OK…So, the mystery about the glitch being an Easter Egg, or a Glitch that could be exploited is over. It is patched (along with some other changes), which finally settles the old question, “What came first? The Glitch or the Egg?”
Or maybe…”What was BIG about BEN Before the Patch?”
In any case…a few of the glitches have been patched. Hard to tell what the longterm ramifications for those who exploited may be, if any.
Here’s the list…
- The infinite currency payout from tapping the Big-Digi Ben in a neighbor’s towns was fixed.
- At the Go-Kart Track, the chances of winning 2-1 was changed from 56.51% to 66.01%, 9-1 from 33.15% to 20%, 19-1 from 7.83% to 10% and 49-1 from 2.52% to 4%The winnings from the 49-1 odds at the Go-Kart Track was lowered from $2,500,000 to $250,000.
- The Monorail Tunnels can’t be placed in succession…fixing a bug that allowed them to be removed, along with the land associated with the tunnel.
- Robot Parts and Future Bucks now won’t appear in the HUD until collection process is complete.
- Payouts for the “Sci-Fighter” mini game were increased with the addition of the new robots (thanks Gio/LPN).
In short…once again…EA had a bit of a “Glitch-Fest” with the Act and update. Go figure.
If it is any consolation to those of you who didn’t get a chance to “Exploit” (cheat) the Big Ben Bug, and are smarting from yesterday’s outage… The added payout on the Sci-Fighter will help a ton in staying on track.
I clear my PolyVac 4 times a day…and am staying well ahead of the calendar. So…there is hope yet, even for those who didn’t “exploit.”
Jeez, you guys are a weird bunch. One blogger calls enough, the other goes on a rant about it for paragraphs.
Never realized the comments are where the “thing” happens on this blog. It’s a game FFS.
Welcome to the weird world of Addicts…
True dat… 🤓
EA – Can we please have a glitch that helps us reach one billion dollars in SH. Thank You…
I would like to just wake up one day with 1 billion automatically added…
No glitch could make that grind any easier lol
From experience, Springfield Heights took
me minutes and hours and days and many curse words and laughter to get to a billion. I feel your pain.
I’m British and I’ve never heard the phrase “Dirk Turpin”.*
Video games have always contained glitches and cheats… it’s part of gaming,
🏆 😃 🇬🇧
It’s funny that people are “liking” this…it wasn’t meant to be a statement, it was just me trying to fix the fact that I had inadvertently tapped the link that unsubscribed me to this thread. I didn’t even think it would make it through moderation.
But I guess I can stand by the meaning that I think people thought it was meant to impart, too! 🙂
i usually try to delete them…sometimes they slip through
Oh, no problem…just thought it was funny! 🙂
Either way, pretty friggin funny.
OK. Let’s take a look at the WHOLE picture here…shall we?
EA makes a mistake in their programming. The Forum starts doing a massive PM campaign to share it…but “doesn’t want to tell anyone what it is, because they are afraid of tipping off EA.”
A handful of people on this site start bragging about using the exploit, but refuse to actually share it with the general population, for fear that their advantage will be taken away.
THAT IS AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE… period.
Then…when it gets corrected, the same selfish “insider traders” brag about how they cheated the system…to the point where some of the regular “law abiding” citizens here, get riled up and complain that the mods on this site didn’t share the information freely.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
However…those of you defending your actions…and being upset for being called out for playing an unfair advantage over the system (whether you think that nobody was hurt or not), are especially grievous in your actions by working so hard to keep it a secret, while bragging about the results.
Sorry…but that puts you in the same camp as insider traders on Wall St. that use their trade secrets to get things that others do not have access to.
I stand by my assertions… and will wait for another huge flow of denial from those of you who think you are special, and above the standards of others…because you have inside information.
I’ll say it again…this site doesn’t share hacks, cheats, or exploits that are a result of broken code. The entire world is at risk because hackers think they are justified in exploiting crappy code by Microsoft, Cisco and others. And then, ironically…you all go ballistic when hackers take down the EA servers for half a day.
Ambiguous? Hypocritical? Most likely. Selective morality at the least.
Well said. Completely agree.
Some fair points. I personally wasn’t talking about the morality of inside trading, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and espionage etc…. I do think “cheating” in this game and others is relatively harmless. A bit of a stretch between those complex issues and games.
