February 09, 2010 1,000,000 Posts

05:29pm by Lijen (Site)

The vDream community has come very far since we launched the vForum. There is now a ton of action in the vForum as we have officially surpassed 1 Million posts!

Here are some highlights of creative ways that you (our users) are using the forums:

- A multitude of different guides in the “How to Play vDream” section including buying guides, VDI guides, and helpful tips for new users
- Over 290K posts in the “Car Shows and Contests” section where users are finding creative ways to show off their vdreams and compete with each other in vDream Tournaments
- The vDream Designer program (Part Requests & Submissions) has grown into a weekly monster! Thousands of users look forward to the weekly UGC announcement, and the designer community on vDream continues to create killer content for the users

Because the vForum is a part of vDream that we feel is very important, we will be making some slight upgrades to it in the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned! Another thing to note, stay creative with the ways you guys are using the forum because we look to the forum activity when determining what new features to build into vDream.

Happy vDreaming!

January 31, 2010 No more Tesla roadster?!?!?

07:31pm by Daniel (Cars)

WOW! The electric car that many thought was to be the coming of the messiah for the automotive industry has been pulled from production for the coming year!

While they are working on a new platform, the roadster remains their only actual product. What are your thoughts? Is this another “Camaro” cancellation?

Get the full story here:

http://jalopnik.com/5460062/tesla-to-kill-electric-roadster-in-2011

December 04, 2009 Welcome to 3.0

07:57pm by Cheechoo (Site)

vDream 3.0 has been released!

Here is the changelog:

- part types unlock as you level up and will be available for your vDream career - random challenges unlock at Licensed 3 stripe. records will be unaffected before this point.

- All parking spots purchasable from Garage -> Parking spots. we will rotate in collectibles and alphabeticals in this spot - posters can be made from My Profile, and clicking on one of the posters on the wall - Accordion listing in the parts shop, garage, and auto row - app is wider

- triple the amount of trophies - Conversion Kits/Widebody Kits can now be done. Designers, have at it. On our side we will also work on providing these kits for every car - once you get a trophy you will never lose it

One of the main points of 3.0 is the new leveling. Leveling is about 3 times faster than leveling at 2.0. In 2.0, it would take you 3 months to go from about E to Ac. In 3.0, it will take you 3 months to go from N to F1 with the same amount of activity.

So those of you who are upset about not being a higher level, after a few days you will realize you level much faster than before, and your next level will come sooner.

The Admin team will be in support mode for the next week, handing out COTW trophies and Designers trophies, and dealing with any other 3.0 support issues.

Happy vDreaming!

December 02, 2009 3.0 Update: Triple the Trophies

02:38pm by Cheechoo (Site)

One new addition to 3.0 is a large influx in trophies. Trophies have become a pretty big part of vDream Racing, and currently the trophy offering is somewhat paltry.

So we’ve tripled the amount of trophies that can be earned by you guys.

Here’s a teaser!

November 27, 2009 Level Balancing & Challenge Quota

07:10am by Cheechoo (Site)

On to the next teaser update to prepare you guys for 3.0!

One annoying fact that we’ve figured out is that it takes users very very long to level up, and therefore unlock things that they’ve always wanted (that higher car tier, that high performance part). The users that are F1 pilots have been around for over a year.

One of the bigger things about 3.0 is level balancing. We are squeezing the top levels together so it doesn’t take so long to level up. In addition, we are adding mini-levels that we call “stripes” in between each level. There will be things unlocked at each stripe as well as at each level. The important aspect of stripes is that users will feel like they are making more progress. Instead of having to wait a full month to level up to the next level, you will level stripes in that month, all the while unlocking important aspects of the game, and cars, and parts.

For the super users, there will be an unnamed number of new levels beyond F1 pilot for you to strive for.

Current challenge quotas are very static. 15 challenges once a day, and 5 challenges every 4 hours. Only an extra 1 challenge refresh for F1 Pilots. We are changing this to make it much more dynamic. The 15/day, and the 5/4hours will be changed at each level so that as you level up, you will be able to send more challenges, in the form of x per day, and y per 4 hours.

November 25, 2009 Parking lots... and Interface

11:58pm by Cheechoo (Site)

The next thing we want to talk about is the new parking lot interface and system.

Right off the bat I want to apologize to some of the super-users who have been wanting to be able to sell parking spots that they don’t want, but this feature likely won’t make it into 3.0, but it is still something that we want to implement.

That said, we are making the parking lot system simpler, and easier to understand:

First off, everyone will get one free parking space. This is mainly so that it becomes easier for new users to get that 2nd car. Saving up 30-80k when you’re wanting that tier 2 or 3 car is quite the deterrent and experience killer. Secondly, there will be a much easier interface to purchase the new parking spaces that come out, instead of hiding them in the donate page or the Garage/Auto Row.

On the interface side, we’re doing our best to simplify the experience to streamline your gameplay experience. Right now the parts shop and garage are terribly messy, so we’re doing an accordion to clean up the shops.

The dashboard is getting revamped and there’s a new header image (no more city!). The city had to go because it was too dang big, and pushed site content too far down.

And we are pulling all advertisements! We are trying to improve the user experience, and the ads simply take too much away.

November 24, 2009 And now for the details...

03:42pm by Cheechoo (Site)

Now for the 3.0 fine print:

Because of the way Part Set/Conversion Kit/Widebody Kits are made, we are setting “part types” to be the unlockable part features, instead of setting gold/bronze/grey tags to a part model.

What this means: this means that instead of being able to max out a car of a certain tier and not being able to max out a car of a higher tier, you won’t be able to max out a car of any tier until you’ve unlocked all part types. For instance, at a low level you’ll be able to get a whole bunch of parts for a Civic, but not the more advanced part types. When you level up, if you haven’t unlocked the more advanced part types, you’d still only be able to get the same amount of parts for the car you just unlocked.

Why? One reason is because of the way part groupings (conversion kits, widebody kits, part sets) are. Another reason is because we want those Kits to be unlocked at a much later time. Users that are just getting the hang of vDream will be overwhelmed by the complexity of Part Sets, so we want to make sure they are only available for the more experienced users.

We feel that unlocking part types also makes more sense simply because there are certain part types that are inherently more difficult to use because they require more knowledge of how the vDream system works. Unlocking these at a later time allows users to get a better grasp of vDream before they delve into more difficult decisions.

So please! It’s another call-to-action to the current 2.0 user-base! Get all the parts you can, while you still can, before they get locked! High level users need not worry, you’ll likely have everything unlocked anyway.

November 23, 2009 3.0

01:19pm by Cheechoo (Site)

vDream 3.0 is coming!

What’s to come soon, you ask?

Conversion Kits! Always wanted that JDM Integra? Always wanted that Slant-nose 930? Is there more?

Widebody Kits! Those widebody kits you’ve always wanted will be coming. Let’s get some wider stances to tackle corners faster!

Keep in mind we will be releasing the technology to work on these things, we won’t have hundreds of kits available right off the bat. =)

November 16, 2009 Sven Negrassus - 100000 VDI!

02:59am by Cheechoo (Site)

Congratulations to Sven, our loyal user, the very first user to ever hit 100,000 VDI!

Sorry that we weren’t able to hook you up with a new rank, Sven, we are busy with many new features for vDream! We also didn’t think you’d make it so fast!

So I guess that means you’ve beat the game!