Hey guys,

Just wanted to give you all a heads up that the Vogster dev team will be in-game soon to answer your questions!

We haven't got a date set yet, but I feel pretty comfortable saying that we'll get this Q&A going next week. Keep watching the annoucements for more details!

--KevinB

Hey guys,

We're opening the voting in the Billboard Contest Finals today! The top three finalists in the Sunrise City promotion category are from Cloudy Eyes, Digital Phantom and Mithik!

View their entries here then go to the poll section to vote!

Cloudy Eyes:

Digital Phantom:

Mithik - Hotel Paradise

Hey Guys,

Just wanted to pop in and let you know that we’ve been listening to what you’ve all been saying about the latest update and we are making some adjustments based on your feedback.

We’re currently working on a hot fix for early September that will adjust a few of the features that have received the most feedback.

We will be changing the Sniper Rifle zoom feature back to the way it was before the update and we also will make an adjustment to the Cabrese semi-auto Assault Rifle to increase its rate of fire.

For Chemists who are still hanging onto Probability and Quality ingredients, we will be replacing those with useful ingredients in the hot fix. Please note that any ingredients in the mail system will not be replaced, they need to be in a bank or backpack. We’re also looking into ways to compensate Chemists who lost recipes in their inventory based on rarity.

Finally, we will be optimizing item durability to fix issues with some weapons that are losing it way too quickly.

Many other issues that have been raised are on our watch list, so we are keeping a close eye on your comments and game play for other changes that need to be made. We’re also working very hard to deal with some of the lag issues players are seeing. The hot fix that was released today addressed lobby lag issues, but instance lagging is difficult to reproduce and that makes it difficult to fix. We are making progress and we will keep working on the issue until it is fixed.

--KevinB
 

Hey guys,

MMORPG.com has an exclusive look at the Total Character Destruction in this video that posted today! Go check out some of the explosive dismemberments and leave us some comment love if you like what you see!

--KevinB

This Saturday it's time for another Super Cash Tournament, so start your prep work now!

Winning team members will each receive $100 real world cash, payable at the winner’s option through gold bars, PayPal or an online Visa gift card.

Form your teams and get ready to kill the competition in the Super Cash Tournament at 6 p.m. server time Saturday, August 28.

Hey guys,

As you know if you’ve been paying attention, we’ve got another update coming soon that will continue the improvements we’ve been making to our game since launch.

While I think we all agree that Sunrise City is in a much better place now than when we launched (and certainly our population growth says we’re in a much better place!), there’s still room to improve. These changes are essential to continue fixing and improving the game and setting it up for future growth and expansion. I think you’ll all appreciate the new weapons, abilities, customization options and changes to the current abilities.

Today I’m going to highlight some of the major changes we’re making to CrimeCraft in the next update.

New Weapons, Clothes and Appearance Options

We are adding 14 new guns to the game through the loot table and the Black Market. These include assault rifles, LMGs, sniper rifles and SMGs. New clothes also are being added to the Black Market as well as appearance options including new faces, skin tones, hair styles, beards and makeup.

Ability Additions and Changes

We’ve added three new abilities and reworked many of the existing abilities, so we will be rolling back everyone’s Skill Points at the update launch so you can try out the new additions.

The new abilities include:

• Electric Shield – An ability that stuns enemies after melee attacks
• Corrosion Grenade – An ability that gives the character a grenade that creates a cloud that reduces damage resistance and absorption to all enemies in the radius
• Collector – Characters get a chance to spawn a +25 hit point MedKit out of each enemy they kill

Ability changes include:

• Desensitization – Increased positive effect
• Enhanced Metabolism – Increased positive effect
• Enhanced Endurance – Decreased stamina reduction and increased sprint speed
• Enhanced Recovery – Increased positive effect
• PSP Rounds – Character’s resistances increase as soon as a player uses the ability, starting animation is two times faster and ability can be stopped at will by pressing any move button
• Incendiary Rounds – Ammo loading animation removed, so the ability is now instant
• Charge Compression – Added possibility to throw two grenades without cooldown
• Fragmentation Grenade – Throw speed increased, lighting changed
• Molotov [filtered]tail – Throw speed increased, enemies who pass through flame take damage
• C4 – Now thrown like a grenade and sticks on collision
• NBR Grenade – Throw speed increased, activates when it hits the ground, heals enemies and allies, increased healing effect, duration reduced
• Liquid Armor – Added visual effect to character torso, character speed decreased
• Blast Helmet – Added visual effect to character head, character speed decreased
• Camouflage Sensor Array – Effective radius increased
• Explosion Dampening Field – Now thrown like a grenade
• Heartbeat Detector – Duration increased

Abilities removed include Flash Grenade, Sensitization, SatCom.