I’m fine with you guys not sharing exploits, your business. People can go elsewhere. I still love you guys. Thanks addicts
Nice rant, though perhaps a little too rough. I’d like us all to be able to put this to rest now. Can we all have a group hug? We’re all in this together. All for one and one for all. Hooray!
Come here sillyboy 🤗🤗🤗
I’m in for a group hug. We grandpa types are always happy to buy everyone ice cream, after we make our point and make people cry over their actions. We all learn. Right?
Bring it in, sillyboy…
Oh boy! Ice cream! If you ever come to Portland, you need to go to Salt and Straw. It’s one of the best ice cream stores anywhere. Really good and (sometimes) crazy flavors. It’s like the VooDoo doughnuts of ice cream stores. It’s a Portland thing. Gotta keep it weird. 😜
“Ever in Portland?” I live in Eugene…home of weird!
I’m in P-town all the time.
Let’s do ice cream sometime. You can see in person that I only have one head…and no cloven hooves!
And if you drop a toy on the ground he’ll repeatedly pick it up for you. Or does that only work with Riley? 😉
*group hug*
Hey Pat. Ice cream (or a local brew) would be great, but you have to leave the Duck paraphernalia in Eugene.
*Hugs everyone then makes it weird with too much eye contact* Then, as per use, ppl say, ” who the hell are you!?”* 😊😩
Wrong, I did share it with anyone who asked me.
ok ok. Enough already. Seriously. I’m done with this. NO MORE.
The debate can go on and on and on. There’s no winners. Just losers. ENOUGH.
I’m done.
Let’s all 💋 & make up. It’s just a silly old game.
It’s hilarious that a using a glitch or cheat code in this game or xbox/ps4 game is synonymous with being a bad person. Simplistic and immature thinking in my dumb/irrelevant opinion. 😊 I don’t hack my tsto game but I don’t judge my neighbors that do. Am I resentful sometimes?… yep but that’s my problem.
Hall monitors are annoying….. then and now.
Cheaters will always find ways to rationalise their cheating
Please refrain from making moral judgements about how other people play the game. Are you saying that I cheated because I visited a neighbor who had the Digi Ben Tower? How is that cheating. Are you telling me that you were above it all because you purposefully AVOIDED entering neighbor towns that you knew had the tower?
Visiting a friends town that had the Digi Ben tower wasn’t the cheating part. You have no way of knowing if they have the tower or not the first time you visit them. Repeatedly going back there to get more Chronons is the cheating part. What you could have done was notice that something was strange when you visited a friends town and got chronons for no reason then googled it and found out it was a glitch giving free payouts. Then you could have avoided said friends town instead of repeatedly going back and forth to get more free chronons until it was patched the next day or so. Simple really.
Side note: this article is the first I had heard of this glitch. I rarely visit neighbors towns, maybe once a week at most if i feel like it.
And now let’s end the conversation on it. I think everyone just wants to move on…especially me 😉
My apologies. I know you mods have a tough time sometimes. I didn’t mean to add to them
No worries…
it’s more that this will go round and round with no end in sight. Those who are on one side will never see those on the other sides POV. So it’ll just be an endless debate…
Yes please. Thank you Alissa.
Amen, when I got to my phone I had 202 new emails and 57 left to sift through. Only about 15 I actually cared about
I’m over a day ahead on chronons. I didn’t know about the digi Ben glitch/cheat (whatever people want to call it) until now. I personally am glad that I didn’t know. I feel like it is more of a challenge this way for me personally. I also wouldn’t have had time to fully use the digi Ben to its full potential. I can only log in for the minute required every four hours until my evening session where I play for an hour. I’m glad that the side effect of this will be that there will be a lot of President Lisa’s rooming in friends towns 🙂 I do think I’m going to start reading the ea forums in addition to this site so I can stay in loop on these glitches and decide ahead of time. Btw love the addition of Patric
Careful on those forums…they’re not as friendly as we are.
Thanks for looking out 🙂
You can find nasty people on all forums, I’ve come across nasty people on here too lol
Thanks! I love being an addition…
This event has not been good , got Bart but don’t think I’ll try to get Lisa , can’t be bothered any more , game trying to take over your life
Life ruiningly fun…
Well, they do warn you up front that this game is “life-ruiningly fun”! 😉
Don’t give up, the payouts increased!
I won’t speak to the “morality” of using a glitch but there is precedent with regards to the “legality”.
