News & Updates

October 20, 2014
Trick-or-Treat 2014: The city is fully decorated for this spooky time of year! In addition, we have 5 new limited edition holiday items available. Get all of the details on how you can get your hands on these items before they are no longer available after November 4 by clicking on the pumpkin icon at the top of the game screen.

FEATURE
Another ocean-themed item has been added to the pool of Auction House exclusives: Giant Pearl Display.
FEATURE
There is now a new, higher tier of vault available for purchase: Fort Knox.
UPDATE
A casino owner's username is now shown along with the casino name when clicking on a contractor.
UPDATE
Clicking on locked items now lets you see the stats and see how the item fits into your floor without placing it.
UPDATE
Player action menus now auto-close a little faster.
FIX
Fixed the negative sidepot bug in poker (finally)!
FIX
Fixed an issue that was causing some players to get multiple of the same mission.
FIX
Fixed the position of bar drinks that were off on some directions.
FIX
Fully fixed the bouncing animation issue on the blue casino sign item.
FIX
The instant purchase button is now disabled on items and placements that are invalid.
FIX
The war alert message now rounds the point values.
FIX
Stop sending the war alert after the war has ended.
October 15, 2014
FEATURE
Our fifth unique slot machine game is now live: Reef Slots! We always try to one-up our previous work, and we think we've pulled it off again with these beautifully illustrated and animated under-water slots.
FEATURE
To go along with the new slot theme, we've released 44 new casino items, most of which are available for regular purchase, but a few are new Auction House and Daily Slot exclusives.
FEATURE
Auction House exclusives now go on sale twice per week, and there are 5 amazing new items added to the pool.
UPDATE
Crew founders now have protection against being removed from their own crew.
UPDATE
One of the daily voting sites was broken and has now been replaced with a new one.
UPDATE
You will no longer receive challenges from players on your ignore list.
FIX
Fixed an issue that was causing watch lists on poker, blackjack and roulette to fill up.
FIX
Party Bombs now work correctly in non-casino/crew/condo buildings.
FIX
Teams that aren't in the war will no longer see the voting options.
FIX
Tweaked the position of "Lost Address" mission NPC's to be a little further from doors.
FIX
Fixed several bugs and inefficiencies related to disconnections.
October 7, 2014
FEATURE
E-mail notifications are now sent for crew battles and wars to make sure everyone in your crew is aware of what's going on (there is also a setting in Game Settings to turn this off if you don't want to get these e-mails).
UPDATE
Clicking on items in your vault now shows the item's stats and name.
UPDATE
Several tweaks to how the new battle scoring is calculated to make it more balanced.
UPDATE
More improvements to the Community Ambassador systems to help everyone enjoy the community in a consistent manner.
FIX
Fixed a bug with how poker battle/war points were being calculated.
FIX
Fixed a rare issue that would sometimes cause poker hands to duplicate visually.
FIX
Fixed a few issues that would sometimes cause the large chat window to stop updating.
FIX
Fixed a few bugs with awarding of XP in poker, blackjack and roulette.
FIX
Crew challenges should now be correctly enforcing the 20% less members rule.
October 3, 2014
FEATURE
Crew Battles were an exciting feature for us to release many months, and in that time we've collected all sorts of data and feedback about the experience. The goal of Battles/Wars is to simulate a real world competition, not unlike a sporting event, where a mixture of skill and luck can win the day, even if you are the underdog. With this goal still in mind, we've made several updates to Battles/Wars to further move towards that goal. There are no longer different types of battles, just "All Around." Points are now scored through a mixture of experience and party sprint-style scoring. The experience battle type was the most popular due to its simplicity, so that is the foundation, but with the excitement/uncertainty of sprints mixed in to take it to the next level. You should now be able to play whatever you enjoy most and still contribute to your team's success.
UPDATE
"Pre-bombing" is now blocked, which means only points from Party Bombs that were dropped after the Battle/War began will count.
UPDATE
Party Bomb points no longer count in the last hour of Battles and the last 3 hours of Wars.
UPDATE
Crews can now only challenge other crews that are 20% smaller than them or larger, rather than a set 5 member difference.
UPDATE
Building doors can now be clicked from any distance, the arrow no longer needs to be visible to enter (the arrow and name card will still show when you get close).
UPDATE
Buildings now highlight when hovering over their door with your mouse.
