Gangs Preview

Posted by Matt on March 16, 2012

As many of you no doubt know, we’re currently working on official Gang features for the GP App which should make forming and running a gang much more fun and rewarding.

Today, we want to give you a bit of a preview of what’s coming. It is important to note that many of the features are incomplete, missing artwork or not present yet.

Comms is being renamed to Co-Op which now contains Messages, Forums, Chat and Gangs. We’ve added a new menu to make it easier to use.

Each Gang has its own Headquarters that they can upgrade and gives its members bonuses and advantages.

At the top of the HQ screen you can see information about the status of the Head Quarters. The two bars display the Health (the HQ will be destroyed if this reaches 0) and the Integrity (regenerates over time, must reach 0 for the HQ to start losing health). To the right of these bars you can see the upgrade level for health and integrity (these increase the maximum value these stats can have). The numbers next to the house is how many properties the gang is holding out of how many it can hold in total.

We’ve introduced a new currency for Gangs, called a “Stack”. This is valued at 6 hours of your current income, which allows members of different ranks and incomes to contribute and be rewarded by Gang features fairly.

Underneath you can see different areas in the HQ. The Gang Stash allows you to deposit money for the Gang to spend, while the Credit Vault allows you to deposit credits for the Gang to use. Both of these can be spent on upgrades:

The stash allows you to store money like a bank which does not reset if you prestige. The Fence allows you to buy weapons you lost in fights back for a reduced price. You can pay mercenaries to defend gang members causing them to lose less if they’re attacked.

A large additional feature that works with Gangs which is properties. Gangs can hold properties. Every time a gang member prestiges while in the gang, the Gang’s “Property Cap” goes up by one.

There are two types of Property, advanced properties such as the Factory, Apartments and Bank, and generic properties. Advanced properties give powerful bonuses and perks to Gang Members. Generic properties provide a steady cash income in the same way that dealers work. Each Gang can only have one of each Advanced Property, and they take up three of your property cap. A Gang can have unlimited generic properties and they take up one property slot.

Reserved players have the option to claim properties (up to one Advanced Property each and unlimited generic properties). Once they have claimed a Property, they make it easier to defend from attacks and provide additional bonuses for owning the property. They can also manage the property, which, if done well can vastly improve the property’s effects.

All properties level up every 12 hours, increasing their effects. Other Gangs attacking your properties can decrease this level and possibly destroy the property. Attacking another Gangs properties can help you level up your own.

We’ve also added social features to make it easier to run and take part in a gang. This includes Gang Chat, a Gang Hitlist and the Gang Wall, which acts like a news feed for things happening in the gang and allows members to post messages like a forum.

This was a quick preview of some of the things we’re working on for Gangs so far.

Remember, you’re not seeing a lot of features that are too new to show you like Gang Attacks, the rest of Properties, Raids, Profiles, Leaderboards and more!

We’ve also been updating other parts of the game to make it easier to use, here’s a sneak peek: