======Community News from 2006====== {{http://www.popmundowiki.com/_media/community_news/communitynews.jpg|Community news}} Community News from other years:\\ [[:community_news:2010]]\\ [[:community_news:2009]]\\ [[:community_news:2008]]\\ [[:community_news:2007]]\\ [[:community_news:2005]]\\ [[:community_news:2004]]\\ ====December==== ===Developer News 2006-12-31 Using plugins and scripts=== We've had a quite large amount of "bug reports" from people using home made browser plugins recently. This steals time from the dev team and consequently from our users as well, since we spend time investigating "bugs" instead of developing new features. Once again we'd like to remind you that we don't support the use of such scripts and will not spend time on rewriting the code of our webpages for that matter. ===Developer News 2006-12-26 [VIP] Local Delivery of Records=== Heads up, Record Studio managers: You can now reduce CD delivery times by ordering from a local factory. Read More» Ordering your record units from a factory located in the same city as your studio will now cut down delivery time to merely 2 days, instead of ordering it from a foreign city which takes 3 days just like before. Productions times are still added, just like before of course. ===Developer News 2006-12-25 Happy Holidays!=== Happy Holidays, don't forget to get some rest and prepare your new year resolutions. Also don't forget that encores are supposed to be played at the END of your shows. Not in the beginning or in the middle. :) ===Developer News 2006-12-21 Popomundo Firefighters=== As you've probably already noticed each city has been given a fire station. It's highly recommended for cities to keep the quality of their fire station and number of employed firemen at an appropriate level. Read More» If a fire breaks out all firemen in the city get a notification saying where the fire is located. This happens automatically for all locales except for homes where you need to manually install a fire detector. To fight a fire a local fireman has to go to the Fire station and order a fire brigade to the location. When this is done a group of firemen will rush to the burning locale and begin fighting the flames. The number of firemen called out depends on the size of the fire. If a fire isn't put out in time the building will collapse and any items present will be destroyed. Characters in the locale will also suffer injuries according to the size of the fire. There's also a risk that the fire will spread to other locales if it's not put out in time. However, before the fire gets too big anyone with the fire fighting skill has the possibility to fight it with a simple fire extinguisher. It's quite possible to become a hero in the eyes of the population this way... just but be careful. You don't want to get yourself injured this way. ===Developer News 2006-12-17 [VIP] Currency Converter=== Converting money between the various currencies of Popomundo have been a hassle of browsing between the Travel Guide, but there is now a convenient Currency Converter available for V.I.P. users. Check out the Extras menu on your Character page. ===Developer News 2006-12-15 Point of No Return=== On tuesday the 19th of December the old show system will be replaced by the new show system. There are still genre events and specific skills missing in the game, but there should be enough generic stuff for you all to play around with in the beginning. Stay tuned for further developments and improvements in the new system. We've still got a lot of good stuff coming out of the pipe here. Good luck. ===Developer News 2006-12-12 New Show System Status=== The new show system is currently running smoothly without major bugs and the sands of time for the old system is running low. Read More» Here's some useful info for everyone interested: 1. Rules and Information on all events are now available in the design interface. 2. Events performed by individual band members award the character with potential extra experience points. Unless the character is already an expert at the event. Due to this recent addition it's now much harder to get the regular XP awarded each week. 3. The scores you get from the new system are a lot lower than the ones you get in the old system. Scores will begin to rise again once people figure out how to make the most of it though. But in genereal it's a lot tougher to get top grades with the new system. When trying out the system for the first time your mood will be affected by drop. 4. Some events are still missing from some of the lesser genres in the game. We'll add those shortly. And there's still some work to be done on the design interface on the new shows. 5. All new skills needed to make the most out of the new system will be released within a week. ===Developer News 2006-12-08 [VIP] Company shares split/merge=== It is now possible for Company Presidents to order a shares split or merge, which alters the number of shares in the company. This is useful to allow smaller portions of a company to be given away to friends and family. ===Developer News 2006-12-07 Thursday downtime=== Thursday December 7 at 15:00 CET we'll be taking Popomundo down for approximately 30 minutes. Read More» We'll be restarting main database server 2 to 3 times in order to do some maintenance work. This won't affect anyone too much though. If you think this will pose a problem for you please do your best to adjust your schedule accordingly. We're sorry for the inconvenience this might cause you. ===Developer News 2006-12-01 From the ruins of Tenochtitlan...=== to the pages of Popomundo... Yet another monumental event for the Aztec to engrave in their calendar stone. Mexico City! Hopefully its upcoming first elections will be won by someone a little friendlier than Hernán Cortés. ====November==== ===Developer News 2006-11-28 New City Charts=== We have added a bunch of new charts under the Political heading in the Charts page, that compares cities with each other in terms of size and wealth. ===Developer News 2006-11-27 Public Enemy=== The Chief of Police can now, in an emergency with rising disorder levels in the city, choose to use raw police force to temporarily suppress disorder. Policemen and Revolutionaries alike need to read the following information. Read More» The Chief of Police can order his force to undertake an operation of suppressing disorder in the city. Doing that should be considered an extreme measure with a vast range of negative side effects. What will happen if the CoP orders this is the following: * Al policemen present and available in the city will seek out the center of discontent. They will then move to that locale (it is always one locale). * Many (not all) characters whose career mission is "Incite a revolt" will also find out about the unrest centered in that particular locale, and hurry to it. * After a while, there will be a confrontation in that locale between demonstrating Does lead by inciting characters, on one side, and the police force on the other side. * Depending on the strength of the two sides, various different outcomes are possible. If the police is much stringer, they will easily dissolve the protest and take some troublemakers in for inciting a riot. It could also be a minor victory for the police, or a draw, or a minor victory for the demonstrators or even that the police must flee from the place, having failed badly. * Doe policemen (if the Police Station has hired such) will contribute to the police strength just as much as character cops. Please note that the Chief of Police himself will not participate in this operation, unless hired as a Police Lieutenant. Only Police Lieutenants take part. * Depending on the outcome, people are affected: Demonstrators could get injured and/or arrested. Policemen could get injured. Even the odd innocent civilian might get injured. The locale will of course suffer badly. * The disorder level will go down, the more so the more successful the police side is. if the police is forced to flee from the place, disorder will actually rise. * The Mood of the Does will suffer badly, even if the police win a complete vitory. The city might lose Does, becuase no one likes living under an oppressive regime. * It costs the Police Station money to undertake this operation, and it can only be taken once every 24 hours, but that should be a moot point: A well managed city should NEVER have to resort to this costly option. One final warning: If you are a policeman or if you choose to incite a revolt, remember that if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Being a Cop or a Revolutionary is not without danger. You might get hurt. ===Developer News 2006-11-27 New System for Shows=== We're currently BETA testing the new system for performances in the game. Join the fun! Read More» Our new system for performances is nearing completion. Even though it's still somewhat rough around the edges we've decided to release it for those of you who wish to try it out before it replaces the old system completely. Stuff worth knowing about the new system: 1. The scoring is more detailed taking into consideration a ton of factors the old system didn't. This also makes it harder to score well with the new system so everyone can generally expect lower scores. It will obviously still be possible to pull off God Smacking shows but it will be much harder and the chances of doing so might differ from show to show... 2. Shows can be manipulated LIVE. 3. All events matter. Doing something like breathing fire on stage is no longer simply a role playing embelishment. The outcome of all events really do matter. They can literally make or break your shows. Breathe fire like Gene Simmons and the crowd will love you... Breathe Fire like Justin Timberlake and you'll probably set your hair on fire for some serious damage to your health. So design your shows with care. Don't Crank Up the Volume if the club can't deliver more power than your equipment etc. 4. The shows will actually start to affect the world around them. So if you're afraid of getting caught in a Wall of Death while hanging out in a heavy Metal club you might want hang out elsewhere. 5. Old peculiarities like all shows resetting whenever we do maintenance on the game have been eliminated. 6. Details, rules and all that "other stuff" you want to know about will be added in the days to come. For now the system is up as is and a topic in the Development Forum will be opened up by to deal with the major stuff that pops up as the testing starts. To join the fun simply go to the design page of one of your shows and click on the link saying you wish to try that show with the new system. This will give you give you access to the new stuff. But ONLY for that show. Why would you want to try out the new system? Eventually in a couple of weeks time the old system will be removed completely. This is your chance to get a glimpse into the future and see what areas/skills your band need to improve upon to maintain your place in the charts. Why would you NOT want to try out the new system? Changes scare you and you don't want to have your perfect plans messed by things you aren't familiar with. Also a new complex system like this is bound to come with a bug or two in the beginning which might mess things up for you. Enjoy! ===Developer News 2006-11-25 Vice Mayor=== The public office of Vice Mayor has now been implemented. His or her role is to step in instead of the Mayor if the Mayor resigns or dies. Read More» As the importance of proper city management continues to increase in the game, we are now introducing Vice Mayors in order to lessen the problems when the old Mayor resigns, dies or ends his/her term before the elections are over. * If there is no Mayor and elections have started, the Vice Mayor is promoted to Mayor. That happens after the elections has started. * The Mayor appoints the Vice Mayor if there is no Vice Mayor in office. The Mayor cannot depose the Vice Mayor though, once there is a Vice Mayor. * The default term of the Vice Mayor as Vice Mayor is 5 years. This allows the Vice Mayor to bridge the gap between resignation of the old Mayor until the newly elected Mayor assumes office. * When the Vice Mayor is promoted to Mayor, he/she can serve for up to 1 month, but of course, as soon as the Assembly has chosen a Mayor in the elections, the newly elected Mayor simply replaces the temporary Mayor without further ado. * When elections are finished, the current Vice Mayor (if any) is removed (even though his/her nominal term might still have some time left). A concluded election result always removes the sitting Mayor and the sitting Vice Mayor. So, basically, it is up to each Mayor to appoint a Vice Mayor who can replace him/her after his/her term. Since the Vice Mayor is always removed after the elections, the Mayor can always do so at least once during his/her term. The Vice Mayor has no powers and can not (for instance) substitute the Mayor during a temporary absence/vacation by the Mayor. The only function of the Vice Mayor is to be ready to step in when the old Mayor resigns, until the elections have found a new Mayor. ===Developer News 2006-11-16 Russian & Chinese Translation=== We'd very much like to get some help with the Russian & Chinese translations of the game. More details here if you're interested. Read More» Our Russian translation is nearly done and there's one person working with it. We'd prefer to have at least two more people on it so it won't be such a big task maintaining the translation up to date once it's released. The chinese translation is well underway as well but we'd like for at least two more people on it also. The chinese translation is done with Simplified Chinese. If you're able and willing to help out with these translations please get in touch with Mika Grenhall in the game. Like always it's not a task to be taken lightly, it requires a genuine interest and long term commitment to the game, and a really good grasp of the english language. ===Developer News 2006-11-14 Popomundo Back Online=== Popomundo is once again back online after what has been the longest downtime in its short history. It's all been for a good cause though. The servers are now grazing in greener pastures where they'll hopefully live long and prosper without some of the problems they've had in the past. Read More» To minimize the impact of this extended downtime we've done the following: We've simulated ALL shows during the downtime to give them a fair score. Due to this simulation all affected shows have been executed without leaving posts in diaries and artist journals. All shows have also been successful to make up for any eventual confusion due to messed up travels. We have extended everyone's VIP with 3 days. We've done the utmost to make noone's been stuck in strange activities but if for some reason you're stuck somewhere please report it in the bug forum and we'll take care of you as soon as possible. Keep in mind that this is the only type of situation we'll tend to on a personal level. Minor stuff like missed flights, jam sessions, bus departures etc will not be dealt with or in any way compensated for. ===Developer News 2006-11-06 Upcoming Popomundo Downtime=== Monday the 13th of November the world of Popomundo will stop spinning for two days. We will be moving parts of the game to a new server hall to ensure a better setup for us in the future. Read More» This will be an extended downtime which will last for roughly two days. From the wee small hours of the morning on the 13th to the midnight hours on the 14th CET. It's impossible to tell exactly how long the downtime will last. We might be up sooner than expected but things might also take a bit longer. Please take this into account when scheduling your life in Popomundo. We're truly sorry for this inconvenience. ===Developer News 2006-11-06 PayPal Problems Fixed=== The technical difficulties we had with PayPal are now taken care of and it's once again possible to purchase VIP without any problems. Read More» Everyone who has had their VIP purchases messed up in the last two days will get their VIP as soon as PayPal sends us their next payment updates. Do not worry. Your payments haven't been lost. You will get what you've paid for. If this issue isn't resolved automatically within 24 hours we will fix it manually if we have to. Thank you for your patience. ===Developer News 2006-11-06 Recordings & Guest Artists=== It's now possible to invite characters not in your band to feature on your recordings. All invited characters present for the recording will affect its performance quality. Read More» To invite a character to a recording simply go to the track details page and click on "Invite character". The invited character will then get an entry in his or her diary with a link back to the track details page where the invitation can be accepted. Special guests are graded in the same way as the band members and their