Reset Announcement

We just finished the longest round of TMN since it’s in my hands, and although the end was more boring than any round before, the rest of the round seemed alright. When I got home on August 15th, it took more than “just a few days” to get used to being back in the Netherlands – spending 4 weeks in Africa really changes you! The next week I continued implementing feature improvements that were on my list. I am now confident that TMN can be back after (the semi-announced) 2 weeks, so it is time to make the actual announcement!

Here are the important dates: 

- TMN will go offline on September 7th at 18:00 TMN time (GMT+2*), 17:00 in the UK (GMT+1*)

- The new round will start on September 8th at 18:00 TMN time (GMT+2*), 17:00 in the UK (GMT+1*)

- There will be no pre-registration; when the countdown reaches 00:00 you can create your account

- Properties will be dropped on September 10th or 11th (when the economy reaches 400mil and the game houses 25 hitmen+)

- Property pickup fees will be like last round; 35mil for a BF, 15mil for a BJ, 5mil for other casinos (these may be changed later in the round)

- Minimum and maximum bullet prices will be like last round, and may be changed during the round as well

- A percentage of purchased credits will be returned on September 22nd or 23rd, more info on that will be provided later on

Some changes: 

- Rankup Requirements; no more scripting to legend using crimes or GTAs or jail, but OCs, DTMs, Killing, Traveling are also required!

- A new kind of scripttest; easier to complete than (re)captchas, harder to bypass using a script - wait and see!

- Cheaper credits in the credits store; roughly 35% more credits for the same amount of money!

- No more 10% bullets loss in the Artillery Bunker!

Of course there will be some more changes, but you’ll have to find these yourself during the round. We hope to see you then!

Marc

*: Note that we are currently in Daylight Saving Time.

Christmas and Snowballs!

On December 14th we announced our holiday schedule, which included the following items:
- Dec. 14 – All I Want for Christmas Poll
- Dec. 14-25 – Christmas Gift Giveaway
- Dec. 18-19 – Jail Break Parties 2PM, 6PM, Midnight
- Dec. 20 – Drug Transportation Unveiling
- Dec. 22-25 – Snowball Fights
- Christmas Eve (Dec. 24) – Lcuk’s Christmas Riddles
- Christmas Day (Dec. 25) – Peace On Earth, 24 hour ceasefire

The Drugs Transportation Missions launch went quite well, although some players at first didn't realize it's an extra way to rank, and only drugs will be removed from the Drugs & Booze page. Just before the launch the kill records page was renamed to Personal Stats, which includes counters and timers for DTMs, OCs, Crimes, GTA. This page may in the future be used for other statistics as well.

At this moment the Snowball Fights are active, and proved to be quite a lot of fun! Using a special page (link is on the game forum) players can throw virtual snowballs at other players, who will receive a notification, and (in most cases) a small gift (some money, a credit, a car). At the same time, the Shoutbox is updated with a similar notification, visible to all other players.

In addition to the snowball throws in the shoutbox, we figured it would be nice to disable these messages too. Today (24-12-2010) I made the change; two buttons to toggle visibility of jailbreaks or snowball messages were added. While doing this, I also updated the shoutbox in general, allowing possible new features such as network chat and/or personal messages to players. These possible updates haven't been scheduled for creation yet.

Finally, I would like to wish all TMN players (and other readers) a merry Christmas and a great 2011!

Marc

Polls, new possible feature

On October 8th a poll system was introduced to the TMN players. This system allows the TMN staff to attach a poll (with unlimited amount of answers) to a topic, so all players can vote (once). As a first test, we asked players how old they are. The result of this poll (after 3 days) is shown on the image below.

This poll was only the start though! On 11-10-2010 another poll was added to a forum topic. In this topic a new feature is explained, and player opinions are requested through replies and the poll. The idea s the result of a brainstorm session the TMN staff had, and may be a fun addition to the game. I won't explain the feature in this blog post, but it is related to Drugs, and it will function as a middle-type crime that gets more XP than GTAs and Crimes, but less than an OC.

Marc