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Major development news for Argonath 2021
It seems a decade ago that V:MP relaunched in March 2020. Many rejoined from all over the community, excited and optimistic community eager to see the possibilities. The months of enjoyment which followed were ultimately all down to the work of 1 person - @Armelin - the sole developer and the soul behind 99% of Argonath V:MP as we see it today.
It is with much regret we must announce that Armelin has decided to retire from the development team. You can read his reasons in the spoiler below.
Hey guys I'm here to say that I'm retiring from the Developer position for multiple reasons that ultimately makes my stay unfair for everyone, reasons such as:
-Not understanding anything about the new RP proposed nor being an enthusiast, limiting my ability to help at all
-My game always getting some stupid problem that ties my hands for weeks at time
-The fact the Rage guys are 2 years (1.0 alpha release) behind they schedule for releasing the new C++ SDK. This means that updating our server to the lastest and much better Rage version is hard for me to pull off, it also means that it would be much much more difficult for the server to recruit a developer capable of working with mixed tecnologies. Bottom line is the server will need to be rewritten in something more stable in the Rage community and the process requires more time than I can dedicate for it.
I also tried communicating my intentions of supporting the RPG server, while doing something else sponsored by Argonath, to the server owners but they went as suddenly as they came making it impossible to make some sort of agreement.
Anyway thanks everyone for the good times, the support and I dont even need to wish good luck because I know the future will be successful for the server.
We wish Armelin the best with decision and it is no exaggeration to acknowledge that he has likely contributed more hours and effort to the Argonath Community than anyone else. Please feel free to post your thanks and support.
Whilst this is a shake up to the development team and it is unfortunate to see a valued member of the community step down - it also allows for a paradigm shift in development direction and capabilities.
New Development Vision
The overall theme for development: A community from around the world can have fun, relax, enjoy some RP and events with friends.
All development will adhere to the following questions: Why should we develop? Why do we want to improve?
• Attract new players to community
• Keep things fun and exciting for current members of community.
We can do this by improving community experience in-game by:
• Encourage RP interaction between players
• Adding interesting and fun features
• Improving quality of life of existing features
All development should adhere to the visions above
If the script doesn’t meet the above criteria - then why develop it?
This is taken directly from the 1st page of the development plan.
Community Lead Development with professional management
By moving to Rage 1.1 and utilizing modern development technologies, we can overcome the burnout experienced by a 1 man developer team. Despite his monumental efforts, Armelin has been a 1 person team and with the current scripts in C++ this limited the ability for external collaboration.
There wasn't a clear vision, plan or goals so everything was developed on an ad-hoc basis. We have now implemented a solid vision as the foundation in all documentation and development towards Argonath 2021.
Some of the process we will be undertaking include:-
- Development will now be community lead and organised in a professional way. The scripts being developed will be managed using workflow software.
- Scripting Features, Bugs and Issues will be reported and tracked within the Workflow Software. This allows the Admins to understand if a relevant bug/feature/issue has been resolved by the Development Team and would also provide an idea of when a release is expected so this can be fed back to the community.
- Discord polls and discussion channels the community can discuss upcoming changes directly with the development team.
- The development and management team are active across these channels and interact ingame and out.
- The development plan document is accessible to admins and trusted veterans of the community across all servers to discuss and contribute directly. Once the v1 workflow and roadmap has been completed the plan will be released to the public.
- At the time of posting is development plan is 7k words, 36 pages long, outlying improvements to all aspects of the game experience.
I have written this on the back of discussions with Haldir/Wdoyle over the past 2 years since discovering RageMP and its capabilities, the numerous suggestions and requests by the community, and my own in game experience within Argonath over the last 14 years.
V:MP Development Team
The current Development Team consists of:
[R*]Wdoyle / Haldir - Community Leader and Lead Developer for V:MP
[R*]Jcstodds - V:MP Division Leader
Chase - V:MP Developer
KJones - V:MP Developer
Bert - V:MP Manager
[R*]Norrage - V:MP Manager
[TCL]Mac - V:MP Manager
[TCL]Kawashty - V:MP Administrator
[R*]Gregerson - V:MP Administrator
[R*]Agent - V:MP Administrator
[R*]Joey - V:MP Moderator
Our development plan is not secret - feel free to tag us in public discussions with any questions, ideas or suggestions.
Congratulations to Mac and Norrage on their new position of V:MP Managers. These two have continuously shown initiative in starting projects to support the community both ingame and out. Their leadership and experience will help the development team grow.
