Hey Howdy Hey Tappers!
Welcome to Addicts Live! We’ll get the stream going at 12 Noon ET (for timezone converter check here)…
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In this episode, we’ll continue our conversations and analysis about the Magical Halloween Event, talk more about Season 29 of The Simpsons, and we’ll don our oven mitts as we talk about the hot, hot topic of Donut Farming (and what it could mean for the future of TSTO)! As always we’ll also be fielding your questions! So join us live for all the fun! (of course, if you can’t make it live watching the replay is still pretty awesome too!)
You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or listen to it below!
Audio Only:
Live Stream Video:
Remember, this is meant to be interactive. So ask your questions, give us your opinions and share your thoughts in the comments below..and we’ll read what we can live! 🙂
Show Notes:
No poll this week, instead I want your feedback. A Thought Provoking Question….
Halloween is coming, so we want to know: What’s your favorite Halloween Memory? When did you stop Trick or Treating? Did you even start? What’s Halloween like for you now?
Share your answers in the comments below and we’ll discuss them on the show
My Little Pony/Elton John Patric…
Just listening, late to the party as usual. Donut Farming debate was good, but I guess it would been better balanced debate if more readers/listeners who don’t donut farm had contributed but we tend sit a little quietly. But my personal view is it’s changed the game for the worse, it’s saw EA become lazy and TSTO way too premium. Much more of the quality content is premium here than over in my Tiny worlds now, and that’s something I never thought I’d be writing.
I respect we all play in different ways, we all get to choose how much money or/and time we devote to the game, but since donut farming appeared and changed the dynamic I’m actually spending less real money in the game even though I’m not donut farming. I’m sitting with lowest amount donuts I’ve ever had, therefore EA have definitely lost income from me.
But what I’d love to see if Alissa isn’t completely fed up with this discussion is a quick poll to let us see a couple of things. Firstly the amount readers that donut farm and those who don’t. And secondly for those who donut farm how many previously bought donuts and how many were strictly freemium.
And I have to say as someone who writes over at FG Addicts and FWOT Addicts, where I don’t shy away from the good, bad or ugly of those games, it’s good see TSTO Addicts starting to touch on some of the negative aspects of this game that were previously glossed over, it really brings some balance to the site. But I guess it’s up to us readers to encourage the continuation of this trend by voicing our opinions in a way that respects the opposing players view. Different opinions needn’t lead to fighting or arguing, we can all play nice for the sake of Alissa’s sanity surely.
1st – I’ve been trick-or-treating since I could walk (kudos to parents for actively taking their kids trick-or-treating) and haven’t stopped (I cohost a Club Night each October where adults have to dress in costume, get to trick and treat for surprises). Thank you Knott’s Scary Farm – I’ve been going every year since 1983 – because you forced other Theme Parks to step up to the plate in October! 😀
2nd – Sunday night I completely enjoyed Bob’s Burgers and The Simpsons back to back (maybe Bob’s Burgers was a better episode, but I 💜 ‘d the Couch Gag + Pazuzu / Possessed Maggie and EA blew it this year not including these in the Event)! 😡
3rd – I gave up on decorating my home for Halloween because I no longer get trick-or-treaters (kids get dropped off at the Mall, or their lazy parental units just do trunk-or-treat … Boo! Hiss!) but I still buy things at Big Lots Target Walmart 99 Cents Store Joann’s Michael’s cause I 💜 it! 😉
4th – Everyone at TSTO Addicts actually makes this game app worthwhile (let’s channel our Collective energy and encourage McDonald’s to bring back to Boo Buckets!) and you know I’m going to exploit any method to earn free 🍩 ‘s ! 😅
5th – well, I need to prep for Fremont Street Experience next weekend (Halloween) as well as continue to volunteer for those who were injured 3 weeks ago ( #VegasStrong , #VegasKnights_Hockey , #VegasRaiders_NFL ) – thank you EVERYONE for making my 💜 for The Simpsons complete! 👍
OK….so I’ve been away from the site for a couple of days, and it seems that I have been BESMIRCHED!
People…people…people. I am not against Donut Farming…or any other aspect of the game that can be exploited, because as I said, if EA really wanted to close it up, they would have done so years ago.
