It has been 15 days since the last of alpha update, and during this period, our popularity has surged, largely due to a popular youtuber featuring s&box.

While the increase may seem modest in the larger context, the number of s&box players rose from an average of around 100 to a peak of 300, and has now settled back to approximately 130. As a result, DXRP has consistently maintained daily lobbies with 10 to 25 players over the past week.

This growth has allowed me to concentrate on essential fixes, enhancements, and stability improvements, while the s&box team has been working on their networking to accommodate larger player groups.

Initially, DXRP faced significant desynchronization issues during this peak, which Facepunch has partially addressed. However, we are still encountering problems with invalid sessions that hinder communication between players. I remain hopeful that these issues will be resolved over time, and we will eventually transition to dedicated servers, moving away from the current unreliable host-to-host switching.

As always, I appreciate all the feedback our little growing community has given on our discord and in-game and am excited for the future of DXRP.

https://discord.gg/uBwQ2QHP2D

Since announcing our partnership, Three Thieves has been hard at work crafting the new Downtown map from scratch. Using their extensive mapping knowledge, they've been carefully rebuilding this iconic location to replace the outdated version currently in use for DXRP. 

The map is under heavy development and the basic layout has taken shape, and they've been working on refining the details that will make this space truly faithful to the original downtown with a modern twist. 

We're actively seeking feedback in our discord and many of you participated in our initial design previews, helping us identify areas for improvement. 

Here are some current WIP photos:

The plan is to develop the map in sections, with the first one covering the main area and additional ones covering underground/suburbia.

If you're interested in helping out, come join our discord and frequent updates will be posted and feedback sessions.

The governance update is slowly shaping up, it has been partially released with arresting and a mayor law board.

We are still working on laws, warrants, lockdown, and wanted mechanics. 

It will play similar to DarkRP, where government officials will have a special portal in the TAB menu where the Mayor can approve warrants, modify laws, initiate lockdown. For police, they can request warrants and make people wanted (for which will show above their head for X seconds).

There have been a boat load of bugfixes throughout the past week and a half. 

Here is a summarized list of the most notable:

Simple tool to add/remove collision (30s cooldown to prevent peeking)

TVs are now in, you can watch youtube videos with other players (within proximity) with sync (within a second).

Use E to turn them off/on (for you only)

Please don't have a bunch of them in a single place, it will kill your framerate...

Threw this together quickly for the s&box front page (featured), will iterate on it later on.

I added a basic camera which will hide your HUD and work similar to GMOD.

LMB to screenshot via steam.

You can use MMB to share to the discord (once every 30 seconds), use it to share interesting builds/funny things. They will show up in #media under DXRP in our discord.

It's still rough and ready but will eventually add flash, player animation and ability to adjust zoom/fov with RMB.

Here are a few that players have recently posted:

Sneak peek of a funny looking plant

There have been 340 players in the past day, with 2891 unique players.

The current global balance is $8,114,817.00

There have been 78 warnings, 3 bans (78 served), and 2 permanent bans since DXRP came out.

Currently 6 staff members moderating lobbies.

323,000 auditable actions (buy door, buy printer, pay salary, etc)

I have made the decision to restrict props people can spawn to Facepunch ones only.

This is to minimize load times and prevent lobbies from mounting a bunch of crap (You can't unmount a prop even after it's removed, all future players have to download)

Alongside the FP props, I plan on adding some fundamental ones (like plates, cubes, etc) which can be used to build bases with.

I might do more testing with full cloud access to see how feasible it might be but I don't think it fits the theme/art style of the game.

Our current lobby-based system will transition to a network of Official servers distributed by region (EU, US, AU, RU), with scaling based on player demand. These official servers will feature:

As popularity grows, we'll expand to support third-party servers with:

This approach resembles Rust's server ecosystem, creating a balance between official and community-run experiences. To maintain quality standards across the network and prevent the issues that plague current DarkRP servers, third-party monetization will require approval through authorized channels only.

The end goal is to create a cohesive network where players can enjoy both the consistency of official servers and the variety of community servers, all while maintaining core gameplay standards and preventing exploitative practices.

My current TODO list is as follows:

Thanks for reading up to here, hopefully the next state of alpha will have more content, the last 15 days has just been firefighting and organizing things.