Back in 2009, there were two men that discovered if they hit the right sequence of buttons on a video poker machine, they could win the jackpot every time. They didn’t physically tamper with the machine, but merely pushed the buttons in a very specific order. In short, the machine had a glitch.
These two went on to win hundreds of thousands of dollars at various casinos. Eventually they were arrested, even though at the time, neither the feds nor the gambling control board, knew how they were doing it.
They were arrested for violating the CFAA for gaining “unauthorized access” to the machine. If convicted, they would be facing years in jail.
So the prosecution had to prove that, even though the way players use the machine is by pushing buttons, doing so in a way that results in the software behaving in a way not intended by the developer, was a criminal offense. In short, basically what people were doing with the Digi-Ben glitch.
Long story short, the prosecutors could not prove their case and dropped the hacking charges from the two men. Primarily because the judge, using recent precedent set in other CFAA cases, insisted that the prosecutors have the same burden that the other cases had to reach. They couldn’t do it.
The two men were finally released from jail and set free. It is not clear how much of their winnings they were allowed to keep (conflicting reports).
Anyway, that case was the first thing I thought of while reading about the controversy over the “glitch”.
That’s pretty fascinating. It does seem pretty difficult to prosecute someone for doing that..since they’re not manipulating anything just pushing buttons in a certain sequence. Same concept here. Nothing illegal about it.
Unfortunately, it isn’t that clear cut.
The judge stated that one primary reason the video poker machine was not a “protected computer” under the CFAA, was because it wan’t attached to the internet or any kind of network. If it had been connected to a network, even just a LAN, it isn’t clear if the two guys would have been prosecuted or not.
There is the case where a man was sentenced to jail for accessing data on AT&T’s website by entering a url into his browser. It didn’t help his case that he is a horrible horrible human being, but yes, he went to jail for accessing data by entering a url into a browser. And he did it over and over and over again. The rationale for the conviction was that AT&T didn’t “intend” for the information to be public and therefore, he did not have authorized access.
Again long story short, but the federal courts have ruled that cellphones are “computers” since 2011, and the wording of the CFAA is very very broad, and since choronos can be used to buy virtual goods, which same virtual goods can be purchased for real money (donuts), then it is possible that a case could be brought against someone for using a glitch.
It won’t happen, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. There was the one case where prosecutors tried to charge a woman with a CFAA violation for violating a Terms of Service because she used a fake name.
That is, again, really fascinating. Never really thought of it like that. But it does make sense…
But if EA hasn’t tried to charge the hackers they won’t go after those who exploited the glitch.
It’s one thing to use the glitch to get yourself a little ahead of the game, because the odds were stacked against you. But i’ve been saying it for a couple of days now, using the glitch excessively to finish the prize track and earn more donuts is just as bad as the hackers who mod their games to get everything immediately. While you may not be doing anything illegal, the morality behind it is the same. But to each his w=own I guess…
I agree, it is highly unlikely that EA would go after people using a glitch, but they could.
There is another interesting aspect to applications (like Tapped Out) and fandom.
Many people, including myself on previous applications, will decompile a piece of software in order to look at the code. It helps being able to figure out how an application works.
This seemingly innocent act is certainly illegal and a corporation could certainly bring a civil suit in order to collect damage. In the US, it isn’t illegal to decompile or reverse engineer an application, unless the ToS or the EULA clearly states you can’t.
And they always say you can’t.
Technically, even if you click “View Source” on a website and that website has a ToS that says you can’t, then you are in violation of the law.
#themoreyouknow I never knew that last bit, especially about view source. I do that ALL the time lol
How could EA ever “go after those exploiting the glitch?” That would include just about everyone. I say that, because the “glitch” was passive. You earned a reward for visiting a neighbor that had the Digi-Ben tower. Are you telling me that there are gamers out there that deliberately avoided going into a neighbors town that they knew had the tower? Ridiculous!
I didn’t say they would.
