Isn't it a complete waste of resources to pile things into these minigames if they will eventually be scrapped? Are you trying to make a game or are you desperately trying to make a proof of concept so you get funded?

I first heard about this project 4 years ago and the trailer sparked a lot of hope. I loved multiplayer games that had an 'RPG' edge even though technically there was nothing that made it revolve around levels and grinding etc - games that just felt like a real world. Arma life servers, SA:MP cops and robbers servers all had that edge and they had the most vibrant communities and I genuinely thought games like that would be made into large successful standalone games sooner rather than later and become the future of MMOs. Just games that are a little bit like real life except give you the options to play a more exciting life. Games where entrepeneurship and genuine leadership are encouraged rather than just grinding to get a fixed amount of items to sell on the auction that can magically be accessed from across the game world. Games where things don't teleport, games where money doesn't come out of thin air because you did some mission or something, games that have a healthy balance of monotonous reality (i like sims) with the chance that absolutely incredible things can come out of the players, the economy and each of their individual hustles colliding, and I was already sold. I guess I figured the first step would be - creating a massive open world. I'm already questioning your choice to use Unreal Engine for that endeavour as I'm not sure how you're going to deal with the size limits without editing the engine itself or putting random loading screens in, and generally UE is badly optimized for huge maps, from my limited knowledge of game development. Instead you seem to be focusing on 'modules', where seemingly the individual experiences are all completely seperated from eachother, as if they are just minigames in a branch of forced scenarios. 'SWAT' shouldn't be a minigame. It should be a scenario that arises naturally in a world when someone working as a police dispatcher gets a call from another player, or perhaps investigators have discovered a threat or a drug dealing ring. The SWAT team would then drive there and figure out how to approach it themselves - not click a button to teleport into what I assume is another map and follow a list of predefined objectives in a shooter game just like any other. Racing shouldn't be a minigame. Races should be organised independently by the players. In the open world. That doesn't seem to exist. So my first question is, why is the game being segmented, stripping all immersion, persistence and flow from what could be an incredible world of colliding mechanics? Second point - you appear to be developing this game vertically rather than horizontally. What I mean by that is you are focusing a lot of your attention into creating small areas with a lot of detail - you are creating what appears to be incredible gun mechanics, wildlife and scenery, but you don't even have the skeleton of the game NEARLY done yet. You should build the entire map - albeit a simple version of it and then you can add to it as you go. You should implement a very simple cop system, one or two ways to make money as a criminal and maybe a couple civillian ways to make money. A basic housing system that doesn't involve 100 different options with stunning visual fidelity and quirky gimmicks like drawing on canvas (nobody cares about these gimmicks, they're cool but they should be afterthoughts). Just some cars to drive. I feel like everything is being completely overdone and you are not focusing on the world with opportunities for authentic player-driven gameplay - you are focusing on the depth of mechanics and the glittery sheen on top. Seeing how much work you have put into getting weapon mechanics, bullet penetration etc I'm imagining when you do a vehicle reveal we will see that you've implemented like 50 different vehicles with 200 different mod options with hyper realistic damage modelling when quite frankly that isn't at ALL what people are excited about. We aren't interested in the asset design and the mechanic design, we're interested in the design of social, economic and the design of a world that allows you to genuinely feel like you are playing as a different person with their own hustle and aspirations. Make a large, mostly empty world with not much to do but give it room for people to find purpose in it and you will have redeemed the idea most people got when they first saw the overview in 2015. Just the simple cops and robbers mechanic has had millions of interesting situations arise in RP games that weren't even originally designed to be roleplay games. When it is segmented into forced minigames with objectives - well just look at APB. Need I say more. Put down some cop cars and some mechanics to assert authority and hierarchy and the players will figure out the rest. I just feel that putting 4 years into the town square, all it's gimmicks and options, and then thinking it's a good idea to release it to show what you've achieved so far is incredibly misguided and seems entirely unaware of what potential people saw when the game was first pitched in that youtube video. If you put this much depth into every small aspect of the game I genuinely believe you won't make a playable game by 2030 as an indie team. Start working horizontally. Make the game playable, not glittery.

these modules are just there to give you a taste of the actual experience, in the beta and full game these modules will be combined into one experience. look at first point I made. this isn't how it is going to work in the full game, this is just to give you a taste for the combat. again, same points as before. the rest of your post seems to contain the same misinformation. map design is not done by the programmers, so you can work on both the map and code at the same time. the skeleton of the game are the mechanics of the modules. the beta will be the first actual version with the whole experience/map