efforts will be remembered forever. ===Developer News 2006-11-06 PayPal Difficulties=== We've discovered a problem with our PAYPAL transactions resulting in players not getting the VIP they've paid for. We're working on solving this problem. Everyone will get what they've paid for. Stay tuned for more details. ===Developer News 2006-11-06 Home city II=== A little adjustment to the home city rules regarding fame: When you talk to media in your home city, you gain more than twice as much fame as you would normally. But ONLY if that city has been your home city for at least one Popomundo year (8 weeks). ===Developer News 2006-11-06 Your home city=== You can now change your home city, if you go to the city hall of the city you wish to move to. this right to move to another city comes in handy as your home city may now levy an income tax on all payments from your band treasury. In the future they will be able to add other taxes. Read More» Your home city is the city which has the right to tax you. If you are unhappy with your initial (or later) choice, you can always change this. The city you move to may (or may not!) charge you an immigration tax, to cover their administrative costs for handling each immigration issue (which runs to 1000$). VIP users should take note that the home city is not the same as the city which you are citizen in. Although it may be a good idea to make them the same. ===Developer News 2006-11-02 VIP feature: Booking assistant improved=== It is now possible to use the booking assistant to find recording studios matching the genre of your song(s). The BA orders the studios by genre strength and quality. ===Developer News 2006-11-02 Tweaks to Recordings=== We've begun to rework the code controlling the recording sessions. This code hasn't been updated since early on in the beta so it's definitely in need of some polishing. Read More» Here's a list of things worth knowing: - Each band member present will now be graded individually. - Genre Skills now influence everyone's performance during the recording. Everyone should therefore be proficient in the genre of the song. - The strength of the locale's genre will also be taken into account sometime in the near future. Keep your eyes open for further community news regarding this. - In some cases the overall performance of the characters might appear to be a little higher than their individual scores... This isn't a bug, but rather the result of other stuff influencing the recording such as how well the song has been rehearsed before the session etc. ====October==== ===Developer News 2006-10-31 Forum ads=== As some of you might have noticed we have started showing Google-ads in the forum. The ads are shown after the first message in each thread. These ads will not be visible for VIPs (Hey, they have already paid once, right?). ===Developer News 2006-10-28 Company Home City=== More new stuff for company owners: Each company has a home city where the headquarters are. All your locales in that company home city will get slightly higher quality than elsewhere. You can change home city but it does have a price. Read More» The home city of each company depends on the starting/home city of the founder. The company will by default be registered in that city. You can now move the company to be registered in another city. When you do, you pay a cost (depending on the size of the company) and in addition, due to disruption among the staff and some bad PR in the city you move away from, the quality of your locales in that city will suffer a temporary quality drop. Since this thing with home cities for companies is new, a temporary rule is in place until November 10th: You will pay no cash costs for moving your company - although the quality drop of the locales in the moving-away-from city will occur. There are a couple of rules that applies that affects your choice of home city: * (NEW) All your locales in your company's home city will gain a small quality boost. This boost is quite small but can give you the needed advantage when competing with other companies (even when competing with other "perfect" locales). * (OLD RULE, no change) Building locales in other cities than your home town is 30% more expensive. * (NEW) The home city is allowed to tax your company. ===Developer News 2006-10-26 Giving shares away=== It is now possible to give some of your company shares to other VIP characters. Read More» Giving shares to other characters works similar to giving money to others, with the exception that it is an absolute requirement that both the giver and the receiver is a VIP when you give company shares. Go to Assets & Loans, then click the MANAGE link on the shares you want to give some from. Then click the Give shares away link. You then get to choose whom to give shares to, and how many of your current stock. The shareholders elect the President of the company each Popomundo year. When dividends are paid, they are divided between the shareholders. ===Developer News 2006-10-26 Shareholders Meetings=== New stuff for company owners: Companies are now having an annual shareholders meeting. Read More» At the shareholders meeting, the shareholders will vote on which of them should be the company president - in other words, control the company. The President then stays in this position for a year. Of course, since almost all Popomundo companies have only one shareholder (usually the founder), the annual shareholders meeting will only be a formality and you are certain to keep the position if you are the president of your own company. However, if the founder of the company died, the shares may have been split between his or her descendants, and in the future there will be other ways to divide company shares between more people. In these cases, the annual shareholders meeting will be more important. If there is no president in a company, an extra shareholders meeting will be held within a few days. To vote, go to your Assets & Loans page, then click MANAGE for the company share. You get further information about voting there. A few more notes: * Only current shareholders can become president of a company. You need to be at least 16 years old to be a company president, and you must have a running VIP subscription. * You have to be a VIP to cast your vote. ===Developer News 2006-10-24 What's in the stars today?=== Characters with a high level of Basic Astrology are now able to use the Zodiac to create horoscopes for people. Read More» Be careful though, horoscopes are in no way 100% reliable. According to some people they have a tendency to become self-fulfilling, others claim they should be interpreted literally. We ourselves have absolutely no idea how horoscopes work. So don't come screaming for devs if something bad (or good) happens. Do you really want to know what the future will bring? ===Developer News 2006-10-18 Thy eternal summer shall not fade=== If you have the skill Professional Poetry, you can now choose the career mission "Write a poem". After a couple of updates, you will have a poem that you can read in public. Read More» Currently, you can choose between three types of poems. More may (or may not) be added in the future. The ones available are: * Sonnet, which boosts the love relationships of the audience to the ones they love.\\ * Elegy, which makes the audience and the one reading the poem, a little less depressed if they have recently lost a friend or lover. An elegy can only be read in the grave yard.\\ * Haiku, which occasionally can give the audience an insight resulting in a XP (but it is quite unusual so don't expect too much of it!). If that happens, the SQ of the poet is slightly boosted.\\ Like Jokes, Popomundo poems have limited number of uses before they are worn out. ===Developer News 2006-10-10 Porto and Português=== The latest addition to our Popomundian universe is the "Northern capital of Portugal" - Porto. Many thanks to Debbie Davis, Matti Laine and Ray Elmore for the Português translation. Read More» Many people are currently contacting us regarding translations, which we of course appreciate a lot. Unfortunately it's impossible to answer every e-mail and pm we receive. Many of them also deal with already existing languages or translations we have already started. However, all these messages are filed and will be dealt with as soon as there's time. Our goal is to have the game in as many languages as possible, but in order to keep the quality of these translation at a high level we can't administrate too many translation projects at the same time. We'd also like to take this opportunity to once again remind you that that there's no one year limit to how quickly you have to do a world tour to get the World Tour achievement. ===Developer News 2006-10-09 We're not kidding=== Those with the Professional Comedy skill may now write jokes to entertain others with. Read More» If you have the Professional Comedy skill, you can choose to set your priority to Write Joke, which, after a couple of updates will give you a finished manuscript of a Joke. The better you are at Professional Comedy, the faster the joke will be finished. The Joke can then be used in any locale by anyone with the Professional Comedy skill, and everyone in the locale (except the joker her/himself) will be amused and slightly happier. There is no fame or other reward involved in this - joking is currently only for the happiness of your fellow Popomundians. You can only read jokes every 2 hours (roughly) and each joke can only be told three times before it is worn out and useless (it is assumed to spread around the world by those who first hear it). ===Developer News 2006-10-06 Pirates of Popomundo=== Ahoy! It is now possible to choose "illegal downloading" as yer spare time mission. Read More» Illegal downloading's bright side is that it can reward you with inspiration to write better songs. Its downside is that it affects the record sales in our cities. Thanks to all Internet users for the inspiration to this new implementation. CAUTION: Watch out for raids by the Popomundo Anti Piracy Bureau! You don't want to mess with those people. ===Developer News 2006-10-06 PayPal issues Resolved=== The technical difficulties we had with PayPal are now taken care of and it's once again possible to purchase VIP without any problems. Read More» Everyone who has had their VIP purchases messed up in the last two days will get their VIP as soon as PayPal sends us their next payment updates. Do not worry. Your payments haven't been lost. You will get what you've paid for. If this issue isn't resolved automatically within 24 hours we will fix it manually if we have to. Thank you for your patience. ===Developer News 2006-10-06 PAYPAL Difficulties=== We've discovered a problem with our PAYPAL transactions resulting in players not getting the VIP they've paid for. We're working on solving this problem. Everyone will get what they've paid for. Stay tuned for more details. The problems began 14:00 CET this past wednesday. ===Developer News 2006-10-05 Turkish Translation and Istanbul=== We're happy to add one of history's major cultural and ethnic melting pots to Popomundo: Istanbul. Read More» Istanbul comes to us as a direct result of the great job of our Turkish translators: Bertha Janssen, Günter Horres, Martijn Van Paridon, Michael Visser & Remco van Veen. THANK YOU! A lot of people might object to yet another city in this region of the world... keep in mind that the addition of new cities is directly related to the translations created by the players themselves. If a group of players translate Popomundo into a new language we immediately add another city that goes with that language. That's the deal. It doesn't matter where the city is located on the globe. It's the least we can do in return for the translators incredible efforts. Without all of our translators Popomundo wouldn't be half the game it is today. Perhaps in a few years time Popomundo will become the internet equivalent of such a historic melting pot such as Istanbul. Who knows? No point in setting our goals any lower though. Either way, the translators play one of the most important roles in such an endeavor. Thank you all again for the work that you do. We'd also like to take this opportunity to point out that there's no one year limit to how quickly you have to do a world tour to get the World Tour achievement. ===Developer News 2006-10-03 Experience points=== Experience points are now being given to other catagories of characters than just musicians. People not active in music but active as politicians, criminals, police, doctors, scientists or in the media sector can now also gain XP by being appropriately active within their area of expertise. The same old limits to the amount of XP available each week applies. The difference is that the available actions that can create XP is broader than before. ===Developer News 2006-10-02 Sunday Crash and Monday Downtime=== We're now back online after today's somewhat extended downtime. Yesterday's mess with the neverending shows have also been taken care of. Read More» Some of you might be missing a diary event or two in regards to the shows. But other than that everything should be ok. If not, please report it in the bug forum. ====September==== ===Developer News 2006-09-28 Groupies=== Yep, they are here: groupies. You can now choose if you wish to bond closely with them, or keep them at a safe distance. Read More» The setting is located at your character's Priorities & Skills page. If you do choose to spend time (nights, usually) with your groupies, it will affect your Star Quality depending on how hot the groupie was considered by the local gossip. Be warned: Groupies may be infected with embaressing diseases! There is a small chance that you will pick them up. Fortunately, doctors are good at curing these diseases nowadays. The really hot groupies tend to rally around the greatest celebrities, while newbie artists may not be able to get any groupies at all. If so, don't be too disappointed - your time will come! ===Developer News 2006-09-28 Chat Officially Removed=== We've removed the chat as an official part of the game. Read More» The chat has proven to take an unproportionate amount of effort to keep running properly compared to the amount of players who use it. Both on a technical level and a Chat OP level. In order to free up time better spent on other things we're hereby removing the chat as an official part of the game. We realise that our first decision to remove the chat link altogether was too drastic. We'll put it back shortly but with a clear warning saying it's considered outside the game and not a controlled environment. However if the players fail to behave in a civilized and legal fashion we will close the chat forever without hesitation. The fate of the chat lies in your hands. ===Developer News 2006-09-28 Popomundo Tribes=== Feeling lonely and lost in the vast world of Popomundo? Do you find it hard to compete, communicate, and hang out with your peers. Then you definitely want to join a Tribe! Read More» Tribes are private communities for players who share common goals, visions, and comradery within the game. A tribe is created by using a special feather which is very hard to acquire. No one is really sure how to get hold of one. Each Tribe is initially controlled by its founder and Chieftain. The Chieftain control both the accompanying Tribal Company and Tribal Locale that come with the Tribe when it's created. Only members of a tribe can enter the tribal grounds to warm themselves around the campfire and snuggle up inside the tipi. A Tribe can hold up to 100 members and all members have to be VIP. Once your VIP membership run out you're booted out of your tribe a month later. You can only belong to one tribe at a time. These are the basic rules for Tribes. Stay tuned for more updates and additions to tribes as we continue the development of Popomundo. ===Developer News 2006-09-27 VIP Downtime Compensation.