Alright folks, an update on our current EXCELLENT state.
#1. WE MADE HUGE GAINS!
We have acquired the necessary encryption for AO to protect our licensed assets. Big thanks to @Founder for funding part of it. Professional programmers ain't cheap. With that monumental task out of the way, we just need to take a few more steps to join-beta.
#2. WE GOT GREAT IDEAS FROM SEEING OTHER GAME'S FAILURES
We have a whole private dev channel setup in here where we post systems/code examples of how to make the game better than others and avoid failures we've seen over the years. Here's our last idea from yesterday. Its already coded and done.
Gathering Objects
We won't use custom objects for gathering, instead, we will apply the same commonly-seen object as a gatherable material. Gatherable objects spawn in random locations which prevent cheating; standing in a spot afk with a clicker script
Example:
Rocks are everywhere, but if you see a rock with a glowing effect on it, then it is a gatherable object. This also goes for trees with a little glow at the bottom, etc.
#3. WHAT ARE THE RULES OF THE GAME??
It seems that in ALL games (in recent years), the end-game "meta" is getting banned for some stupid shit like Hate Speech or Abusive Language. I recently tried out Amazon's "New World" to gather more ideas and learn from failures, and a MAX LEVEL guy got permanently banned for calling someone a "Bitch"... Its really nothing, and instead of just ignoring the player, the user weaponized the support system to ban the other player. We have a block/mute system for players to manage who they can see chat from.
I think most people will really appreciate this about AO.
If someone annoys you, we have a block feature. The only thing we'd take bannable action on is something crazy like child endangerment or actual terrorism.
We do have a system setup for people literally doing everything possible trying get banned. Instead of banning, we have an in-game Jail where psychos can eventually come out days/weeks/months after cooling off.
Our Terms of Service is located here: https://forums.gabhub.com/misc.php?action=help&hid=9