Hey there Hoppereenos. Bouncing on in to let you in on a lil secret. Well, maybe not so much a “secret”. I have been so crazy involved in the fun and excitement of the “BUNNY EVENT”, that I forgot to tell you all about a cool new feature in the Origin Desktop Manager. Sit tight, this is a good one.
Since I started in this game, I have ALWAYS used the Origin Desktop Manager to Add, Delete, and Manage my friends/neighboreenos. Why? Well, in the start it was the ONLY way us Android users could. We didn’t have the in game app feature to do it. EA has come quite a long way since then.
Now, for the cool part. Everyone is trying to figure out a way or method to reach out to their fellow neighbors. We even tried to set up an area here. Most people just want SOME way to communicate with each other in the game. Well, there IS a way now…kinda…sorta. Let me show you how. (FYI, this requires BOTH neighbors to have Origin Desktop Manager.)
Before we get started, a few warnings. Be careful what you send as you never know WHO is going to be reading it. Also, I suggest to keep it PG as they ARE monitored and you will be booted for abusive and inappropriate behaviors (that means even locked out of your TSTO game). You have been warned. Be nice. Be decent. Be respectful.
You need to first of all have it on your desktop. Information to add it is in a previous post here. Once installed, open Origin on your desktop and log into your account using the same email and password you use to log into your TSTO game with your email/ID and password.
Once you are logged in, you will see the main area as well as options to the top left and top right of the screen. There are two ways to chat. I will show you the first. Click on your avatar picture in the top right corner of the screen.
Once you click on the avatar pic, you will be taken to your main area of your profile and friends list. From here you can scroll down until you find the neighbor/friend you want to chat with. (Or use the search feature and look for them that way.)
Once you locate them, you click on their name and it will take you to their profile. There, right under their avatar, you will see the option to “Chat”. Click on it. (You will also notice the other manage friends options to the right.) 
You will now see the “Chat Box” open up on your screen (you can move this around to make it easier too. If you look at the top of the Chat Box, information about the person will be listed. If they are online, they will get the message right away. If they are offline, they won’t see it until they log into their Origin Desktop Manager. Just start typing your message in the text box and hit enter when you are done.
Once you hit enter, the message is sent on its way. 
Now you wonder, what will the neighbor/friend see…well when they log into their account on the Origin Desktop Manager, they will get a pop up box of all the chats awaiting them.
At that time they can just close out the box or write back to you. (If you are still logged in and “Online”, then you will see the message come back. If not, same thing…it won’t appear until you log back in to yours.)
Now for the second way to do the same thing. Once in your Origin Desktop Manager, go to the top left menu options and click on “Friends” (as you can see you have other cool options in here too). Click on “Show Friends List”. 
Your entire list of Pending, Awaiting Request, and Actual friends/neighbors now will show up. Again, you can scroll to the name or use the search feature and look for them that way. Once you locate the friend you want, highlight to the right of their name and a lil arrow will appear. Click on it. 
You will now see the options for chatting. If a LOT of your friends are online right now, then you can have a group chat. Otherwise, you can chat individually. (Notice the other cool options to manage friends in this link.) Click on “Chat”. Once you click on Chat, you will be brought to the same message box as above. 
So there you have it. A way, outside of the game, to possibly reach other neighbors if they are also on Origin Desktop Manager.
Now there are some settings for the chat you may want to pay attention to. They will come in handy. If you do not change these, you may lose any previous chats you had with a neighbor.
Top left corner of your screen. Click on “Origin”, you will see many options pull down. The one you want to locate and click on is “Application Settings”. This will take you to the screen to change your Chat Settings. 
Once in there, you will see the options so show the Chat Box as soon as you open your Origin. You will also see the option to time stamp them so you know when the other person sent the message and when you returned it. Also…this one is VERY IMPORTANT…you see the option to “Remember Conversation History” if you do NOT check this…all convos will be lost when you close out Origin. So if you want to save them, make sure this one is checked. 
A different way of communicating with one another for a silly lil game. Let me know if you gave this a try yourself already. How is YOUR experience with it? Any comments? Complaints? Anxious to try it? Sound off in the comments below.
‘Til Next Time…
~Bunny
How many neighbors can you have total and does that total include your Other Springfield?? I only ask because a co-worker’s spouse also plays and I would like to add her but I already had over 100 neighbors (including Other Springfield) and dropped enough to get my total down to 100 (including OS) and want to know if that’s enough or do I need to drop 1 or more to safely send her the request and still be able to see her Springfield.
100 is the max, so you’ll probably have to drop 1 more
Either this has since changed, or does not work on iPad. Smh.
Was really looking forward to it.
It really wasn’t that great to be honest. I will have to check to see if its still in use when I get back to a desktop.
It took you and your neighbors first knowing it was there, then using it, then remembering to check mark the dialog to stay…on n on. Oh well.
It is why we set up the open thread here. So people can chat it up all week with each other.
Hi Bunny, Short of filling up entire map with blue houses, do you have any suggestions on how we can accumulate a lot of coins. There are 2 $10mil buildings but I always hit a $5mil ceiling. Every time I reach $5mil, new buildings are released and I buy them on impulse. At this rate I’ll never accumulate enough cash for the two buildings.
This post should help 🙂
http://tstoaddicts.com/2013/10/21/guest-post-so-you-think-you-can-tap-accumulating-doh/
I log into my WordPress account before bringing up Addicts. I like that it automatically posts under my name without having to enter anything, and there is this awesome notification bubble at the top that turns orange when someone replies, or likes one of my posts. It’s been great! I can also upload & store several avatars/pics & switch easily whenever I want 🙂
Has anyone’s game chrashed. I’ve tryed everything but it dosent go past the ea screen and the returns to my phone page can anyone help
Keep trying. Could be your interenet connection to a server issue. If it continues, contact EA. (I got into my game on both devices just fine.)
Great post, Bunny…..can I change my Origin avatar there? Hate the stock image options they had when I first signed up.
Thanks! 😉 Most definitely. It is similar to pretty much any online profile, you have General settings, Privacy Settings, Friend Setting…etc etc. I like using it more than the in game options for friends. Runs so much smoother for me.
Woohoo…well…if only it worked for me!!!…aaaaaargggg…oh hey, Bunny!!! I don’t have much access to a computer, so…oh well, great news though!!! 🙂
I know…I hope they streamline it to something better. You still have ways of talking to me. 😉
🙂 sorry about this morning… 🙂
I’ve had the desktop software for about a year now and I’ve always had the chat ability. Only reason I never used it is because no one I knew had the software as well. Seems like a great feature but the limitations make it hard to use. I’m still waiting on the long-ago promised Origin app. Hopefully they can integrate chat with that not requiring both sides to have the app. Good post!
Thanks Mike. Always a pleasure to hear your thoughts on things. 😉
I figured, its been around a while…but more and more are using it now. So maybe…if we show them we want to chat…they’ll get that app fired up and running. Lol. (Would be awesome if they did.)
Every time I check my origins friends list there is nobody online… of course that could be because I check it once every two months at 1am…
I use to leave my steam account logged in all the time back in the day when I was big into playing TF2.
Maybe I should start leaving my origin account logged in while I’m using my computer in case any of my neighbors wander by to say hello.
I keep my Origin Friends List open at work, but none of my ‘friends’/’neighbors’ are ever on. I’d like to chat, say “H’lo”, or get ideas for my Sprungfeld.
Great screen dump with the Weeping Angel as the profile pic! Don;t blink.