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This is just a quick runthrough of the V3 progress thus far and gives you a summary of whats been done, what is still left to do and what our planned release date for Willard V3 actually is for the English side. Some may have been playing the EO server during the time English has been offline which we hope has served as a baseline for what "V3" may be like for the English side- naturally- we won't be 1 to 1 the same and there will be big differences in playstyle, policy, runtime, events and story- and of course, so much more.
For the Collaboration, we have been sticking to ensuring our timelines, lore and events are pretty much aligned but anything else has all been changed overtime due to the sheer difference in player base direction and attitude that a full collab was seen as not viable. So now its a collab in part.
Naturally we will still interact with each others servers, factions, events and so on- all this means is that development, databases, content, gameplay, systems and all that jazz is not directly shared anymore. Just needed to make this clear for those who may be wondering why English didn't launch at the same time on in follow up to EO.
With that out of the way, time for update.
General Content - Complete
As for general content like Forums setup, policies, team changes and fluff content that is not entirely critical nor major to day to day operations- we can safely say all this is completed. All tasks are pretty much out of the way and you can find some of these completed tasks on the forums right now. Forums has had a few shakeups and reformatting done while policies like the new V3 Rulings and V3 PK policy have both been posted some months ago.
We do plan for 1 final update later on to switch to a new format and style which is 5x better than the current default forum styling- but that is for later as it is a rather time consuming task to undertake.
Speaking of, our Mentor team is still looking for people- so if you feel up to the task of helping out and being part of the WN team, feel free to sign up here:
Mentorship
willard.network
Lore & Timeline - Finale Review stage
TBD, was going to write but sleepy.
Gameplay & Factions - Complete
In terms of Gameplay and factions, things have gone extremely cleanly. With the some of the features EO made, a share of updated V2 features and some new features we have and those still in dev on the way; we have established a brand new gameplay loop for our citizens, unions, Rebels and of course Combine.
In V3, we have a big focus towards Player driven content, story and faction operations where we have moved practically all the "overpowered" commanding positions to "Only when strictly needed" tier of operations. This means there is an In-Character lead, a player who leads the faction in full on the ground day to day and runs all the faction operations- while there is an Out-Of-Character lead who maintains the documents, guides, OOC applicants and only appears IC only when there is a critical faction issue that goes beyond what the IC lead typically handles or literally cannot handle.
For example, the Civil Protection still has a Captain like role in the force, but this Captain is absent for the most part leaving the Rank Leaders to operate the faction as a Council body. In CWU for example, this is instead a case of where the District Director exists but is absent, leaving a District Manager in charge who will handle all the IC work a lead is expected to handle.
Event characters in regards to factions have also been changed to ensure that characters with authority are for the most part forbidden from appearing- unless an event/story strictly requires it. Speaking of stories- some are most likely used to ET running and controlling stories which while fine- we want to make sure Stories are also player driven and more adaptable to the players actions. This should provide players more control over where the events and stories go of the server- which in turn means the players direct the narrative of said story. ET may start a story- or a player can even start it- just whatever the players do is where the story goes. Players can naturally request ET to help out when needed as we don't expect players have the same story telling power without the abilities and commands of ET.
All factions have completed their guidelines, deployment rules, faction rules and generally thats all case closed. Nothing else to mention- but there is other big changes you will find ingame during play different from V2.
Development - In progress
It has been honestly a bit rough around the edges when it comes to development with EO leaving us with the framework for V3 to build off of and for a while English lacked the devs to actually build what we needed. This problem was resolved fairly recently with 2 new devs assisting the rapid development of English V3, one dev in planning to come back and 1 dev also currently building some additional features for both ENG and EO. Tallying 4 devs in total helping for English Version 3 launch.
As for progress on this, it is going well with most content being translated to English, some bugs patched and fixed and systems being edited to fit ENG specifications.
Once some more progress is shown here, I will present the features made but for now there isn't enough to show nor share to make it worthwhile.
Store Changes:
One feature I will cover to at least please the store owners as it exists is the new automated employee tracking system, a system that allows employees to clock in and out of your store so you dont need to manually keep track of your own staff and run your store even while you are asleep, on holiday all the while still gaining money without losing your store claim... unless of course your staff leave you for dead.
This system also involves a new account linked directly to the store, all POS terminals are now assigned to a store and not an individual- meaning all the paychecks, rent and stock is all handled via your stores own account now- meaning even if you become completely broke, your store will keep running given it has the funds and you can take the money out when you come back online.
So that helps those who actually want to run their own corporate empire in the server without micromanaging everything, the system will do 90% of the work for you, it just asks you to hire active employees.
And yes, unlike EO- ENG will not be using NPCs for stores, ENG will allow players to first and foremost run all storefronts with 0% NPC automation. This is one example of a playerbase difference between ENG and EO- not a bad thing, just a difference in how both play the game.
Mapping:
Naturally one will ask about mapping here, but this is practically nearing completion as well to our knowledge. This topic largely falls under Fungle and Fregis- so apologies for the lackluster information here- just they have been handling all the status updates on the map when they can.
Discords - Complete
The discords have essentially been reformed for this one. The old V2 setup was bloated, overdone, too many channels and too much complacency over IC OOC communications. V3 Demands almost complete IC communications with little to no tolerance regarding relaying IC info in Out-Of-Character forums. The only exception that exists is to the EO and ENG district communications and Civil Protection reports, filings and BOL notices.
There is also now much less channels in all discords, formatted channel names and of course there is also less discords overall. Bringing it down from 9 to 4 leaving on the Main, Union, Combine and Underground servers.
Collaboration & The Outlands - TBD (After V3 Launch)
Nothing has been done here yet- this is planned to occur after launch is done to make room and plans for the Outlands. Outlands servers will be a late introduction.
Story & Events - Ready
In terms of events, the Event Team, Short stories Team and the respective managers have prepared to my understanding 3 events for V3 launch. The first is "District 1", details regarding this event for me are unclear. The District 7 riots event set 1 year prior to open and naturally a Short Stories event which I currently lack any detail on but is setup by LyingFox.
So there is a few events present and ready to go.
As for Main Server Storyline, while we do aim for a player-driven story, the first story you will encounter is setup by the Events team and is practically ready with some potential reworks and edits still taking place. But essentially its all intact and documented- ready to go once we have a working map.
Release Date - Speculative
At this current time, we can safely say that our deadline to finalize all content is end of this month (June) with an aim to complete all Lore, event/story prep and begin playtests. August we plan to enter full playtest mode and hopefully the map will be ready and deployed. By the end of August or just after into September we plan for a full launch of V3 ENG Willard.
To break this down
June - All lore, event and story content finished. Playtests begin
August - Full suite of playtests to take place.
Late August-Early September - V3 ENG Launch
Note: Given some people misunderstand, ENG and EO DO STILL SHARE DEVWORK, just not anything that counts as "paid" features. E.g. features from the Gmod Store or features which cost too much in API and AI costs.
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