=== Due to the performance related problems we have experienced lately we're extending all current VIP memberships with 10 extra days. It's the least we can do. Thank you for your patience. ===Developer News 2006-09-27 Upcoming Downtime Monday=== Monday October 2 at 08:00 CET we'll be taking the game down again for 3-6 hours. Read More» Although the site is feeling much perkier these days we're still not happy with the overall perormance. Especially not during periods with a lot of people online at the same time. For this reason we're taking the game offline to rework the main database's disk setup. If you think this will pose a problem for you, please adjust your plans accordingly. Thank you for your patience. === Developer News 2006-09-26 Welcome to Dubrovnik=== Taken into account that Croatia is considered the home of the modern necktie you could easily associate it with contemporary indie pop bands. But the musical variety in Croatia is way bigger than that. We are therefore very happy to introduce Dubrovnik into Popomundo. Shiny Adriatic pearls to Stanley Trotter, Virginie Bour and Kev Pacek for the Croatian translation. ===Developer News 2006-09-25 Research Centers, Part II=== More details on the inner functioning of a Research Center. Read More» An RC always work on one project at the time. They can change this underway, but this is not recommended because all work on that project is then lost and if they want to start again, they have to start all over. The Manager of the RC first choose which general research category the centre should focus on. Currently, there are three categories implemented, (with a few more to come in the future): Engineering, Medicine or Comedy. It depends on what category you have chosen, what Research Missions are available. So, after choosing the category, the Manager choose what mission, and within that mission, chooses some parameters more specifically (for instance, if the mission is to develop a vaccine, exactly which if the available disease strains to developo the vaccine for). Also, the category decides what skill requirements should be asked of the hired scientists. Two skills are fundamental: Basic Science and Advanced Science. However, these are merely the foundation. A scientiest should have at least one or a few other relavant skills in order to be really useful to the RC. For an RC focusing on Engineering, the Basic and Advanced Engineering skills are the ones to look for. For a Medicine RC, skills of Medicine as well as Pharmacology are useful. So, to clarify: Employees first need one or two of the Basic/Advanced Science skills. This allows them to get hired (and it helps a little to the research). Secondly, they should have as much as possible of the relevant Engineering or Medicine or Comedy skills. The more such skills are accumulated at the RC, the faster the RC will complete their projects. NOTE: For RC, the quality of the locale is not crucial to the success speed of the projects. A "perfect" RC may actually be slow at developing, if, for instance, it has a lot of Engineers hired as scientists while undertaking a Medicine mission. Each day work is completed, and a percentage bar is shown for how much work towards completion has been made. When the work is complete, something cool happens depending on the mission. Then the RC is set to idle again and the manager need to start a new project. ===Developer News 2006-09-25 Research Centers, Part I=== Research Centers, a new type of locale was recently added to the game, although exceptionally expensive, so no such building has been built yet. So, how do they work? Read More» First, let us state that Research Centers (RC) are so expensive that probably only the biggest cities, or several cities cooperating, or possibly one or a few huge corporate companies, will ever be able to build them. They are also very costly to maintain, in terms of staff and resources needed. An RC is a powerful site that can do several things: * New technology can be developed, that benefit the entire game world. For instance, more advanced versions of machinery can be developed which improve the production rate of all such machines (for instance CD production units). * Discoveries can be made that opens up otherwise locked features of the game, for instance, vaccines for diseases can be developed (for more details about this, see earlier Community News). * Certain skills that are not publically available as books can be "discovered" here. (Skill discovery through RC not yet implemented though). * Other research projects can be undertaken, that have a more specific and/or one-time effect. Normally, the entire world benefits from the discoveries. However, not always, as this depends on the type of project: Vaccines, Machinery improvements and such all have a global effect. However, when new skills are researched, only the scientists working at the RC will learn them. Obviously, they may (or may not, depending on who has funded the RC) feel committed spreading the skills to the rest of the world through teaching. Cities could get together to build a research center and focus on common-good type of projects. Or private companies or groups of private people could pour their wealth into an RC for more egoistic projects. An RC develops one project (or "mission") at a time. Some missions take longer than others to complete and it very very strongly depends on what scientists it has hired, but typically expect a medium range project to take say a full Popomundo year to complete, for a well staffed RC. So, how much of this is implemented today: RCs are now operational. A number of missions exists for the Engineering and Medicine catagories. In the future we will add more missions to these categories, as well as adding entirely new categories. ===Developer News 2006-09-23 Principles of Vaccine=== The principles of vaccine against various diseases have now been made available to Popomundo. Few vaccines have yet been developed, but it is now only a matter of time and effort by the global Popomundo community, until vaccines for the common diseases are available. Read More» Here's a sneak peak into how vaccine will work: * Factories can be built and then buy a Vaccine Production Lab, which allow that factory to produce vaccine for all strains of disease that a vaccine has been found for. Thus, instead of specializing on producing records (CDs), a factory can be focused on making vaccine. * For a vaccine to be available, a Research Center (RC) somewhere around the world must have successfully found the formula. Once a RC has found the formula, vaccine is available for production from all vaccine factories around the world. Currently, only a vaccine for Bubonic Plague has been found. * Hospitals stock up on vaccine from the factories. You then go to the Hospital to buy a dose of vaccine. Once you've bought it, you drink it and are forever immune to that strain of the disease. * Delivery time from a factory to a hopsital depends on how far the factory is, and of course the production time (which works similar to producing CDs). Producing vaccine is much slower and much more expensive than producing CDs. Information about Research Centers will be provided in a separate article. ===Developer News 2006-09-20 Good News & Bad News=== The good news is that the main database is up and running without any stress. The bad news is that we've discovered another limitation to the performance of the site which causes it to freeze up now and then when there's a lot of players online. We'll adress this issue as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience. ===Developer News 2006-09-20 Server Update=== After some extra downtime and some wicked technical wizardry by our main technician we've now tripled the capacity of our database. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to enhance the system. There's still some major issues we have to deal with. ===Developer News 2006-09-19 Server Crash=== The main server crashed today at 11:30 CET. The game world stopped for about an hour due to this. Hopefully you weren't affected too much by this. ===Developer News 2006-09-16 Scheduled Downtime=== In our ongoing struggle to improve performance of the game when there's many players online we're forced to take the servers offline on Monday the 18th and Wednesday the 20th of September. Read More» On Monday we'll be restarting main database server 2 to 3 times in order to do some maintenance work. This won't affect anyone too much though. However on Wednesday this week we'll be taking the game down for 6-8 hours starting at 09:00 CET. During this time we'll rework the entire server setup and the whole operation should do wonders for the game's overall performance. If you think this will pose a problem for you please do your best to adjust your schedule accordingly. We're sorry for the inconvenience this might cause you. After the wednesday downtime however we hope the response times of the site will be much quicker and hopefully we'll all enjoy the game a lot more. ===Developer News 2006-09-13 Old Setlists Removed=== In the ongoing battle to improve site performance we've now begun to remove used setlists that are more than two months old. Read More» This means that you won't be able to copy really old setlists to your new shows anymore. And if you haven't played on stage for a while chances are there won't be a new setlist automatically generated when booking a show since there's no recent show to copy it from. To make up for this we're going to add other functions to manipulate your setlists in the future which will make life easier for you. ===Developer News 2006-09-13 Complete your World Tour in Vilnius!=== Today we launch the city of Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, and home to the only known bronze cast of Frank Zappa! Big up to Lucas Hochart, Eric Ennis and Mitch Keenan for the work with the Lithuanian translation. ===Developer News 2006-09-12 Donations & Charities=== As we all know the daycare centers are seriously low on cash. To counter this we're now activating the Popomundo Charity system. Read More» Anyone can donate their hard earned cash to their favorite charity by going to the charity page listed right here on the community page. Everything on the charity page is pretty self explanatory. Looking at the International Daycare foundation we see how much cash it has, how often, and how much it distributes to its cause. In the case of the daycare centers the distributions will come in the shape of various sales. So regular rules for attracting various sales apply. The public care of your children lie in the collective responsibility of the players. Good luck. === Developer News 2006-09-11 Changes to Bookings=== We've adjusted the rules for booking shows to prevent players from sabotageing other people's clubs. Listed here are the rules that apply for booking shows: Read More» 1. You can only book one show per day in a city. 2. You can only book a show once per week at a specific club. If you need to play more than once per week at a specific club you need to get invites from the club management. 3. The Club Management can now cancel booked shows if the artist doesn't belong to the same genre as the club. When this happens a message is sent to the artist journal saying who did it and which club it concerns. 4. A show can only be cancelled by the club if it's more than a week away. 5. Shows cancelled by clubs do not hurt fame. ===Developer News 2006-09-07 Copyright violations are NOT cool!=== It is now possible for all cops to make reports of copyright violations straight from a characters songbook. When a song is reported the "author" will automatically become wanted as well. Read More» The suspected copyright violator will get a diary saying which songs that are reported and a request to remove the lyrics to get a more lenient sentence. ===Developer News 2006-09-07 Important Reminder=== Be cautious about handing out personal information such as email adresses, MSN accounts, ICQ numbers, pictures etc to strangers. Players trying to scam this sort of stuff from people will be banned and their characters struck by lightning. Read More» Players trying to trick others into giving them money or items by using the available functions in the game will not be struck by lightning however. They should be considered ingame criminals and dealt with by the police. And like always... do not EVER hand out your Popomundo account information to someone. Not even if a Dev asked you to! ===Developer News 2006-09-06 Annual Financial Reports=== In our struggle to lighten the load on the server we've now begun to gather all financial transactions of a locale in annual reports. This will also be a handy feature for you business people out there who want to keep better track of your finances. ===Developer News 2006-09-06 Jobs in heavy industry=== Minor tweaks have been made to the range and impact of various job positions on certain locales, mainly "heavy industry" type of locales. Read More» The affected locale types are: Airport, Construction Company, Factory, Power Plant, Water Reservoire. Engineer is now a job option. Also, CEO should now be an option for all locales. ===Developer News 2006-09-06 Server Downtime Warning=== Popomundo will go offline 22:00 CET this coming monday night. The downtime will last roughly three hours. We need to do some important maintenance work for which we need to shut you out temporarily. Sorry for the inconvenience. ===Developer News 2006-09-06 Heads Up Politicians=== In a couple of weeks time the quality of your powerplants will determine how much power your local clubs can successfully make use of. Read More» This means that if you don't maintain your powerplant the clubs won't be able to deliver the juice they're capable of, and everyones performances will suffer. Stay tuned for more details... ===Developer News 2006-09-06 Small Forum update=== The Forum might be unavailable during short periods of time this morning due to some updates on our new server. We thank you for your patience with this. ===Developer News 2006-09-04 Election Times=== We've now lived with the ingame politics for a while and have seen first hand what some of its effects can be. Read More» It has been a roller coaster ride with good mayors, bad mayors, bad bugs & good intentions. We've seen politicians been elected, overthrown, and even killed. With several important elections underway and more to come we would like to take the oportunity to remind everyone of the importance of the political arena. The politicians can make or break a city. You should all do your best to vote for a candidate which you seriously think will do a good job running the city. Electing a crappy mayor can have severe consequences for thousands of innocent characters/players in the world of Popomundo. This is all part of the game and not something the devs will protect you from. We might change how the game works in certain areas but the option and possibility for evil mayors to mess things up is a very real part of Popomundo. There might not be much that can be done against criminal politicians in power. But every reign of terror must come to an end and it will be up to the succeeding governments to make sure the criminals get the punishment they deserve. In time even more of the political and legal power will be handed over to the players... and even more political functions will be implemented, but for now we're focusing more on performance and music stuff! The cities are in your hands. Treat them well. === Developer News 2006-09-01 Important Message System Change=== Starting next week we will start to delete personal messages older than 3 months. The reason for this is the extremely heavy workload this system has on the server. Who knew that you would enjoy chatting with each other as much as you do? Read More» For those of you who are VIP we've added an option to save important messages for as long as you like though. This save box can contain a maximum of 50 messages. So even here we're forced to set a limit due to the same reasons as mentioned above. This change might seems as a drastic solution to some but it really does save us a LOT of server capacity. And we're really doing our best to reduce server load these days so you can continue so surf on Popomundo without poor response times. ====August==== ===Developer News 2006-08-30 Forum Reopened=== After a long day's hard work we're reopening the forum once again. Read More» Things to note: 1. Two newbie forums have been added. Portugese and Spanish. 2. Band Members Wanted has been removed. Mainly because it wasn't a widely used forum and we're planning to develop ingame solutions for this. 3. Your "posts read" and "priorities" have been reset so you'll have to set these again. Sorry for this, but it saved us a lot of time. 4. The Character/User mixup for people with more than one character has been fixed. (Although the posts already created will still be confused by this bug.) ===Developer News 2006-08-30 Population explosion=== Last month Popomundo has seen a fantastic population growth. We are now over 45 000 users - 20% more than just a month ago! Even more fantastic is the boom of users online at the same time: 3500 online users is the top record and over 3000 online users is nowadays a common figure. This is an increase with amazing 30% this last month. That's like...wow! Read More» This population explosion, especially the boom of online users, has however made the site somewhat slow at peak hours. But rest assured, our main focus right now and the coming weeks is the site's performance. We will not let a population explosion slow us down! ===Developer News 2006-08-30 Forum Downtime Reminder=== We'd like to remind you that we're shutting down the forum today again at 10:00 CET. Hopefully this will be the last time in a while that we have to take the forum offline. Forum silence creeps us out. ===Developer News 2006-08-30 Making speeches=== Clear your throat - we are introducing speeches into the game. A speech can be a great way to make others see things from your point. Or simply make a fool out of yourself. Read More» Anyone can stand up in a park and make a speech. Few people will listen, but who knows, the odd passer by might lend you their ears for a while. Anyone present in the park will get a note in their diary, linking to your speech. Secondly, all citizens can make speeches in the People's Assembly (only one at the time though!). The Assembly speeches are recorded and can be easily found in the list under "Recent speeches" on the city details page. