Happy Birthday Payday!

[Mr. Lemming]

Yes Crimefest has fallen upon us once more as Payday: The Heist's 4th birthday arrives like some sneaky little mask-stealing, name-grabbing impostor that forces hard working men who were ratted out by a freaking employer to rot in prison for two years.

http://www.overkillsoftware.com/games/crimefest2015/

Have to love the GenSec vault opening like a certain vault from a certain popular video game series.

ANYWAYS! Down to the stuff you master criminals managed to acquire during the Road to Crimefest!

First up, 90% off Payday: The Heist, up to 75% off all things Payday 2-related (why it says "up to" 75% I don't know, everything in the store I can see is indeed 75% off including the Chivalry pack that just came out), and Payday 2 is free to play for 10 whole days for those who haven't joined us yet!

And in the grand scheme of Crimefests past, we have a daily unlocking motif to keep us on edge as one prize daily is revealed.

Today's prize, well it's a bit strange. I think Vlad's been visiting de_dust or 2fort a bit much because he's opened his very own Black Market weapons supply with weapon skins. While they evidently will affect a weapon's stats in some way when you use them, the skins are only available from the belly of a safe that you can obtain from the payday drop cards at the end of a heist. And to open them? Well that's where I'm not real happy. You need a special drill (read: a key) which can be obtained on the Steam market currently retailing for about $2.50 a pop. I'm hoping they can drop through other means, because this is kind of disappointing if not.

 

[Mr. Lemming]

Day 2 is trying to make up for the furor that day 1 brought with FIVE new masks from Vlad. The first is vaguely like Sputnik crossed with the Great Gazoo helmet, second is a freaking tiara (honestly we've stolen that thing enough to warrant a demand for it), third is a Russian fur hat kind of like the Heavy from TF2 has, fourth is kind of like a variant of the Hector kill mask, and fifth is a beyond awesome Baba Yaga mask.

And yes they're all free.

 

[Mr. Lemming]

Ugh, after going through withdrawls all day for the most part due to my entire network being down (no TV, no landline phone, no internet...) I'm late on this, but today brings a new heist that has us travelling to what was once known as southern California to pull Vlad's new toys out of a truck after a massive earthquake crippled the region. Apparently Vlad has real problems with anything and everything screwing him over when it comes to shipping matters...

 

[Mr. Lemming]

Day 4 is... um... Well, it's gameplay related and not...

First up is the AI apparently pulled the bullet out of their medulla oblongata and can now trade hostages for teammates, which means you don't have to run to a hostage yourself all the time unless they turn out to have missed a bunch of shrapnel in that noggin of theirs and continuously put themselves in mortal danger to do so. They've got a lot of health typically (2000 I think according to Hoxhud's meter?), but that won't stop a rampaging dozer...

Second is actually kind of handy: another option for filtering rooms in the Crime.net browser. Now the guy who made the room can select an option of "Stealth" or "Loud" for their preferred style so you don't join a GObank just to find out they want to try stealthing the thing when you're ready to go Rambo. Kind of wish they added the ability to look for rooms that are filtered for things like "Overkill or higher" difficulty, as having to switch from OVK to Deathwish is irritating instead of having them on one screen.

 

[Mr. Lemming]

Day 5 is going to make all you Muscleheads happy, as you've got a brand new LMG to play with along with a tripod mod that allows you to sit down and use that bullet hose like you mean it.

Yes today we all receive the KSP 58 “Kulspruta”, and applying a tripod to any LMG basically removes the recoil from the gun in exchange for you hunkering down on the ground with it. Mass wave of GenSec guards got you down as they bum rush your position? Let them eat [lead] cake with the Bullet Sprayer and show them who's the real boss of the heist.

 

[Mr. Lemming]

Okay, Day 6 is beyond awesome IMO. Today, Overkill gave me (and others I suppose) who've been requesting this heist to come to Payday 2 the best half-birthday gift evar in the form of...

That's right folks, the overdrill heist from Payday: The Heist is back! And to boot they've tweaked it so that the whole thing is stealthable! And as an added bonus they've put the original heist music (Gun Metal Gray) into the Payday 2 soundtrack as well for those who didn't own the original OST.

And Wolf himself decided to answer part of our complaints by making the loot cards have a chance to give you drills now to open those skin safes, thereby giving people a method of opening them without shelling out $2.50 for them. It's almost a guarantee that this wasn't planned, but it's a nice gesture nonetheless. Now if only they'd axe the stat boosts on the skins themselves...

