In Depth Look at Weapons As we continue our work on the SWAT module, this last Friday we put live a new Identity Insider video showcasing the weapons in Identity. It's an incredibly detailed system. If you haven't seen that video yet, I'd recommend checking it out now before continuing in this newsletter, as the focus of this dev blog post is going to be going into detail about what you see in that video. Check it Out! If you haven't seen the latest Identity Insider video, check it out now. If you have, watch it again because it's awesome! Identity Insider: Weapons on YouTube It's even better than it looks We tried to keep the video short and to the point, so we couldn't talk in too much detail. I'm excited about where we are right now in development, and I've been itching to explain just how great this is. We made some bold claims, such as no game in history having had weapons this detailed and it's quite true. Some games came close, but even then their calculations were approximations based on real data. In Identity, we've taken a physical approach to all things combat and vehicle related. That is, we're able to plug in data from real life into our system and our code drives true ballistic physics naturally. It means we're able to add new types of weapons and ammo incredibly quickly, and it'll just work. Some people have been expressing that this hasn't been done in MMORPGs before because it's impossible for performance reasons, but our calculations are so optimized that the entire projectile is processed in fractions of a millisecond. It's detailed and accurate, but built from the ground up for an MMORPG, too! Melee combat I'm going to step through the key parts of the video and describe, in detail, what makes Identity different from anything you've seen before. While we show off some cool weapons in the video, and there are many more not featured, it's important to note that powerful guns aren't going to be commonplace. Most people will be armed with a handgun or similar. Because of this, melee combat will be a frequent sight and we want it to feel right. Part of the issue with melee combat in most online games is that it's just a click-fest and there isn't real room for player skill. This isn't the case in Identity, where a skilled player will almost always knock the other out. Before I made Altis Life (an old and very successful Arma 3 mod) I worked on a game called Mortal Online, which was all about melee combat. Hand to hand fighting, or using melee weapons, works much in the same way here. Another game it could be compared to would be Mount & Blade, as the control system for blocking and attacking is quite similar. In Identity, there aren't special "attacks" which deal artificial damage, but instead the actual physical movement of the body or weapon which applies a force on impact that is similar to that of real life. For example, if you were swinging a baseball bat at someone, it would be the actual bat shape which hits, and the material it's made of, it's weight, how fast it's moving and more which determines the damage it deals. Note the red circles on the boxing gloves with the image above, and as seen in the video. These are physic impact points for the boxing gloves, which collide to deal damage. They're only shown for debugging and illustration purposes, and won't be visible in-game. Weapon fidelity On topic of the bullet jamming in the Insider video, there are many factors which are controlled at a detailed level in Identity. That's not to say it's something you'll have to worry yourself with often, though. Jams will be rare and will mostly happen with cheap firearms and/or those which are in poor condition. A few of us on the development team spent a good deal of time at the shooting range here in Ottawa, paying close attention to these sort of details. You'll need to maintain your guns if you want to keep them in good shape, but don't worry as it won't be tedious. If worry about the ammo in your gun isn't your thing, just buy the cheaper and commonly available ammo; however, if you want to maximize your effectiveness you can choose the right ammo for the situation. The Insider video also mentions being able to customize your ammo. Our physics models are so accurate that a hollowpoint bullet will fly slightly differently than a full-metal jacket bullet. It'll be so slight you won't really notice, though. Where the difference really comes in is with penetration and damage. As in real life, in Identity you can have empty gun magazines (you don't drop them when empty, because they're actually valuable). If you buy a box of ammo you can then fill the magazine as you like. A single gun can fire different bullet types as well as different bullet weights (grains). Gunsmithing We have mentioned several times now that more powerful guns are rarer, and that's because illegal firearms can't be purchased in a shop. You'll find handguns, some shotguns and hunting rifles there, though. Outside of that you'll need to know, or become, a gunsmith and/or a gun-runner. These aren't forced classes or occupations, but with Identity your character is simply what you decide to be through action. Anyone can do anything. Modifying your weapons will typically have pros and cons. For example, changing out a trigger could mean improved fire rate but have an affect on accuracy, as well. A new magazine release could mean faster reloads but less mobility. This will be based on several factors such as the type, quality and condition of the component. You'll be able to tailor the weapon to suit your needs and preferences. Physical accuracy of ballistics and penetration In the very first days of Identity's development, we got our hands on crime-lab documents which we based our in-game bullet ballistics upon. The result was absolutely true-to-life bullet behavior which we could expand upon with very little effort. In the video, you'll see this come into play when we shoot into the air. That might have been a bit better to show at night, though! Since the release of the Town Square module we've been focusing on SWAT module development. Part of this was the improvements, based on documents from the US Navy, into penetration calculations. Because our systems are designed to take real-world units, using real formulas was a logical progression. The results were something few other games have done, and something no other game has done this accurately. When a bullet hits a surface the system analyzes the material that was hit and knows the finest details of that material's real-world makeup. It then travels into the object, or bounces off of it with a ricochet. If it travels inside, we use other physically accurate formulas to penetrate exactly as far as it should, right down to a fraction of a millimeter. If the bullet is passing through a dense material, it can change directions from hitting hard spots. An example of the hard-spot is when I shot the kevlar vest in the video. Most bullets did not penetrate the kevlar (this vest did not have any metal plates in it), but a couple did get through with a big loss in energy. That was not a random chance, but the bullets hit a spot that had slightly less kevlar. A few millimeters of extra kevlar was the difference between stopping and penetrating. Now that is detail! Organ damage The organ damage system you saw in the video is partly our ballistics system in action, and part the medical mechanics. As the bullet enters a soft body, it can break apart and fragments can spread out, especially when using hollowpoint bullets. A shockwave also causes damage just inside the cavity. This spread can damage, or destroy, organs that it contacts. We currently have modeled two lungs, the heart and brain. We may expand on this in the future, too. When the bullet, or a fragment, passes through the organs it will cause specialty damage to the character in addition to the base damage that happens from the impact. This hit will either cause instant death or hinder the character in addition to being damaged. Blunt trauma is a different story, and can affect vision or mobility. As a paramedic, you'll need to examine the injured player and treat them accordingly. If the examination shows bubbles in the blood, for example, you'll know a lung has been hit. Paramedics will go through a quick class and test when they take the job to ensure they know best how to treat people who have been shot. Step into the Town Square! The Town Square module is now released and available on Steam. If you haven't had the chance to try the Town Square and experience a small piece of the Identity world, grab your Steam key and check it out. Identity Town Square module trailer With the Town Square now running smoothly, we've shifted much of our focus to feature development for the SWAT module. We'll continue to fix bugs and add other features to the Town Square, too. Get your Identity Steam key! To get your key, login on the main site at www.IdentityRPG.com. You can then go to the Account tab of your profile where you'll see an option to link your Steam account. You must have BETA ACCESS on your account to claim a key! ATTENTION! You can only attach one steam account to one game account, and it's permanent. Be sure you're logged into your game account which has the items you've purchased before attaching a Steam account! Once you've obtained your key from the Identity website you can enter it into your Steam client, but be sure that you're logged into the Steam account where you'd like to own Identity. Click the Games menu in Steam, and then Activate a Product on Steam. -- John VanderZwet

