What’s next in Underworld?
We’ve been pretty quiet lately. Which is because our hands are full with Underworld improvements. Thus it’s time to finally reveal what are we working on.
Well, our first priority is to make the world economy run faster, smoother and more transparent for players. Glad to say we already have a new version in an internal testing featuring all of this. Hoping to push it live next week.
Now to the sexiest and the long-awaited stuff. Thanks to all the feedback we’ve got from you, our development lab is now preparing the three most wanted features, as follows:
- death to the bots (AI players)
- the ability for the real players to interact even on some distance
- and… the messaging, eh!
Won’t promise any strict release date for this yet, but we want this stuff as much as you do, so…
Please don’t stop with suggestions and other feedback, we’re loving it so much! More, even more, make us beg you to stop :) An open roadmap (the one you can vote for) is going to be updated in the next couple of days.
February 13th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
I am for most everything, but death to the bots?
Wouldnt that stop most of all the trading going on in some smaller cities? I kind of doubt anyone around me has Underworld as of yet…..
February 13th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Cant wait for the update!
What happened to the Cream of the Crop? It worked fine before, now I can only see my local area, I cant get to my county or state anymore.
February 13th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Hi
i need to restore my iPhone but so i lost my status by Underworld
Please inform me about a backup of my underworld status backup !
thx from germany
February 13th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
LANDSER, killing the bots won’t affect world economy. Instead of AI players you’ll have to play with the real people around the world. And this should work even in very small places
February 13th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Shawn, we are having server overload issues again, hoping to fix them soon.
February 13th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
openDVB, you won’t lose your progress because it is stored on the game server. Only your messages and deal history are going to be erased, but I suppose that isn’t a big loss?
February 13th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
@andrey
what i need to recover my status on a restored iphone ?
Username + Birthday in Underworld ? to restore my underworld profile ?
February 13th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
openDVB, after you start the game on your restored iPhone, you won’t be asked for nickname. Just confirm you are 17+ yo and that’s it, you can play further.
February 13th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
it works easy and perfect
thx dude
February 14th, 2009 at 6:12 am
I am sure that you have been fielding a lot of concerns dealing with the whole “AI-death” thing. which i am totally cool for, and im hoping it works. but heres what I’m worrying about.
With any kind of economy (which drug dealing TOTALLY counts) the supply has to come from somewhere, and also has to be expendable, so people need more of it, and it keeps its value…
my point being… by killing the AI, how are you gonna get the supply out, and in turn, soak the supply when it gets too big? when you kill the AI, its just gonna be the same drugs moving around in circles, in the local areas, since im guessing that most of the players are not making regular long-distance traveling plans.
im probably just over thinking this, but really i’ve discovered this game only like a week ago, and im totally addicted to it… so if the game stops working so well, my work days are gonna get a LOT more boring.
February 14th, 2009 at 7:38 am
I can understand the desire to implement nice features for these fine posters above me, but would it be possible to release a small update in the meanwhile that addresses the installation/crash problem, I haven’t been able play yet;(
February 15th, 2009 at 4:13 am
hey i agree with the player above, what do you mean with “all bots” who will buy it? and who will supply it?
i could see a solution for the supply: giving the option to buy labs and farms (for a huge ammount of money), so you could produce your own stuff) and to keep the number of these low and proportional (ie: less cocain in the streets than weed so less farms for cocain) there would be police raids that could take over your “labs/farms” at random.
but that would still mean the police were bots,
and as for the clients, wouldn’t the price settle eventually if people kept trading stuff with only raids to take them of the market?
i still haven’t figured what your actual system is, let alone what you’re trying to implement
but for now great work
i got at least 4 friends aside from me playing it here in portugal =)
February 15th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
this game is really fun and im adicted too.
but i think it s really hard to find high level item like shrum and Coke. I can deal this since 2 week but i neveer found a seller
Thanks to developper for this really nice game
February 16th, 2009 at 6:13 am
The potential for the game is awesome.. but i have yet to play it ‘properly’. I’m in australian and the other other people playing it are bots. Kind of easy to tell as when i’m travelling around i see the pics repeated for different players in different suburbs.
Currently the AI (bots) are injecting cheap drugs into the market yeah? i can see that.. cuz they are the cheapest.. and i buy them all the time. Problem is, no one every buys them off me. regardless of how low i set the price to be. I might sell twice after i start a new game.. and then i won’t sell anything. Eventually the loan shark rapes me, and i can afford to buy anything because i owe so much.
I’ve tried starting from scratch multiple times. Each time i try to perform a different upgrade at the beginning. i.e. just upgrade my trade area to ‘gang’ so i can sell to more bots in my area. I still don’t get increased sales. I literally spend over a day waiting to sell something. Its more like watching paint dry ATM for me..
So if i cant sell anything now with the moc up drug dealer bots selling it to me cheap. then how am i going to see something later when there are no real people in my area? if we are only going to interact with other real players.. then don’t you dramatically have to change the trade area functionality? cuz i’m pretty sure that no one near me has a jail broken iphone.. so how is another ‘real’ player going to fall inside my tradable area???? I mean i travel a bit.. but loans sharks a greedy as shit.