What I DID say, and what I will stand by, is that there is more to life than insistently gathering….and hording…and obsessing about percentages, and earning more and more…when the “reward” is simply more digital nothings, which could all go away with the flip of a server switch. There are simply better ways to spend your time, which is our most valuable commodity in life. But, that said…if it gives you pleasure (which I doubt…as most obsessions do not), then go for it.
When you spend weeks, months, and perhaps even years…doing something of such little value to the point of obsession…you may indeed “have a screw loose.”
That said…I keep coming back here, every day…and writing…and moderating…and putting up with some of the truly obsessed…so I too must “be loose” in the screw department.
I finally watched the show late last night and I couldn’t help but think Patric looked like some perverse Amelia Earhart! When the topic got serious/philosophical the funnier he became.
It is the inner Amelia showing through. Lol!
I stopped Trick or treating at 16. The following year, I decorated my family yard for the trick or treaters.
My worst Halloween memory is from 1985. On my 19th birthday (two days before Halloween), I was showing a family friend how to carve a pumpkin. He had immigrated from Cuba and had never seen it done before. Of course, my mother wouldn’t let me carve it inside, so we had to do it out on the carport. I live in South Florida & we don’t experience fall weather until February for 2 weeks, so it was humid out & my hands were sweaty. Of course, not only did my mother not let us carve it inside the house with the A/C, but I also couldn’t use her “good” knives to do it. What I was allowed to use was an old 10″ serrated kitchen knife with a horrible handle. We started carving & I had a close call when my sweaty hand slipped off the knife handle. We had a good laugh about it & continued to carve the pumpkin. The next slip, I wasn’t so lucky & my hand slipped off the handle & down the blade of the knife, nearly severing my ring & pinky fingers…I sliced them to the bone. I grabbed my right hand (which was the one I cut through the fingers on) with my left & after some choice words & cries of pain, my mother came out and asked what happened. I told her I cut my fingers off & she thought I was joking, so I let go of my injured hand & whipped it around to show her (spraying blood on the already ashen face of the guy from Cuba as well as the bedsheet ghost hanging from the rafters of the carport. Needless to say, I missed Halloween that year. The surgeons were able to save the fingers and after rehab, I regained 90% use of those fingers.
When I got my own house, I started decorating the yard for Halloween. Over the years, it has been improved & modified & is nearly all set up for this year (I don’t put everything out as one year someone tried to steal some of my decorations, so I wait for Halloween to put out the rest). This will be the 26th year of my yard haunt. I would say my best memory of Halloween is when this little girl came up with her equally little brother & I scared them so much, that they both dropped their bags of candy & she dropped part of her costume, but while that was funny at the time, I toned the haunt down to be more kid friendly. My actual best memory of Halloween is a few years back, a parent was carrying his daughter up to get her candy and he stopped to chat telling me he remembers that he always looked forward to Halloween when he was a kid because he could come to my house & see what I’ve added to the yard. He says this was always his own best memory of Halloween growing up & now he is bringing his kids to experience the same thing he got to experience. While this sometimes makes me feel old, it always brings a smile to my face that I was able to give a child such a happy memory & make Halloween fun for him.
Being born so close to Halloween, it has been & always will be my favorite holiday. I was even once engaged to someone whose birthday actually fell on Halloween. That didn’t work out, but my love for Halloween still burns strong.
anyone stored their Unicorn Wizard and can’t find it in the character storage?
I watched about half of the show for the first – and last – time. I do occasional donut farming (about one or two days every two months or so) because I want to be able to buy everything. I’m a collector and a completionist, not just with this game but kinda in general. So I do not appreciatie being told by Patric that I have a screw loose. It’s how I enjoy playing my games. Who the frick does he think he is? Also, I didn’t watch until the end but at the halfway mark you hadn’t addressed the real issue with the game, which is that tsto is the go-to example in the video game news world for how to make “free to play” the wrong way. You can find numerous articles and youtube videos about freemium and pay to play games that cite tsto as the example of how to do it badly. Without donut farming the game is way too expensive, the value you get for real money is ridiculously bad, even for a freemium game. And I have spent about $60 real cash so far, but only because I can get a lot more from farming as well. If that wasn’t an option I would have stopped playing a long time ago. As for enjoying the grinding that goes with it or not, tsto is one of the few activities that I can do that calm me down. Exactly because it’s a grind, and it requires little or no thought, and certainly no skill. And that’s a good thing. I have high functioning autism, and having tsto available as a disctraction that will demand my full focus and attention is almost literally a life saver at times! So I’m sad to say that I was disappointed in parts of the discussion and I will not watch again.