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Mayor can make a TV speech which reaches everyone currently in the city. The Mayor is allowed to request air time three times each Popomundo year. That doesn't mean he or she should abuse this privilege, but in times of need, this can come in quite handy. Basic Rhetoric and Professional Rhetoric are useful for anyone who want so make speeches. ===Developer News 2006-08-29 Status Forum=== We've moved the forum to its new server. However due to some nasty technical mishaps we were delayed somewhat. Hence we're going to take down the forum once again tomorrow to make the final adjustments. ===Developer News 2006-08-29 Reminder: Forum Downtime=== Today, Tuesday the 29th of August, we'll take the forum offline. We'll be moving it to a new separate server and polishing its code a bit. ===Developer News 2006-08-28 Attention Company Owners=== Locales that are up for sale can now go bankrupt and be confiscated by the city. So it's no longer to protect a locale from going bankrupt by abusing the locale auction system. ===Developer News 2006-08-28 The Fifth Popomundo Festival News=== Jeanne Stjärnblom has finally released the carrier pigeons with the invitiations to the festival. Read More» The following artists have been paid a visit by Stjärnblom's homing birds. 1H Band Analise Rose Experience Billy No Talent Bladder Control Blushing Bird Calamaris Decay Disillusion DSPL Emily Williams Empress Norton Bingenheimer Eye One Two Hollow Gravity Intimate NewBorn Rednecks (Evading Dignity) Irma's dream Is it? Jack of Hearts Johnny and the self abusers Kid Terr-r Kong Musiconomy Neon Golden Ontology Loop Plastic Soul Psychedelic Pudding Punks SilenceOfTheLambs skanksters Spacis Spökstad Stairway to heaven Stoned Raiders of the Universe SumMerAngeL Svarte Rudolf The Bruinsma Brothers The Funkadelic Freaks The Housebrokens The Jackie & Pablo Experience Torned Within Attraction Ze Evil Gnömes Jeanne Stjärnblom urges those artists who have blocked themselves from receiving invitations to take care of that immediately. Otherwise they jeapordize their presence at the festival. The final schedule of the competition, while based on the qualifying results, have been shuffled around a bit to make the Fifth Popomundo Festival a real cliffhanger. Never in the history of the festival have the starting field been this leveled. ===Developer News 2006-08-25 Email bug fixed=== Our emailprogram encoutered some problems yesterday and we have now replaced it with a new and more stable version. If you signed up yesterday or this morning and still haven't got an email with your password please go to the Contact form below "forgot password" and fill in the email adress you registered with. ===Developer News 2006-08-24 Britpop and Shoegazing=== Due to the unfortunate existance of Britpop as a subgenre of both Pop and Modern Rock we decided to make Modern Rock Britpop Shoegazing instead. ===Developer News 2006-08-23 The Day the Forum Went Silent=== Next week, on Tuesday the 29th of August, we'll take the forum offline. We'll be moving it to a new separate server and polishing its code a bit. ===Developer News 2006-08-22 Welcome to Glasgow=== Glasgow’s firm hold on art, expression and culture has given birth to some of the best British music around. Hugely influential local artists like John Martyn, Simple Minds, Primal Scream, Jesus and Mary Chain and Teenage Fanclub have all helped establish a prominent Scottish music scene. Read More» During the last 10 years through Britpop and the cultural expansion of the city, bands like Arab Strap, Belle and Sebastian, the Delgados, Mogwai and more have defined a unique, vibrant sound celebrated around the world. Today, new Glaswegian bands like Franz Ferdinand, Cosmic Rough Riders and Dogs Die in Hot Cars are all causing a storm internationally. ===Developer News 2006-08-22 Doe Tax Collections=== Excellent news for all cities: from now on cities will receive all the tax collected from Doe salaries. The money will go straight to City Hall. Read More» On a side note: the resource demands for a couple of locales such as the airports, hospitals, and temples were slightly increased. But that's nothing compared to the great earnings you'll get from the Doe salary taxes. ===Developer News 2006-08-19 International Relations II=== Mayors now have the authority to set another city under an air blockade. This stops all airplanes coming from the other city. Read More» If the Mayor choose to reject all air traffic from another city, that other city is considered to be under blockade. All flights from the city under blockade, to the city that has ordered the blockade, due during the blockade will be cancelled and the ticket refunded. No new tickets can be bought in that direction during the blockade. Road travel is not affected by this new feature. It is quite expensive (the exact cost depends on the size of the city under blockade) to maintain a blockade, the costs for which will be paid every 2 hours by the Police Department. ===Developer News 2006-08-18 International relations=== We have now implemented a first basic step towards international relations between cities. Each city will be able to set their policy towards each other city. Read More» A system for this is now available in the City Details pages, check out the features under "International Relations". For now, we have only implemented one such option: Whether the city accepts prisoners to be transfered to it's prisons from each other city. We intend to implement more such options in the future. The Mayor can now set the city policy visavis prsioners from a certain other city - either to accept them or to refuse them. The default setting is that they are accepted. If however, he or she decide to decline prisoners for a certain city, that city will not be able to send off prisoners in your direction. Note: You must have the setting to refuse to accept prisoners beforethe prisoner is sent. Once the prisoner is put in a vehicle heading for your city, it is too late to refuse him/her. ===Developer News 2006-08-17 Popomundo Daycare=== Honestly, even though it is admirable that some artists bring their kids around on world tours, it's really hampering to the Rock'n'Roll lifestyle. Read More» All cities now have the possibility to open public daycare centers. Daycare centers are like mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner. Nothing fancy but you know what you get. Keep an eye on the quality of the locales. You wouldn't want your kids to live in a dumpster would you? Don't leave your kids to fend for themselves for too long though. This will hurt your relationship with them. Only the primary parent can leave and pick up the child at the daycare center. ===Developer News 2006-08-16 Prison transports=== Some minor features have been added for prisons. Read More» The Prison Manager (the CEO of the Prison) or the Chief of Police now have the authority to transfer prisoners to another prison (each of them have the authority). If the other prison is located in the same city, the transfer is immediate. If road travel is required, the prisoner will be put on the road in a prisoner transport vehicle and arrive in the standard travel time at the new prison. The prisoner will of course be firmly imprisoned throughout the transport, guarded by some security guards. Escape is, to our knowledge, not possible. There is a cost for the prison with each transport, the longer the transport the more expensive. This is for hiring a car and guards from the local security firms. Prisoners can only be transported to prisons that either are in the same city or in cities whereto there is a direct road link. To order the transfer, the Prison Manager/CoP must visit the prison in person. This is now possible to both of these, as well as all other characters employed by the prison. Also, be aware that if a prison holds more than 100 inmates, the prison is considered overcrowded and unpleasant diseases may break out inside if certain circumstances are in place. This recently happened in Barcelona. Cities with a lot of prisoners should consider building another prison. ===Developer News 2006-08-11 Temples and Prayers=== Temples are holy places where you can take your prayers and confessions. It's that simple. Nothing more nothing less. Read More» The locales are up right now. The functionality for prayers will be up sometime this friday afternoon. What does all this about? Does it work? Does God exist? Are there gods amongst us? Is there a true religion? Will this bring you peace of mind? Do you believe in Santa Claus? Chances are we'll never know. ===Developer News 2006-08-10 Tromsø: Paris of the North=== Greetings Norwegians! Today we launch both the norwegian translation and the norwegian city of Tromsø. Many thanks to the translators for their excellent job! Read More» But why not the capital Oslo with its 500,000 population? Tromsø was known in the 19th century as the "Paris of the North", probably because people in Tromsø appeared as far more civilized than expected to foreign tourists. Fashions, language skills and a high educational level of the city's gentry came as a big surprise to prejudiced visitors. The nightlife of Tromsø enjoys national fame. The combined capacity of clubs, pubs and bars is of more than 20,000 people, meaning that one out of three can go out at the same time. However, the sin city image was more apparent in the 1970s and even more in the 1980s, when Tromsø boasted an unprecedented number of all-night all-week clubs. ===Developer News 2006-08-10 Health & Mood Notification=== The days of managing your health and mood with pin point accuracy are gone. Your characters are more and more influenced by the world around them. Read More» The usual player strategies for maintaining health and mood are still valid though so there's no need to rethink this aspect of your gaming. But with the usual and predictable effects of your character activities being mixed up with other influences there might be some fluctuating results compared to what you're used to. A final word of caution: treat diseases with respect and act responsibly like you would in real life. ===Developer News 2006-08-09 Record Sales Improvement=== We've got a new system for updating record sales. Read More» The new system will hopefully not cause as much havoc on the server as the old one did. From now on record sales distribution will start at 08:00 CET and last for a couple of hours. The sales will no longer be visible in your artist journal. Sales information will be on each individual record page instead. Worth mentioning is also that full length albums now sell slightly more than before and singles sell slightly less. The price for both have been reduced roughly 25%. IMPORTANT: a bug caused the new system to sell more copies than the supplies allowed. This will be fixed for next week. ===Developer News 2006-08-08 Cure for diseases=== The scientists of Popomundo have finally made a major breakthrough and it is now theoretically possible to create Medicine for a disease, such as Cholera. Read More» However, it won't come cheap. In order to create a dosis of Medicine for a certain disease, the following is required: * Sufficient skill level of the skill Advanced Pharmacology * A Vial of Blood from someone with the disease * A unit of Medicine Base, which is a component (bought at Hospitals) that, together with the Blood Vial, will turn into the Medicine. Also, Medicine cannot be stored over extended periods of time, as they have an expiry date of only a couple of days, and they only apply to one particular strain of each Disease. Once you take the Medicine, you will be cured after about an hour. ===Developer News 2006-08-07 Christ the Redeemer sees you.=== If this makes you uncomfortable, we recommend you stay out of Rio de Janeiro, the latest addition to the cities of Popomundo. Enjoy! ===Developer News 2006-08-06 Doctors and Blood Samples=== As the Cholera epidemic continues to spread, the doctors of Popomundo are finally getting their act together and have developed new methods of early diagnosis. Read More» If you have the skill Professional Medicine (previously named First Aid), you may use the new item Blood Sampler, which can be bought at hospitals who have decided to stock this new tool. When the doctor successfully uses the Blood Sampler, he or she gains a Tube of Blood, which, if the victim was infected shows the disease - even if it has not broken out yet! To use the Blood Sampler, use the interact screen with the person you want to test. Doctors may only attempt to use their Blood Sampler once every hour, and the Blood Sampler has a limited number of charges. Oh, and make sure you don't mix up your test tubes! ===Developer News 2006-08-04 Bienvenido a Madrid=== Due to the increase of spanish players we've just added the city of Madrid. Enjoy. ===Developer News 2006-08-04 Sanitary crisis in some cities=== Some cities have been struck by apalling health conditions among the anonymous workers (Does). When health goes very low, there is a chance that various epidemics break out among the Does, and then on to the celebrieties (such as yourself). Read More» Diseases can then spread between characters. Some disease have incubation time, so you can be infected and spread the disease further without having noticed any symptoms yet. You will recover from most diseases after a couple of days and often then gets immune to the same epidemic, but may have taken a significant health damage by then. Note: There are no deadly diseases in the game: All diseases have a lower health limit that they can drive you down to. Still, it can be annoying, to say the least. Beware of cities with apalling health for the Does, and indeed if you live in one, urge your Mayor to make sure that free health care in modern hospitals are available. This isn't the 19th century! ===Developer News 2006-08-02 Search warrants=== From now on when a character gets arrested the arresting officer receives a search warrant for the suspect's apartment (if any) in the city. Read More» The search warrant is valid for 24 hours after the arrest and gives the police access to the suspect's apartment. This way it gets harder for criminals to hide "their" stolen goods. Another new feature related to this is the option to anonymously return found or stolen items at your local police station. ====Juli==== ===Developer News 2006-07-19 Back to nature=== It is now possible to release pets in the countryside. However this is not made totally without (country)side effects. Read More» When you release an animal your mood will be lowered. There's also a risk that you will start missing it in a few days or so and suffer even more at that time. However this is more or less the only way to get rid of unwanted animals. But beware, sometimes they come back... ===Developer News 2006-07-12 Keys to apartments=== The old system where the relationship between characters decided who could enter your apartment has been replaced. Now you have to make extra keys for your family and friends. Read More» To make an extra key you have to go to your apartment and talk to your landlord. He will provide you with a key that you can give to anyone who should have access. But be careful who you give it to. The "Allow friends to visit" option has therefore been replaced with an option to toggle the door lock. This means you can leave the doors unlocked (which in most cases is extremely stupid since anyone can enter). When they are locked only people with a key can enter. There's also an option to change the locks of your apartment since people have a tendency to misplace their keys. Oh, and think twice before you name your keys in case they would end up in the wrong hands. Keys can be worn around the neck which makes them harder to steal. The contract owner of the apartment will always be able to enter the facility, with or without key. To avoid unwanted visitors all homes have been locked. ===Developer News 2006-07-10 Cancelling shows at Closed Clubs=== Even though one of your upcoming shows are in a club that's closed your fans have still reserved tickets for it and are anxiously hoping for the club to reopen. If you suspect the club won't reopen in