UPDATE
More updates/improvements to the new player flows.
UPDATE
A few tweaks to the visuals of the janitor job game.
FIX
Completely fixed issues with some player avatars not showing (you may have to clear your browser cache if you are still seeing the issue).
FIX
Failing the new missions that asks you to go to a specific casino no longer causes a failure on every load of the game.
FIX
Fixed several visual bugs with double XP bonuses.
FIX
Chip, Casino Points and XP stats sometimes got out of sync when leaving slot games.
FIX
Fixed a few display issues caused by going full screen.
FIX
The volume slider no longer gets stuck on your mouse when sliding it too quickly.
FIX
Mute Music option now works correctly after toggling Mute All.
FIX
Mute All now works correctly after a game reload.
FIX
Tweaked the volume level of background music.
FIX
Fixed a bug that caused some crew buildings to be closed, preventing things like ATM's from working inside.
FIX
Fixed a few more missing casino addresses.
FIX
XP amounts greater than 1,000,000 now display in a smaller font size so they don't get cut off.
FIX
Tweak the font size of long crew names in live battle results.
September 24, 2014
FEATURE
The outside world is now a little more dynamic with periodic prizes hidden around the city (some visible and others you'll have to search for). These prizes can be items, chips, casino points, experience and more! Similar to the Flying Piggy Bank, these are global drops that once collected are gone for everyone. Note: it will take a few hours for the first drops to appear after this update goes out.
FEATURE
Searching for players in the apartment buildings and whisper to players is no longer case-sensitive.
FEATURE
Added simple first-run tutorials to Slots, Blackjack and Roulette to help new players figure out the interface for those games.
FEATURE
Updated our audio engine to the new 2.0-beta, which provides better cross-browser support, performance boosts and lots of other fixes and improvements.
UPDATE
Tweaked the volumes of almost all sounds in the game to be at much better levels.
UPDATE
Smoothed out the indoor/outdoor background music transitions.
UPDATE
There are some new ambient sounds outside.
UPDATE
Winnings in Slots now animate from the winnings display rather than a random spot in the bottom of the screen.
UPDATE
Big Slot wins will now be shown with a quick text display on screen.
FIX
Fixed an issue that caused some players to see some avatars as invisible.
FIX
Fixed an issue that sometimes allowed party bomb drops to appear outside the walls of a condo floor.
FIX
The notice for Pick 5 XP winnings now shows the correct amount.
FIX
Fixed a rare case where your daily counter could get reset.
FIX
Cleared out more various client errors/bugs.
September 19, 2014
UPDATE
Made quite a few tweaks to the new player flow to smooth out the process of getting into the game and becoming active.
UPDATE
It is now more clear what benefit you get when buying a drink.
UPDATE
The mission coin in the top right of your screen now animates slightly when the percent complete increases.
UPDATE
The new mission animation has been tweaked.
UPDATE
Several speed improvements to the generation of new character outfits.
FIX
Fixed an issue that could sometimes cause slots to get stuck spinning on a server disconnect.
FIX
Fixed window resizing issues with global chat and casino/condo/lot menus.
FIX
Quick chat will no longer overlay a 2nd alert message that pops up.
FIX
Fixed a big list of client bugs/errors.
September 16, 2014
FEATURE
You can now see the online player count from the global chat window (not to be confused with the list of users showing above it, which are just the players with the chat window open).
UPDATE
Chat scrollbars on global and poker chat no longer hide, which should make it easier for those of you who like to drag the scrollbars to scroll.
UPDATE
The daily voting counter now correctly resets at the same time as all of the other daily resets.
UPDATE
The 5 free member spots in crews are now shown as free upgrade slots to be more clear.
FIX
Fixed a few bugs with the updates to global chat.
FIX
Fixed a bug that could cause a poker tournament to freeze in rare cases.
FIX
There is no longer a small "bob" to the Blue Casino Sign item animation.
FIX
Various other bug fixes around the game.
September 11, 2014
FEATURE
The global chat window no longer has paging buttons, you can simply scroll through the chat messages like you would in a normal chat application.
FEATURE
Emotes can now be used in global chat! There is a new emote button in the global chat window that can show you what are available.
FEATURE
Global chat will now store up to the last 250 messages instead of just 100.
FEATURE
When clicking on a player's avatar in global chat, it will now show actions: profile and whisper.
