Community News from 2010

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2009
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Character wills didn't turn out the way we wanted them to. Ever since they were implemented they have been a constant source of player abuse and technical difficulties. For this reason we're temporarily removing them from this version of the game so that it won't intervene with the new system we're working on for Popmundo 2.0.

Existing wills will still be honored for a brief time so that players who've ceased to play the game when we write this can have their wills taken care of. However, you won't be able to write up any new ones, or add more people to your already existing wills. If you have any stuff you want certain people to have when you decide to end your Popmundo days then you simply have to give them the stuff manually.

The option to remove people from already existing wills remain however in case you get really, really angry at former friends or loved ones.

After months of head-scratching and furrowed brows, the Ministry of music has finally emerged from their toil, holding crumpled scraps of paper in gnarled fingers, and with long-forgotten pencils tucked behind their ears.

What this means is that the dates, details and information for the next Popmundo Festival is now ready and available to all on the Ministry pages. (http://www124.popmundo.com/common/MinistryOfMusic.asp)

Much of it will be familiar from previous festivals, though there are changes to artist line-up rules and requirements for entry.

We've adjusted the way the overall score of your shows is calculated.

In the past the audience mood at the end of a show was a bit too influential when it came to calculating the final score of the show.

This is no longer the case. As of now the beginning portion of the show is just as influential when it comes to determining the score of a show. (In addition to the collection of other things which affects the show obviously.)

This means that most of you will have to rethink your strategies a bit. From now on it will be best to impress the audience as much as possible in the beginning part of the show, then relax a bit before pulling out big guns for the grand finale.

We realise all this makes it even harder on solo artists, so we've given them a slight break in these new calculations so they won't be left in the dust because they can't write as many songs as a big band.

We've also made a slight alteration to how audience expectations are calculated and allowed for them to play a tiny part in the final score of a show. This means that any tampering with your career to lower your fame and trick the system into giving you an advantage in major competitions will backfire for sure.

We're happy to add Antalya to the wonderful world of Popmundo. Apart from being a city on the Mediterranean coast of southwestern Turkey, there's one or two things you might find interesting about this city.

No roads will be built for Antalya now when we add it to the game. From now on we leave all road building in the hands of the players.

Just like in Chicago we've altered the way we calculate the value of employees slightly so that characters who aren't active in the game won't contribute to the locale quality. This way locales won't be able to hire a bunch of clones to increase their quality. Hence, company owners might want to think twice about buying a ton of locales in Antalya. Top quality locales will be hard to come by with this new system.

We've added the city of Chicago to the game. We'll conduct most of the BETA testing for the upcoming crime game in this quaint little town. That is why Conrad is in power and there are no roads at the moment.

Musicians will be able to add Chicago to their world tours and treat it like any other city in the regular core game. Whatever strange things that might happen in Chicago will not influence the music end of things.

HOWEVER, company owners will want to know about a new thing we're testing in Chicago. We've altered the way we calculate the value of employees slightly so that characters who aren't active in the game won't contribute to the locale quality. This way locales won't be able to hire a bunch of clones to increase their quality. (How this system works is obviously a secret and something we'll tweak in the coming months.)

As long as company owners are aware of this new feature in Chicago, and that it will be harder than usual to get good quality locales here, they are more than welcome to build locales in the city.

Welcome to Chicago!

We've made some more tweaks to the political system. The most important being that you have to be 18 years old to vote. However, anyone upset about the last couple of days events in Dubrovnik might want to read the rest of this piece of news as well.

1. You have to be 18 to vote.

2. No politician can now directly block travel routes or international flights in any way.

3. Inciting to Riot doesn't automatically produce arrest warrants anymore. Instead, if the Law wants someone behind bars for this crime they have to take it up with the Supreme Court first.

4. We've tightened the rules around citizenship applications so that brand new citizens who just got their citizenship can't change it immediately but have to wait 6 months like everyone else.

*Cue Schenker solo*

We have removed Global Collect as a payment provider, leaving Paypal as the only option. We see no reason to support it any longer, since statistics indicate that almost all of you could use Paypal just as well, and since one less system for us to maintain equals more development time to put into the game. Game Sultan will still be available for Turkish players though.

