A total of 20 new in-game events, spread over 4 new story lines, make up the bulk of this content update. It also contains a few balance adjustments and quality of life fixes.
Chief among the quality fixes is the addition of a "Saving" icon, to indicate when the game is auto-saving. I added this after learning that some people's save games had corrupt data after leaving the game mid-save. Hopefully this simple addition should fix this problem.
Of the 4 new story lines added, 3 of them may trigger after publishing a Climate, Business or Art & Culture themed issue. The events are not guaranteed to trigger on the first try, but the chance increases with every themed issue. The 4th story line may be triggered by publishing a Sports-themed issue, but only after purchasing the "Professional Sports" upgrade.
As usual, each story line has 3 endings. Each ending has its own consequences and rewards, as do the choices that lead you to them. You decisions are weighed against the kind of newspaper you are running, and the "right" choice depends on your newspaper's demographic.
Balance-wise, the most notable change comes with celebrities. You may already have noticed that publishing stories with celebrity names attached gives them a boost in importance, and your stories can affect what those celebrities think of you. It may even come to them endorsing or condemning your newspaper. None of this is new, but what is, is taking each celebrity's Fame score into account. Now, the effect of an endorsement/condemnation will scale with the Fame, for better and for worse.
Change list in Beta 4
- Added: Sports-themed issues + Professional Sports upgrade may trigger new story (5 events)
- Added: Business-themed issues may now trigger a new story line (5 events)
- Added: Art-themed issues may now trigger a new story line (5 events)
- Added: Climate-themed issues may now trigger a new story line (5 events)
- Added: Saving icon, to avoid accidental data corruption by quitting while saving
- Changed: The effect of making celebrities happy/mad now scales with the fame score of that celeb
- Fixed: memory leak on the map screen would cause a crash after prolonged playing
- Fixed: crash when loading a game, saved while having in-game music turned off
- Fixed bug that would not properly reset your upgrade tree in a new game, after a game over
- Fixed a bug where a different newspaper name could appear in the ticker when first starting a game
- Fixed a bug that could prevent 3 story lines from triggering as expected