News & Updates

April 3, 2015

EASTER 2015: The city is fully decorated for this colorful holiday! In addition, 6 new limited edition holiday items will be available through April 13. Get all of the details on you can get your hands on these items before they are no longer available by clicking the Easter Egg icon at the top of the game screen.

FEATURE

We've been brainstorming and testing lots of different ideas to improve crews/battles/wars over the last few months. In this update we are releasing the first phase of those changes to help make things more interesting and competitive:

Rankings now have a larger emphasis on more recent activities to better illustrate who the top crews are currently. The new formula creates generally lower scores, but it is all relative (your crew's score will now be lower, but don't freak out because everyone else's is lower too).

Scoring for battles is now the average of all active players in your crew rather than the sum.

Scoring for wars is now the sum of averages from each team's crews (so, inactive crews won't hurt your team's score).

When a battle/war starts, players that haven't been online in the last 10 days are blocked from participating.

Pickups from bombs dropped by players outside of the battle/war no longer count towards battle/war points.

FEATURE

A new app has been added to your new phones: Missions! This provides both a log of the last 7 days worth of missions and an overview of your currently active missions.

UPDATE

Our servers are now running Node.js 0.12, providing significant server-side performance enhancements in certain areas (also fixes various odd bugs).

UPDATE

Players that are banned from chat will now also be blocked from seeing chat while banned.

UPDATE

When clicking on the door of a closed casino, it now says it is closed instead of just doing nothing.

UPDATE

Don't popup a retry window after canceling a mission.

FIX

The chart for casino popularity history now displays correctly for popularity over 1000.

FIX

Fixed a bug with saving the setting for game location privacy.

FIX

Fixed bug with spamming chat with '/c' when global is hidden.

FIX

The blue casino sign item has had its animation fixed.

FIX

Tweaked starting position of Chip Race 3 so it isn't hidden behind a casino.

City Council Meeting Announcement

April 1, 2015

Edit: In case it wasn't obvious, April Fools!

The Mayor and his crew have been hard at work on a proposal for the city council to transform GoldFire City into the shining spectacle everyone always knew it could be. Today, we are pleased to announce that the proposal has passed with flying colors, and all streets city-wide have been paved with bricks of solid gold to fit the city's namesake!

There's one caveat -- gold is really expensive these days! So, starting tomorrow, all citizens will begin paying a 13.37% tax on all earnings for the remainder of the year to pay off the city's mounting debts. We believe this is a small price to pay for the privilege to live in such a glimmering world!

Oh, and one other unfortunate side-effect...gold tends to be quite reflective and has caused a significant increase in the average street-side temperatures. This has led to the city's population of flying piggy banks to quite literally fry. If you are a fan of bacon, maybe you don't consider this to be such an unfortunate event!

March 22, 2015

FEATURE

The merging algorithm on poker tournaments had all sorts of issues, so we re-wrote it from the ground up to assure that tables stay as balanced as possible. This should also fix some of the freezing issues that were still persisting. However, this is a very difficult feature to fully test, so please let us know if you see anything strange.

FEATURE

Added an option to the game settings to hide your location from your friends list.

FEATURE

Clicking on an address in a player's profile now selects the text so you can easily copy/paste it.

UPDATE

Buildings become transparent during the Lost Address missions to help with finding the person to talk to who may be behind a building.

UPDATE

Made some tweaks on the client and server to provide various performance improvements.

UPDATE

Updated the time sync system on our new servers to keep the game time perfectly in sync with real-world time.

UPDATE

Made some tweaks to the balance in bomb prizes (some of the rare items were a little too rare).

FIX

Vastly improved touch interaction when playing on the Windows App or Internet Explorer on a Microsoft Surface tablet.

FIX

Fixed a visual bug with blackjack that stopped showing your winnings on the table in the last update.

FIX

Fixed an issue that caused some items to fail to repair with the new bulk-repair tool.

FIX

Fixed a few issues with the ordering of the friends list (all online friends should show first).

FIX

The crew battle challenge list will no longer show crews that are currently in an active battle.

FIX

Fixed some rendering issues on Internet Explorer.

FIX

Prevent quick chat from covering the phone on smaller screens.

FIX

The Blackjack dealer no longer continues to deal to himself when heads up with a player that gets a blackjack.