And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with those that use the glitch…we’ve had this debate in another thread. You were part of it 🙂
But exploiting the glitch is different than having it happen naturally by just visiting your friends once a day…
I stopped using the glitch before bonuts lol
The digi-Ben glitch was no different from card counting at blackjack. And in case you’re wondering- card counting in not illegal:
“Card counting is not illegal under federal, state, and local laws in the United States as long as no external card counting device or person assists the player in counting cards. Casinos object to the practice, and try to prevent it,[23] banning players believed to be counters. In their pursuit to identify card counters, casinos sometimes misidentify and ban players suspected of counting cards even if they do not.[24]
Atlantic City casinos in the state of New Jersey are forbidden from barring card counters as a result of a New Jersey Supreme Court decision. In 1979 Ken Uston, a Blackjack Hall of Fame inductee, filed a lawsuit against an Atlantic City casino, claiming that casinos did not have the right to ban skilled players. The New Jersey Supreme Court agreed,[25] ruling that “the state’s control of Atlantic City’s casinos is so complete that only the New Jersey Casino Control Commission has the power to make rules to exclude skillful players.” The Commission has made no regulation on card counting, so that Atlantic City casinos are not allowed to ban card counters. Being unable to ban counters even if detected, Atlantic City casinos increased countermeasures.[26]”
The parallel here to the Digi-Ben glitch is that we didn’t need to manipulate anything to win. There was no reprogramming of the game, etc. In essence, all we did was enter into a neighbors’ town and received a reward over and over again. So tell me how that is cheating? We merely used our collective intelligence to exploit a (supposed) flaw in the game. We should all be patting each other on the back instead pointing the finger at some people.
I’ll get off my soap box now.
I think you missed the entire point of what was being said. No one was being called a cheater, it was just an examination into the legal precedent.
Well there have been a lot of people who have called it cheating on this site. I’m sorry Alissa. I wasn’t targeting you. I was addressing some of the other comments that have been made.
Also- I was quoting Strangeite when he/she said: “I agree, it is highly unlikely that EA would go after people using a glitch, but they could. ” And I wasn’t asserting that Strangeite was one of the ones who was saying that it was cheating.
So I don’t think I missed the point at all. I understood the legal points that were being made, and included one of my own when I cited the card counting legality.
Truce? 🙂
Of course 🙂
Here’s my take. Let people think what they want and say what they want. If you have nothing to be guilty of you shouldn’t take offense to it. No one knows you personally…just let the digital stuff roll off your shoulder. (it’s the only way i’ve survived doing this for so long lol)
IMO, being allowed say whatever you want a) shouldn’t include being mean to others and b) shouldn’t apply to moderators, who should be held to a higher standard. I’m pretty sure that you don’t always say what you might like to here, because you realize that, if it’s something very negative about someone, that would be inappropriate, given your role here.
I’m honestly tired of going round and round about this…..so i’m not talking about it any longer.
No one was individually attacked. No one was individually called out. You interpreted what he said to apply to you..
“I was quoting Strangeite when he/she said: “I agree, it is highly unlikely that EA would go after people using a glitch, but they could. ” And I wasn’t asserting that Strangeite was one of the ones who was saying that it was cheating.”
For the record, I don’t think using the “glitch” was cheating. In fact, I take great joy in looking for glitches, flaws, exploits, holes, etc. in systems. It is also a personality trait that I try and instill in my children.
I was simply pointing out the absurdity of the current laws, that by simply visiting a friends town in TSTO and it resulted in the game behaving in a way that the developer did not intend, it could, however remote and unlikely, be interpreted as a violation of the law.
p.s. I was desperately trying to find a neighbor that had a Digi-Ben, but alas, couldn’t locate one before the patch.
Hi Alissa, et al. I agree that we should move on now. I think we’ve beaten this horse to death many times over now.
That poor poor horse…
Oh well at least Lunch Lady Dora will get good use out of it during the upcoming school year 😉
LOL!!! 🙂
Oh yeah, one last thing. In the eyes of the law, the major difference from card counting and phone applications would be all of our phones, tablets, etc. are considered “protected computers” under the CFAA because they are connected to a network that crosses state lines.
Stupid? Yes.
The Law? Also, unfortunately, yes.
Surprised they busted ppl for finding a winning sequence on slot machines. Good read btw. I find casino rules really strange, cuz if u go in there and lose your life savings, they’re fine with that, but if you start winning too much(without cheating), they’re allowed to kick u out. That’s one reason why i stay away from the casino.
The way I see it is this:
There are always unintended side-effects whenever the game is updated and new code is added (that’s the nature of coding) – some work in the players favour and other don’t.