We will evaluate the effects of this action in a few months.

If you wish to celebrate your birthday in the game you're now free to do so whenever you like around the time of your birthday. Just buy yourself a Birthday Cake and eat it to put a smile on your face and receive 2 points of well earned XP.

Eating the cake won't make you any older however. Your age is still handled by the game engine. (So are the notifications sent to your buddies about your birthday by the way.)

This change was made for roleplaying purposes and those of us who've got a hard time making heads or tails of time zones in the game.

Birthday Cakes were previously handed out automatically to VIP players. This is no longer the case. You all have get your own cakes and everyone is welcome to eat them. Not just VIPs.

Enjoy!

You no longer automatically get a warrant issued for your arrest when you get caught smuggling items into a city. (The illegal items do get confiscated however.) This change was made to prevent childish politicians from ruining the game for others.

We believe in achievements. However, when the hunt for achievements lead to player behaviour which seriously damage the game of others they cease to be a good thing. Being an active member of a city government should be about social responsibility and not about personal gain.

These are the 3 achievements that we no longer will be handing out four months from now.

Completed a whole term as Mayor

Completed a whole term as Chief Justice

Became Chief of Police

As of today you can play Popmundo on facebook. That way you can keep track of the two most important things in your life at the same time. Your friends and your career as a rockstar! Read More»

All you have to do to make this magic work is visit http://apps.facebook.com/therealpopmundo

Once you're there you can sign in with your usual Popmundo login and your Popmundo account will be automatically tied to your Facebook account. This means that the next time you visit Popmundo through Facebook you won't have to login at all.

New players who've never played the game before can register through Facebook as well. So please feel free to invite all your Facebook friends. The more the merrier! Our usual offer of awarding anyone, who invites someone who becomes a paying member within two months of registration, with 200 Popmundo credits is honored in this process as well.

P.S. Don't forget to bookmark the Popmundo application on Facebook so you don't have to enter the URL all the time.

You may think the Ministry of Music is all passed out after the mega-event that was the Popomundo Festival VIII, but think again.

Reinforced with some fresh blood, the brainstorming has started on exactly when and how Popmundo Festival IX will take place. It will be a good while still - but while everything is being done (and with line-up rules and such in mind) we'd like let you all know you can count on the Festival IX to take place during Year 55. So don't say we didn't warn you ;)

January 2011 marks a new dawn in the Popmundo era. Help us decide if Melvin should walk among us once again or if he should forever Rest In Peace. Check THIS out for more information. (http://www124.popmundo.com/common/Melvin.asp)

New characters in the game no longer automatically get an apartment in the game. Instead they'll have to get their first place on their own when they've begun to make some money.

Because of this we've made it possible for characters to stay in their home town without depressing side effects even if they don't have an actual place of their own.

We made this change to reduce the vast number of locales created in the database as well as reduce the temptation for certain people to engage in unwanted player behavior. It also makes for a suitable challenge for new players.

Stay tuned for more changes to rival the spot for “Worst Implementation Ever” as we make way for a better game.

Some users have reported having problems with the new Facebook badge on the start page. If you're one of those, point your browser to http://www.popmundo.com/nofb.asp instead.

This game has always depended on word of mouth to attract new players. As a way of saying thank you to everyone who invites new players to the game we've decided to award everyone who invites a new player, that purchases any product from us within 2 months from the date he/she was invited, with 200 credits!

All adult characters belonging to the account which receives the 200 credits also receive a full mood bar.

The 200 credits are handed out once a day. This means you might have to wait a couple of hours to get your credit bonus after the invited person has purchased VIP, Credits, or a Company Licence.

If you have invited someone in the last two months you're entitled to this bonus as well if the player you invited buys something before the two months is up.

If you have, for some reason, been blocked from purchasing products from us you will NOT receive a credit bonus for inviting players to the game.

PS: You can invite new players by going to your User Information page and clicking Invitations in the right hand menu.

We've changed how the stage equipment influence your shows. You can no longer gain a level or two in your reviews by simply mounting some good gear on stage.

The Stage Equipment now only influences 10% of your show quality regardless of how good you are.

This means that new artists don't have to pay attention to their Stage Equipment nearly as much as superstars do.