FIX

Prevent incorrect battle start notice from being sent after a crew withdraws.

FIX

Paging too quickly in the friends app no longer causes the numbers to go below 0.

March 16, 2015

St. Patrick's Day 2015: The city is looking a bit greener these days, and we also have a special new limited edition holiday item available (rotate it for different rainbow colors)! Get the details on how to get your hands on it before they are gone for good after March 19 @ 11:59 PM by clicking on the clover icon at the top of the game screen.

FEATURE

The phone icon that loads your properties window now makes a lot more sense - it actually launches your shiny new phone! Right now you have a standard black phone with a blue background, but future updates will bring customizations. You can open the phone from anywhere in the game and it launches with 5 apps (more are in the works). It can be opened/closed from the phone icon or by pressing the 'o' key.

FEATURE

Properties App: This replaces the previous Manage Properties window and now lets you see your stats even while inside.

FEATURE

Tools App: This is a feature for power-builders that unlocks after you open your 3rd casino. We know it can get tedious manually fixing broken items and picking up the special garbage that your janitors miss. So, you can now take care of all of that instantly with one simple click and a small convenience fee.

FEATURE

Friends App: You can now see a list of all of your friends and when they were last online. Clicking on their avatar opens their profile window. You can also see where they are in the game right now if they are currently online.

FEATURE

Camera App: Everyone these days has a camera at the ready in their phones, so why not in the virtual world as well? You can now take photos (also known as screenshots) anywhere in the game. You can then get the direct URL to the photo or share it on social networks/e-mail.

FEATURE

Photos App: This is where you can access your collection of photos and take action on them (get the link, share, delete, etc). Everyone can store up to 25 photos, and citizens get room for 100.

FEATURE

Your phone also comes with a clock that shows the same game-time for everyone. This is now the time that is displayed everywhere in the game (such as the poker lobby) to make it easier for people in different areas of the world to communicate times.

FEATURE

In addition to the new limited edition item, there are 7 new decorative light items available for casinos and crews.

FIX

Fixed a visual Blackjack bug that sometimes caused stats to get out of sync.

FIX

Changing global/crew chat settings now updates correctly.

FIX

Global chat is fully hidden when checking the box (no more reload needed).

FIX

Fixed a few issues that sometimes prevented the bush man from showing up when he was supposed to.

March 2, 2015

UPDATE

The maximum number of players in the following sprints is now 8 instead of 6: slots, roulette, solitaire and poker.

FIX

Fixed a few issues with client stats getting out of sync with the server.

FIX

Fixed an issue that sometimes caused away players in tournaments to not automatically be removed.

FIX

Fixed a visual bug in the bartender job that caused some of the drinks to not properly fill.

FIX

Tweaked Chip Race 4 so it isn't covered by a casino.

FIX

Prevent getting stuck with a contract on your head if you sell your casino.

FIX

Fixed a few more issues with the new player tutorial.

FIX

Various other bug fixes and tweaks.

February 17, 2015

FEATURE

Added new tutorial mission for new players to learn about crews.

UPDATE

The Real Estate map now shows the lot numbers over each lot.

UPDATE

The icon that shows where you are on the mini-map has been tweaked to be easier to see.

UPDATE

Improved odds of getting casino items instead of condo items in party bombs.

FIX

Improved placing of items on touch screens.

FIX

Fixed an issue that would sometimes cause party bomb animations to be broken.

FIX

Doubling and busting on the first set of a blackjack split no longer auto-stands the second set.

FIX

Fixed bug that sometimes prevented visit notices from being sent.

FIX

Fixed bug that would cause the character customization screen to get stuck when changing clothes too quickly.

FIX

The help text for casino metrics are now being rendered correctly.

FIX

More cross browser audio fixes.

FIX

Fixed a few more missing addresses.

FIX

Fixed some bugs relating to rotation of contractors.

FIX

Fixed a few visual bugs with NPC's.

FIX

Fixed several random bugs around the game.

February 13, 2015

FEATURE

Lots of new tiles: 40 outdoor and 88 indoor!

FEATURE

There is now a setting to allow quick chat to display on table games.

FEATURE

There is a new trophy, GoldFire Flame Trophy, that is awarded top the top 10 in each month's overall rankings.

UPDATE

Crew members can now have the permission to transfer funds without having the permission to edit members.

