Development notes
In a high meeting with the CEO, we agreed on the following:
I have 5 days to make the database (Char, Gold, Stone, Businesses (several tabs), Lot, Building) and the associated scripts and formulas ready.
Then the developers will converge their online version DB to these final specifications.
An additional 7 days from that, is given to add the floorplans and facade views to Lots, and to make the online hyperlink rulebook.
The launch date will be known shortly after the database/script/formula spex is ready.
Miscellanea
After the authoritative Ancient database is migrated to the Online v.4-in-development, the game resources will temporarily be split in two:
- All interactive resources are in the Online
- Owner registry of Items (Unique/Fungible, incl metal coins) will continue in google DB.
The owner registry means that these items there do not affect the economic gameplay in any way and are purely speculative assets. In a later version, they will be merged to the Online, and will start to affect the economic gameplay with their Attributes, etc. All these Items are Ancient, and as such, more will not be created. Trading works largely as now, and new players will have the chance to ask the admins old-style to add their Online Character id to the google DB as well, to enable them to acquire these items. It is not to be encouraged, though.
Bank has paid back the 2015-4-7 bond in full. 900 million is credited to the bondholders.
Badges and similar items will be created as Items after the 5 days deadline.
T_MON will continue in google DB and will be transferred to Online starting balances closer to launch.
What to do in the game now?The Fellowship of the Round Table is searching for a defunct shell company to gain the title Ancient. If such is not donated to us, however, we are satisfied with the result. The Auction of the first 10 TIE Gold Bars from 1520, numbered 1-10, giving the membership and preeminence in the Round Table, with all proceeds going to Sir Riccardo, is happening next week.
It is possible to trade things (exception: Lots and therefore buildings).
You can gift rings and other stuff that you get from AIC. Notable (Fungible) Items that have been gifted (or registered, as the gifting has often happened in the year of the item):
- GAGR, the gold ring mentioned in the thread to have been donated by HM to all characters in 1450 (32 exist, gold was registered already)
- KS12, a "big silver ring" made in 1559 for the opening of the PofC&S and given by HM to characters reaching 100 culture
- KS13, a "silver signet ring" for 1,000 culture
- a unique item (3 existing) will be given for 10,000 culture. The owners of these items will also get the char attribute Cultured(1-3) with no ingame meaning (yet)
- ETS5, a "silver signet ring" from 1528, the year of the Embassy Tower, is given to people Dr. Choo has met IRL. He is probably unique in knowing HM, David, NL, and Riccardo in person.
- ETS6, a "large silver signet ring" is given to the above 4 people with the remaining one kept by The Cultured Prince of Soul himself.
AIC conversion period lasts for 7 more days (exact timeline from the post). My deadline to freeze the DB functionality is before that, so I'll get to admin_accept the items when the conversion deadline is over. Ask other admins the questions you may have meanwhile.
Hint for the commercially-minded people: the prices of items are carefully balanced such that early ones can get an Item for as little as 0.1 AIC (early copper tokens; also silver was cheap then), and if you make some calculations, you see that in many categories, making some kind of a bundle (read through HM items you will see what I mean) results in the individual item cost as little as 0.5 AIC. There is no guarantee when commercial items can be made fungible and tradable, and the Items management comes Online likely only after 6 months, and even then the price is determined by the market. But just saying.. Everyone wants to help in what he is good at. The buildings don't have doors or windows, except the 7 consecrated for the Lord. All grand and opulent doors are saved in the DB in their owners' name, and will be usable as such hopefully soon. The patrons of the Army have collected the shattered windowglasses, and have grand plans with RWWC to offer paned Ancient windows in different finenesses (in this case most fine being largest squares, since they are hardest to make from shards, with of course the cheapest option just to make new windows).
One of the first things to do in the Online for most Ancient ones, is to secure windows for their buildings. A courier is soon sent to Rouen with a massive order. In keeping with the principles of Mercantilism (and also because an order any larger would just prompt them to increase price even more and the production is not unlimited either), the order is limited to 5,000 sqm for now. We estimate that it should take about 15 months to reach the Town (arrive at the 15th realday of Online). Prior to that, RWWC is expected to produce about 5,000 sqm as well, and in absence of other fair methods, they are probably making a list of the grand buildings in order of importance and allocating a part of production to them in this order, and auctioning the rest, both monthly (realdaily), to allocate the commercial needs through the price mechanism. Even at that time, half of the town is still windowless and at a much reduced function, and new buildings need to compete with old ones for their windows.
The technicalities of the Rouen order come soon, but the principle is a public auction where 5,000 is the max quantity, higher bid takes precedence and everyone pays the price of the highest non-winning bid. The Rouen merchants are charging 160,000 per sqm, any lower is obviously rejected. As an example of the buildings, the Venerable Town Hall stands sad, doorless and windowless. Replacing its 285 windows would cost 46 million at the normal price. The largest damages were suffered by the Triple Towers, only a year old, which lost 1,635 sqm of windows (though their owners were both also Army patrons, enabling them to gain some of the "proceeds" of the calamity).
In order to bid in the auction, the balance must be positive.
From now on, a Royal Decree says that all windows must be paned, so that any similar event would not result in complete mayhem, but rather the pieces would be readily usable again, like what happened to the stained glass - the original pieces were so small to have sufficient tension/weight ratio that they did not break even when falling to stone.