During the Wild West event I suffered from the glitch that meant I received zero donuts from my neighbour visits for the whole 6 weeks of the event. By my calculations (assuming that the chance of getting a donut from a neighbour action is still 0.5%) that’s 63 donuts I would have got during my normal course of playing but didn’t.
This time the glitch has worked in my favour and I’ve been able to take advantage of it and rack up approximately 15000 extra Chronons that will ensure I manage to complete the Act 2 prize track (I only managed to complete Act 1 because my very last daily task paid out 1100 Matter and even then it still took me almost to the deadline to complete!). I might even even manage to get some Bonuts at the end of Act 2 now.
I would image that almost everyone on here who regularly visits all their neighbours would have benefitted in some small way from the glitch even if they didn’t notice it at the time. I was lucky enough to spot it because one of my neighbours had placed their Big Digi-Ben right next to their Polyvac, so I could see the payout happening when I entered the town, and because they had nothing to tap on in their town I went back later to see if they had any robots and saw that the payout happened again. Without that I would have probably blithely worked my way through my neighbours towns, having a little grumble to myself that some of them appeared to playing to diligently to leave me anything to tap and that would have been it. I would have never noticed the extra Chronons that the glitch had generated form me.
And it’s not as though those of us who knew about the glitch and exploited it had an effortless time doing so. My extra 15000 Chronons were the result of the best part of 2 evenings worth of tapping, and even then I got bored before I could take full advantage of it on the second evening. Maybe those who managed to complete the whole Act 2 prize track on the first day were lucky enough to find two neighbours next to each other than both triggered the glitch. Whatever the reason you needed to have real dedication to generate all those extra Chronons. I take my hat off to you!
What did I miss when I was on holiday!! Log in this morning and saw somebody has already got President Lisa?!!! How?!! Any glitch of the game????
Yup 2 days worth of a glitch
So I assume I missed it…just curious – what happen though..
There was a glitch if you went into a neighbor’s town that had big ben in it, if it was untapped you could get 30 Chronons, Robot Parts and Future Bucks..and you could exploit it by leaving that neighbor’s town and going back into it and get it again.
I pm the guy who opened the thread on the glitch and he gave me his 2 other accounts both with Big Ben right next to each other, I just went back and forth lol
Ok let’s stop talking, and bragging, about it now.
Exploit if you can. It’s in the code – if we find it we will use it. I got Mooch Bart quickly and then it was fixed. Enough to ensure I make all the prizes although I usually do regardless as I am a very addicted tapper. I loved the robot parts that it earned more than the prize track though!
My robots have disappeared again, and I’ve not seen seen any since yesterday evening. Is this because if the patch? How do I report? Also, how do I get a second monorail tunnel so I can make a loop? 🙂
you can report via your game (by hitting the get help button) or by contacting EA the traditional way (EA’s website). Second Monorail tunnel should be one of the weekly rail yard prizes
I am one of those who took advantage of the glitch. Maybe my moral compass is out of whack but I don’t see that as cheating in any way. I also took advantage of the ‘tennis court glitch’ where SH tennis courts gave a 2% bonus and no, I do not regard that as cheating. And the glitch that allowed duplication of items etc. But many other glitches didn’t work for me (Squidport tiles etc).
I don’t write the code. I use it as written and don’t pretend to know whether EA intended it or not. But if it is there I will use it. They wrote it, not me. I will not hack my game but I will take advantage of the code EA writes and use whatever helps. Every time.
But it also works both ways… I am still waiting for Duff Gardens. But I don’t view those who bought it as ‘cheating’ because they are taking advantage of having it in their SF while I don’t.
And for those who are upset that it wasn’t blatantly stated on this site: Firstly I was asked not to talk about it openly by the person who told me and I respected that. Secondly, I did post a comment to someone telling them to visit a certain UK site and ask THE question and also said that ALL were welcome to do so. If you didn’t get the hint, my apologies if it was too subtle. If you read it and chose not to follow my suggestion, that was your choice. And if you didn’t read the comment, then that’s also your choice… And thirdly, someone did post a comment on this site that basically told you exactly what to do without coming right out and saying it. And others reported that sometimes when visiting certain neighbours there were no robots to tap but their event currency still went up…
Ok, now you can all bite my head off while I complain about being bored during this act because there is nothing to do until Act 3 begins😄😄😄
Once upon a time I had 100 friends, and I could visit all and complete my 3 taps in about 20 minutes.