Expanding the Square While the primary development focus continues to be on SWAT, a smaller division of the Identity development team expands the features and controls of the Town Square. This brings new features to enjoy in the social module, and also prepares several features for the combat-oriented and faced-paced SWAT module. Recent Changes to the Square Since our last development blog update, we've made several notable changes to the Town Square. Drop in and check it out to see some of these changes first hand! - Marijuana is now grown by players! Plant seeds on a hydroponics table and dry grown plants on drying racks before harvesting. There are varying degrees of quality. This is the first step toward adding work and economy into the Town Square. - You can now watch YouTube videos with your friends using TVs in your apartments. - We've made significant changes to player movement and animation blending. You'll find your character movement feels much more natural. - VoIP (voice communication) has been rebuilt on a new technology to greatly increase sound quality. - Player's eyes and other facial features change depending on substance use. If you know the effects of a drug, you can tell if somebody is using by looking closely. This will be useful with police powers (see roadmap below). - You can now access the shooting range in preparation for the release of firearms. - Significant changes to the lighting have been made to give a more realistic appearance, especially during the day. - A large remake of the image processing means overall sharper graphics with more detail and eliminated "ghosting". - We've added support for chat commands. Write /emote for a list of emotes. The Town Square Roadmap - Guns, guns, guns! The shooting range in the basement of the police station is now open and soon will give you access to a few guns to try out. This will give you a taste of how guns will work and feel. We'll show you how awesome the gun systems are with a video when we come closer to this release. - Paintball guns will be available for use and play outside of the shooting range. - We'll soon be adding the ability to drop items on the ground in public spaces. These can then be picked up by other players. - A trading mechanic will allow you to securely pass items to others around you. - Security and ownership systems for apartments, allowing you to assign roommates and more. - Police powers are on the horizon for select players (moderators). This will include jailing, restraining and searching. - Even more clothing and character customization options. We have a lot already created and ready to be added. In addition to the features above coming to the Town Square, we're also expanding on jobs and tasks, both legal and illegal, to kickstart a small economy. Step into the Town Square! The Town Square module is now released and available on Steam. If you haven't had the chance to try the Town Square and experience a small piece of the Identity world, grab your Steam key and check it out. With the Town Square now running smoothly, we've shifted much of our focus to feature development for the SWAT module. We'll continue to fix bugs and add other features to the Town Square, too. Get your Identity Steam key! To get your key, login on the main site at www.IdentityRPG.com. You can then go to the Account tab of your profile where you'll see an option to link your Steam account. You must have BETA ACCESS on your account to claim a key! ATTENTION! You can only attach one steam account to one game account, and it's permanent. Be sure you're logged into your game account which has the items you've purchased before attaching a Steam account! Once you've obtained your key from the Identity website you can enter it into your Steam client, but be sure that you're logged into the Steam account where you'd like to own Identity. Click the Games menu in Steam, and then Activate a Product on Steam. -- John VanderZwet

Step into the Town Square! The Town Square module has been released and available on Steam for just over a month. With a rocky start (the initial demand was a very large load on our servers), we devoted most of our development time immediately following to bug fixing and stability improvements. If you haven't had the chance to try the Town Square and experience a small piece of the Identity world, grab your Steam key and check it out. If you played only in the first week of release, I'd recommend logging in again now as stability has vastly improved. Identity Town Square module trailer With the Town Square now running smoothly, we've shifted much of our focus to feature development for the SWAT module. We'll continue to fix bugs and add other features to the Town Square, too. On the Horizon While bug fixing and quality-of-life improvements continue to be a focus for our developers, we've also shifted much of our effort to bringing new features and content to SWAT and the Town Square. Most of this effort is geared toward our next module, SWAT, with the added bonus of being able to utilize it in the Town Square as well. The Town Square Roadmap - Guns, guns, guns! The shooting range in the basement of the police station will be opening up, giving you access to a few guns to try out (like the one pictured here). This will give you a taste of how guns will work and feel. We'll show you how awesome the gun systems are with a video when we come closer to this release. - TVs in apartments. You'll soon be able to watch YouTube and Twitch with your friends in your apartment by using TVs. - Radios in apartments. Select from a dozen radio channels to stream into your apartments. In the full game, the available radio channels are chosen by the server operators. - Improvements to the control and animation of players. We'll be polishing up the way players move to make everything feel smoother. - Added security and ownership systems for apartments, allowing you to assign roommates and more. - Lots of added clothing and character customization options. In addition to the features above coming to the Town Square, we're also pondering work/job elements that can be brought into the Town Square as we'd like to introduce currency. Get your Identity Steam key! To get your key, login on the main site at www.IdentityRPG.com. You can then go to the Account tab of your profile where you'll see an option to link your Steam account. You must have BETA ACCESS on your account to claim a key! ATTENTION! You can only attach one steam account to one game account, and it's permanent. Be sure you're logged into your game account which has the items you've purchased before attaching a Steam account! Handing out the keys like this allows us to reduce load on our servers. We currently have another batch of 10,000 keys in the system and we'll be adding more as necessary. Once you've obtained your key from the Identity website you can enter it into your Steam client, but be sure that you're logged into the Steam account where you'd like to own Identity. Click the Games menu in Steam, and then Activate a Product on Steam. Identity Steam Community Now that Identity is on Steam, Valve has been so kind as to set up our official game Steam community. Drop by to join in on discussions, get updates when we release patches and more. This will also be a great spot to see screenshots and broadcasts from others playing the Town Square. Come visit the Identity Steam Community. -- John VanderZwet

