ROB RUN is a criminal sandbox: you start out poor and rise by any means necessary. It all happens on a shared server with up to 5,000 players.
State
In the game, a server is called a state. At the center of the state is the city of Looty Bay, surrounded by districts with settlements, plus the hub (Lenny’s Motel) and the prison. More about districts: Base and Plot.
Progress is tied to the state: when you move to another state, you lose your progress in the current one. The game warns you if the chosen state was created long ago and other players’ progress there may be far ahead of yours. The world keeps going without you: while you’re offline, cash is laundered and cargo is opened.
The cycle: from poverty to prison
According to Steam, in a week a player can rise to head of the largest organization. In the game itself, the loop closes like this:
- Loot in Looty Bay: robberies, cargo, police duty or production on your plot.
- Keeping it: drive the loot out of the city, sell it, store it at the base, launder the cash. See Money and Laundering.
- Growth: Larry’s Tree Shipments, moving to higher-level districts, structures, vehicles, a clan.
- Confiscation: the feds take your property and your character gets a prison sentence. The more is confiscated, the longer the sentence and the greater the authority.
- Escape to a new state, where it all starts over. See Police and Prison.
Residents of Highlands, the central district, can go to a new state and keep their property, but the strongest players gather there until the next confiscation.
You can lose everything
Property isn’t protected: you can lose it at any moment, and other players can take it. Other players can’t steal money from your bank account. In a confiscation, the feds take money, cars and real estate; tattoos stay, and BCoin is out of the feds’ reach.
Regions
States are split by region, and each region has its own schedule: new states are created at set times of the week. A state’s name is made of two words, such as Rocky, Silver, Valley.
Some limits apply within one state: for example, a prison sentence from one state is at most 40 years.