Now with the slow “load” time, it can take close to 3 times that.
Flopping between towns taking a minute plus for a round trip…..
Maybe 1500 to 1800 over an hour….
15,000 to 18,000 over 10 hours…..
28,000 taking close to one solid day of mindlessly switching back and forth between towns to take full advantage of this glitch…….
???????????
Just don’t talk about it! Don’t mention it! Don’t let EA know!
Don’t let the teacher know. Don’t let the Drill Sergeant know!
Waking up at 4:00 am local time and typing about this goofy thing?
Good Grief, and
Good Night.
.😴😴😴😴😴😴😴.
Maybe find some lower level friends. I notice a few of mine take a long time and they all have HUGE and myriad Springfields!
Completely agree MAB, anyone who took advantage of a glitch are not cheaters. EA’s fault for not play testing an Item.
Nobody said they are cheaters. He just said it’s a cheat.
Same way you could do some exploits in console games….or commonly referred to as cheats. If you continually replayed a certain parts of super Mario to build up a bunch of free lives that’s a cheat. Despite it Being part of the game coding.
I think everyone just needs to relax. Take deep breaths and stop reading too much into stuff. 😀
I like to call it “taking advantage of a glitch” instead of cheat lol
Would saving up lives in mario by replaying parts of a level cheating? I don’t know about that haha
Lol they’re just called cheats. That’s all. It’s just the term used. In gaming you use cheat to define a shortcut…or a way to play the game outside of it’s intended way to gain an advantage.
If I were to have written a post about big Ben as a how to install would have called it a cheat.
Jeez, some people should take a BIG step back and chill out. 1, it’s a game, 2, IT’S A GAME.
What is the harm to anyone if some players find and/or make use of an exploit to their advantage?! I’m sure well seasoned players can recall the boardwalk/channel 6 glitch where you could collect multiple payouts from multiple, stacked handshakes?? I set up 8 different accounts and repeatedly visited my A game with these dummy accounts to capitalise on the payouts until EA patched it.
Was it “cheating”? Maybe
Do I have remorse? Hell no! It bought me the Sunsphere!
Did It cost a coding nerd his job? No! It gave me fake virtual currency to enable me to buy some pixels in a game. Nothing more, nothing less.
lol i think everyone is WAYYYYY to wound up about this.
Okay, I’ll admit it – when someone attacks my character, it does wind me up a bit, especially when that person has an elevated role on this site. Having some casual commenter come in and do that probably wouldn’t wind me up that much…I’d likely just roll my eyes and move on to the next comment, or maybe respond with some alternative “logic.” But having a site moderator do that is a whole other ballgame, in my eyes. When you’re in a role like that, I think it’s incumbent upon you to choose your words more carefully and be a bit more circumspect about what you post about other people on the site. When I was a site moderator over on iVillage, I never would have done or said stuff like that…my job there was to hero people, not put them down.
For what it’s worth here’s how I see it.
EA made several mistakes(again) in an event.
These resulted in a few glitches/loopholes which benefited me.
Do I feel guilty? No.
Should I have not played the longest odds on the go karts because it was obvious it was a mistake?
I am disappointed by the tone by the tone of this article.
Your love for the game is obvious.
Your love for your fellow enthusiasts less so.
Completely agree, we used a little trick to help with the event, EA should have play tested the item in question before releasing it.
Well put.
Patric, you did not just use the C-word, did you!?
“Cheat”, “exploit”… how very dare you! I was taken to task by a few of the ‘Dick Turpins’ on another thread when I dared to say that exploiting a glitch was scamming your way to victory. Now you’ve thrown the cat amongst the free donut eating pigeons and called them cheaters who exploit. We all know where this is going to end, you’ll be banished back to the realm of other blogs. 😉
LOL…they don’t call me Cranky for nothin’…
Here’s my take. The game is a game. It isn’t life or death. But just like other games in life, how you play it is a small determination of character. Not your entire character, but a glimpse into it.
I play golf because it is a game of honor. It is REALLY easy to cheat at golf. A foot-wedge…a ball “fluffed up” to give you a better lie. A fudged score on a hole. But it is against the rules.
I am a baseball fan that detests those who used drugs to give themselves an unfair advantage. I want those who were caught, banished from the record books.