The time has finally come! I'm going to start this dev blog update with the news you really want: the Identity Town Square module will be published to Steam before the end of this month (October)! This means that you'll be able to create your characters, meet other players and set up your homes very soon. Here's how it'll work: before the end of the month, the Identity Town Square store page will be published. At this point, we need to wait for Steam's approval of our application which takes a couple of weeks. Once approved and released, you'll be in the square! The great news here is that when the Town Square does show up on Steam, the date shown (which will be quite near) is the absolute date that you'll be playing. We're so very close to getting the foundation of Identity out there for you to get your hands on! Next to come, the SWAT module's development will take but a fraction of the time to create as the Town Square has the foundation in place for the entire MMORPG. The back-end we need to push forward is here and from the point of the Town Square release our development focus is switched over to gameplay features. As a developer, this feels great! Get your Identity Steam key! We're getting close! You can now connect your Steam account to your Identity game account and obtain your Identity game Steam key. This key will add Identity to your library so that when Identity is released, you can download it and start playing immediately without having to do anything else. To get your key, login on the main site at www.IdentityRPG.com. You can then go to the Account tab of your profile where you'll see an option to link your Steam account. You must have BETA ACCESS on your account to claim a key! ATTENTION! You can only attach one steam account to one game account, and it's permanent. Be sure you're logged into your game account which has the items you've purchased before attaching a Steam account! While you won't get Identity in your game library just yet, you will as soon as we're published and approved. Handing out the keys like this allows us to reduce load on our servers. We currently have 20,000 keys in the system and we'll be adding more. Once you've obtained your key from the Identity website you can enter it into your Steam client, but be sure that you're logged into the Steam account where you'd like to own Identity. Click the Games menu in Steam, and then Activate a Product on Steam. Identity Insider: Prison Life Another Identity Insider is here, giving you a detailed look into the prison mechanics of Identity. You can see more Insider updates on the about page of the Identity website. Identity prison concept art Eventually, your luck is going to run out. Crime does pay, and it pays well, but the long arm of the law will catch up with you. For minor crimes you might see a ticket or time in jail, but serious offences will land you in prison. In Identity, prison has a culture and lifestyle of its own. You might be there as punishment, but there’s a lot going on while you’re serving your sentence. Put in your time in your cellblock’s relative safety, or choose to step out and join a prison gang. Prison Gangs Prison gangs are the core of your activity behind bars. With three gangs vying for control around you, you’ll need to choose a side to stay safe on the inside. Those without gangs are even more vulnerable when they step outside the safety of their own cellblock. Each prison gang has access to a private contraband market, providing its members with unique looks, makeshift weapons and more. Don’t get caught with illegal goods, though, as some police officer players could be serving as prison guards in their down-time. Infamy You’ll need to pull your weight if you want the protection that a gang can offer. Your gang is going to ask a lot of you; prison life is incredibly dangerous. Each gang member will be offered tasks to carry out for cigarettes, the prison currency of choice, allowing access to equipment and items from the contraband markets within the walls. You may be asked to shank a rival inmate or to destroy a treasured artifact deep in hostile turf, for example. Special achievements available within prison, often related to nefarious activity, will unlock customizations such as tattoos or haircuts so that you can send a message to those around you on the outside. Sentencing You could be serving up to 45 minutes behind bars. That is, unless you take matters into your own hands! As a good and obedient inmate, you have the options of working for the prison with small jobs such as pressing plates or cleaning up trash in the yard. This work will reduce your sentence time. Time is money, though. Sometimes you just can’t wait. If you’re willing to take the risk, you can force your way out. When conditions are right and the inmates are ready, you might be able to get into a guard room and get your hands on a weapon. This can kickoff an entire player-versus-player scenario between a group of inmates and the guard forces. Fight your way out through an increasingly difficult situation and you’re home free; you’re going to have an even bigger bounty on your head, though. Prison breaks can also happen from the outside. If the prison isn’t on lockdown, outside gangs can gear up and bring the fight to the police. These conflicts are much more intense, though, and there is a lot of risk involved as the police are well equipped and the attackers can lose everything if killed or arrested. Trial by Jury If you hate the idea of getting your hands dirty with work but you’re not up for risking a longer sentence trying to escape, you might want to try your luck in front of a jury of your peers. Those with a heavy term can request a trial. Several random citizens around the land will be summoned to jury duty, being paid if they answer the call. Your fate will be in their hands, and also on the shoulders of your attorney. You might represent yourself or hire a smooth-talking legal corporation to help get you off the hook. You or your lawyer will have a short opportunity to explain how the law must have wronged you (you’re innocent, right?) and then it’s all up to the jury. If most of the jury declares you not-guilty, you’re free to go; however, if only a few don’t buy your story it’s back to your small cell. Serving Your Time When you’re not in the mood for the gritty and competitive life in gang warfare, find your way to the common areas in the prison. Common areas are safe zones with all sorts of ways to pass the time with other inmates around you. The common area gives you safe access to weightlifting, TVs which play from a variety of streaming services, billiards and more. You might be locked up, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have fun! DasMEHDI plays Town Square live! Earlier this month, DasMEHDI, a popular Twitch streamer, had the chance to hop into our development build and explore the Town Square with his friends. Check out the hilarious footage below! Note that this is an early development build, which was already outdated at the time of play, and is not representive of the Town Square's current state. Still, it's a lot of fun! DasMEHDI Early TS Development Build Play New website is here The Identity website has had an overhaul to prepare for the Town Square release and Steam integrations. The new website brings all kinds of cool new features, mostly for the game account systems and the Identity shop! We're also going to be filling up the About page with all sorts of new information from the Insider releases. Now that the website has a true and proper shop, you can now get your hands on cool new items without having to buy entire packages. The shop now has all kinds of exclusive items, including apartment pets! You'll be able to get your hands on friendly critters for your home in-game as well, although those featured on the shop are only available there. Some of these items are only available for a limited time. Some of the new items include: Custom T-Shirt Graphic - Upload an image which can be placed on T-Shirts you create in-game! Each image can be used on 10 shirts. Vanity License Plate - Show your style with a custom license plate, visible on your in-game vehicle. Vanity Phone Number - Want a number that's easy to remember? Get a vanity phone number for yourself or your business. More Apartment Floorplans - Floor plans which haven't been available since Kickstarter, including the enormous Penthouse. Huge Clothing Packages - Clothing packages including clothes with dozens of original brands. Pets! Cats, dogs and more - Pets currently available include sphynx and tabby cats as well as pugs, maltese and the shiba inu (doge?). Another important note: when the new payment options (aside from PayPal) go live, we'll shortly after be removing all of the old packages. We will at this time never again be selling cash, so there's not much time remaining to get starter cash before Identity goes live. This is not something we plan to sell again in the future, but all who have it in their account will be able to claim that cash once on each server. Visit the New Identity Site Now! The Twitch Clips If you've been following Identity's development closely, you probably already know that developers stream their work live on the Identity Twitch channel every Tuesday and Thursday. We also use that time to answer almost every question that gets asked about Identity's development and gameplay. Now that we've been doing this a while, we've answered a lot of questions. Our awesome community manager, BeachBall, has taken the time to compile a massive list of questions linked to clips where they're answered by a developer. Get comfy and head over to the Twitch Clips Directory forum thread. If you haven't found this already, be prepared to spend a good bit of time listening to all sorts of awesome information. This is the best place to learn of Identity's fine details! -- John VanderZwet

