Hey guys,

Unfortunately, we’re going to have some downtime in the very near future. Starting Friday morning, Oct. 1 at midnight EST  (4 a.m. server time Friday morning) the CC servers and website will be down for extended maintenance. The maintenance is expected to last until 3 p.m. EST (7 p.m. server time) Friday, October 1st.

The team will be working hard to get everything back up and running as quickly as possible on Friday, but as you can tell from the timeframe it’s quite a large undertaking.

We do apologize for the length of the downtime, and again, we’ll do our best to get everything back in order as quickly as possible.

We’ll also be posting updates on the server/site status using our Twitter feed and Facebook page, so we can keep you up to speed on when you can expect everything to be running again.

Stay tuned!

You’ve been asking for it, and we’re ready to deliver. This fall, Vogster will open a closed beta server where select members of the CrimeCraft community will be able to experience and test new features and give us feedback before updates go live. One of the first features testers will be asked to work on is a new campaign scheduled for release in Q4 2010.

For the initial round of beta tests, we will select about 100-200 of our most active users to take part. We will be sending out an email survey to all current players with the sign up form, so be sure your email address on your account is correct and make sure you have opted in to receive news from CrimeCraft if you want to be a part of the test.

This is a big step forward for CrimeCraft and you have a chance to be a part of history before it’s made!

It was another extremely close contest in the last round of voting for the Billboard contest, but Dzordzi edged out Mithik by just 5 percent of the vote to take the prize. Elis came in third place in the final round of voting.

We had a great turnout for this contest and you'll see these entries in game later today!

--KevinB

Get your teams together and get ready for the Super Cash Tournament this Saturday!

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.

Get ready to kill the competition in the Super Cash Tournament at 6 p.m. server time Saturday, August 28.

Hey guys,

Voting is now underway for round three of the Billboard Contest and this time, it's personal! That's right, these are the personal promotion billboards that are up for your votes. Go to the polls section and vote for four favorite from these three entries:

Elis

Mithik

Dzordzi

Drabag and Rus Brigada wiped out the competition to win the Gang Promotion Billboard Contest! Coming in a very close second was TommyZ and Focus Team, followed by Mithik's entry for Crymoar.

This was another very strong set of entries and the winners entries will be up in game later today, as will the third set of billboards for you to vote on!

--KevinB

Slayer920 asks, “Why do we have to play only available slots in Stockpile? There are a lot of container thieves and the containers do not respawn very quickly.”

Project Manager Andrei Burtsev answers, “CrimeCraft was designed as a multiplayer experience. It was never our intention to promote the use of PvE instances as solo instances. Stockpile is a pick up group style of gameplay. We’re actively exploring ways to continue to focus STP toward co-op. Ninja looting containers is a trade off you need to make and part of the game as it stands now. You either go for crates or go for score. The best way to get both is to cooperate with the other players in the instance.”

The Asylum community asks, “Will there be more gore body parts blood guts and all the awesome stuff? We feel the game has increased in fun 100x because of the recent gore add in.”

Burtsev: “Glad you like it! We’re pushing the envelope in various directions to see what you guys like and what needs more thought. Strippers and clubs were along this line and we’ll be adding more functionality to each of those over time. Giblets are fun, we like it over the top and we’ll look for ways to keep building on it since it has been received so well.”

Sabot asks, “What steps are being taken to monitor how the chemistry changes affect the game based on game balance, the economy, player feedback, etc.? Do the developers feel the chemistry changes have been for the best? If warranted, what is the likelihood that we will see major changes to the chemistry profession a second time?”

Lead Designer Alexey Onischenko answers, “In the last the update chemistry profession had a few bugs. Today’s hotfix will fix them. We are returning money for unused ingredients and replacing all rare recipes. Also, we fixed the bug with splitting ingredient stacks. Now we feel much better about the changes to the chemistry profession we’ve made and think the game will benefit from it. Now it’s much easier and faster to learn chemistry. Also crafting drugs is cheaper now. We will continue to monitor the changes since this was a major overhaul on a large system and will make changes where they are needed.”

The Asylum community asks, “Will you bring back Run & Reloads? To make the knife shields fair & bring more options & not making the option to reload while rolling would make it fair as well?”

Onischenko: “We hope that today’s update will fix the Assault Rifle balance issue. We are sorry, that this bug made it into the game. We are constantly working on improving game balance, and most of the current balance issues will be fixed in the next milestone.”

Akas asks, “Where's the storyline we were promised?”

Producer Michael Kennedy answers, “It's coming, in a Big way. We're hard at work fulfilling that promise, and have partnered with some TOP TALENT to bring the world to life. We will have an Exciting announcement On that topic in the next few weeks. Keep your Eyes peeled! We're pretty psyched with what's coming together, and Think you will be too! The world you Live in is about to Unfold in a way that won't Disappoint."

The Asylum community asks, “Will you bring back Run & Reloads? To make the knife shields fair & bring more options & not making the option to reload while rolling would make it fair as well?”

Onischenko answers, “We do not want return reloads while in sprint mode. We did it because we want to make the game more strategic and reduce game speed in a battle. To support this move we increased the reload speed for all weapon (except LMG) 40 percent. We increased the speed of several drugs and abilities as well. We’ll continue to make adjustments as needed moving forward.”

Akas asks, “Will the GB shop later give us more items we want? Like camo gear, camo, dusters, gasmasks and shades?”

Burtsey: “Sure we will. In this update we will have bunch of new clothing, with the next updates we will add more variety of the masks, hats, helmets etc. Besides, we also are planning to release some items for upcoming events.”
 

Hey guys,

Round two of voting is now up and here are the three contestants:

Drabag:

Mithik:

TommyZ:

Congrats to Digital Phantom for winning the Sunrise City Promotion Billboard Contest with his entry "Gentlemen's Club." Also, congrats are due to the runners up, Mithik with Hotel Paradise and Cloudy Eyes with Pulverized!

You'll see those billboards in game starting today!

The next set of billboard finalists will be going up later today, so keep your voting finger loose and ready to click.

--KevinB

Hey Guys,

We're hosting an In-Game Q&A with the Devs on Wednesday, Sept. 8 at 1 p.m. EST, 5 p.m. server time.

Here's how it's going to work: If you've got a question for the Devs about game play or the future direction we are going with CrimeCraft, send me (CapoDeiCapi) a message on CrimeCraft.com with the question. Remember to keep your questions civil. If you can't ask the question without being insulting, don't bother asking the question.

Also, keep your questions focused on CrimeCraft. We expect to get a lot of questions about changes made in the last update and we are ready to answer them. If you've got game design questions or questions about the expanded Black Market, PM them to me on CrimeCraft.com by Tuesday, Sept. 7 at 10 p.m. EST, 2 a.m. server time.

We will take the top 20 questions and answer them in game. On Wednesday I will announce where the Devs are hanging out in Sunrise City! We hope to see you there.

--KevinB