I could go on and on…but, the fact is, when you do something that is clearly not meant to be part of the game, in order to obtain an unfair advantage, it says something about you. That’s all. Period.
Human nature pretty much sucks these days. But, rationalizing a “cheat” is just that.
But there’s a difference in you sports scenarios vs. what happened here. In a sports competition, it’s a competition…when someone cheats to win, it means that they’ve made someone else lose by unethical means. In this game, however, when someone takes advantage of an exploit like that, it doesn’t affect anyone else’s game – there’s no “win-lose” situation involved.
As someone who did take advantage of the exploit (to a degree), I don’t appreciate the way you’d use that to impugn my character. “Cheating” at solitaire is not in any way, shape, or form, the same as cheating at poker. This game is, basically, solitaire. And, since EA frequently has glitches that disadvantage us (and they aren’t always willing to rectify them), then it seems only fair to be able to take advantage of glitches that benefit us.
I have *never* cheated in a game or competition with another person in my entire life…it’s not in my DNA. This is *not* the same thing at all. And being so quick to judge others’ characters perhaps says something about your own.
Completely agree, cheating tapped out is completely different to cheating in a competitive game like Wow or counter strike, tapped out is like the sims and everyone used the money cheat back in the day, are they bad people? No.
They are “bad people” for keeping the info “secret” and then bragging about the results.
But hey…this is a community. It’s only as strong and moral as it’s worst apologists.
Patric– Your perspective is fascinating because it is so different than mine. I agree with you regarding the golf and baseball analogies, but I think that is an incorrect comparison. Both are competitive sports with besting an opponent as the endgame. These games require rules to ensure a measure of equality among teams. Breaking the rules is an unfair advantage placing the other team at a competitive disadvantage.
TSTO is not competitive, does not have an opponent and besting the non-existent opponent is not the endgame. The endgame is based on personal preference– freemium, premium, daily tapper, hourly tapper, etc. People play how they want– there is very little morality involved in an individual video game. The glitch simply allowed the players to use less resources (personal time) to achieve their endgame.
Do you walk by a $20 bill lying on the ground? You don’t know where it came from or who owns it. You didn’t earn the money. It was clearly not part of the monetary distribution system established by the Federal Reserve and banks. If you pick it up, you’ve obtained an unfair advantage relative to your friends that work for $20, but it doesn’t hurt anybody. How do you rationalize picking up the money and using it instead of wasting your own resources to find the owner?
Bingo!
Patric, words, out of my mouth, taken; couldn’t agree more. If that means you’re cranky, then sign me up for the team.
I think I was one of the commentators that took you to task. I’m not British, but being called a Dick Turpin actually sounds like a compliment– a dashing and heroic highwayman leading a band of brigands and robbers throughout the 18th century English countryside. If you have time to reply, would love to hear the British context of what it means to be described as a Dick Turpin.
Hey mkdtsto249, you’ve taken it as it was intended – there was no malice meant and much of what I write is tongue, firmly, planted in my cheek.
Dirk Turpin was, as you have said, a highwayman and some consider him a gentleman thief (there is debate on this topic). In England, when we feel like someone has ‘ripped us off’, you’ll often hear the expression: “at least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask!”, in other words, at least he was honest about what he was, not trying to pretend to be anything else.
In terms of the glitch, I stand by what I said, it is either important to you (as a player) to stick to the game dynamics or it isn’t. Each to their own and everyone has to make that call for themselves – personally, I’d rather try to do it using the software as intended. This doesn’t mean I don’t find things that EA do frustrating but that doesn’t equate to trying to cut corners if a bug is found.
…now get back to the highway and hold up some stagecoaches for donuts! 😉
Where is the SIB on Big Ben ? I’m going insane 🙂 lol
http://tstoaddicts.com/2016/09/02/should-i-spend-donuts-on-big-digi-ben/
This robot tapping is good if you can get them in your town. I had 2 in the first 4 hours of stage 2 how do you get more ???
Taking advantage of a glitch does not make me a cheat! *rolls eyes* 🙁
My game didn’t work properly for a few days. This morning it seems as if it does again. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch up 🙂
Damn i didnt even know about the gokart error.. i play the dog track but not go kart. Oh well. I did take advantage of the big ben glitch so cant complain lol. Only did it for like a hour or two before it got too boring
I wish they gave a solution for the tunnels being off 1 grid too. Moving my monorail 1 grid would be almost as bad as nuking my town.