Ramping up It's been busy as usual here at the Asylum office! For the past few weeks, we've had our testers running through all of the systems in the Town Square and a whole lot of progress has been made toward release. They've done an awesome job in finding the remaining bugs, and our team's been doing an equally awesome job in squashing them. As you likely noticed when following the Dev Tracker on our website, we're down to the testing stages on one remaining task. We've been working on this one for a while as there were a couple significant bugs encountered. These bugs were deep in the engine and were show-stoppers. Fortunately, we've recently defeated them and put them behind us. We're now knocking out the remaining minor issues being found by our testers and things are looking great. With the new website online (more on this below) we're soon going to be handing out Steam keys for those with access to the Town Square. This doesn't mean you can play just yet, but we're getting close enough that we're going to be bringing you on board in preperation. If you're wondering how it's going to work, it's really pretty simple. Once we launch this feature shortly, you're going to be able to log into your game account on our website. You'll then see the option to link your existing Steam account. Once you've linked your account, you'll be given a key which, when entered into the Steam client, will add Identity's Town Square to your game library. You won't need to log in to play, as we know who you are based on your Steam account. I'd recommend following us on social media (Twitter and Facebook especially) to watch for this coming announcement. Gangs and Warfare We're changing the Identity Insider format! Instead of larger insiders once in a long while, we're going to be sending out more frequent updates. We're talking a few each month! These Insider updates will paint a detailed picture of Identity's full gameplay experiences. To kick this off, we posted the following update on our new website just yesterday: Identity Drug Cartel Concepts (click image for more) You've made stacks of cash pushing drugs and the odd robbery, but when push comes to shove, you'll find strength in numbers. A gang is a group of ruffians with the goal of obtaining power and infamy through the domination of those around them. Gangs are often at war with one another as they compete for limited resources, whether it's turf, drugs or blood. There's no shortage of criminal activity in the world outside of gangs, but true power belongs to the syndicates and cartels with the strength and fortitude to rule over their rivals. Comradery Identity is all about working together with your friends, and gangs are the social structure geared towards crime. You can belong to only one gang at any time, so choose where your loyalty lies. Your gang has a full rank structure and the leaders can control access levels for each member based on that rank. As your gang grows, it can also unlock additional perks for all members. The gang leadership can designate any home owned in the world as the HQ, giving access to all members of the gang. Hang out with your gangmates and stockpile weapons, drugs and anything else you can get your hands on. Your HQ, like your personal homes, can also be used for respawning on death. This makes it an important rally point when *#!% hits the fan! Cartels Cartels are conflict areas which are controlled by one gang at any time, providing the owners with control over trade and traffiking of their related substance throughout all the land. To the victor goes the spoils. The cartel zone is a functional HQ for the current owners. Turf Identity Turf Neighborhood Concept Take control of city neighborhoods with gang turf zones. While cartels control substances across the world of Identity, the gangs who dominate a neighborhood have direct influence over criminal organizations in that area, such as drug dealers. Lookouts in the area will spot rival gangs in the streets of your turf and text message members of your gang in the area. Controlling gangs get access to a safe house in the area, tightening their hold. Warfare Dominate gangs who cross your path and prove your strength. Declare war on your rivals and hunt them down. Gang members who are at war are completely vulnerable to one another through the stress system, and so you need to be on the lookout at all times. Prey on your enemies until they submit to your demands. When declaring war on another gang, the other gang must accept the spoils set by the agressor. The spoils can include cash, turf, real-estate and more. When one side has had enough and ends the war, they forfeit those spoils to the stronger gang. In Identity, most items people carry can be taken if they're killed. What's theirs, is yours. War is hell. New website is finally here! The Identity website has had an overhaul to prepare for the Town Square release and Steam integrations. The new website brings all kinds of cool new features, mostly for the game account systems and the Identity shop! We're also going to be filling up the About page with all sorts of new information from the Insider releases. Now that the website has a true and proper shop, you can now get your hands on cool new items without having to buy entire packages. The shop now has all kinds of exclusive items, including apartment pets! You'll be able to get your hands on friendly critters for your home in-game as well, although those featured on the shop are only available there. Some of these items are only available for a limited time. Some of the new items include: Custom T-Shirt Graphic - Upload an image which can be placed on T-Shirts you create in-game! Each image can be used on 10 shirts. Vanity License Plate - Show your style with a custom license plate, visible on your in-game vehicle. Vanity Phone Number - Want a number that's easy to remember? Get a vanity phone number for yourself or your business. More Apartment Floorplans - Floor plans which haven't been available since Kickstarter, including the enormous Penthouse. Huge Clothing Packages - Clothing packages including clothes with dozens of original brands. Pets! Cats, dogs and more - Pets currently available include sphynx and tabby cats as well as pugs, maltese and the shiba inu (doge?). Another important note: when the new payment options (aside from PayPal) go live, we'll shortly after be removing all of the old packages. We will at this time never again be selling cash, so there's not much time remaining to get starter cash before Identity goes live. This is not something we plan to sell again in the future, but all who have it in their account will be able to claim that cash once on each server. Visit the New Identity Site Now! The Twitch Clips If you've been following Identity's development closely, you probably already know that developers stream their work live on the Identity Twitch channel every Tuesday and Thursday. We also use that time to answer almost every question that gets asked about Identity's development and gameplay. Now that we've been doing this a while, we've answered a lot of questions. Our awesome community manager, BeachBall, has taken the time to compile a massive list of questions linked to clips where they're answered by a developer. Get comfy and head over to the Twitch Clips Directory forum thread. If you haven't found this already, be prepared to spend a good bit of time listening to all sorts of awesome information. This is the best place to get to know the fine details Identity! -- John VanderZwet

A visual feast! As we approach the release of the Town Square, it's time to start showing off! Identity's gameplay is unique; there's no game in the world which accomplishes what we've set out to create and as a result, this will be one of the most immersive gaming experiences available. In some senses, graphics weigh heavily on environmental immersion and we've really started to show Identity's beauty in this last week. Last week, we did a short live stream on Twitch to show off the Town Square in motion. If you weren't there for the stream, check out the details below. Ash Hill Cinema ticket booth In addition to Identity's artistic beauty, we also want to show you what the base gameplay will be like in the Town Square. We do plan on doing another stream shortly where we'll move on into the interiors and interact with some of the features you'll find when you log into the Town Square. We'll have to mute the karaoke and streaming radio elements for Twitch and YouTube, though. I really do wish we had more time in our last stream but we were an hour late getting the stream started and what was meant to be a 10 minute display ended up being half an hour long. Half of that time was spent in character creation, so if that's of any interest to you be sure to check out the stream. I'll leave the video below. Ash Hill's Town Square in early morning Ash Hill's Town Square at night With our next gameplay stream, I'd really like to show off the Town Square at night. Check out the screenshot above to see why I feel that night in Identity has an incredible atmosphere. Night will be useful in Identity too; for example, some animals will be more active when the sun goes down. Just imagine running from (or with) the cops in the dark of night! A beautiful and well-designed environment makes great gameplay even better. Ash Hill's fruit and vegetable market As you can tell by now, I went a bit overboard taking screenshots of the Town Square environment. I'm so proud with what our art team has accomplished, so you're getting a handfull with this developer blog! The market seen here is in the Town Square, although it won't be the only food market in Ash Hill. Markets play a fairly important role, and not only for your own access to food. Gathering and growing food will be a safe and reliable way to make some money in Identity. It doesn't require any sort of investment, so it's one of your options for making a living the moment you step foot in the world. It will get much easier with a vehicle, though. RIDE bicycle shop The screenshot above is from the interior of the bicycle store you'll find in the Town Square. You won't be able to buy them right away, but once we start implementing our final vehicles we'll likely unlock the bikes in the Town Square, too. Bicycles will be an important tool in Identity. If you can't afford a vehicle (they're not cheap) then they're your best option for getting around town without dishing out cash for a cab. Ash Hill Tattoo interior My final screenshot today was the interior of the tattoo shop you'll find in the center of Ash Hill, and thus the Town Square. Hidden in the back of the parking lot behind the DMV, this parlor will be opening shortly after the Town Square release. Tattoos in Identity are either paid for or earned; some tattoos are only unlocked with achivements, most of which being for less than legal actions. Tattoos aren't available during character creation and must be gotten through a shop such as this. Town Square gameplay live stream YouTube Town Square preview stream If you missed our live stream of Town Square gameplay last week, click on that big image above to check it out now. If your email client is afraid and you don't see the images, you can always click here. I spent the first while creating a character and then took a quick look around the exterior of the Town Square environment. I can't wait to show more! The tasks at hand Our new task tracker has been one of the most well received additions we've ever released, and it's very easy to see why. As the Asylum developers continue to knock out tasks daily, we're getting very, very close to allowing you all into the Town Square. As of my writing this, only 3 primary tasks remain and are already in progress. The tracker is showing only Town Square tasks, although many of those in our team (who don't have anything left for the Town Square release) are already hard at work producing SWAT module content. It won't be long before you start seeing a lot of our SWAT efforts appearing, and I'm extremely excited to give you more information on how it'll play. Keep your eyes on the tracker, as it will continue (even after Town Square release) to be the best indicator of when you can get your taste. A quick thank you to our supporters We've been working hard to create the game that can, quite seriously, affect the entire MMORPG industry. Nothing like Identity has been done before, mostly because a game of this scale is a risky project for any established studio. It is because of you receiving this update, our pledgers and supporters, that our dreams and ambitions are becoming a reality. The ultimate RPG is on the horizon, and I'm so very grateful to the wonderful community around me. Again, I just want to say thank you as I sincerely appreciate your support. You're helping to create a game which thousands, who don't even know we're here yet, will come to enjoy. You're here on the ground floor. The Twitch Clips If you've been following Identity's development closely, you probably already know that developers stream their work live on the Identity Twitch channel every Tuesday and Thursday. We also use that time to answer almost every question that gets asked about Identity's development and gameplay. Now that we've been doing this a while, we've answered a lot of questions. Our awesome community manager, BeachBall, has taken the time to compile a massive list of questions linked to clips where they're answered by a developer. Get comfy and head over to the Twitch Clips Directory forum thread. If you haven't found this already, be prepared to spend a good bit of time listening to all sorts of awesome information. This is the best place to get to know the fine details Identity! -- John VanderZwet