time for your show you should cancel the show to allow your fans to get new tickets at another club instead. Canceling shows at a closed club does not damage your local fame. ===Developer News 2006-07-10 Artist Hype=== With the challenge function gone, the new way to gain artist hype is by winning competitions. The amount of hype you get depends on how you place in the top three and the size of the competition. Local competitions will obviusly not get you as much hype as major championships. ===Developer News 2006-07-07 New Salary Rule=== Company owners and CEOs will no longer be allowed to lower the salaries of other player characters. Read More» If you need to cut costs you will have to fire the players instead. This is to prevent nasty CEOs from hiring people with high salaries and immediately lower their salary afterwords. This change will come into effect in a couple of days from now to give company owners some time to adjust to these new rules. ===Developer News 2006-07-07 Mail Server Fixed=== Popomundo has been unable to deliver any mails for the last day or two. If you've got any friends who've registered to the game but not gotten their passwords send to them please tell them to register again. As long as their previously registered accounts don't have a character activated it will be possible for them to use the same email adress again. ===Developer News 2006-07-04 Zombies ate the CPU=== Halloween is a nasty thing. The Zombies were all over the server trying to eat the CPU. Apparently they mistook the Popomundo code for real brains. It's that smart! Damage control like always in the bug forum. ====June==== ===Developer News 2006-06-27 Tweaks to Resource System=== Improvements to the resource system has caused us to set the resource production costs at 4 US$. Read More» In order to make sure all cities get treated equally and no-one is suddenly thrown into financial ruin because of this we've set the consumer prices for power and water to match the 4 dollar production cost at power plants and water reservoires. If the cities/politicians don't wish to break even but would rather gain or lose a few dollars they can adjust the consumer prices according to their wishes. P.S. This change in prices don't actually increase the amount of cash each locale has to pay for their resources. These costs should stay roughly the same as they did last week. ===Game World News 2006-06-19 The Copenhagen Bus Terminal=== Nobody is allowed to book any more bus trips to copenhagen now that its bus terminal has been abandoned due to the neglect of mayor Conrad Gardner. Buses stuck in Copenhagen can still schedule travels out of town so nobody will get stuck there though. Read More» If Conrad Gardner isn't removed from office the airport could be lost as well. That would mean Copenhagen will be entirely isolated from the surrounding world. Its population would probably take the first bus out of town and leave the city to the ghosts. ===Developer News 2006-06-15 The State of Things=== What's going on behind the scenes of Popomundo. Read More» The last week we've seen some pretty major changes to the foundation of the game. Changes which most likely aren't really received with open arms. This is expected and understandable since they not only complicate the road to success but also put a severe dent in everyone's wallets. The New ticket system for example is also in a period of transition where it will gradually start to work properly as both the players and game adapt to the new conditions. These are unfortunate growing pains which we're ready to take in order to make for a better game in the long run. We've always said that in many ways we're still in BETA. This is because we've always known we had to make these changes sooner or later. There will be a couple of more major changes to the game in the months to come. By the end of the year we expect the core game to have stabilized with most of the basics in place. After that we'll probably focus on some of the lesser things for a while. Not all changes and additions will be as upsetting as these last ones though. The biggest one which will be ready sometime after the fifth festival is a killer and will make the game MUCH more fun to play for everyone. Guaranteed. Before the end of the year we'll also focus more on the VIP end of things as it's still heavy on the company part. This has never been the intention but merely a result of the necessity to develop a self-maintaining business structure for the game. This is key to the success of the game since we're going to have to get some more hardware in a couple of months. If nothing unexpected happens we'll have a much clearer vision of the economic future of the game and in which direction it will develop after the core game stabilizes in six months. In the meantime: enjoy the ride. :) ===Developer News 2006-06-15 Electric Bills and Water Bills Part II=== Attention Mayors. Read More» The costs for the electricity and water will be greater next week than what they were yesterday. We recommend you set your basic prices between 1-2 US$. Otherwise the citizens might suddenly gather outside your residential mansion with torches and pitch forks screaming for blood. A basic price of 1 US$ will make your water and power plants break even. A cheaper price will make your plants lose money, and a more expensive price will make you gain money. At least if we consider the costs for producing these resources today. There's another new thing in the system which allows for the production costs of these resources to fluctuate from city to city. But right now they're set for each city so that you'll break even with a price of 1 US$. ===Developer News 2006-06-14 Electric Bills and Water Bills=== From now on all commercial and public locales will have to pay for both their water and electricity on a weekly basis. Read More» The cost depend on what type of locale you're running, its quality, and the general service costs at the local power plant and water supplier. Like with all new things the ratios between locales will be tweaked by us devs over the next couple of weeks. But this will only be minor changes. If you're not happy with the new costs you better take it up with your local politicians. They are the ones that determine the actual price. P.S. The first batch of bills that went out today wasn't entirely representational of the costs in the future. Expect them to be at least the double in the future. (Some of you also got two water bills with different amounts. This was a minor presentational mishap. It's really one water bill and one electric bill.) ===Developer News 2006-06-14 Ticket Sales Part III=== For your information: Read More» The Ticket Sales have been slowed down from every four hours to every 24 hours. Shows scheduled two months in advance now also start selling tickets. (Yesterday this was set to one month in advance.) Scheduling shows this far in advance might not necessarily be a good thing though. When the daily sales are calculated the system looks into BOTH the sales in the past year and the tickets already booked. The final ticket sales on the time of the show are still there and can be a powerful tool to take into consideration for big bands in certain situations. But for most part they will be much less than what they were before. Usually equivalent to a couple of days' sales. The "Maximum Ticket Sales" aren't calculated once per year. They are recalculated every day for each round of ticket sales. An interesting result of all these changes is that if you wish to absolutely maximise your sales with the highest ticket costs possible you should play once every two years in every city. But on the other hand you're interested in spreading your artist's fame... it's still best to do one good show per year in each city... Decisions, decisions... ===Developer News 2006-06-12 Ticket Sales Part II=== Regarding Ticket Prices Read More» The new system is MUCH more sensitive to ticket prices. If you're not getting any sales for your shows you should try to lower the ticket price. Nobody wants to pay top dollars for seeing a garage band stumble around on stage pretending to know what they are doing. Likewise it's possible for bigger bands to experiment with even higher costs for their tickets. But you really need to be SUPER famous to get anything out of it at this time. ===Developer News 2006-06-12 New Ticket Sales System=== We've got a brand new Ticket Sales system. This new system is a lot easier for the server to deal with and it's also a lot smarter. Read More» The new system will keep track of how many tickets you can potentially sell in each city each popomundo year. This maximum number is determined by your local fame as well as your global fame. The rate at which you sell your tickets will depend on how many tickets you've sold during the past year, your local fame, the quality and genre of the club, and the price of the ticket. As you approach your maximum ticket sales in each city it will become harder and harder to find more fans that are willing to come to your shows. The maximum ticket sales isn't a fixed number that you suddenly run into. It doesn't matter if you play a bunch of smaller gigs or a few major ones. That will be entirely up to you. A lot of you will probably experience less ticket sales due to this new system. Players who've made a system out of milking the maximum cash out of the game by playing back to back shows in the same cities over and over again will have to rethink their strategies. Tickets already sold aren't affected by the changes. And if you've got a heavily scheduled year ahead of you and you've already sold tickets to all your fans then you might see a severe drop in ticket sales. In short: a much better system. ===Developer News 2006-06-01 Artist Power Boost=== When you improve your shows and release better records you fill up you Artist Power Boost. When the Power Boost is full you're free to release its effects on your band. Read More» There are currently three effects you can choose from. 1. Boost your repertoire to the max. 2. Boost all band members Star Quality. 3. Boost your Ambition to an otherwise impossible level. Enjoy. ===Developer News 2006-06-01 Abandon Locales=== Company owners can now abandon locales they no longer want to deal with. Read More» Locales that are up for sale cannot be abandoned and certain locales such as banks, travel routes, countrysides, city halls etc can't be abandoned either. Details about what happens when you abandon a locale can be found when you click on the "Abandon Locale" option under locale management. ====May==== ===Developer News 2006-05-31 Popomundo Immigration Announcement=== It is now possible to apply for a change of citizenship. To apply for this you need to be both VIP as well as a citizen of another city. The applications are submitted down at City Hall. Read More» If you have a recent criminal record there's a chance your application will be rejected. If your application is rejected you're free to apply again in a month. You're allowed to switch citizenship every third Popomundo year. ===Developer News 2006-05-31 Another Scheduled Downtime this coming Monday=== We're changing some hardware for Popomundo sometime between 09:00 to 13:00 CET on Monday this coming week. The downtime will last for roughly an hour. ===Game World News 2006-05-31 The Fifth Popomundo Festival=== The Melvin Memorial Foundation is proud to sponsor the Fifth Popomundo Festival. The festival will be hosted by the city of Los Angeles on September 8-15. Preliminaries will be held in eight cities throughout August 18-25. Read More» Like always you're only allowed to play in one preliminary. A representative from the Melvin Memorial Foundation will soon open a topic in the Company Forum to arrange the preliminaries. This will be the last of the Popomundo Festivals like we've come to know them. So if you've got anything to prove... now is the time to ROCK! ===Developer News 2006-05-31 Tattoo removals available=== Missspelled the name of your loved one? Or maybe she dumped you in the most brutal way? Anyway, unwanted tattoos can now be removed in any Plastic Surgery Center. Price and quality of the operation is as usual dependent of the locale quality. ===Developer News 2006-05-31 Regarding Parks=== Parks are for special events such as competitions only. In the past it's been possible to use them for regular shows as well. This is no longer the case. === Developer News 2006-05-30 Locale Confiscation Tweak=== Whenever a locale goes bankrupt from now on the company behind it will have to pay its debts. The money will be deducted from your company instantly and a record of the transaction will be noted in the company journal. ===Developer News 2006-05-29 Scheduled Downtime on Tuesday=== We're changing some hardware for Popomundo sometime between 09:00 to 13:00 CET on Tuesday. The downtime will last for roughly an hour. ===Developer News 2006-05-23 Reminder from your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man=== Sadly it's time for one of these lame messages again. We've also added the following text to the Popomundo Rules of Conduct. Read More» Role Playing Conduct Do not build your roleplaying around things like real life politics, sensitive religious issues, discriminatory philosophies, or criminal personas such as murderers etc... Do not make use of explicit material containing descriptions of violence, criminal sexual acts, hate crimes etc... We do not want these things in Popomundo. Players which fail to accept this will be expelled without warning. Personal Information Please do not hand out any personal information about yourself to other players in the game. This includes information such as what school you attend, which city you live in, how old you are and so on. ===Developer News 2006-05-18 Crime Scene Investigation=== Even though some crimes are committed without any witnesses, criminals can no longer expect to get away completely anymore. Fingerprints, DNA samples and video footage are evidence that might be left behind by sloppy villains. Read More» Special skills are needed for the investigation of these pieces of evidence. Evidence can not be removed from the crime scene untill they've been thoroughly investigated and filed away in the police records. Evidence is fragile and subject to the passing of time. All evidence will vanish in a couple of days after the crime was committed so the police need to be on the ball if they're to catch the criminals in time. Any possible evidence in a locale is listed on the items & equipment screen. NOTE: The criminal system has undergone some rather radical changes the last couple of weeks. With the implementation of evidence the new system is almost done. In a while we'll no longer be bothered by pesky peculiarities in the system due to this. Enjoy. ===Developer News 2006-05-16 Wednesday downtime=== Due to some preventative server maintenance Popomundo will be offline for about 30 minutes tonight. The downtime is scheduled to 23:00 (CET). We apologise for the inconvenience. Booked concerts, transports and jam sessions will not be affected by this. ===Developer News 2006-05-15 Blue Suede Shoes=== We are changing the system for items into a more versatile system, that will give the game an almost infinite range of possible items. Most clothes will now come in a range of colors and materials. Shop owners will henceforth need to choose which colors and materials (among those available) that they want to stock up on. Further improvements to the items system will come in the next couple of months. Read More» Items bought (and stocked) under the old system will still have their color and material defined (or rather, undefined) in the old way. ===Developer News 2006-05-10 Focus on It's POP=== Starting this week you'll be able to link to your own comics on the internet and get them published in It's POP. A new section on the rules and regulations for the magazine has also been added. There's also openings for a couple of new editors in Rome, Stockholm, and Copenhagen. Big up to the editors who put together the magazine week after week. ===Developer News 2006-05-10 The artist formerly known as Englebert Humperdink=== From now on all band members with a star quality of 50% or higher can choose to use a pseudonym in all band related activities. Read More» If you choose not to select a stage name you will automatically be using your regular name. Stage names are tied to your current artist and information about it will be lost if you for some reason leave the band. ===Developer News 2006-05-08 Record Studio Tweaks=== Your list of released records now only includes albums with a valid, expired, or renegotiated contract belonging to an active artist. During the day we'll also add the possibility for owners (not CEOs) to move contracts from one studio to another within the same company. Read More» Records with broken contracts or abandoned artists that are excluded from your record list will still sell any supply they have left. (If the fans are willing to buy them obviusly.) So your investments aren't lost because of this change. ===Developer News 2006-05-05 Rome wasn't built in a day...