Hi everyone!
We have gone through quite a journey of ups and downs since the last newsletter back in December. Yet, as I'm writing this one, it is the positive developments that seem to have triumphed in the end. You all deserve a proper update on what's been going on in the community and what we're currently striving towards.
However, first I want to emphasize what really matters more than anything else here around - people, friends and lives all around us. As such, I want to express - and I think I can speak for the whole community - our deep gratitude for how @Ice survived the school shooting in Parkland, Florida unharmed. Ice has been with us for a long time, and has always shown commitment and support for our project. We became aware of his presence inside the school while the shooting was ongoing. It was very surreal and striking. I think this event reminds all of us of how truly precious life is, and how important it is that we support and care for one another.
Gamemode updates & the defeat of CrashRP
We have been releasing a highly significant level of updates since December, but have at many turns been undercut by persistent and damaging crash issues on our server. These were a result of issues with Garry's Mod itself, and how it interacted with certain gamemode aspects of ours. Many of your were rightfully frustrated and upset about how the crashes ruined your game experience. We too, were distressed about their severe damage. Our response to this episode was to develop extensive diagnostics systems, and eventually a workaround fix for the problem entirely. We made sure to report the Garry's Mod issue to the relevant Facepunch Studios staff, and were pleased to see it fixed in the last Garry's Mod update.
We haven't experienced any repeated server crashes last couple of weeks. To celebrate the end of CrashRP, you'll get 50% off the first month of Premium over the weekend, if you enter 'NOMORECRASHRP' as a coupon on checkout at the Store page!
Hopefully, this will let us conclude Crash RP once and for all, and focus on developing new features for the gamemode. There have been many of those! Loot system, cocaine, car alarms, more cars and weapons, endless fixes/adjustments, and a whole new heist-system developed by @DevulTj. You can see it in-action in this entertaining YouTube video by EliteStudio:
What we're currently working on
Real-estate system
We have told you before about the real-estate system we're developing. It will enable month-long investments of properties that you can rent out while you're offline. With it comes a system of property upgrades, saved furniture layouts and industrial machines. We have already made significant progress on this whole system, and are going to roll it out in steps soon.
In general, this real-estate system is part of a larger effort to make the gameplay more meaningful. We're also working on a new food system and systems for industrial resource refinements.
New Forums
XenForo 2 has arrived, and we are working on upgrading to it. It's going to change the website substantially for the better, and you can expect it to go live relatively soon. All data will be ported over, so none of the old threads will be lost. Here's a bit of a sneak peak - it's very initial and is going to change a lot!
Codename Monoford
With the hectic crash issues out of the way, we want to approach our custom map project again. We have a public Trello board where we are going to coordinate the development. You'll find it here: https://trello.com/b/CsHgjIRK/monoford
The concept of this map is to take some inspiration of Rockford and other maps, and then design a new optimised map entirely from scratch. It will make more use of water (harbor, dockyard, canals, lake maybe), proper road infrastructure (highways etc.) and undergrounds. The ravine which we all have grown tired of, will be replaced with a cool cave. This project will take time, but should be well worth it in the end.
To conclude this newsletter, I want to thank you all. Why? Because you are loyally empowering us to challenge the status quo in Garry's Mod, to challenge ourselves, and to reach ever higher. This journey of Monolith is hopefully still in its early days, and in the long run, we hope to achieve larger things still only distant and far off on the horizon. None of it will be possible without you, and so much is within our reach together!
-
We have gone through quite a journey of ups and downs since the last newsletter back in December. Yet, as I'm writing this one, it is the positive developments that seem to have triumphed in the end. You all deserve a proper update on what's been going on in the community and what we're currently striving towards.
However, first I want to emphasize what really matters more than anything else here around - people, friends and lives all around us. As such, I want to express - and I think I can speak for the whole community - our deep gratitude for how @Ice survived the school shooting in Parkland, Florida unharmed. Ice has been with us for a long time, and has always shown commitment and support for our project. We became aware of his presence inside the school while the shooting was ongoing. It was very surreal and striking. I think this event reminds all of us of how truly precious life is, and how important it is that we support and care for one another.
Gamemode updates & the defeat of CrashRP
We have been releasing a highly significant level of updates since December, but have at many turns been undercut by persistent and damaging crash issues on our server. These were a result of issues with Garry's Mod itself, and how it interacted with certain gamemode aspects of ours. Many of your were rightfully frustrated and upset about how the crashes ruined your game experience. We too, were distressed about their severe damage. Our response to this episode was to develop extensive diagnostics systems, and eventually a workaround fix for the problem entirely. We made sure to report the Garry's Mod issue to the relevant Facepunch Studios staff, and were pleased to see it fixed in the last Garry's Mod update.
We haven't experienced any repeated server crashes last couple of weeks. To celebrate the end of CrashRP, you'll get 50% off the first month of Premium over the weekend, if you enter 'NOMORECRASHRP' as a coupon on checkout at the Store page!
Hopefully, this will let us conclude Crash RP once and for all, and focus on developing new features for the gamemode. There have been many of those! Loot system, cocaine, car alarms, more cars and weapons, endless fixes/adjustments, and a whole new heist-system developed by @DevulTj. You can see it in-action in this entertaining YouTube video by EliteStudio:
What we're currently working on
Real-estate system
We have told you before about the real-estate system we're developing. It will enable month-long investments of properties that you can rent out while you're offline. With it comes a system of property upgrades, saved furniture layouts and industrial machines. We have already made significant progress on this whole system, and are going to roll it out in steps soon.
In general, this real-estate system is part of a larger effort to make the gameplay more meaningful. We're also working on a new food system and systems for industrial resource refinements.
New Forums
XenForo 2 has arrived, and we are working on upgrading to it. It's going to change the website substantially for the better, and you can expect it to go live relatively soon. All data will be ported over, so none of the old threads will be lost. Here's a bit of a sneak peak - it's very initial and is going to change a lot!
Codename Monoford
With the hectic crash issues out of the way, we want to approach our custom map project again. We have a public Trello board where we are going to coordinate the development. You'll find it here: https://trello.com/b/CsHgjIRK/monoford
The concept of this map is to take some inspiration of Rockford and other maps, and then design a new optimised map entirely from scratch. It will make more use of water (harbor, dockyard, canals, lake maybe), proper road infrastructure (highways etc.) and undergrounds. The ravine which we all have grown tired of, will be replaced with a cool cave. This project will take time, but should be well worth it in the end.
To conclude this newsletter, I want to thank you all. Why? Because you are loyally empowering us to challenge the status quo in Garry's Mod, to challenge ourselves, and to reach ever higher. This journey of Monolith is hopefully still in its early days, and in the long run, we hope to achieve larger things still only distant and far off on the horizon. None of it will be possible without you, and so much is within our reach together!
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