Superstars however will need to have some pretty good equipment on stage if they want their shows to come across as good as they really are.

Although most of you probably welcome this change it also means a lot of you will drop a level in show quality. For that we apologize.

This marks the first of a couple upcoming tweaks to the core game. Stay tuned for further news as we continue to work on the music end of things.

As of now, whenever you manage to break out of jail, a warrant for your arrest is issued immediately. So you better get out of town quickly before the police catch you.

We've made this change to simplify the code which handles the criminal system and pave the way for better solutions and a more enjoyable game for everyone in the future.

We have made some changes to the legal system. Some of them only affect a few characters, while others affect everyone.

- Protected instruments It's now impossible to steal instruments from each other. If you leave your piano somewhere it's still up for grabs though.

- More city events When a city changes the severity of a crime, it's now shown in the city events. If the severity hits rock bottom, legalizing said crime, all related warrants in that city are removed automatically. The city events now also show if a warrant has been manually removed and by whom.

- Maximum jail time reduced to 30 days Due to cases of excessive punishments, the maximum length of jail sentences has been lowered 20 days.

- Re-request for legal help! Criminals that requested legal help and either got turned down by all lawyers, or didn't get any response at all will now be able to make an additional request for legal help. It's still just possible to actually appeal a criminal case once of course.

- Shortened stakeout time The stakeout time has been shortened to approximately one hour.

We have other law-related features/tweaks in the pipeline as well, so stay tuned…

Due to the large amount of name requests in the forum we finally decided to add “new name” as a credit service. But please be careful and please behave. Read the rules for this at least two times before using the service, all right?

/Slim Shady

When the dust settled in Izmir it was Luc Valverde, Aslı Brennan, and Erik Brennan who showed everyone what it took to win the Eight Popmundo Festival. Without a doubt this trio smacked God the hardest this time around!

The Ministry of Music would like to thank everyone who participated in the prestigious event.

The Stjärnblom foundation would also like to extend their gratitude to the Ministry itself for organizing such a tremendous festival.

For a complete list of the participating artists who just made a permanent mark in Popmundo history please check this out! (http://www123.popmundo.com/common/MinistryOfMusic.asp?action=FinalStandings)

Antithesis just opened up the The Eight Popmundo Festival with a God Smacking performance! Will anyone beat these old metal heads? Join us for the usual festivities and scandals in Izmir for the next couple of days as the festival goes down in history.

The Ministry of Music is proud to announce that the qualifying round of the Popmundo Festival VIII is over. The competition was fierce to say the least. Never have we seen so many earth shaking performances in one event. Invitations to the final will be handed out to the winners, and Lucky Bastards, within the day. For complete results click HERE. (http://www123.popmundo.com/common/MinistryOfMusic.asp?action=Standings)

Long booked and much anticipated, in no more than a few hours the qualifying round of Popmundo Festival VIII kicks off. First out is Pop duo Jim's Jack who go on stage in Melbourne. We wish them and all other bands scheduled to play the best of luck!

The battle for the coveted golden tickets to Izmir goes on for six days, so you've got plenty of time to join the festivities. For current standings, rules, and playing schedules, please visit the Popmundo Festival pages. (http://www123.popmundo.com/common/MinistryOfMusic.asp)

The amount of artist fame an artist gets from being marketed by a record studio is now influenced by the locale quality of the studio. For some of you this is good news since it's possible to squeeze a bit more fame out of the system this way… and for others it might be time to look for a better recording studio to sign with.

The system which confiscated locales due to bankruptcy was rather unforgiving and confusing at times. Hence, we no longer confiscate locales when they run out of money.

As of this week a lot of you might see increased record sales. We've made it easier for records with little or no song popularity to sell in order to lessen some of the confusion surrounding the Record Sales System.

From now on it's only possible to punish criminals with Community Service or Fines if the severity level is 4 or less. “Coincidentally” that's the same level that allows special agents to arrest criminals abroad. We just don't think that James Bond would've gone through the trouble to catch Dr No just so he could clean some public bathrooms. Read More»

We have also capped the amount of days for Community Service to 10 days. After all it's a punishment that is cumulative and only intended for petty crimes. Evil megalomaniacs like Dr No clearly belong behind bars.

