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Night Edition

Release notes

Every version of the game and what changed in it.

News is what is happening in the city and around the game. Release notes list each version of the game: what is new, what got better and what we fixed.

Release notes · Version 0.9.41 ·

Pocket edition

Improved

  • On phones the Classic view's header is now a compact newspaper nameplate: your icons and who's online on top, then the paper's name with where you are on one side and the clock on the other, your purse and your bars. It's about half as tall, so the page you opened starts on the first screen. The page banner and the quick-action strip are slimmer on phones too, and a crime card's picture is wider and shorter. Tablets and computers are unchanged.
  • Every "are you sure?" now asks in the game's own box, with Confirm and Cancel: leaving a gang or kicking someone out, quitting a job, selling a property, deleting several letters at once in Mail, and everywhere else that asked. Nothing happens until you press Confirm.
  • The beta request pages and their emails now speak German as "du", like the rest of the game.

Fixed

  • On phones the bars in the header (energy, health and the rest) are no longer cut off: each stands on its own line with its full name, in every language. The level bar is in your language now too.
  • The Consigliere's round button no longer covers crime cards, on the Graphical crime board or any other page of cards: it moves up out of the way or tucks half behind the edge of the screen.

Release notes · Version 0.9.40 ·

Find your feet

New

  • Crimes you can do now come first. In each tier of the Crimes page the crimes you can pull right now are at the top, and the ones your level or a missing course still keeps from you fold away under "Locked (N)": tap it to see them (it opens by itself when you've just tried one). On the Graphical crime board they go to the end. With no heat anywhere, the heat panel leaves out its list of districts; on a phone it waits below the first tier of crimes, and with heat it shows only the district you're in. No crime's odds, costs or rewards changed.
  • Starter notes on the desk. A new player's desk in the Graphical view has three paper notes pinned to it: "Train at the gym", "Commit a crime" and "Get a job". Each opens its page and comes off once you've done it. From level 3 they're gone.

Improved

  • No job yet? The Jobs page now has a line at the top that takes you straight to the first career that will hire you, each career's Apply button sits above its rank table, and your first shift is ready straight away.
  • The view switch in the top bar now says where it takes you: "Street view" or "Classic view". On phones it stays an icon.
  • In the Graphical view the back alley's board is now "The crime board", with "Crimes on offer" and "Commit the crime", the same words as the Classic Crimes page, so it's no longer mixed up with legal jobs.
  • Joining a career in the Graphical view now gets a HIRED stamp; PAID is only for a shift you've worked.
  • Crimes in the Graphical view are quicker: the result takes you straight back to the crime board with one page load less, and each crime and the gym page do less work behind the scenes.
  • The Graphical view has a Log out button in its top bar, one click from the desk, the street or any room. On a phone, Account and Log out now sit at the top of the More tab.
  • Home-upgrade upkeep now works like your home's own upkeep: cash first, and whatever cash doesn't cover comes from the bank. The bank part shows "(from the bank)" in your money ledger, so a split payment is two lines. If cash and bank together can't cover it, the upgrade lapses as before, and paying a lapsed upgrade tells you when you don't have enough in cash or in the bank. The amounts haven't changed.
  • Error pages (a page that doesn't exist, a form that expired and the like) now show in your language.
  • "Where to?" finds more than menu names: the Emporium, every district by name and the free monthly draw. In the Graphical view the free monthly draw also hangs on the desk calendar.
  • Painted scenes show a soft blurred copy while they load instead of an empty box, on slow phones too.
  • Block on a profile, and Block and Delete in your messages, now ask in the game's own box.

Fixed

  • Stamps in the Graphical view (TRAINED, PAID and the rest) no longer cover the words of the result.
  • The phone tab bar fits a small phone in every language: tabs have short names and the page can no longer slide sideways.
  • German wording: "1 Nerv" instead of "1 Nerven", "EP" for experience everywhere, "Dein Fortschritt" and clean numbers on the gym banner. The captions on crime cards no longer run into each other.
  • A frame around your portrait now sits around it instead of covering your face.
  • A new player's welcome telegram on the Front Page no longer shows as an empty green bar.

Release notes · Version 0.9.39 ·

Watch the clock

New

  • The heat gauge now keeps time. It counts down to the next point of heat you lose ("Next −1 heat in 12 min"), tells you when the district you're in will be cool again and, while you're Watched or Hot, when you'll drop below Watched. Every district in the list and on the city map shows its own "cool by" time, and the lay-low page shows what each choice takes off and by when. Times are on the game's clock. Heat cools exactly as fast as before.

Improved

  • New players start in the Classic view. You can switch to Graphical at any time from the top bar or your Account page; if you already picked a view, it stays.
  • A block now also stops bounties between the two of you, and friend requests either way.
  • The filter for names and headlines catches more disguised swear words, such as numbers or letters standing in for look-alike letters.
  • Job rank perks on the Jobs page and medal notices now read in your language, with the medal's name translated too.
  • In Spanish, French, Portuguese and German, a quiet line at the foot of the page says that parts of the text were translated automatically, and wire stories read in a translation say so under the byline. The legal pages (terms, privacy, cookies and the like) stay in English until a person has checked the translation.
  • The draw rules now open inside the game, so reading them no longer takes you out of the Graphical view.
  • Business income above your daily target is taxed a bit more: the Properties page now shows the taxman taking 85% of what goes over.