Also if there is no AI, i can’t see this working.. all real players want to do is make money. It would be like a pyramid scheme with no bots.. only the people in early would get the best deal. eventually it would be so pricey no new player could afford it. you need drug sources and sinks.. dealers and junkies if you will. AI to supply and AI to consume.. and up the transaction frequency! its a ‘game’ not a ‘wait’.
I’d love to keep playing it.. but i can’t.
February 16th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
I have to agree with the post above.
I have a one hour commute to work, and the same home everyday, and there is some “varitey” in the prices, but nothing what it should be, and I can price things well below the lowest in one place, and they never buy. It might be different with real people, but I can see the prices getting way out of hand for people who come in late to the game.
I have paid off my loans, and have a full stock of 30 items, but they arent selling. I have $3k on hand, but cant buy nothing since I have no more room…
February 17th, 2009 at 10:26 am
What comes to the bot massacre, I have to explain a bit: we are planning to kill only those of them who are acting like a real humans and leave those who are in charge of a global demand&supply. Additionally, we are going to make these D&S bots looking different from the real players for the more transparent world economy.
February 17th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I can live with that!
Now get it throught the app store so we (lots of other people without it) can play!
February 18th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
yes but what’s the difference between them?
i mean ye some bots sell stuff a lot cheaper so I’m assuming those are the suppliers, and the rest are “humans” but while the only provide us with an average price to sell our stuff, it still feels like dopewars where not always the prices are low,
if you took that out yes the players would set their own average prices, but that should also mean in less populated areas it would be a lot harder to figure those out, and i really don’t see the difference in gameplay.
unless we get assingned the closest X number of humans weather even if that means people from other cities/countries,, but that would defeat the purpose of being location based..
February 19th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Any word on update being pushed?
February 20th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Sorry, Posted it in the wrong section earlier. So here is is again.
Equipment Upgrades:
I am wanting to know why upgrades are costing so much. My Next upgrade is at $100,000. and from what it looks like each time I have upgraded the cost keeps doubling. And at this rate I will need $400,000,000+ for the final upgrade.
Here are my thoughts. There should not be an overall upgrade increases. But rather an increases in each section.
Along with requirements (This would force people to be more on the same level for trading)
Also add more level of upgrades. (Maybe 10 total)
Example
2 lvl2, 2 lvl1 = 2 would need to be at a level2 and 2 would need to be at a level 1 to do that upgrade.
This is just what came to the top of my head at the moment.
For example
Level 1 upgrades cost:
Carry Space Level 1 = $5,000
Trade Area Level 1 = $10,000
Police Evasion Level 1 = $15,000
Tradable Items Level 1 = $25,000 (2 lvl1)
Level 2 upgrades cost:
Carry Space Level 2 = $12,000(2 lvl1)
Trade Area Level 2 = $15,000(2 lvl1)
Police Evasion Level 2 = $25,000 (2 lvl1)
Tradable Items Level 2 = $50,000 (2 lvl2, 2 lvl1)
Level 3 upgrades cost:
Carry Space Level 3 = $15,000 (2 lvl2, 2 lvl1)
Trade Area Level 3 = $25,000 (2 lvl2, 2 lvl1)
Police Evasion Level 3 = $45,000 (2 lvl2, 2 lvl1)
Tradable Items Level 3 = $75,000 (2 lvl3, 2 lvl2)
Level 4 upgrades cost:
Carry Space Level 4 = $25,000 (2 lvl3, 2 lvl2)
Trade Area Level 4 = $50,000 (2 lvl3, 2 lvl2)
Police Evasion Level 4 = $75,000 (2 lvl3, 2 lvl2)
Tradable Items Level 4 = $150,000 (2 lvl4, 2 lvl3)
Level 5 upgrades cost:
Carry Space Level 5 = $50,000 (2 lvl4, 2 lvl3)
Trade Area Level 5 = $100,000 (2 lvl4, 2 lvl3)
Police Evasion Level 5 = $150,000 (2 lvl4, 2 lv3)
Tradable Items Level 5 = $200,000 (2 lvl5, 2 lvl4)
February 21st, 2009 at 9:24 am
sak3r, supply & demand bots act like drug labs and needy junkies. Drug labs sell stuff to dealers, while junkies try to find dealers with the cheapest stuff they can find in the neighborhood.
What dealers have to do is to “connect” labs&addicts and make dough. Pretty simple, eh. Also, there are bots which act like normal human dealers. This is how economy works in the current version.
Now, what we want to do:
1) Make these drug labs and junkies remarkable on the map (you seem them as normal people for the time being), so you could understand local situation better and make your business decisions right.
2) Change local supply&demand situation from time to time, so dealers have to adapt to it - it is a common thing in the current version that people can sit in one place and make the same deals every 20-30 mins. Which is boring, I’m afraid.
3) Kill those dealer-bots. You won’t need them anymore because you are going to see real people from another locations even if they are kinda far from you.
