Sunday, September 2nd, 2007
Issue: 38   Editor: MadamNyxxie


Auto Burglary : Improvement or Setback? Trippy
You finally found some high-ranked player to Organize Crime with because you just stole a Duesenberg. While changing the plates you find out the car is damaged, so you decide to repair it before you use it as your getaway car. After all, robbing the bank is going to be a big job. But when you return to the repair shop you discover that “The repair shop recognized the stolen car and returned it to police”. The first thing that crosses your mind is what your OC leader told you that very morning : “Repairing cars in the same location as you stole them significantly increases their chance of being recognized and returned”. Too bad you didn’t listen to his advice.

One of the things that a lot of people found out this week is that repairing the car in the same state as you stole it isn’t a very good idea. The Game Forum was filled with topic’s about people losing their cars. At first, most people were happy with this update. Then, the first people started losing their cars. Most of them wondered what was wrong, and some thought it was some kind of bug. But BSF2000 had explained it all in the ‘New Auto Burglary Sticky’.

“ You'll notice an 'H' column. This is the 'Heat' of the car. There are three levels: Red, Yellow, and Green. Once you steal a car, it will be in the red heat. Changing the plates or shipping the car will decease the heat and will take longer to be recovered by police. However, all cars will eventually be found unless they are in a garage”.

So, all our cars will be “Found by the police and returned to the owner?” Most people started wondering if this new update also was a good update. So let’s take a better look to the upsides and downsides of it.

According to some, the biggest upside of the update is the new car on the ‘cars you can steal’ list. The police car, as we already found out, provides a bigger Oc outcome. People who had used the police car in an Oc told us they made $800,000+ in an 1 car Oc. Most people also think you are able to kill someone with less bullets if you use a police car as getaway car. But since no one has tried this, we can only speculate about it.
Also, with this update, the car stealing has become a little more realistic. You can change the plate, which will decease the heat. The shipping distance/time between states have changed to reflect the actual mileage between state capitols. And you can now see how much your cars are worth total on the auto burglary page.

But then we have some downsides. As I mentioned before, repairing the car holds the risk that the repair shop will recognize the car and return it. Changing the plate and shipping the car won’t stop the police from finding it back. And according to some, stealing cars have become more difficult.

And then we have this buy/sell problem. Because of the simple reason that a lot of people lost their cars since the update, cars have raised up in prize about $10,000 to $15,000 per car. Before the update you could buy a Duesenberg for around $35,000. Now, the normal prize is around $54,000. All of this together could also make it a lot harder to find a driver for your Oc.

So has this update improved the game we love? Or not? Maybe if the garages could hold more cars, this update would be better. Or maybe it is just fine, and we complain to much. But that's for you to decide.

This was Trippy, and to all, Happy Gaming!