UPDATE

Tweaked the starting speed of the janitor job to prevent issues on higher levels.

UPDATE

Players that sit away from a paid poker tournament are now removed after 30 minutes (still 15 for freerolls).

UPDATE

When buying Gold as a gift for another player, their avatar now shows next to their username to help you make sure you are gifting the right person.

FIX

Fixed an issue with the display of the mail rush mission window.

FIX

Fixed a few bugs with outdoor audio.

FIX

Fixed an issue where some roulette mission givers weren't accessible.

FIX

Players currently in the tutorial no longer appear to come from the elevator instead of the front door.

FIX

Various bugs and tweaks around the game.

February 4, 2015

FEATURE

The game settings have been updated with two new options. Instead of "hide quick chat," there is now the option to "hide global chat" and "hide crew chat." You can check both boxes to completely hide quick chat, or you can select which of the two you want to see. If you are only showing crew chat, the "/c" will be auto-filled into the quick chat input box.

UPDATE

Native alert/confirm popups don't work inside of the Windows app, so the few places we were using them now use standard game modals instead.

UPDATE

There is now an instructions screen on the janitor job with a start button.

UPDATE

When getting bonus spins in slots, the spins remaining counter will now pulse to show the updated total.

FIX

Fixed a few different bugs that could cause poker tournaments to freeze.

FIX

Fixed bug at Auction House that would sometimes prevent bids from being placed after the first.

FIX

Fixed an area of the city map that was mis-aligned in one corner.

FIX

Clicking to unlock a username change should now work correctly from within the Windows app.

FIX

The issue with party bomb drops disappearing should now be fixed.

FIX

Updated the Desura app to fix a few issues.

FIX

Prevent multiple job boards from opening after completing janitor shift.

FIX

Fixed mirrored countdown text on elevators.

FIX

Prevent typing chat bubble from sticking to seat when player gets removed from poker table.

FIX

Fixed several bugs in the new player tutorial.

January 29, 2015

UPDATE

After last week's outage, we've put a lot of time into developing a self-recovery system for our server architecture. What this means is that in the rare event that none of us are around to fix something if one of our server's hardware fails or there is some other issue, the system will automatically fix the problem and bring the game back up. If hardware fails, this will still lead to around 10 minutes of downtime, but our next step is building a failover system that will prevent any downtime at all.

FIX

Fixed an issue that would sometimes cause table items to not expire.

FIX

Closed a loophole that allowed playing multiple sprints at once.

FIX

Fixed several server issues that in rare cases could lead to a myriad of strange bugs.

January 23, 2015

Forum Contest: Want some free Gold and CasinoRPG swag? Check out the new forum contest!

FEATURE

Want more insight into what we've got in the pipeline? Then this new feature is just for you! Some things we are working on are to remain as a surprise, but everything else major will be listed on the new development status page.

FEATURE

14 amazing new items are now available for your casinos and crews (some are added to the jungle theme and the rest are generic).

FEATURE

The button to open the feedback window now also includes a contact form to open a support ticket if you are having an issue that doesn't fit in the forums or feedback page.

FEATURE

There is now an RSS feed available for this news page: click here for RSS.

UPDATE

The chat shortcuts (/c, /w, /r) are now case-insensitive, so that if you accidentally type '/C', your message will still go to the crew instead of to the global chat.

UPDATE

We've made several updates to the new player tutorial to try and help make the process of getting started easier, and we are now testing this alongside the previous intro tutorial.

UPDATE

Changed the font color of the Head CA so that it doesn't look like crew chat.

UPDATE

Any players that have been a member for 90+ days must now wait 30 days after acquiring a lot/casino to list it on the market.

FIX

Fixed a bug that sometimes prevents sprint re-invites from working.

FIX

Casino metric histories are now correctly stored for the last 30 days instead of 14.

FIX

Fixed sizing of long crew names in the battle display.

FIX

A rare occurrence of the days consecutive medal not getting awarded has been fixed.

FIX

Fixed a few bugs with the previous update to auto setup new poker cash games.

FIX

Fixed a few visual bugs with the loading screen.

FIX

The error modal now auto-adjusts its height for longer error messages.

FIX

Rotating an item such as a slot machine now correctly updates its position without needing to save first.

FIX

Fixed a visual voting bug with wars.