Due to a glitch in the ordering system, some stores have been able to sell certain items at ridiculously low prices. The market is a competition, but everybody must be able to compete on the same terms using the same rules. Therefore, the bug has been fixed and the prices in the “privileged” stores has been raised to the minimum allowed level.

This morning we made some adjustments to how audience expectations and encores are calculated. Read More»

Audience expectations are now less focused on your local fame in the city you're playing in. The level of audience expectation is now determined by your past & present local fame, your current global fame, as well as the reviews of recent shows regardless of which cities you played them in.

For most of you this increases the level of audience expectation slightly. Thus making encores a bit harder to pull off.

The encores themselves have also been tweaked so they're calculated a bit more like regular songs. It's still possible to play golden oldies successfully but in most cases a current hit song will score higher.

These changes were made to eliminate questionable tactics in important competitions as well as remove unfair advantages for old has-beens over new & upcoming stars.

The Ministry of Music would like to remind everyone that the bookings for the Popmundo Festival qualifying competitions are underway. Please look up the Festival Information Pages for more information.

For all you Facebook-users who'd like to help us spread the word about Popmundo we've added the AvatarMaker as an application. Please go to apps.facebook.com/popifyme to get Popified!

The world is spinning once again. The downtime lasted longer than expected so we haven't been able to fix your shows and done all the usual damage control. We'll tend to those things first thing tomorrow after we've gotten some sleep and a chance to reboot our brains.

This Tuesday the 23rd of February at approximately 08:30 AM (CET) Popmundo will be down for several hours. We're upgrading our server hardware since the ancient machine hosting our database has started to sound funny and probably won't last much longer. Read More»

Since the database server has to be switched off during the upgrade this will inevitably affect your scheduled shows and travels. However, all shows that fail during the downtime will be repaired at a later time. It's impossible to tell for how long the site will be down but we'll do our best to keep you updated during the downtime.

Ultratouring won't grant you insane amount of song popularity anymore. The game now keeps track of how many times a song has been played live in the last couple of days and will gradually reduce the amount of popularity gained when played in 2 or more shows per day. Read More»

It's not a fixed limitation though. Depending on how many people attended the shows the decline in song popularity gain will alter to make the system less rigid and suit different playing styles and touring situations.

Players content with playing once per day won't have to worry about this change. Players used to the idea of playing 3,4,5 or more shows per day will have to rethink their strategies completely. The rest of you might have some interesting experimenting to do in order to find out what works the best for your artist.

A couple of new products have found their way to Ye Olde Credit Shoppe; Channelle 69 (a peculiar rarity) will instantly boost your relation and is good for two uses and the Locale Protection will, like the name says, protect the locale(s) of your choice from all sorts of criminal mischief. Enjoy!

Antithesis melted our minds, UrBanD shook the earth, but The Apostrophes brought the whole house down. The names of Shadow Walker, Lovely Woman, and Adunaphel the Quiet will forever live on in the history of Popmundo. We salute you!

After twisting and turning all the details on the coming Popmundo Festival VIII are finally done and to be found on a brand new set of Festival Pages. Check them out here. A note also to the hosting cities, we await your pick of park to get the very last piece in place.

Some new products have been added to the credits page. Hopefully they are self explaining, but we'll keep an eye on the forum just in case. Have fun!

We're more than happy to welcome Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, into Popmundo. Big up to Rosa Rose, Tayfun Gürağaç, Uzay Kılınç and Whitley Thomas who has been working their asses off with the translation.

In a competition that has had Ministers speechless in awe, İzmir has finally emerged as the winner. Congratulations to Rıfat İstemihan and everyone who worked on the İzmir entry, and huge thanks to the many other people who contributed such impressive entries.

In addition to İzmir, the cities for the qualifying rounds have also been decided. Read More»

Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Dubrovnik, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Melbourne, Milan, Mexico City, Moscow, New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Sofia, Singapore, Tallinn, Toronto and Tromso will all play host to qualifying rounds for Festival VIII.

Festival planners should note that things will be organised slightly differently this time, with the playing order in the festival final being set in advance according to which city you qualify in. More details to follow soon.