home in the Town Square so that you can play with the cusomization features. If you've pledged for a package containing an apartment, Town Square will show what you'll have in the full Identity game upon release. Just this morning our lead programmer, Henrik (AKA Mathalion), finished up the karaoke systems. It's a minor feature for Identity as a whole, but it's going to be loads of fun in the Town Square module! Just off the lobby of the hotel is a slick little bar, complete with a karaoke stage. You'll be able to queue up your favorite songs on the karaoke machine and see the lyrics on one of the monitors around the stage. The microphone on the stage really works, too, amplifying your voice out of the speakers so that your singing can be heard by everyone there! Most of us are terrible singers, so karaoke is going to have a lot of hilarious moments. If you're just there to watch, the restaurant by the stage is fully functional, too! It's Been Too Long I'll just come right out and say it: we at Asylum Entertainment have really had poor PR these last months, and you guys deserve better. You deserve much more frequent updates, and we're committing to give you that moving forward. We're a relatively small development team today. Currently a core staff of 5 incredibly talented full-time developers, I'm amazed every day with what this team can accomplish. Outside of our core we have a handful of part-time workers, mostly artists, who are also very skilled. Because we're a small team, many of us have to wear several hats. For example, Sean is our community manager but also a 3D artist. I myself am the project manager, a programmer and interface developer. This leads to few resources to dedicate towards PR as there's so much work to be done on the game itself. This is something we knew though, and we're going to set some time aside regularly to keep you in the loop. The Town Square module is coming soon. We're in the final months of 2016 now, and you'll finally be inside the first piece of the Identity world in the first quarter of 2017. It's a little later than we originally hoped since we're dedicated to making sure everything is smooth and stable from the first moments. Identity is an enormous undertaking, but the most difficult bits are behind us and we're drawing near! What to Expect The first stage of game development is always very boring to talk about, and also doesn't give us much to show you. Creating those backend systems that drive the game behind the scenes is one of the most important phases, but it's not very glamorous. It's for this reason that most games aren't announced until they're a couple years into development. Now that we're past that point, we're going to be able to start showing you real Identity gameplay. The first gameplay video you'll see is going to be in November and will show you just how detailed and in-depth Identity is becomming! You'll see a walkthrough of our housing system, showing just how far it can be customized and some of the cool fun features you'll find in there. Following that video we'll give you a glimpse of the Town Square features, leading up to its release. It's been a ton of work and a long time coming, but we're moving forward at a great pace and everything is about to get very exciting over here.

To @Paratus, @Motown and the Asylum team. i know that their might be a few members that have become irritated by the lack of updates but I for one just want to say a big thank you for the update you released to us. Me being an aspiring games designer myself know how hard it can be, especially when it comes to funds and manpower but I still believe that this is doable and eagerly await it's release. It's getting really exciting now that most of the difficult stuff is out of the way and I just hope that you can live up to your promise of more regular updates from you. Thank you to the team and keep up the good work, Herzog

You know what, I'm happy with this response. As someone who was very skeptical the team was trying to pull a fast one, it's given me renewed hope in the team and the game. They're able to admit their mistakes and finally be honest about the release date. Good on them. I'm looking forward to seeing the video. I'm sure it will be exactly what we all expect it to be. What are your thoughts? P.S. I will once again be visiting the forums daily and attempting to contribute meaningful content to pass the time.

Lion he's been on the forums longer than you haha

Enjoy it while we have it bro, now we have another deadline at least for the video next month.

Here is what I find very unfortunate. While yes, a new blog was long overdue and I read it at least twice just to make sure I wasn't dreaming.. We don't know if we'll have to wait almost another year for a new one. While I hope they release a new one very soon. I'm just worried everybody is on a euphoric high because they got exactly what they wanted. But we seem to neglect the fact we may not get another for a while.

No the modules are seperate so you will most likely have one apartment in the three modules. Also if u dont have the apartment you will get a much smaller place

Herzog i must admit you really helped the community quite a bit even though it seems like nothing and i would say a big thank you to you because you helped calm us down in the worst of situations and made us happy with your plans of rp such as road rage cough cough but in general thanks for devs im really now happy this is gonna be happening

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?

I just wanted to say DON'T PANIC in large caps and post it, I feel some people have been expecting much faster progress on this game but fail to realise the large amount of boring ground work required in a game of this scale. Unlike modding games like ARMA III (with mods like DayZ), much of the game engine and foundation needs to be worked properly to have a stable yet adaptable foundation. Let's give the devs as much time and support they need to release a solid and fun game. I'll finish with the old cooking quote "If you're looking, it ain't cooking. Also always bring a towel.

People There is no point arguing lol its not gonna come out this year and probably next so go off your computers delete your system 32 and come back when beta is released cause this is just getting like 5 year olds fighting over how much part of the table at school they get... So just wait thats all u can do and maybe come hangout by discord if u want real and live updates and to all the complaininers im directly speaking to get off your lazy asses and go do some shitty research on game making you update eating monsters and if u have a problem go refund. ALSO IF U WERE SMART U SHOULD OF KNEW WHEN U DONATED THIS GAME ISNT GONNA COME OUT OVERNIGHT SO PEOPLE HAVE MERCY ON THE DEVS THEY ARE TRYING HARD