Fixed

  • The portrait you chose now shows in jail, in hospital and in Federal Jail.
  • The gang badge on a profile opens the gang's page again.
  • On phones, long tab names wrap onto two lines instead of being cut off.
  • "Walk the streets" on the city map now plays its painted transition into the neighbourhood.

Release notes · Version 0.9.38 ·

Over the wall

New

  • Jailbreaks are a fairer bet on a long stay. The base chance is now 20% (it was 15), Dexterity adds 1% for every 40 points (it was every 50), and every 20 minutes you still have to serve add another 1%, up to 10% more. Caught now costs 10 extra minutes instead of 15; the mark on your police record and the alert to your friends stay. With 100 Dexterity that's about 23% on a short stay and about 29% with two hours left; with 500 Dexterity about 33% and 39%. Short stays are still best waited out.
  • Marks beside names. A name now shows one mark at most: the Staff badge, a role mark (the press card for writers of The Evening Racket, the quill for the wiki's writers), the Founder laurel or the donator star. The Rules page explains each one: only the game puts a mark there, the Staff badge is optional, and nobody with a mark will ever ask for your password, your Gold or your items.

Improved

  • Two new reasons when you report a player: "Claims to be staff" (zero tolerance) and "Claims a role mark they don't have". Pretending to be staff now has its own line under Fair play on the Rules page.

Release notes · Version 0.9.37 ·

Cooler heads

New

  • Heat cools faster. A district's own heat now drops 4 points an hour, and the heat that follows you round the city drops 2 an hour at the same time. While your heat where you stand is 60 or more, that district cools twice as fast. From Hot (90) your heat is gone in about 14 hours (it took 30), from 60 in about 11 (it took 20), and laying low at your own lodging takes Hot down to nothing in about three and a half hours.

Improved

  • On phones, the pinned strip now shows your level as "Lvl 9" instead of a purple star that was easy to mistake for Respect. On narrow phones the district name sits on its own line, and the shortcuts fit the smallest screens.

Fixed

  • On phones, the notifications panel now fits the screen in both views, and long titles wrap onto two lines instead of running off the edge.

Release notes · Version 0.9.36 ·

Lying low

New

  • Heat is now kept per district. A quarter of each job's heat follows you round the city; the rest stays where you did the job, so moving on cools things down, but only so far. Lay low anywhere (twice as fast) or at your own lodging (four times as fast). A beat-cop bribe now clears the district you're in, with one daily limit for the whole city. The heat gauge shows every district, and in the Graphical view the city map and the top bar on the street show your heat.

Improved

  • New paintings for three districts: Chinatown glows with a ring of lanterns around the pavilion, Capitol Hill gets brighter police lamps and call boxes, and the Ironworks now shows sawtooth sheds, a gantry crane, two forge fires and a picket line at the union hall. The newsstand's classifieds board now stands out from the racks, and it catches the lamplight at night.

Release notes · Version 0.9.35 ·

Gold laurels

New

  • Founding Families: players who kept coming back during the beta can now be named Founders of Vesper City. Staff check the list by hand. Each Founder gets the gold laurel by their name, the Founder badge and title on their profile and the Founder portrait. Cosmetic only, never for sale.

Improved

  • Gang wars play by one rulebook: the weekly limit counts every war a gang declares, at home or across the city, and Vesper City has a new safeguard ready in case strong gangs start picking on much weaker ones.

Fixed

  • The note under Found a gang no longer promises that local gangs can never be attacked from outside their district: it now says how gang wars really work in Vesper City.

Release notes · Version 0.9.34 ·

Portraits in oil

New

  • Over 250 new pictures: Vesper City's newspaper characters, dealers, coaches and bosses have their portraits, and the new bank vaults, moments, events, perks, Gold Shop services, store packs and every vehicle now have their own art.

Improved

  • The wiki has a new painted front page: its header, every category picture and the Every item / Every crime tiles now match the painted article pictures.
  • The Account page opens much faster, and Your face shows every earned face's progress and rarity without the wait.

Fixed

  • Graphical view: on a phone a building's ⚡ no longer hides under the building next door, the name signs in rooms keep clear of the other spots' markers, and the desk calendar's label no longer opens onto Claim the daily reward.

Release notes · Version 0.9.33 ·

Across town

New

  • Gang wars now cross the city: declare on any gang in Vesper City and take the fight to their turf. Your roster travels to their district, and only fights won there count. A member who joins the winners from another district moves home with them.

Release notes · Version 0.9.32 ·

Neon and lamplight

New

  • The website now shows the real game: a strip of screenshots on the home page, a Screenshots gallery and pages on crimes, gangs, fights, property and the city, in all five languages; until launch the join buttons ask for a beta invite.
  • The website's footer now links to the city's social pages and has a Vote for us button.

Improved

  • Three districts got a fresh coat of paint: The Strip has new neon and an art-deco cabaret, the Financial District wakes to a cold bright morning, and the Southside Slums' old bank finally looks as run-down as its street.

Fixed

  • Graphical view: rooms fit the screen on a computer, tapping a small building on a phone opens the building instead of its ⚡, the desk's Claim the daily reward no longer sits on the calendar, and the office wall's chalkboard label is off its chalk heading.