Step inside my office! We're in the home stretch, now. The Town Square module is almost ready to go, and now you can follow the Asylum developers as we approach the release. Exactly two weeks ago we launched the new Identity Task Tracker; check out that link, or click the big green button on the Identity website. The task tracker shows you our progress from the point of release a couple of weeks ago until now, and we update every weekday. This tracker displays the data right out of our own project management software that we use to drive and organize the developers inside the studio. All tasks on the tracker are those that remained as of two weeks ago up to the point we consider the Town Square module to be ready for release. These are not all of the tasks we've done (there've been thousands), but just the ones remaining. I'm pretty proud of the progress our guys are making each day. It's only been a couple of weeks but you'll see the majority of those tasks are marked completed! It's really amazing what a team of this size can do when it has such talent. Keep your eye on the tracker; when our important tasks there are done it's time for a Steam release! We're all extremely excited over here. Town Square barber shop interior, work in progress The World Wide Wait An all new Identity website is very, very close to release. In fact, it's so close that we're only waiting on a technology partner to finalize their end of things. Our new website enhances the style of our existing site but is focused far more on improved functionality. A very robust new account system is in place to help you get in the game, and our new shop has some other big requested features! Finally, you'll be able to pay with dozens of methods (PayPal, credit cards, PaySafe and more) and even gift purchases to your friends. With the release of the new website also comes the return of the Identity Insider. The Insider will be a monthly detailed addition to the website, containing all sorts of information you may not have heard before and diving deep into a specific Identity gameplay topic. Our current pledge packages will remain on the website for only one week after the new website launches. After that, many of those rewards will never be sold again and those which are will be a bit more expensive as we prepare for retail pricing. Now's the time to join in the support of Identity's development if you have been on the fence! A look inside the Asylum Everyone at Asylum has been working like crazy. The poor guys are in overdrive and won't be slowing down anytime soon. In fact, just this last week we hired four new programmers to join the team, more than doubling the programmer team size, to ensure that we can get content to you faster. I've myself continued to put a lot of development hours in when I'm not busy with business stuff. I've added some interesting things in the last weeks including substance use and effects. You won't need to spend your time in the Town Square digitally sober! Mark, our graphic designer, has been taking his excellent art into the game engine with the creation of wallpapers for homes as well as a bunch of clothing options. I hoped to have a couple dozen cool wall options available to start with the Town Square release. When I looked over his shoulder today it was somewhere around 300. Wow, I can't even imagine the options when crafting decorations is introduced on top of that. We're pretty much ready to go on the art side of things. Those who follow us on Twitch will have seen Jade/Lee has finished will all of the housing floorplans and the final touches are being done to integrate them into the game today. A lot of our floorplans are based on pop-culture; see if you can identify them. You'll have the chance to walk through them in the Town Square to help with your home-buying decisions. Keep an eye on our Twitch streams! We're going to be showing some cool stuff quite soon. It's been a long wait for the Town Square release, but the wait is almost over. The Twitch Clips If you've been following Identity's development closely, you probably already know that developers stream their work live on the Identity Twitch channel every Tuesday and Thursday. We also use that time to answer almost every question that gets asked about Identity's development and gameplay. Now that we've been doing this a while, we've answered a lot of questions. Our awesome community manager, BeachBall, has taken the time to compile a massive list of questions linked to clips where they're answered by a developer. Get comfy and head over to the Twitch Clips Directory forum thread. If you haven't found this already, be prepared to spend a good bit of time listening to all sorts of awesome information. This is the best place to get to know the fine details Identity! -- John VanderZwet

Committed to the Asylum Wow, what a month. This has been the busiest, craziest month we've ever had at Asylum Entertainment and the hard work is really showing. Most of the guys here at the office have been putting in a lot of overtime hours to get the Town Square module ready as soon as possible. I myself have been working half my time as a programmer, tossing some cool new systems together. I really, really can't wait for everyone to see what we're putting together! For the past few days my personal pet project has been a total overhaul of the character control and animation system. We're working on getting new animations entirely, but it's amazing how much nicer character movement looks right now after some extra TLC. In the past Identity videos, you'll notice the camera is always locked behind your character and you rotate the character with the mouse. Now, movement is a little more like games such as Grand Theft Auto in which you can run toward the screen or parallel to it, too. If you're holding your forward run key/stick, it'll play like before. It really adds a much better sense of control. Alternatively, when you're in combat mode (weapons or melee), the view is again locked behind your shoulders. None of this applies to first-person view, of course. We've been putting a lot of time into polishing and enhancing character creation and customization in preperation for the Town Square launch. I wanted to share a screenshot to give you an idea of the extensive customization options available. You can control your gender, race, blemishes, hair and a ton of facial modifiers. You can select from a couple dozen pieces of clothing to start in, too, but most will have to be purchased at a shop. Character creation work in progress I've been waiting a very long time to see Identity in the state it is right now. We have a powerful new server making nightly builds for testing on Steam and everything is beginning to have that good polished feel you expect in a real, released game. There's still work to be done but it's an incredibly exciting time for us here. Sooner rather than later There are all sorts of features we want for the Town Square which were always planned to be added months after release. With art development moving at a faster pace than I ever anticipated it would, given the relatively tiny size of our team, it seems that we might be able to include some of these features sooner than I expected. Some of these features, which should be ready somewhat soon after Town Square is available, include tattoos, haircuts and even the shooting range. Tattoo shop (WIP) Tattoo design and development progress (WIP) A look inside the Asylum In keeping with our committment to transparency and open communication with the community, our new website will soon be launching (even before the Town Square). The new website will have all sorts of shop options for you to check out, but one of the more interesting aspects will be our development tracker. We're going to be showing you exactly where our development stands in regards to each milestone, such as the Town Square release. You're going to see live data showing what we're working on and how long we expect each element to take. Then, following the Town Square release we'll keep this going for each future development milestone. It'll sort of be like looking over our shoulders in the office yourself. The Twitch Clips If you've been following Identity's development closely, you probably already know that developers stream their work live on the Identity Twitch channel every Tuesday and Thursday. We also use that time to answer almost every question that gets asked about Identity's development and gameplay. Now that we've been doing this a while, we've answered a lot of questions. Our awesome community manager, BeachBall, has taken the time to compile a massive list of questions linked to clips where they're answered by a developer. Get comfy and head over to the Twitch Clips Directory forum thread. If you haven't found this already, be prepared to spend a good bit of time listening to all sorts of awesome information. This is the best place to get to know the fine details Identity! -- John VanderZwet