=== It was built in an hour with the push of a button. Infinite thanks to Hans Igelin & Conrad Martin who gave us the Italian translation which allowed for this to happen. We hope the Italian community will quickly find its place within the walls of Popomundo. ===Developer News 2006-05-04 Burglar alarms available=== Burglars have run amok in Popomundo the last couple of days. Fortunately there are counter measures against this. Go get a silent burglar alarm if you care about your belongings. Read More» A burglar alarm is triggered when a clumsy thief fails to avoid it. When triggered it instantly notifies all policemen that are present and employed in the current city. Burglar alarms are available in all generic shops. ===Developer News 2006-05-03 Tour hotel preferences=== The tour hotel preferences has been updated. From now you will automatically stay at home in all cities where you have an apartment. This means the hotel preference "Stay at home in all cities when possible" no longer has to be among the artist preferences. Read More» This update will hopefully prevent a lot of postings in the bug forum about hotel bills paid in your home town. We also think it's a more logical way of arranging your accomodation. ====April==== ===Developer News 2006-04-29 Super-babies no more=== Due to a bug, all children have recently been granted both Newbie experience points and the regular children-only XP. This bug has now been fixed and the granting of child XP has been slowed down to a more normal rate. ===Developer News 2006-04-28 Stage Equipment Quality Tweak=== The rate at which your stage equipment fades in quality has now been reduced by 50%. ===Developer News 2006-04-27 VIP feature: Calendar Reminders=== From now on manually added calendar events that are in the near future will be shown as reminders when you login. The reason why only manually added events triggers this is performance related but also to avoid spamming. ===Developer News 2006-04-26 Minor Diary Tweak=== Recent excerpts from diary now list ALL your latest events without compressing entries of the same type into one. This will bring an end to players getting confused by the whole "excerpt thing" once and for all. ===Developer News 2006-04-26 Link manipulation is a kind of cheating=== Let it be known that we no longer tolerate blatant cheating in the form of gathering information that is clearly meant to be secret by using link manipulation. Read More» Some users have been using "clever" ways to access information that is clearly meant to not be available to them. Some even have been posting such information in the forum. Henceforth users who do so will be dealt with in an appropriate way. If you are supposed to be able to access a certain piece of information, then we add a feature with a link that allows you to do so. If there is no built in way to access it, then obviously the game does not want you to currently see that information. Of course it is not cheating to just change the CharacterID of a character or the LocaleID of a locale. We are talking of more advanced forms of link manipulation here. If you know of an information loophole that you think the devs do not know, please post us a private message telling us the details of the loophole. Those who make us aware of a new information loophole will be rewarded. ===Developer News 2006-04-24 Song Composing Tweak=== The skills of Composing and Poetry now speed up the song writing process somewhat in addition to creating better songs. ===Developer News 2006-04-24 Humble Request from the Devs=== 1. Do not message the Devs. From now on we will not answer any personal messages. We do not have the resources to tend to player situations on a personal basis without the development of the game grinding to a halt. 2. Stay clear of the Bug Forum unless you're certain you've been bitten by a bug or can help us pinpoint a bug. Do not use it to communicate with other players or simply to voice your opinion. Read More» We tried to put this off for as long as we could... but there's no escaping it anymore. The only exception to the rule is if you know of a potentially harmful bug / loophole which is best kept secret. In this case we'd very much like for you to message a dev obviously. Please do not take this request personal in any way. === Developer News 2006-04-24 Tweaks to Performance Scoring=== We've just tweaked the way your performances are graded. Most of you will probably not notice much of a change but feel free to read the rest of this text if you wish to know the details. Read More» Here's the list of things that have been tweaked. 1. Your health and mood aren't nearly as important as they used to be. 2. Skills related to primary and secondary band roles are much more important. 3. Bringing all your instruments to the stage is necessary for the first time, both for primary and secondary roles. 4. We squashed a nasty bug related to stage equipment where non-stage equipment in your tourbuses screwed up the score. (Hamsters don't make for good loudspeakers.) The condition of your stage equipment has also become more important. So you might want to get rid of some of your old crappy stage lights. 5. Solo acts will find it slightly easier to compete with bigger bands when it comes to the reviews. We've also removed the text in your reviews saying stuff about your spirits and stage skills etc. Those of you who are insterested in such things should focus on the stars next to each band members name. These stars show you an individual grading based on health, mood, star quality, primary and secondary skills and attributes. Primary and secondary skills are most important, but they are also subject to the possibility of characters forgetting their instruments. The general stage skills are just as important as they were before. But as we said before. Most of you will probably not see much of a difference. But since this is a central part of the core game we simply wish to keep you informed. ===Developer News 2006-04-19 Police Department Forum=== Chiefs of Police and Deputy Chiefs of Police can now access the Police Department forum. This forum replaces the old Sheriff Forum. Read More» If you're logged on right now when this change took place you will have to log out and log in again to access it. Existing sheriffs and Judges will have access to the updated Police Forum. ===Game World News 2006-04-19 Copenhagen is the shit=== Our constantly evolving world was blessed today by the birth of Copenhagen. And according to our traditions here in Popomundo that means that the Danish translation is all done as well. Big up to our Danish translation team consisting of Cristopher Cameron, Gina Irvine and Samuel alexandersson. ===Developer News 2006-04-18 Newbies & Experience Points=== From now on the automatic experience points handed out to new players are refered to as Newbie Experience Points in the diary. When these have all been consumed you will get a diary event saying so. ===Developer News 2006-04-12 Tweak to Working on Songs=== From now on your songs will degrade in quality if you start working on more than one song every three days. The more songs you create over a three day period the less inspired they will be. This doesn't affect songs created prior to this community announcement. ===Developer News 2006-04-12 LIVE AID Festivals in City Hands.=== Mayors and CEOs of parks can now host their own LIVE AID festivals as competitions. ALL cash involved, including money earned from ticket sales, will go to the charity selected when creating the competition. Many thanks to Mark Pedersen who hosted the two first Popomundo Live Aid festivals without the automated system and who brought the idea to our attention in the first place. Mark is the Bob Geldof of Popomundo. ===Developer News 2006-04-06 Info on Achievements=== We've just added information about Achievements to the Help Section. Usually we don't announce small additions to the game such as this one. But we're making an exception this time simply because the interest shown in it has been huge. Enjoy. ===Developer News 2006-04-04 Volkov new Mayor of Moscow=== Congrats to Afanasy Volkov, the first elected Mayor in Popomundo. Afanasy comfortably secured his election in Moscow already in the first round. All other cities went to a final second round which ends next week. Citizens, cast your vote on one of the two remaining candidates (you must vote again on one of the last two) in your city! ====March==== ===Developer News 2006-03-31 Election reminder=== Only a few more days until the first Popomundo elections close (at least the first round of them) - if you are a citizen, don't forget to cast your vote. Read More» Someone horrible could end up Mayor and then you will have to spend the next 4 Popo years grinding your teeth for not casting your vote. Voting is done in the City Details / People's Assembly page. Unless one of the candidates gain 50% of the votes, the two strongest candidates will move on to a final showdown, ending one week after the first round. You will then get to cast a second vote. ===Developer News 2006-03-30 VIP Poll=== We're currently investigating what the players' main reasons are as to why they cannot/will not be VIP. Please take a moment of your time to vote on this using our brand new poll function in the General Popomundo Forum. Thank you. ===Developer News 2006-03-30 Take Your Music to the Streets=== The spare time priority of Busking is now implemented. Read More» Busking will get you small amounts of cash for each character update. The amount of cash you get depends on how unhealthy and depressed you are in the eyes of the people who sees you. Busking in itself is a hazardous occupation and your health will dwindle from staying outdoors all the time. And your mood will fade due to the constant abuse from rude people. So you might not want to stay out there for too long. On the bright side... experiencing life on the streets up close and personal can award you with inspiration to write better songs. Busking is mainly implemented for newbies. Hence there are no skills or other stuff required. You cannot get better at it and you will not be able to make a career out of it. Thanks to Connie and Dom for the inspiration for this development. ===Developer News 2006-03-28 Video Killed the Radio Star=== Nine out of ten record producers recommend you release a music video to effectively market your brand spanking new single. You might want to give it a shot... more info is available in the rules. ===Developer News 2006-03-28 Inheritance=== From now on, when you die, your relatives will inherit your assets. Read More» If you have children, your money and items are distributed evenly among them. If you don't have any kids, then any parents or siblings will inherit you instead (the inheritance will then be distributed evenly among all living parents and siblings). If you have no relatives alive, it will all go to the city funds. Bank accounts and loans are finished and added to (or deducted from, if you have net debts) your cash. It is not possible to inherit a net debt though. ===Developer News 2006-03-27 Important bug fix for Club Owners / Ceos.=== Up untill now there's been a nasty bug in the game which allowed for club owners to avoid having to pay the administration costs for shows. This has now been taken care of. If you own a club or work as a CEO in a club we urge you to read the rest of this news. Read More» ALL shows scheduled from now on get the default Ticket Limit set at the club. It doesn't matter if it was an invitation, open booking, competition, or a show that the artist booked themselves. The costs are paid immediately whenever the artist accepts the invitation or books the show. If the show is cancelled the money is refunded to the club. The costs are as follow: 500 tickets ---> 0 US$ 1000 tickets ---> 200 US$ 2000 tickets ---> 900 US$ 5000 tickets ---> 2600 US$ 10000 tickets ---> 6100 US$ ===Developer News 2006-03-27 New Skill: Graffiti Painting=== If you haven't noticed already there's a new book out on the market: Graffiti Painting. This skill is very useful for those who are planning to use a spray can as an outlet for their creativity. Read More» Spray cans can be used in/on all public locales. However it's only the "best" painting that stays. If another artist makes a better looking tag at the same locale it will erase your tag. A large amount of concurrent tags might be favourable for your star quality. Remember though that according to the current laws of Popomundo Graffiti Painting is considered a crime and that chances are you will be wanted for your actions. ===Developer News 2006-03-23 Items in tour buses=== Artists can now put their items in the Tour Bus and bring heavy stuff on the tour without carrying them. In other words you don't have to drag your drums or your piano to every concert yourself. Nice huh? Read More» It's only the rightful owner who can put and pick up the item from the tour bus and this is only possible (of course) if you are in the same city as the vehicle. If a character leaves the band any belongings in the tour bus will be returned to him or her. ===Developer News 2006-03-22 Mayor, Chief of Police and all that=== Here is a brief summary of the various public offices that are opening up as control over the Popomundo cities is being taken over by the community. Read More» The new system for running the cities currently has four major offices. All offices have in common that in order to hold them, you need to have VIP status. Mayor The Mayor is elected by the People's Assembly every 4 Popomundo years. The Mayor is the highest office in the city, but he/she is not supreme. The Mayor can adjust taxes, laws and Building Regulations among other things. Treasurer The Treasurer is the name of the person who is President of the company that owns the public locales, such as hospital, city hall, roads and so on. This works very much as a regular Popomundo company, although it is owned by the city. The Treasurer is appointed by the Mayor, and can be immediately removed by the Mayor at any time. The Mayor may appoint himself/herself if he/she wants. The job of the Treasurer involves making sure that money is transferred from City Hall, whereto tax is deposited, onto the various other locales in need to money. Note: The Police is a separate Company from the City Of... company that the Treasurer runs. However, the Police Company has no other way of gaining funds than donations from the City company, so the Treasurer must make sure to fund the Police force as needed. Chief of Police The Chief of Police (CoP) is in full control of the police force. He/she may appoint policemen who patrol the streets. The CoP can issue and withdraw arrest warrants for people, and such an arrest warrant must exist for a policeman to be able to arrest someone. The CoP will also have other authorities in the future but these will not be fully implemented for a while. Important: No one (not even the Mayor) can currently remove the Chief of Police, who serves until his/her term is up, or until resignation. This is to protect cities from becoming Dictatorships under a too-might Mayor, a balance of power. When there is no Chief of Police, the Deputy Chief of Police automatically steps in to succeed the CoP. Deputy Chief of Police This office has no actual power associated. It's sole purpose is that the office holder is the "heir" of the Chief of Police office. The Deputy Chief of Police is appointed by the Mayor whenever the office is vacant. ===Developer News 2006-03-21 More election notes=== With candidates announcing that they are running for mayor and discussion already heating up, here's a few more notes for citizens on the election rules. Read More» Feel free to cast your preliminary vote right away. You can change it all the time up until the ballots close in two week's time. The reason why it works this way is to allow as many as possible to vote and not get caught in hesitation only to discover that they forgot to vote. Secondly - the election rules (which will hopefully soon be published in the Help section- sorry for the delay) state that in order to be elected in the first round you have to gain the majority of the votes. If no candidate gains a majority in the first round, a second round of another week commences with the two candidates that gained the most votes in the first round. Also, everyone (candidates and voters), please be polite, civilized, respectful and remember that this is a game meant for enjoyment. Please refrain from "negative campaigning", that is: Talking badly about the other candidates. This way the elections will be an exciting and fun experience for all rather than something less pleasant. Prove that you are a responsible and considerate candidate and preserve your dignity at all times - and you will be treated similarly by the voters. ===Developer News 2006-03-20 It's Election Year in Popomundo=== Due to the unfortunate demise of Melvin Stjärnblom all citizens have been summoned to the first Popomundo Elections. We wish to take this opportunity to remind everyone running for office to campaign in the Local City Forums. Messaging potential voters individually is considered SPAMMING and is given the Evil Eye from the people in red robes. The same goes for buying votes. Some notes on VIP and Voting: Read More» We also take this time to remind you of the following words from the man Frank Blomdahl: We've discussed this before, but here it goes once again. There are two very strong reasons why citizenship (this participation in politics) require VIP. Each of them would have been sufficient individually to justify the VIP solution. However, both applies: 1. The ability to alter and control the entire game world, and not only your own character's position in it, requires strong protection against mass cloning in a free Internet based game such as Popomundo. The only viable way for this that we have found is the requirement that you must have flashed your Credit Card (or similar) at least once to gain VIP status. Although this does not theoretically eliminate every possibility for cloning, it certainly does prevent mass cloning (say, using a script to registering 1000 characters). 