Ability Level Gating

Along with the changes to the abilities themselves, we also are adding level gates. At low levels, users will have access to a small number of abilities; at mid levels, about half of the abilities; and high level users have access to all abilities.

This change adds depth to the RPG side of the game as players progress through the levels and unlock additional play options and streamlines game play for new players. Note that to balance the gameplay we have adjusted the PvP handicapping to account for the difference in abilities.

Itemization

We are expanding the Black Market and adding a number of new items to the Gold Bar store, including the new customization options and weapons I mentioned earlier. That’s not all that’s coming to the Black Market, however. We’re adding several new game features including Profiles. Profiles are additional paper dolls for a character that can be outfitted with different clothes, boosts, abilities and weapons for different combat situations. Each time they die in a match, a player with multiple profiles can choose which one to spawn. For example, if your enemies are using extensive resists to heavy damage, you may choose to respawn with your grenade launcher build.

Chemist Profession Improvement

We have made many major changes to the Chemist profession to make it a more viable crafting tree. If you are a Chemist, when you log in after the update you will find that all of your recipes have been removed and that the money you spent learning those recipes has been refunded to your account. The Chemist trainers will be selling the new recipes at launch so Chemists can learn and use the new recipes right away.

PVE Instance Creation

To encourage cooperative game play in PvE we are making the following change: In this next update, instances can’t be created if there are open matches with open slots. We are making this change because of our population growth. There is an upper limit to the number of instances that can be run per server, and having 12 PVE instances with one user is not efficient for our server usage and performance.

Durability Adjustment

You’re going to notice that your weapons and clothes will lose durability faster after this next update goes live. The goal is to increase the turn-over on gun use in order to further spark growth in the economy and encourage players to explore more options in firepower and crafting.

These aren’t all the changes coming in the next update but they are the major changes. We’re tuning combat performance for game play balance, removing the ability to reload while sprinting or rolling and we’re also adding a Stamina Meter to the combat UI. Finally, we’ve added some explosive new death animations that we think everyone will enjoy!

--KevinB

Check out the CrimeCraft Facebook page for a sneak peek at two screens from the upcoming update! Come back to CrimeCraft.com next week for an update preview.

There’s been some buzz about recent suspensions, and I wanted to step in and clear things up for everyone.

We have run quite a few high-profile events lately with substantial prizes, and it is our responsibility to ensure a level playing field for all of our users in those events.

When we find that players are colluding during a tournament to throw matches and ensure that other teams advance, we are forced to take severe action. We are committed to fair play within the confines of the game rules. That’s not to say that gang vs. gang intrigue and subversion doesn’t have a place in CrimeCraft. It most certainly does, but that place is not in skill-based tournaments.

The players that were banned were cheating other members of the community out of their fair chance to win a tournament, and we as a company will not allow that in our game.

--KevinB

Hey guys,

Go check out the hands-on look at CrimeCraft over at Ten Ton Hammer:

"During my tour of the game we ran several scenarios, most of which were PvE based and showed off the speed and power of the combat system well. After being abused for a couple matches I rebound my hotkeys, got some good advice and started feeling less the hunted and more like the hunter."

We also gave them a first look at some of the planned item shop expansions with some information I know you'll all be interested to read!

--KevinB

Get your crayons and finger paints out, it’s time for another contest! We want you to design some killer billboards for Sunrise City.

Each billboard must fit into one of three categories

• Gang Recruitment and Promotion – Show everyone why your gang is the best in Sunrise City.
• Individual Promotion – Get your name up in lights across town and let everyone know you’re the best killer in town, or promote your crafting. Stroke your ego any way you want.
• Sunrise City Promotion – Design a billboard for any of the businesses in town or the Municipality.

Billboards must be created in one of the following sizes:

• 320x512
• 256x128

We’ll select the top entries in each category and open a poll for the community to vote for the top three. The first place winner in each category will win $50 and their billboard will go into the Sunrise City billboard rotation for one month.

Second place receives $25 plus their ad goes in the Sunrise City billboard rotation for one month.

Third place gets their ad in the billboard rotation for one month.

Post your entries in this thread. Please note, entries do not have to be created using crayons or finger paints.

See the official contest rules here.