Crime Doesn't Pay, This Time Earlier this month we released a quick and raw gameplay video showing off an interaction in a rural area of the world. The art in the video is very much in development, but it's a great way to see some of the features and how they work. You'll get a glimpse of a drug production mini-game, the computer system used by police officers, and more. For this dev blog I wanted to toss in a couple clips that didn't make it into the video; all in glorious GIF form. The environment shown in the video is actually quite old. For example, those trees have been in use for a couple years of our development. The character animations (in fact, the entire way you control the character) will also be much different when you get into the Town Square. To give you an idea of how our art has progressed over time, see below one of the older placeholder trees, as is seen in the video, compared to a more recent tree which will be found in the Town Square. The Finishing Touches As you'd expect, our priority for the last month has been getting the Town Square ready for play! We've been working overtime getting everything into place, and it's shaping up very nicely. You'll see from the image above that our artists have been producing absolutely incredible assets. In my own opinion, it's the nicest looking environment I've ever seen in an MMORPG to date. With the original release date for the Town Square quickly approaching, it's become evident that we're unfortunately going to have to push the date back, although the delay will not be long. More work is required to ensure that the launch goes smoothly; we need time to reinforce our server structure and do more internal playtesting. The Town Square will be released to all Founders (and above) one month later on April 23. This is an unfortunate reality of game development, but we want to make sure you get a quality product which isn't rushed out the door too soon. To help ease the pain of waiting for a taste of Identity, we're going to start throwing more media out for you, including a Town Square trailer video overviewing the features you'll find inside. Making it Big! We recently hit the incredible milestone of $1,000,000 USD raised! In fact, right now as of this writing we're in at just under $1,025,000. The support from our community and pledgers has been absolutely incredible. I wanted to take this chance to say thank you; it's because of you that Identity is becoming a reality. The game we've all wanted for such a long time is coming. Around the Studio We're in overdrive over here, working hard to get the Town Square ready to go! As I sit here in my office typing this blog post, Andrew is finishing up the new character creation system. The user interface Artur made is beautiful. I couldn't be happier with the new UI systems he's produced following Scaleform's demise (our old middleware which is now dead). The biggest change here in the office this month is the addition of Mark (who the community has dubbed Marker), our resident graphic designer. He's pumping out amazing art for in-game brands at an incredible pace. This will translate into all sorts of clothing brands and patterns, wallpapers and much more. He'll be bringing you a whole lot of customization options throughout Identity. The real big news, though, is the birth of our lead programmer Henrik's (Sone) new baby boy! Be sure to congratulate him if you spot him on Discord. He's probably too tired to read, though. Liam has been getting a lot done on the new Identity website, too. You'll be seeing the launch of this new website quite soon, and it's going to bring a whole bunch of new options and features for you to enjoy. The Twitch Clips If you've been following Identity's development closely, you probably already know that developers stream their work live on the Identity Twitch channel every Tuesday and Thursday. We also use that time to answer almost every question that gets asked about Identity's development and gameplay. Now that we've been doing this a while, we've answered a lot of questions. Our awesome community manager, BeachBall, has taken the time to compile a massive list of questions linked to clips where they're answered by a developer. Get comfy and head over to the Twitch Clips Directory forum thread. If you haven't found this already, be prepared to spend a good bit of time listening to all sorts of awesome information. This is the best place to get to know the fine details Identity! -- John VanderZwet

Happy Holidays From Asylum! The holidays are upon us, and the team at Asylum begins their short rest! We've been busier than ever, and this coming January is shaping up to be one of our biggest months in a very long time, if not ever. Our expanded team has been working hard on game features beyond the Town Square, and you're finally going to be getting a glimpse of true Identity gameplay very soon in the new year; that's just the start. Keeping it Real Primary systems in Identity such as weapons and vehicles are being developed to operate as realistically as possible. Last week a few of the developers braved the freezing temperatures at a local range to record audio directly from a slew of real firearms in all sorts of conditions. It's very important to us that the weapons in Identity look, sound and react as close to reality as possible. We've even modeled the ballistic physics based on real-world mathematical formulas. Powerful weapons are going to be rare in Identity. Assault weapons, for example, will likely be used in major circumstances. For the most part players will have access to less powerful weaponry; melee, hand guns, hunting rifles, and so on will be the norm. Here it Comes! With the Town Square development moving along, we're not far off from showing the world real Identity gameplay! Like I said up there, January is going to be a big month. For us in the studio, we're excited to get our hands on a few new technology demos that might have a huge impact on Identity! For our fans, January is going to be the month you see the first true world gameplay video. Not only that, but soon after we're looking to release a Town Square trailer! Keep your eyes out on Identity's Twitter and Facebook. The Twitch Clips If you've been following Identity's development closely, you probably already know that developers stream their work live on the Identity Twitch channel every Tuesday and Thursday (except on this coming week due to holidays). We also use that time to answer almost every question that gets asked about Identity's development and gameplay. Now that we've been doing this a while, we've answered a lot of questions. Our awesome community manager, BeachBall, has taken the time to compile a massive list of questions linked to clips where they're answered by a developer. Get comfy and head over to the Twitch Clips Directory forum thread. If you haven't found this already, be prepared to spend a good bit of time listening to all sorts of awesome information. This is the best place to get to know the fine details Identity! -- John VanderZwet

Family matters It was just a month ago that we announced the official release date for the Town Square module. Since then, we've been hard at work turning that promise into a reality. Team expansions, UI drama, family additions and a whole new Unreal Engine amounted into a crazy time! For me, the biggest news this month was the arrival of my second beautiful daughter, Aria, on the 19th. It's been a lot of fun and not as sleepless as I expected. It meant a week off for me although the team in the office hadn't skipped a single beat while I was away. My week away was the first week of work for two new developers here at the office. Andrew (McWOLF), a gameplay programmer, and Artur (Archer), a UI/UX designer and developer have joined the team. Both have already proven themselves to be great at what they do! You've got questions, they've got answers Identity's community members and YouTubers have interviewed the developers. Your questions have been asked; check it out to see what the developers say about the way Identity is played! IDENTITY RPG DEVELOPER Q&A NOVEMBER, 2017 Identity Game - Podcast - Developer Q&A - #2 Join us on Twitch at 4PM EST on Tuesdays and Thursdays to watch Identity's developers at work. Most of these streams also have other developers present to answer the questions of those watching, live! Are you interested in hearing answers to other questions? Our developers have been answering questions on live streams for some time now and Brandon (BeachBall), our community manager, has compiled an enormous list of questions and answers. Check out the TWITCH CLIPS DIRECTORY forum thread. The little engine that couldn't We're really excited to show you gameplay footage, not only of the Town Square module but what you can expect to see beyond the modules! We've been hard at work on this, but our aging build of the Unreal Engine just couldn't cope with the advanced vehicle physics systems we're implementing in Identity! This meant it was time for the dreaded engine merge, something our lead programmer Sone has been fearing for years! Every once in a while (usually every year or so) we have to merge all of the modifications we've made to the core Unreal Engine into the latest release. It's an absolutely enormous undertaking, but it's done and good to go. Now that we're running the latest version of the engine, we can support more advanced technologies and we can bring you a more immersive experience, even in the Town Square. Just wait 'til you see what we're doing with vehicles! The UI disaster! Early in the month we hit a road-block. Our licensed middleware system for the user interface in Identity, Scaleform, was discontinued! The industry leading system would be no more, and we had to make the tough decision to abandon it now to save grief in the future. It was like a slap in the face. All of our user interface code had to be scrapped and replaced! While Scaleform was a Flash based system, our new UI would not be. We've signed on with Coherent Labs, and the new UI is under way. While unexpected, it's actually a blessing in disguise! Our new Coherent system allows for faster development, and while it's a minor setback now it'll speed things up considerably going forward. Our new guy, Artur, is dedicated to the user interface in Identity and our UI will be stronger now because of it. With Artur's help, I don't expect this to affect development time for Town Square even at all. We have more hands on deck to cover the added work. On the horizon With our expanding development team, we're able to focus our efforts in more areas of Identity's development. With vehicle and weapon systems now getting attention, we're once again progressing towards a short but feature packed gameplay video for you guys to check out. Keep your eyes out on Identity's Twitter and Facebook! -- John VanderZwet