 

[Mr. Lemming]

Smaller update today that, irritatingly, hasn't hit the Crimefest website yet. Day 7 yields 3 new tracks from a new source named Le Castle Vania, an electronic dance music project from an Atlanta-based DJ whom some of you might recognize if you saw a little unknown movie by the name of "John Wick". As I'm stuck updating still I can't tell which are the new tracks we've gotten, but new heisting music is always appreciated. Oh, and a Le Castle Vania mask, didn't notice that note initially since it was kind of buried in at the bottom of the patch notes.

Secondly, you know how you choose Hoxton or Dallas or Dragan as your preferred character and always end up as Bonnie (ugh) when you join a pub? Well now you've got options, as you can select a number of preferred characters instead of just the one! What's that? You hate Houston, Bonnie, and Jacket? Well select those characters you do like and suddenly your chances drop drastically that you'll get one of the disliked characters!

 

[Mr. Lemming]

Oh dear god. Day 8 brings us something of a new enemy: SWAT Van Turret 2.0.

Remember how it had something of a dead zone right next to the van? Apparently now the van can spew out gas to keep you away from it. And it can repair its armor. And it hits harder... Apparently it'll be a little bit rarer than it previously was, but according to the notes "you'll know it's there" when it's there....

Secondly, another 4 free masks! A pirate skull with tricorn hat, one I haven't the foggiest about that looks like its mouth was used as a golf ball polisher (with teeth), an Oscar-themed face mask (you know, the award statue Oscar), and "Fatboy". Fatboy kind of reminds me of Lard Lad Doughnuts' mascot, and oddly creepy at that...

And thirdly, a new achievement. Apparently somewhere in FWB there's a Titan safe. Drill that safe and collect the stuff inside to obtain the Au Ticket achievement. Complete the achievement and you get a FWB safe (yes the skin ones) and a free drill to rip through it and collect whatever might be inside. But remember, you've only got 30 days to finish this one and get the safe/drill combo. Anything past that and it'll just be the achievement itself.

/edit stuffs

After running FWB on normal (easymode stealth) with silent drills I noted two things: One, the safe is really easy to find as it's right next to the desk before you go down the spiral staircase to the parking garage at the very end; and Two, it can be done on any difficulty. The skin I got personally was a FN P90 one that's golden and black, and actually looks really awesome. Might actually use it just for fun if I can fit it into my typical loadout.

 

[Mr. Lemming]

Well, the classics just keep on a-comin' as the next to last day of Crimefest brings home the bacon. And the pork butt, and chitlins.

Yes, the P:TH heist "Slaughterhouse" has come to PD2. It wasn't really one of my favorite heists, but it has its charm as you shoot at the pigs from behind hanging rows of pigs Hopefully tomorrow brings us my other favorite heist from the original game: No Mercy.

Also included for the heck of it are two masks which I think are going to be awfully heavily used by trolls... Remember Vlad's heart-shaped sunglasses he was wearing in the trailer earlier? He sent a pair to Chins or Chains or whatever, along with a pair of the joke glasses with a large nose and mustache.

Crimefest ends tomorrow, so hopefully it's something to take us out of the festivities with a bang instead of a whimper!

 

[Mr. Lemming]

Well unfortunately, Crimefest ends with something of a whimper. Of a Dawg. Much whimper.

Day 10 technically gives us three things: more achievements for Slaughterhouse (one that's "securing a marked pig" with the gold on Overkill or higher to get a Slaughterhouse safe and drill for 30 days), 4 more masks (3 trollface and Dawg the shiba inu of meme fame all linked to achievements), and a new technical 'fix':

You actually jump in the game now. No more sudden elevation changes when watching someone else jump ingame, no now they actually jump. And hence where the achievements for the masks lay. One has you jumping 100 times in 30 seconds, the second has you jumping once after the update, the third has you jumping constantly for the whole heist without ever having 4 seconds go by without a hop out of you, and the fourth has you not jumping at all through the entire heist.

On other news related to Crimefest, apparently they found a critical bug that Valve is fixing currently that's prevented them from releasing the Completely Overkill vault currently. They say it should be ready for release next week once the fix is put in, so it's kind of a blow against the rumor going 'round the Steam forum about the safe being nothing but weapon skins.