2. We provide a completely free game developed at a professional level here. We have bills to pay, and people working for Popomundo demand paychecks so they can have food on their table. Someone has got to pay somehow. It is true for everyone and everything in the world. We have decided that the core game (that about having a musical career in a fictive world) is and will remain free. The income should come from VIP subscriptions, which opens up the side career beside the core game: Politics and running a company, mainly. We think this is fair. If you are a newbie you will focus on the core game. If you enjoy life in Popomundo and stick around, hopefully you will want to get deeper into the game world and enter these side areas. Those who do will pay for VIP, making it possible for us to continue to run Popomundo. Without enough VIPs, or rather, the prospect of enough VIPs in the future, Popomundo would simply have to shut down, that is just fundamental maths. ===Game World News 2006-03-19 MELVIN KILLED!=== The London revolt against Melvin turned bloody tonight as a riot broke out. Many people were injured and buildings burnt and at 19.42 local time, Mayor Melvin Stjärnblom was attacked by a furious mob and killed. The political situation is now in a vacuum as Mayor Stjärnblom had no designated heir. The various People's Assemblies of the world are now to elect new Mayors. ===Developer News 2006-03-14 Popomundo Tattoo Parlors=== Next thing out of the pipe are Tattoo Parlors. This is where you go to do cool things that you'll come to regret for the rest of your life. Read More» At the tattoo parlors you can design your own tattoo and pay a tattoo artist to ink it onto your skin. The price and quality of the tattoo depends on the locale's condition. A word to the wise though: Make sure you spell the name of your loved one correctly. Tattoos are - at least for now - an irrevocable procedure. ===Developer News 2006-03-13 Courts become national=== From now on the judges will only convict criminals for crimes committed in the country where they are under arrest. For instance, if you are wanted for one theft in Berlin and another one in Paris, and get arrested in Paris, you will be judged and serve time for one case of theft in Paris (not for the theft in Berlin). However, when you are released, you will still be wanted for the crime in Berlin and may have to do additional time in the Berlin prison. ===Developer News 2006-03-13 New Music Genres & Sub Genres=== 3 new Genres and nearly 40 new subgenres added. Read More» Latin Music, African Music, and Flamenco are now all three major genres of music in the game. New sub genres were also added to some of the already existing genres as well. In total nearly 40 new genres have been added. After much debating we added Emocore to Punk Rock... all you Modern Rockers will have to do with your Indie options for now. Untill next time we decide to add more genres. Note: In order to make the three new major genres the following minor changes took place. 1. Latin Music (World Music) changed to Bolero (Latin Music) 2. Rai moved from World Music to African Music. 3. Salsa moved from World Music to Latin Music. 4. African Music (World Music) changed to Afrobeat (Latin Music) We would normally NOT make drastic changes like these to the fundamentals of the game. But since things turn out much better this way and considering how few players are affected by them we made an exception this time. ===Developer News 2006-03-10 What's with the yellow bar?=== Multicolored progress bars now turn gold when they have maxed out. Nothing more, nothing less. ===Developer News 2006-03-08 Warm Plates and Hot Dates!=== As some of you might have noticed there's a new locale type available in PPM - Restaurants. By a coincident the introduction of these romantic environments is followed by a new feature for lovesick characters - Hot Dates! Read More» To be able to ask another character out on a date you have to work on your relationship for a little while. When you have reached a certain level of friendship/romance the option will appear on the interactions page. If the other character accepts you will automatically be transfered to the restaurant at the time of the date. If a character doesn't show up for the date the relationship will decrease a lot so please make sure you don't double book. The result of the date is calculated from how well the two participating characters are suited for each other. Oh, and make sure you have enough cash to pay the bill (which is calculated from the Locale's state and quality). Otherwise things might become quite embarrassing... ===Developer News 2006-03-07 Name Your Loved Ones=== Just a little something for our animal lovers. It is now possible to name your little friends. Just go to your item view where there is an option to name each pet. ===Developer News 2006-03-03 Surgeon General's Warning=== Nine out of ten haitian witch doctors recommend that you DO NOT dabble with Voduon Magic. Screaming Jay Hawkin's stomach pains are NOTHING compared to the effects of real Popomundo Voodoo. Licking poisonous green jungle frogs is downright pleasant in comparison. Stay AWAY from the Voodoo. It's DEADLY! ====February==== ===Developer News 2006-02-23 Toddlers aren't Packing Mules=== As of now little babies aren't capable of carrying around huge amounts of stuff anymore. Read More» As our little babies grow older they'll be able to carry more and more stuff untill they come of full Popomundo Age (16) and reach the maximum encumbrance level we all know and love. ===Developer News 2006-02-22 VIP feature: Calendar=== The latest addition to our VIP features is a nifty little personal calender where you can see everything from plane tickets to jam sessions. Read More» It is also possible to add personal notes into the calendar. A function that might be useful for important meetings and similar. The calender, which you will find on your character menu, is limited to a 2 weeks period. ===Developer News 2006-02-20 Beware of the Popomundo Paparazzi=== The public has an insatiable appetite for sleazy photos of their stars and there is a certain group of people who's making big money on supplying the tabloids with these pictures. We call them the Paparazzi. Read More» To make a living as a Paparazzi you need to get yourself a camera and start improving your knowledge in basic photography. But even if you master the technical part of the photographer's work there's no point in making every face in Popomundo immortal. Every Sunday the tabloids publish a fresh list of their most wanted prey. This list consists of characters with high star quality that has managed to avoid getting caught on film lately. The bounty (your payment) is based on the current demand for the character as well as the quality of the photo. Every day the tabloids pay for the best picture of each celebrity on the Paparazzi List... Assuming no one has taken a better picture of the same celebrity that week. They'll never pay for a photo if they've already got a better one. The system is all about supply and demand. Celebrities on the Paparazzi List will increase their Star Quality even further if they actually manage to avoid being photographed. So watch out for these unscrupulous vultures with their telescopic lenses! They can make or break your career. ===Developer News 2006-02-20 Attention Company Owners=== As we all know it's really easy for companies today to keep on expanding and grow bigger and bigger. This will not always be the case. If you're running a big company today you might want to think twice before investing in a bunch on new locales. The life of the big company empires will become MUCH harder one of these days. ===Developer News 2006-02-15 Fame & Popularity Updates.=== As you might have noticed we've changed the presentation/workings of your songs fame & wear. Read More» In the constant strife to improve the game we've added another secret factor to calculate the popularity of your songs. The system will now be more similar to the "old" way. Even though it's by no means a step backward in the development. The two main things you need to be aware of are: 1. The fame will not fade from now. It will remain for all to see even in the future. 2. All other factors have been simplified on the surface into one simple chart: popularity. Some of you more seasoned hardcore players will most likely think that this system is STILL not as forgiving as the old system... Have faith... There's a nifty little marketing tool to trickle out of the pipe soon to help you out. ;) ===Developer News 2006-02-15 São Paolo & Portuguese=== It's finally here! The largest city in South America and our latest contribution to the southern Popomundo hemisphere. Infinite thanks to Bobby Wells, Jeffrey Jung, and Mikael Åkerskär who have done an excellent job with the Portuguese language. ===Developer News 2006-02-14 Happy Valentine's Day=== As of today giving someone a Box of Chocolate on Valentine's Day will make them happy. (They'll actually become happy the day after Valentine's day... but that's just a technicality.) ===Developer News 2006-02-14 Instant Notifications of Interactions=== Hug someone while they're online and they'll be instantly notified of it. The notification system has now been expanded to include interactions as well. So what are you waiting for... reach out and touch someone! You will only get notifications about interactions when you are online. ===Developer News 2006-02-13 Record Studios in Charts=== You can now sort Record Studios by Genre and Genre Strength in the Top Locales Chart. ===Developer News 2006-02-13 Companies Allowed to Rip Up Contracts=== Record Studios are now allowed to rip up contracts if the artist has been abandoned or hasn't had any records released/submitted under the contract. ===Developer News 2006-02-13 Attention Company Owners=== You're now allowed to purchase more than one locale of the same kind in any city. ===Developer News 2006-02-10 Who's the COMEBACK KING?=== It's now easier for old geezers like BarbapappaZ to get back into the groove of things after a couple of years away from the stage. Read More» As of today your fans will NEVER forget the glory of your past. Whenever you tour around the world these days your fame acquired will always be a mix of your current status and the fans' memories of your glory days. ===Developer News 2006-02-10 Marketing Campaigns Continued...=== The system is now fully operational. Keep an eye on the Marketing Costs to stay away from unwanted surprises. Read More» The marketing costs are based on how heavily record companies market their artists in the game. It could suddenly start to increase/fluctuate drastically depending on how many artists are promoted on the different marketing levels. The prices are currently set at a minimum level. Marketing costs are deducted from your record studios on a daily basis. Marketing new bands is by far the most efficient means of boosting a band's fame. After a band has reached a certain fame there's not much to be gained by further marketing. The more famous the artist is the higher the marketing level have to be to have an effect. Marketing Campaigns only have an effect in the cities where the artist has appeared the last Popomundo Year. There's a slightly higher marketing effect in the city where the studio is located. Once more: The Marketing Campaigns are mainly to help the up and coming bands who've just started playing different cities and need a helping hand to make it into the big leagues. There are other ways the marketing campaigns can help more established acts as well but these are of lesser value. Keep in mind that using the right Marketing Level can save you a lot of cash. There's currently NO EXTRA BONUS for the artist if the record studio is of a matching genre. The strength of the genre of the studio is purely used to determine how many marketing slots are available. (Such a bonus will most likely be added at a later date.) ===Developer News 2006-02-10 Underage Characters and Cash Donations=== Characters under the age of 16 can no longer give away any cash to anyone. Not untill they've come of Popomundo Age (16) do we trust them to handle their money responsibly. ===Developer News 2006-02-08 Marketing Campaigns and Record Company Genres=== New stuff for all the record companies out there. The option to freely donate cash to artists is about to be replaced within a week by the new Artist Marketing system. Read More» Each record studio is now able to market their artists. Marketing an artist will increase its fame in the cities where it's usually active on stage. In addition to this the marketing campaign will always be most effective in the city where the record studio is located. Marketing campaigns will be most effective for new bands with low fame. Big bands will usually have less to gain from the marketing system, although they might find it beneficial once in a while as well depending on eventual strategic possibilities. When you market an artist you get the chance to do so with five different Marketing Levels. The higher the level the higher the cost. The cost of all levels will vary depend on the demand. If companies market a lot of bands the costs will increase and vice versa. The number of PR Managers you have employed in the studio determine which level of marketing you have available to you. Even if you don't have any PR Managers in your studio you'll still be able to use the first Marketing Level. PR Managers are required to have at least one star in Media Manipulation. Each record studio can market up to ten artists at a time. This number is determined by the studio's Genre Strength. To increase your genre strength and thus your number of available marketing slots you should sign as many famous bands as possible from the genre of your choice. If you want to market more bands than you can squeeze out of a record studio you're going to have to invest in more studios. The interface for Marketing your artist is already available to the Record Studios. Expect to feel the first effects of the marketing system early next week. The cash donation option will disappear shortly thereafter. ===Developer News 2006-02-08 Booking assistant extended=== If you already are a fan of the booking assistant you will probably love it even more now. We have added the possibility to book Jam Sessions as well. Read More» There's still a limitation that you only can book jam session in the city you are currently located in. But with this tool you don't have to run around across town to look for available slots. The booking assistant is a VIP feature that helps artists organizing their schedules. ===Developer News 2006-02-06 Magazine Tweak=== It's POP is undergoing some minor changes. Read More» From now on you can only read your home town and current local issue of It's POP. If you're a Popomundo Citizen your Home Town issue will be replaced by the issue representing your citizenship. The global edition has been removed altogether. Instead the Global News are listed in all local issues. Sounds confusing? It's not. Just take a deep breath and ignore the whole thing. It's just a minor change. NOTE: Editors have access to all issues obviously. === Developer News 2006-02-06 One more snuggle tweak=== The time limits for snuggling have had one more tweak. For the full details, see the Dr Snuggles forum. ===Developer