The time draws near! In the last dev blog I sent out, I mentioned that we were going to announce the release date for our first playable game module, the Town Square. Those of you who follow our Twitter and Twitch streams will have already learned this date. It's a very exciting and important time for Identity; we're fast approaching the time where you'll first step foot in Identity's grand world. We've crunched all the numbers and can now say with fair confidence that the Identity Town Square module will be released, to all backers with a $30 or higher pledge, on this coming March 21st. What will you find in the Town Square? The Town Square is a social game module. You'll be able to create your character, which may be transferable to the retail game after release, and meet hundreds of other Identity backers in the town square of the clean and quaint city of Ash Hill. You'll be able to talk to those around you, add them to your phone contacts and have full phone and IM support to stay in touch. You'll find a completely functional cinema playing full movies around the clock, a karaoke bar to show off your skills (or see me making a fool of myself), a working restaurant, art gallery, shops and more. The biggest single feature is the housing system. You're getting a taste of the full and complete player housing mechanics that you'll find in Identity. Everyone will have access to a tiny apartment, but those who pledged for higher rewards will be able to check out and decorate their larger spaces. It's a preview of what you'll have in the full game. Invite friends to your place and party it up! After the initial release of the module, we'll continue to add features to the Town Square as they are completed in development for Identity. Barbershops and tattoo parlors will let you customize your character further. A garage will let you sample your vehicles. You'll even get to test your ability with firearms in the police shooting range before the SWAT module is released. For me, one of the most exciting parts of Town Square is just to get inside the game and finally get a feel for Identity and how it plays. Check out a few of the Town Square work-in-progress shots we've released in the past. It's been a long road for the development team here at Asylum, but we're almost there! Flexing our new manpower Productivity has skyrocketed with our new office. We're working better and there are now many more of us knocking out code and assets each day. Our programming team has expanded with Charles and we're still hiring more. We've brought three new and incredibly talented 3D artists on board as well as a new technical artist. Brandon, our new Community Manager, has been hard at work keeping you in the loop. These guys are all proving their worth each day and I'm extremely excited about where Asylum is going. Looking to the future With some of our Town Square art wrapping up now, we're beginning to shift a bit of our focus to the second module: SWAT. The SWAT module will be a team vs team competitive shooter using the combat mechanics you'll find in the full Identity release. Expect combat to be slower and more realistic than most similar games. You'll learn much more about this module as work progresses. Above is an MP5 sub machinegun which will be used by the SWAT forces. This particular model was created from scratch in a matter of days by one of our new artists, Dan. The awesome talent of our art team is undeniable! -- John VanderZwet

I believe the monthly Development Blog is tomorrow? TY

Is this the correct channel for the official Twitch Stream? https://www.twitch.tv/identityrpg/videos/all If so, why is it that it only shows gameplay of PUBG and Rocket League, but no Identity content? ,

Not everybody is in the Identity discord, so I am just informing you all, the devblog is confirmed for tonight(by HairyGrenade).

Identity's development has been moving at a pace we've never experienced in the past. With added full-time programming and art talent, we've been able to produce more content in a shorter time than expected. With all of the base features of Town Square in place, we've now been building up the supporting systems; the menu interfaces, server selection systems, character creation and more are well underway now. You'll get a good preview of the character customization soon! Ridable bicycle; work in progress Some exciting progress is also being seen beyond the Town Square! Our vehicle systems are starting to get fleshed out. We found the integrated Unreal Engine vehicle subsystems to be inadequate for the realism and fidelity we seek, so Identity will run on an entirely rebuilt vehicle physics engine. With this you can expect extremely realistic handling of bicycles, cars, vans, motorcycles, semi-trucks and more. We've got the Twitch Game development is an exciting career that many gamers aspire for. Just a couple of weeks ago we had test run streaming our development live on Twitch. In our first stream, our character artist Miroslav added different eyebrow varieties to Identity character head models. These are some of the eyebrow options you'll be able to choose when creating your characters; get an inside look at the work which goes into even a small detail as this. While the task Miroslav had at the time might not have been the most exciting, we're in the process of setting up a schedule for very regular streams from a variety of development departments. Keep an eye on Twitter and Facebook for stream time announcements. Click the preview below to watch the recorded stream. It runs at just under an hour in duration. Identity's first Dev Stream: Miroslav's Eyebrows You can find our Twitch channel at Twitch.tv/IdentityRPG. Follow us there to get notified when an Identity developer starts streaming! Path to the Town Square Town Square early revision; work in progress A lot of Town Square work has been accomplished since the last dev blog! From interface to animations and more feature polish, the Town Square is shaping up into a genuinely interesting social environment. We've been making everything we can in the environment interactive. If it looks like it would have some sort of purpose in reality, we're making it useful (or at least entertaining) in Identity, too! Grab a newspaper for the latest happenings, toss a coin into the fountain or grab a can of soda from the machine. Visual dynamics have been added as well. Simple things bring immersion to the environment. The clocks on buildings and towers show the real in-game time, the cinema marquee sign shows the movies playing with real times (which can be adjusted by owners of community servers in retail Identity) and more. We're making the Identity environment, and thus that in Town Square, feel alive and interactive. A hotel lobby at night -- John VanderZwet

DATE POSTED: March 24th, 2017 Big changes for a bigger world! What a crazy time for the Identity development team over here at Asylum! We've been running all over the place for conferences and expos this month, including both GDC and PAX East, where we met all sorts of new talent and potential technology partners. We've unfortunately had to push back the release of the Town Square module from our original Q1 2017 release with all of the big developments here, but most systems are in place and it's not far off! The biggest and most exciting news we're officially announcing today is a new partnership with Improbable, the creators of SpatialOS! The Identity team has been testing the waters with SpatialOS for a couple of months now and we're incredibly excited about what it's going to mean for Identity. Identity can now be what we all hoped it would be, a true MMORPG in scale. SpatialOS is going to power Identity behind the scenes, allowing absolutely enormous scale for our world and the people playing in it. While we had originally hoped to be able to get 300 people into our servers with decent performance, with just a tiny bit more effort we're going to be able to expand that as far as the game needs. Instead of 300 players in a single server, we could now potentially have thousands. The size of our servers are now going to be set based on what we feel is ideal for a fun and immersive environment and we're not limited technically like we were expecting in the past. It opens more doors than simply the number of players on a server, too. With these changes we can now afford to have a more dynamic and interactive world. We've gained some freedom in manipulating the world and we can create features which we never imagined possible in a game of Identity's scale. This is all extremely exciting for the team. This technology is a scope-changer and Identity is going to be far better for it. Not only will our world grow, not only will the population be denser, but you'll even be able to leave your mark in many new ways. Development charging forward Concept art for Town Square art gallery and library, featuring player content We're working and expanding at an incredible rate. All key gameplay features for Town Square are now functional as we add polish and work to support SpatialOS in Identity. The development team has expanded with terrific new talent: Antoine joins Identity's 3D art team, Cody comes on board as a new systems and gameplay programmer and Liam comes in as our first dedicated web developer. Antoine and Cody both bring experience in their field to hasten development for Town Square and Identity as a whole. Liam's talents mean exciting new features on our website will be popping up soon. We've had plenty planned for our website for some time but haven't had the resources to bring these to you, until now.