Internal testing shows all of this works pretty good. As long as chat is ready, we are going to push the update to Cydia.
February 21st, 2009 at 9:43 am
Albe, thanks for the suggestion. I see the logic behind this.
Why we had in mind doubling cost of upgrades every time is that players have to make a thoughtful decision when investing in equipment. If you are going to spend 100K upgrading your carry space you have to be sure you need it very much, ’cause it will take you a while to earn 200K.
But, again, thanks for the feedback, we’ll put some thought on that.
March 3rd, 2009 at 3:03 am
I upgraded my items and can now sell LSD. Problem is no matter where I go there is no one selling any LSD. I can’t even pick it up to sell it off… Basically wasted a 50k upgrade on nothing. Odd thing is, there is someone on the map selling I think shrooms, the next level up after lsd. any way to fix this?
March 4th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
James, This is one of the known issues, that game economy is kinda static in some places - if you can’t find LSD in your place, you just have to to another place and that’s it. So, we are working on it. In fact, an update we are going to push very very soon will bring exactly the dynamic economy and other interesting features, like messaging.
March 10th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Andrey,
I’ve posted a couple of times and really like the game so far. I have been reading the running thread of posts and paying attention to purchases and sales in game. I does seem as though the only “people” I’ve been dealing with are, in fact, bots. While I have been doing a brisk business with them, I fear that it is a game of diminishing returns. The quantities of drugs I can carry and sell will never be enough to pay for anything beyond a couple of upgrades. Without the upgrades, however, you can’t carry and flip enough stuff to to pay for the upgrades…ad infinitum. Like one poster put it, kind of like watching paint dry. I don’t want to play if, statistically, it’s going to take me 357 years to do enough deals to move forward. In other words, the frequency and size of the deals ought to increase at the same, exponential rate that the cost of ugrades does. I understand your previous response about players needing to evaluate the purchase of an upgrade before spending the money to see if the end justifies the means. Correct me if my math is wrong but, based on twenty possible up-grades, at a doubling of the original $1,500.00 initial upgrade to the first level 2 position, the final cost for all possible up-grades is is $1,572,864,000.00 . This looks more like the national deficit than an i-phone game. Any words of wisdom and hope?
March 10th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Paulie45, well, the word of hope here is that the last upgrade will cost you only 50,000,000 bucks At the higher levels your carry space is more than 100 items, and it is possible to make a profit of ~$1K per item with higher commodities. So it is not impossible to make such money.
Plus, consider the new game version we are about to lauch. One of the goals we aimed there was to make game economy more rewarding for players, even for those who doesn’t have much other players around.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Thanks for the good news! I am eagerly awaiting the launch of 1.1. Keep up the good work and I hope your servers run smoothly. Nothing but nothing sucks worse than servers that repeatedly crash:( Sent an invite on twitter. Send reply if you like. I’d love to follow this game and developments more closely.
Regards,
P45
March 11th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
plz guys help me i cant find the update incydia where i can find it
March 11th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
me too can’t start the Game because of the update and in cydia there is no update 4 the game….
please fix that.
March 11th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
dam i lose all my mony in last houres y they do this its take long time to make my mony then i lose it in easy way
March 11th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Version 1.1 just went life.
March 28th, 2009 at 1:34 am
Nice game, does require real life moves, like go to work, or just travel around to the next pizza take out. (real pubspace to keep the game free)
Sadly im actually locked out of that game, app just stops at seeking location..
maybe i’m locked out been suspectec of being a bot, or my profile is in jail status??
(would be a nice feature if you get a jail style pic of been locked out of game for 1, 2 or 3 or up to 30 hours.)
your game could also teach some younger people what it means being a junky.. and what it would mean to get all that money out of family friends and crimes
bot police could appear on your map moving some kind towards you while looking the map and while doing transactions. so if you stay too long on map or get too much involved in transactions you could see them ketch you and lock you out of game if you don’t have good lawyers
my game just doesnt start again completely, and i dont now why?
March 28th, 2009 at 2:08 am
there could be an capcha popup in case of bot suspect?
March 28th, 2009 at 2:32 am
did think some time about your candy business game,
you could also intoduce some haevyer stuff like
piratos (zzz-pang)(the small not forbidden type)
card dealing (base- or football, pok_em_on r? cards
i don’t use app store r? because id don’t love too much creating commercial accounts with apple r!
so i could not verify if this features are already inside, but thinking’s free even if it is worth a lot
March 28th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
I don’t get this game hours have gone buy and nothinng changes on the screen. You can buy what you want but there I’d no market to sell to. There should be buy and sell prices. My screen said next payment due In 5 days and then the loanshark got pissed because I had no money later that night.
I don’t see how this game can be successful without bots… Not enough happening
March 28th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
aside from a few dissappointments such as ipod touch users cannot go to many different locations this game is awsome. great job on this guys !
March 28th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
however i do think a new upgrade system would be great
April 2nd, 2009 at 9:21 am
leozolt, still getting trouble launching the game?
May 22nd, 2010 at 5:28 pm
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