We also welcome veteran Argonath developers Chase and KJones to the team who are eager to help build our vision and breathe life into Argonath 2021. Wdoyle is assembling the scripting dream team as we speak.
Kawashty, Gregerson and Agent have all shown their experience, and have been recognised as full administrators bringing support the development.
Please extend your congratulations to them and show your support!
Economy and jobs overhaul
As part of the development plan I critically reviewed the current jobs and systems in place, their limitations, and how we can improve or overhaul.This includes all legal and illegal roles, as well as LSPD, EMS, FD etc.
There are 3 criteria for all new development of job scripts:
- Jobs should encourage player interaction (RP, trading and business).
- Jobs should also have a purpose that affects other players other than just making money.
- Jobs should have some progression system with bonuses and incentives.
If these criteria are met we believe the jobs system for civilians, cops and criminals will vastly improve. Money wont be generated by arduous missions with no real reason.
Money is generated by creating goods, processing into items which all have uses and purposes and selling to players.
A closed economy will be generated where money and items do not dissapear into oblivion.
Planned Features
These are small snippets of the development plan to show you our intentions over the next weeks and months. More details will be released as we take these from the development plan into the scripting workflow.
Inventory System
- Players, vehicles and property will have inventories which items can be used to transport goods.
- Businesses will need to be restocked manually by transporting good. These can be stolen by criminals.
- Players will lose inventory items after death. Some of these may be recovered by cops.
- All government agencies will have inventories. LSPD will need to restock weapons and supplies providing civilian missions with real purpose. Any criminal money or weapons confiscated by LSPD are stored for use in later events.
- Government banks will also have an inventory systems for money so taxes do not dissapear into oblivion. For use in special events.
Industry overhaul
- Industry will be based on raw material production, manufacturing and retail.
- Most jobs and businesses will be possible to operate solo however transporting goods will be far quicker and less risky when players team up.
- Each industry will have progression with bonuses.
- Warehouses can be purchased to store items safely.
- All industry items are transported manually.
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For version 1 of Argonath 2021 release, the following industries are being considered and will follow the industry format:
- Farming
- Mining
- Food Manufacturer
- Drinks Manufacturer
- Weapons Manufacturer
- Car Mods Shops
- 24/7 Store
- Electronics Store
- Car Dealership
All items have been produced or purchased, and transported by players. There is a real opportunity for criminals to steal and create black market deals with stolen items, which in turn promotes detective and police work.
Faction System
The faction has needed some love for a long time. The vision is to create a modular system where players can easily create and manage factions - both ingame and out of game through the website.
Here are some of the planned features:
- Modular faction system - all factions - LSPD, criminals, EMS, Fire Dept - all under 1 system
- Easy to create and give factions special permissions, scripts and abilities
- Faction vehicles that spawn permenantly at their HQ
- Faction progression system and unlocks.
- Factions will have 10 ranks which can have custom names and permissions set by the leader.
- Faction storage for weapons, clothes, food, keys etc
Other Features
- Fully customizable Character with all GTA Online clothing
- Create multiple character profiles on your account for different RP styles.
- Notoriety System - gain notoriety as a cop or criminal - become more well known and unlock bonuses.
- Progression system for most industry with bonuses to improve efficiency.
- Cayo Perico Island - the Island is designated as another country and is not subject to the laws of the Los Santos Blaine County states.
This is where the majority of cocaine and cannibis may be cultivated and processed "legally"... if the island owner is feeling generous.
Farming and processing items here need to be transported back to the mainland to store. - Moving large quantitites of items would require transport using land, air or sea vehicles, and may be intercepted by border patrols and coast guard RPers... or pirates.
Server Status
No major script changes will be carried out on the current live version of V:MP Argonath as developers are focusing on the new Argonath 2021 development which uses utilizes more modern scripting technologies.
We are not starting from zero - our test server has a solid foundation for the above features and several features are already implemented. We will be bringing you more updates, leaks and progress reports as soon as we set up the scripting workflow and priorities for each component.
How can you help?
Please continue to engage the community with your ideas and discussions on the forums and on discord. We are keen to know your views.
If you are experienced in scripting or development and wish to contribute, please talk to Wdoyle2.
#Leaks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrr1rtFtfro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAWHQpl95Hg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KAtTpMQh8o
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tl;dr - This topic is the tl;dr of the Argonath 2021 development plan