What a crazy several weeks since the last dev blog post! The increased exposure and attention from the apartment video has resulted in a surge of additional funding for Identity, which has translated into an expanded team with two new full-time developers coming on board and more to join soon. Work has been going very well. Motown, your community manager, has started transitioning into the role of producer to help manage our expanding team. This has helped to reduce some of the work-load on myself so it's been a very welcome change and he's proving to be great for the role. Our lead character artist, Miroslav, has been hard at work on numerous enhancements including building our makeup and blemish systems. This will give us the freedom to add all kinds of makeup options, especially for females but also for men. Your options at character creation will be a bit limited, but a vanity table will let you customize your makeup much further. Blemishes allow us to modify the skin in a whole lot of ways, from just a little blush on the cheeks to full-body freckles and more. Miroslav has also done an excellent job expanding eye customization for your characters which won't just tint the color of the iris but change its entire pattern to properly match the styles seen in those eyes in reality. He's also expanded our options for hair and facial hair. Feature development has also been going quickly and smoothly. Among others, we've built the contacts and friends systems which will be available in the Town Square module. When you meet people in the world you'll be able to exchange contact information, adding their number and name to your phone. This then acts like a friends list in other games, but you can even text or phone them with real working voice systems. It's also integrated with your Steam friends to make finding them easier. Environment art is also moving along, with several artists working full-time to give you beautiful environments. We've hired on some more artists and are even reworking some of the earlier assets we produced to bring the up to our now higher standards. Identity YouTube channel PowerGaming7 had the chance to speak with myself and Motown for a while after asking his viewers for a bunch of questions to ask. The result was an almost one hour long video where we shared all sorts of information you may not have heard before. You can find the link to this video right here. Once again, I want to thank every one of you for your continued support! Every pledge that comes in goes straight into the development of new features and helps us get the game to you a little bit faster. The attention we've seen over the last couple of months has been staggering, and we are excited to show you more of the gameplay soon!

It's been a busy, eventful and productive month for the Identity team at Asylum! Only a few weeks ago we released our first video showing real in-game content, the player housing system, and Identity has gotten a good bit of much-needed exposure! If you haven't seen the video, visit Identity's YouTube channel. Our programmers, especially Henrik Sonesson, have upgraded our inventory mechanics and created two new important gameplay systems these last weeks. The library which you'll have access to in the Town Square module is now in place and functional. Players can both read public domain classic books in-game, or even write their own and submit them to the library for other players to read. In addition, the NPC shop systems are now in place. When you enter most shops you'll be able to find the items you need on racks or displays around the store. Grab what it is you're looking for and then make your way to the cash register to make the purchase. In some places you can preview the items you're holding even before buying; for example, in a clothing store you can go into a change room. This system even allows for shoplifting some items, although player-crafted or very expensive items cannot be shoplifted on official servers. On the art front, we've brought on new artists and are continuing to build the world you'll be exploring. We've also been focusing on the interiors of buildings and characters. We've gotten our first facial hair assets and are approaching a complete character customization system. An overhaul of character skin and hair has Identity's characters looking incredibly life-like in comparison to other MMORPGs. Next on that list for a re-work is the eyes.

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.

DEV BLOG #001 Greetings Citizens, It has been just over a year since you helped successfully kick start Identity into existence! We want to thank you all for your continued support by providing you all with regular updates following the development process for Identity. Engaging with our community is one of the best ways we can show our thanks, and a development blog is a perfect opportunity for us to bring you along for the ride. As you’ve seen throughout the past year, there is no game out there that is quite like Identity, and through your support, you have proven to us that Identity is a vision worth turning into a reality! Feedback has shown us that you all really appreciate our attempts to respond to virtually every question we receive on social media. Twitter and Facebook have been a huge boost in exposure for Identity, and so it is time we begin to explore other avenues of exposure to help our community understand a bit more about the game. In the coming months, our fans will see their first glimpse of gameplay for Identity! We are all extremely excited to show off our first gameplay video, which will fully explore the mechanics of apartment and housing customization. With this video, you will see that we have stayed true to our original art direction from the original Kickstarter trailer, while maintaining high standards in realistic lighting and graphics. We can safely say that we have improved many of the areas of our design that needed attention since February last year. Apartment & Housing Customization Apartments and houses within Identity will have a fully customizable interior. You will be able to change the wall paper on every wall in every room, place furniture anywhere there is space on the ground, swap out doors, windows, baseboards, crown moulding, and even wainscoting! We have made no compromise to the level of detail in which you can customize your apartments or homes, in order to truly express your sense of home decor. With this level of control, there is virtually no chance that the interior of two homes will ever look alike. There will be hundreds of furniture items available to purchase in-game in every style and design, from traditional to contemporary. Furniture in Identity can even be crafted, sold, or traded to other players, and those who wish to try their hand at crafting hand-made furniture from a variety of materials can place a crafting table anywhere they wish inside their homes! And if you wish to share your space with a partner, friend, or even a group of friends, homes and apartments will be available for sale throughout the world that support multiple roommates depending the size of the space and how many bedrooms are available. The home-owner may even grant build permissions to any number of roommates, even visitors, to help them decorate their living space. When you are finished, invite your friends over to compliment you on your interior decorating skills! If you’re anything like us, we know you will spend more time cleaning up this virtual home than you do your real one! Radio This week, our team has also placed a lot of our development efforts into building a functioning radio system that will allow you to listen to your favorite real-world radio stations through placed radio objects inside your virtual home, or car! Yes, you can flip through the channels in your car radio, which will also broadcast to the immediate area outside your car. Imagine driving down the street and having everyone you pass know you listen to NSYNC! One other major part of this feature that we are excited to tell you about is player operated talk-shows which you can personally host, or tune-in and listen to, from your car radio or home. The way we currently have this planned out for hosts, is to have actual physical broadcast stations on the map that you can enter as a player and begin hosting your own radio talk-show. Player’s listening from their car or home can browse a list of channels currently being hosted at that very moment, and listen to you live, talking about government conspiracies and UFO’s! We are really hoping that this feature will have a major social impact for Identity. Like you, we see a lot of potential in something like this for budding stars within the community. We would absolutely love to see many of you sprout a career that started in a game we developed, and ended with us listening to your lovely voice on our actual car radio! The Town Square (Social Module) Many of you already know of, and are eagerly anticipating the release of the planned “Town Square” module that is currently still in production. While we can’t give you an exact date on when that will be ready, progress is steady, and we are as excited as you are to meet you all for the first time in a virtual environment. You may already be aware that Identity is largely influenced by a landmass in the south-eastern portion of the United States. The Town Square itself is only a small portion of a larger city built into the final version of Identity called Ash Hill, a reference to Asheville, North Carolina where we had originally planned to move Asylum’s office. We picked this area of the world particularly because it offered a wide range of geographical variance. The transition between Identity’s mix of biomes needed to feel natural, and this area offered most of what we had been looking for. As for the other cities in Identity, their influences may become more clear to you now. Myrtle Beach is obviously Turtle Beach in Identity, and Roseport is less subtle, but a mix between Atlanta and New York City. When we first started, we kept everything, including the structures and world props level to the ground, a mistake we have since corrected. We quickly realized that cities are rarely ever flat, and knew that setting that precedent now would benefit Identity in the future. The next time you see The Town Square module, we are confident that you will notice the difference compared to earlier screenshots, what such a small transformation makes for immersion in a game environment. Moving Forward We want to thank our community for being so patient with us. Over the course of the past year, we’ve seen many work-in-progress screenshots of assets destined for Identity, and while we believe they serve as a sample of the work we have already put into the game, we know that many of you are still anxious to see video. Our current priority is to get things ready to show off, or more specifically, the housing/apartment customization first. We are convinced that many of you will appreciate the time and effort we have put into this feature, so that you will be able to fully express yourself through your character and virtual home. We know we’ve been pretty quiet this past year, and the criticism we’ve heard from our fans on that through social media and the forums have not fallen on deaf ears! We will start to release regular updates through development blogs and continue to find new ways to interact with our community, to show you our gratitude for your support. You yourself can become more involved by contributing to the discussion with your ideas at www.identityrpg.com/community. We’ll see you there, and thank you again! Always remember that we are gamers too and we are as excited as you are to play Identity at launch!