I was aware of the glitch, but in none of my neighbours town (who had the digi ben) it worked :). And i never won the 2.5 mil neither….
Damn I always went the 2.5mil option but alas, no luck.
If they didn’t make the targets so hard people wouldn’t need to exploit glitches and I keep reminding everyone …..if you were a miner working a 12 hour shift deep underground with no Wi-Fi or phone signal……you can’t clear your robots every four hours …. don’t assume we all work in an office and can play on our phone all day ….some of us have to get our hands dirty (no I don’t mean that toner stuff in the photocopier)
Gee, I wish I had listened at school and got a “proper” job
Happy Friday …. 😃 🇬🇧
Honey, this is 2016. You don’t need to listen to the brainwashing crap they were ordered to fill your head with in school to succeed. Do an online course, get the paperwork, and hustle baby hustle!
I got president Lisa last night so I’m all good on the event front and can take my time and customise my town.
It’s very weird and funny that I won the go kart last night and got 2.5 mill and won just now and got 250k haha
The mountain fix hasn’t effected my town and it’s still as mountain free as possible.
I have encountered a weird and annoying bug that had started duplicating a few of my buildings, especially Lenny’s lab and soilant factory’s. Might have to contact EA but for now I’ll throw them down for extra cash.
I don’t know why anyone would think this was an Easter egg? Lol
Holy moly, I just logged on and even more stuff is duping, what the hell lol
oh my god. how did you do that so fast? i just got Mooch Bart.
seriously, what am i doing wrong? I hate this event.
Nothing. He used the exploit to finish.
There was a bug that could let you gain the event stuff faster, patched now but the patch increased the payout on the sci fi game so it’ll be easier for you and everyone else to get all the prizes!
Didn’t win one game gokart and now its gone… my famous bad luck in minigames again… EA sucks in this case…
I think maybe the mountain glitch it’s having its revenge. I guess it’s a matter of perspective. Are you happy with the dulplicates?
I’m getting duplicates too, I have 3 dead lobster buildings and 3 soilant red factory’s, weird bug lol
It’s sounds like you’re experiencing some kind of cascade effect, and you should be wary. Good luck.
Turned on the game today and found dupes of some items I even missed the event on. Don’t know if I’ve been hacked or whatever but whoever hacked me has given me stuff lol
I’ll second that. I bet the long shot on the go-karts every time and never hit the $2.5M even once. 😢😥
Shoot wish I would’ve known about the Big Ben hack. Not to get donuts because I buy those but to get ahead on the event currency. Because when you’re stressing about collecting enough it’s not so fun. And at least I won the 2.5 million prize twice lol.
Won it twice too 🙂
Same. Really sad I didn’t know. At least I got the $2,500,000 payout tho 🙂
I think the Big Digi-ben glitch was good for a few reasons. Many people were unable to complete the first act because of the unrealistic requirements to play the sci-fighter 5 times a day. I was okay because I did. (waking up in the middle of the night to reset Homers and play the sci-fighter) It gave some people a cushion so they can go out and have a life, while others exploited it so they could get to the bonuts. The fact that so many people exploited it showed EA how unrealistic the requirements were, as well as the number of people who didn’t get Sergeant Skinner. I can actually get 8 hours of sleep for a while. The payouts for the sci-fighter have been increased to make completing the Act 2 attainable for more players.
Too bad about the Go Kart track. With a chance of $2.5 million I thought $5000 was worth the risk. I was excited at the chances of winning so I looked forward to playing and didn’t mind as much when I lost because the big payout was out there somewhere. Now it’s just another thing to tap like the Dog track. 2-1 odds all the time. Sure you win more often, but the excitement is gone. It wasn’t paying out donuts so it still took some work to convert the cash to donuts and it didn’t payout that often. Oh well, It was fun while it lasted.
Still the best game ever. Tapping on the voiced characters makes me laugh. That’s enough for me.
BTW
I saw a quote on Google:
“The Simpsons is the best thing on American television.” -Stephen Hawking
I’m not sure if it’s confirmed.
I exploited to get all the act 2 prizes but stopped before the bonuts because I never intended to exploit for donuts, I only wanted the prizes so I wasn’t forced to log on 5 times a day at certain times.
He HAS done the math!
darn…I wanted to exploit that but I was too late….Ea is always one step ahead >:0