News 2006-02-06 Relationship addition: Enmity=== For those of you who fancy bickering your competitors a new meter might appear on the Interactions page. Read More» The Enmity level shows how big the beef between you and another character currently is. A new addition is also that the different meters will not be visible until they have reached a certain level. Although we advocate everyone to be nice to each other an archenemy might in some cases be favourable, at least for your star quality. ===Developer News 2006-02-05 Using XP to improve songs=== You can now use Experience Points to improve the song you are currently working on. ===Developer News 2006-02-04 Giving between VIPs=== It is now possible for VIP characters to give items to other VIP characters, without having to worry about the value of the item and the strength of the relationship. In addition, VIP characters can now pay money to other VIP characters that they have any sort of relationship with. ===Developer News 2006-02-04 Snuggle limits=== The old rule that you can only snuggle someone every 15 hours has been abandoned. Instead, however, we have instituted a "flat rate" that allows men to snuggle every 2 hours, and women to snuggle every 1 hour, regardless of with whom. Since this still allows men to snuggle 12 times per day, and women a generous 24 times per day snuggle dosis, we hope this will satisfy even the most snuggle prone of you. ===Developer News 2006-02-02 Minor Tweak: Snuggling and Band Members=== Snuggling with your bandmates no longer earn you any Star Quality. You must take your snuggly ways outside the band in order for the public to be wowed by your mojo. Read More» Let's face it: who cares if the Knights who say Ni has countless orgies on their tours? That's just sad... Now if Des Swink hooked up with Sonya Couch from Empress Norton Bingenheimer instead and they consumated their eternally true love... Then we'd all be AMAZED! ===Developer News 2006-02-02 Individual Scores on Stage=== As of today the show reviews will include individual scores of all band members. For the first time it will be clear to everyone who's pulling their weight in Phoenix Rising and who isn't. Read More» These Scores are based on your skills related to your chosen band roles, mood, health, Star Quality, as well as bringing the right instruments with you. (Don't forget to bring instruments for both your primary and secondary band role.) With these new scores your Mood and Health have lost some of its importance. This will make it easier to maintain that rock'n'roll lifestyle without your shows suffering as much. Bringing Star Quality into the mix opens up new possibilities to boost your scores at shows. This addition might not be readily accepted by the musical purists out there, but let's face it... people have always been mesmerized by these things. The Star Quality is only a small portion of the equation though, and since at least half of your Star Quality is based on legit career stuff, we think everybody will be able to live with it. The individual scores will start appearing today and we'll tweak them over the next 2-3 weeks or so. After that we'll let them influence the actual outcome of the shows and replace some of the older more basic ways of reviewing your shows. This way everyone will get some time to prepare for its full implementation ====January==== ===Developer News 2006-01-30 Dual Band Roles=== In order to fully implement all instruments in the game AND allow everyone to hold DUAL Band Roles we're currently undergoing some noteworthy changes. Read More» Lead guitar will be replaced by Accoustic Guitar and Rhythm guitar will be replaced by Electric Guitar. Lead and rhythm guitar will return to the game at a later date. In a couple of days time when all the necessary changes have been completed you will all be able to define a primary and a secondary role to each band member. It's important to note that while we're going through these changes your Performances will NOT be affected by if you have the right instruments with you on stage or not and your instrument skills will be scored by how you have your settings defined today. This way the changes will be implemented with the least amount of interruption to your game plan. EDIT: For those players who find their newly acquired skill in Accoustic Guitar offensive and would much rather have the skill Electric Guitar Jonas has promised to switch the skill for you. Check out the Accoustic vs Electric topic in the General Popomundo Forum. (This is a limited two week offer from the little green man.) ===Developer News 2006-01-27 What's with the arrow?=== The arrow on your artist page gives you an indication of which direction you're going in the Artist Rankings. This way you'll see how you're doing even if you're not doing well/bad enough to change your actual position. ===Developer News 2006-01-26 Theft prevention campaign=== The Police Departments of Popomundo have intitiated a major campaign to discourage theft. From now on, you can visit any local Police Department (under City Services) and have all your items marked with a tag that identifies you as the owner. FREE OF CHARGE. If your goods are stolen and then recovered by the cops, you will get them back. It is also impossible to sell tagged stolen goods to the Second Hand Stores. ===Developer News 2006-01-25 Star Quality=== We now track characters indivudual Star Quality. Read More» Your Star Quality is based on many things. It's obviously based a lot on how your artistic career is going but it also takes into account other tidbits such as if you have a day job, if you're wanted by the law or if you're doing the wild thing with sexy vixens. In other words: time to dump your sad girlfriend and shack up with Angelina Jolie, quit your job, and start living like a true rock star. Everyones Star Quality is currently at zero. But don't worry, it will soon start to move together with your usual daily updates. ===Developer News 2006-01-25 Are wrinkles and sagging body getting you down?=== Don't worry! Improve your looks down at the local Plastic Surgeon. Read More» The effects of the different surgeries varies from place to place. It's heavily dependant on the quality of the locale. Hence you might not want to get your precious face lift in a crappy place. The surgeon could butcher you if you're unlucky. The quality and pricing of the Plastic Surgeon depends on how many doctors work there. So you get what you pay for. The effects of the operations don't last forever though. They'll fade slowly with time and your diary will tell you when the effect has completely vanished. Beware of the Michael Jackson syndrome. Getting too many face lifts can do irreparable damage in the long run. ===Developer News 2006-01-23 A walk in the countryside=== A new priority is now available, when you get fed up with writing songs, improving skills and teaching your apprentice: Picking flowers. This activity involves a stroll in the countryside, fresh air and picking some pretty flowers. Read More» Countryside is a new type of locale, available in most, but not all, cities. If there is no countryside in the city you are in, then the activity is useless. The countryside is located under "Recreational" in the list of locales. When you take this activity you will pick up some flowers. These can then be given as an interaction to someone you like, who will certainly appreciate that kind gesture (the flowers are then used, and can of course not be used again). If you have the skill Basic Botany, you will also be able to pick up other herbs and plants that you might find useful. This is the only way to gain items of category "herbs" (it will not be possible in shops henceforth). The higher your skill in Botany, the more unusual herbs you may find in the countryside. Herbs are usually useful to those knowledgable in Pharmacology. ===Developer News 2006-01-23 Experience points for skills=== You can now use your experience points to improve yourself in the skill you have currently selected under "Priorities". The effect is quite small, especially the higher your skill level already is, but it is a possible alternate use for those who prefer this usage. Also, from now on, use of certain items may require certain skills. This has very limited use right now, but in the future it might become more common. ===Developer News 2006-01-20 Achievement Points=== All achievements now come with a litle score attached to them. Your Points show the sum of the score from your collected achievements. This way we can all see how far away we are from having lived through the "Complete Popomundo Experience". The Maximum amounts possible to attain will grow as we add more achievements. ===Game World News 2006-01-16 Popomundo Festival Invitations=== Mr.Mayor is busy sweeping up the park in Barcelona. But according to his lovely secretary he's about to send out the invitations within the hour. Read More» If you get an invitation make sure you don't decline it. Melvin is already disgruntled about his new job as a park cleaner. Chances are he won't send you a new one. The following bands qualified to the festival: OneWayTrip Arise Rootsman The Vanguard SilenceOfTheLambs DSPL Fake Plastic Tree Skarred Flying Gonzo FBCS Abu JahJah & The Burqa's The Perfects Des Swinks worst nightmare stop Emily Williams The Knights who say Ni! Aether Spacis The Bruinsma Brothers Marvin and the Chipmunks Lady Sunshine Analise Rose Snaggletooth Maronies Johnny and the self abusers Smashing Georges Abitbol Color Me Badder! The Thieves Jessie Malone Chernobyl Light Mystique Melting Tree Cure for Pain Digital Divine Svarte Rudolf W.A.R.O. Maboroshi The True Saga Malkia Fake Plastic Bush SvachE ===Developer News 2006-01-16 Songs and Dominant Instruments=== Whenever you write a new song these days you have to define which instruments its mainly written for. Read More» A song's Dominant Instruments won't come into full effect until later this year. But we think it's good if you start to take them into considerations right now. You'll always be able to play a song live even if you don't have all the dominant instruments represented on stage. But chances are your score will be somewhat lowered if you don't. In the weeks to come we'll be changing A LOT of stuff related to instruments/band roles/skills etc. NONE of these changes will affect your performances scores at all. (Regardless of what the written texts in your reviews say.) ===Developer News 2006-01-16 Put your trench coat on=== Good news for all you Columbo wannabes. The Basic Detective skill is now here. It enables you to interrogate other characters in a subtle and non-violent way. Basically it makes you ask clever questions to the other person and rewards you by getting random extracts from their diary. These extracts are then stored exclusively for you. Read More» Obviously this new skill is most useful for the cops, although one or two paranoid boyfriends might want to try it out on their girlfried now and then (with devastating consequences for the relationship, of course). But basically this skill is for policemen. It will come into full use as we are now moving towards the new system for law enforcement. The new system will mean that the current dev appointed "sheriff" system will be replaced by a more stritcly in-game system of Police Departments with some characters appointed as policemen. Moving to completion of this system will be a process of several months. ===Developer News 2006-01-16 Underage Characters in Chat and Forum=== Recently there's been some hot debates whether underage characters should be allowed into the chat or not. Since we like to keep our Popomundo Minors out of harms way we've decided to NOT let them into the chat and forum. ===Developer News 2006-01-16 Second Hand Stores=== Are you in desperate need of quick money or out bargain hunting? Then we got some great news for you. Read More» In the latest addition among localetypes - "Second Hand Stores" - the locale owner sets the buy rates and sale rises of used merchandise. In other words you no longer have to stock up your apartment with all the stuff you wish you'd never bought. The locale type is available for company owners in all cities. Remember though that the rates can vary between different stores in the same city and that Second Hand Stores wont show in the Shopping Assistant. ===Developer News 2006-01-13 Songwriting additions=== The songwriting process has been updated. From now on it's recommended to select both a genre and a melody type when you start writing a song. Updates to the calculations of the maximum qualities have also taken place. Read More» The maximum quality of the song is dependent on your skills in the different genres and melody types. Keep in mind though that an artist usually needs a quite broad repertoire with different kinds of songs to be successful in all areas. For example if you write only great ballads you will surely win a lot of hearts but at the same you run a risk of boring your fans to death. To be really successful in your songwriting you should improve your skills in basic composing as well as in higher level composing and the genre(s) in which you are active in. Remember: Just because a song is connected to a specific genre from the beginning doesn't mean that you'll have to stick to the same genre when you put the song in your repertoire. More stuff to be added to the songwriting stuff in the next couple of days... stay tuned... ===Developer News 2006-01-10 Recent Interactions=== Below the diary excerpts on your character page you can now see a list of all people who has interacted with you within the last 48 hours. Read More» The addition has been made specially for you who never notice people trying to become your friend. The list is only visible for you and not to other characters looking at your page. ===Developer News 2006-01-09 Music Instrument Shops=== Better late than never. Read More» Available for companies in all cities is now the new locale type "Music Instrument Shop". Although it has been possible for a long time to get hold of instruments in Popomundo we though it was about time they got a dedicated locale. Now go get yourself a frying pan or flying V. ===Developer News 2006-01-09 Inspirational Seeds=== Is your songs lacking in quality? Perhaps it's time to hunt down some inspiration for new material at the local clubs. Read More» By setting your priority to Party and hanging out at the local clubs you have a chance to receive what we call Inspirational Seeds. Use these seeds to improve upon the maximum potential of the song you're currently working on. There are two kinds of seeds at the moment. The first kind improves the melody of your song and the second kind improves the lyrics. Your diary will say when you've been awarded an inspirational seed. Use the seeds as quickly as possible. Their inspirational value lessens with time. It could have vanished completely within a couple of days. The harder you party the bigger the chance is to receive an inspirational seed. So don't keep all your money locked up in your bank accounts! ===Developer News 2006-01-09 VIP feature: Shopping Assistant=== In the wake of the booking assistant we introduce another useful VIP feature: The Shopping Assistant. Read More» On the Search page it is now possible to find the best price for a specifik item. The search is limited to the city you are located in at the moment. The Shopping Assistant is also a useful tool to find out whether or not a store has a specific item in stock. ===Developer News 2006-01-05 Small addition to World Map=== It's now possible to see the travel times for each route in the Popomundo Highway system. Keep in mind though that the times not necessary are constant but can vary with the condition of the road. Bad road condition will also increase the risk of vehicle breakdowns. ===Developer News 2006-01-03 Life on the road pt 2=== We have added a new interactive map showing Popomundo and all active travel routes. The map is located in the Travellers Guide below Popomundo Map & Highways. Read More» For users who don't have a compatible browser and Flash Player (v.6) a text based version of the roads will still be shown. ===Developer News 2006-01-02 Beware of Bubba=== Prisoners might want to make sure they have some extra cash in their pockets when Bubba comes around to collect his protection fee. Bubba likes to charge inmates around 200-250 US$ for his services per visit. There is no telling how often he'll come to rattle your cage... or what he'll do to you if you can't pay up. YOU COULD DIE! ===Developer News 2006-01-02 Life on the road=== Among your character's priorities there's now an option to go with your tour bus when it departs. Read More» If your priority is set to go with tour bus you will automatically be picked up by your vehicle when it leaves town. This assumed that you are in the current city and not occupied with anything else.