FEATURE
URLs posted in chat by Citizens are now converted to clickable links (remember to follow the rules).
FEATURE
There is a new setting in Game Settings to make the global chat font size larger.
FEATURE
Quick chat now displays up to the last 10 chat messages (space permitting), and is able to show more by sitting further in the bottom right. Opening the text input slides the chat up.
FEATURE
A new display/ordering system has been created for local chat. This will make it much easier to see local chat messages no matter where you are.
FEATURE
There are 3 new lot items available: colored casino signs.
FEATURE
The way poker tournaments are seated has been changed. You can still go to the table 15 minutes before it starts to chat, but you won't be seated until the tournament itself starts. You will then be automatically taken to the table that you have been assigned. This will guarantee that tables start out and stay balanced.
FEATURE
There is now a window to see the most recent 10 Pick 5 jackpot winners.
FEATURE
If you originally entered your gender incorrectly when signing up, you can now change it from your user settings page.
FEATURE
There is now a timer showing when you can vote again for free CP/Chips.
UPDATE
Post-crew battle protection is now assigned through a free bank upgrade so that you can see how long until it expires (if you already have the upgrade, it won't add extra time, which keeps the behavior the same as it is now).
UPDATE
Poker chat has been updated to use the same scrolling system that global chat now uses.
UPDATE
Non-citizens now have a month instead of 2 weeks to close a casino after it was first opened.
UPDATE
Dialog modal windows now have a darkened background behind them to better make them stand out.
UPDATE
Players must now be level 8+ to join crews.
FIX
All of the overlapping issues in local chat should now be fixed.
FIX
Closing the global chat window while on the crew tab no longer causes quick chat to go to crew chat.
FIX
When leaving or being removed from a crew, the player's connection to the crew chat is immediately terminated.
FIX
Fixed several issues with the new user tutorial that were causing issues for some players.
FIX
Fixed blackjack bug that didn't auto-stand after a double on the 2nd set of a split that resulted in a 21.
FIX
Fixed issues some players were having with not being able to complete building permit mission.
FIX
Pressing the 'a' keyboard shortcut when placing an upgraded casino correctly finalizes the upgrade.
FIX
Prevent buying into poker tournaments multiple times.
FIX
Fixed a host of cross-browser issues.
September 5, 2014
FEATURE
Windows is now a login option for the GoldFire Network (we added this with all of you Windows app players in mind).
FEATURE
There is now a "Back to Lobby" option when leaving a poker table that allows you to temporarily leave without sitting up from your seat (especially useful in tournaments). This will sit you away while you are gone from the table.
UPDATE
Scoring for XP-based battles and wars has been updated with regard to Party Bombs. Their points aren't being completely removed; however, they will only count towards your score if you are currently on the team that is losing.
FIX
The username of the player that matched your 50/50 bet is now shown in the notice.
FIX
The notices for your Pick 5 winning ticket results are now working correctly.
FIX
Prevent Party Bombs from dropping pickups right off the edge of an indoor map.
FIX
Fixed a few failover issues with the database to prevent random downtime.
FIX
Fixed a missing address issue on a few lots.
FIX
Prevent buying a Party Bomb when you already have a contract to keep them from getting stuck.
FIX
Fixed a reset issue with the Pick 5 lottery jackpot.
FIX
Double-XP now displays correctly while playing slots (was just a visual bug).
FIX
Fixed a client error that could have been causing some issues in the real estate office.
FIX
Several other various bug fixes.
September 2, 2014
FEATURE
There is now a new type of casino game: lottery games. The first two lottery games are "Pick 5" and "50/50," which can both be played by walking up to one of the new lottery machines.
FEATURE
There are 7 new lottery machine items, 2 of which can only be obtained through Daily Slots.
FEATURE
It has been a while since we've released new medals, so we've now added 27 more! Some of these are counting starting now, but some have gone back and will be retroactively awarded if you've already earned them in the next hour or so.
UPDATE
The minimum bet based on the small blind has been raised on poker cash games.
FIX
Editing a floor no longer causes drops from Party Bombs to disappear.
FIX
Team colors are only set on players that are eligible for the war.
FIX
Re-pricing a listing in the Real Estate Market now works by clicking 'enter' and the submit button.
FIX
Fixed a bug that was causing a broken message to display when dropping Party Bombs.