cipher or snorkelbill, I'll respond to either, I know who he's talking to.
I have to agree, I'm disappointed with how little new code I've gotten to write recently as well.
I have spent way too much time investigating and answering "I/a gang mate did something in game that pissed someone off, and I/we are now getting hosped for it. Please intervene and make it stop" mails, running down scammers/multis, etc.
I had no idea how much behind-the-scenes stuff goes on. This is
not an excuse, just letting you know where my time has gone.
I still have a short list of little things I want to get done. There have been some great suggestions that I have received in email recently. Without looking at my list, the first couple that spring to mind are: confirmation when sending money to someone (like the sending equipment confirmation), putting the name of the person who declared a gang war into the gang events. The XP logs still need to be finished, and now that I'm collecting all the data the way I want, will be soon.
The next big project that I have been working on in my head, but haven't started coding is a complete re-work of the crime system. Some of this won't apply to older players, as you will be past the first part of the code, but the rest will. Some teasers:
- Crimes will be unlocked as you progress, not just a big huge dump of "ok, you're level 5, here's all the crimes in the game.", you will need to succeed at some crimes to open up others.
- Right now, there is a max cap on how much you can earn per crime, and I'd like to change that so that the better you get at the crime, the more you earn, I checked before I stopped playing, and I had been doing the same crime (and really, only that crime) for 2 years, and got the same basic amount for it on the last time I performed it as the first time.
- I want crimes to take into account all of your skills, stats and schooling. If a skill, stat or class could reasonably be deemed to have an influence on your chance of success, I want to count it. i.e. Electronics skill and a surveillance or maybe advanced safe cracking crime.
There are more nuances, but I don't want to give everything away. The last bullet point also should help explain why I haven't put any new classes in yet. I don't want to add a class that takes forever to complete, but doesn't help with this scheme.
Timelines are incredibly difficult to pin down, as I've had less time to code than I ever though possible. I put in between two and five hours a night on the game, it's just all gone into admin stuff.
The little things that I mentioned up top I hope to have done today or tomorrow, as I'm on winter break with my son, but my first priority right now is getting the Thanksgiving contest winners their prizes. I had a last minute change request, and want to make sure it fits OK.