I debated for a while if i should even reply to this or just trash it, but in think it’s important to explain.
I’m sorry you were offended, but because you missed half the show I think you missed the entire point of what we were talking about and why we were talking about it.
This was about the future of the game and will donut farming cause a spawned off 3rd premium currency in the game. And if donut farming itself is bad for the economy of tsto.
You also missed the point where all of us said… this was not about the casual farmer. It was more about those who abuse it with tens of thousands of donuts.
As I said many times to other readers… It’s not about you. So don’t try to make it that way.
I think you listened to it heard a negative and sat on it…didn’t bother to listen to anything else because you were upset with the negative.
I’m also not concerned with other bloggers or bloggers saying tsto is an example of what not to do. Especially because I can see with my own eyes that more players have stuck with this game because of the model than other games like Family Guy for example. Not to mention this game has set a lot of records for money earned from this model.
Again I’m sorry you were offended. But this was the only show you’ve ever watched, clearly you missed the nuance of how the show flows.
I do not understand your concern with players earning “tens of thousands” of donuts. Besides speeding up activities, what can you do with those donuts besides adding a bunch of junk to your town?EA has removed most of the premium items. Returning items come back at a discount in MB or in the vault. Before the XP collider and extra land, I had enough useless cash that I bought things like the Popsicle tower because I didn’t know what to do with the money. As for speeding up activities, it kind of spoils the game. I wouldn’t do it unless I had to be away from the game a couple of days.
Its the same problem I have with Zack Hample…. just because you can do something to gain an advantage doesn’t mean you should abuse it and then flaunt it.
I don’t want to get anyone upset here, but I don’t know who Zack Hample is. But on reflection, I guess saying you have enough donuts to buy every premium item could be seen as flaunting it, and if anyone feels that was what I was doing I do apologize.
In my case, (as a man) I see a problem (wanting premium items and not wanting/able to spend the cash) and finding a solution (KEM farming). At the beginning, before confirming donut spending, I lost a lot of earned donuts by tapping too fast. Then spent the next 3 years hording donuts hoping to get buy one or two items during Black Friday or other sales. Even went to three games so I could enjoy different items/characters in the different games. So, like Saint Paul, when I found out about the joys of KEM farming, I felt the need to spread the good word. Going as far a starting a fourth game and recording the progress so that all could see the advantage of KEM farming. That a little bit of work on the front could reap a lot in the end.
Getting ready for a wedding but here’s his wiki page https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zack_Hample
If you continued to watch, you would have seen that Patric was referring to those who are the compulsive abusers of KEM farming. He was not talking about you or me. In fact, he referred to me as the ethical beacon of the game and one who plays it the right way even though I KEM farm once or twice a day (not a month). Our discussion was about those with multipliers in the thousands and donuts in the tens of thousands. I’m pretty sure you can’t pull off those stats farming just once or twice a month, so he was not talking about you.
I am confused. If an ethical player KEM farms twice a day, with self restraint, and limits themselves to say 50 KEM farms per cycle is the right way to play. But if a player spends a lot more of their useless accumulated in game cash to KEM farm to add bonus multipliers and additions to their Springfields, which the game allows, is abuse? Did EA give us a game that allows us to play, with self restraint, to be ethical, but if we play the game in the way it is given, without restraint, we become abusers?
As per Patric, yes. 🙂
Thank you for your reply Safi. EA created a mess where “abusers” are falsely accused…
I wouldn’t say abusers are falsely accused. They more than likely are one of the main (if not THE main) reason why we’ve had to purchase Jebediah Springfield, Shelbyville Manhattan, and Squeaky Voice Teen’s newest skin with real money; and why the price of premium items keeps inflating.
EA definitely allowed players to KEM farm, but they didn’t anticipate people would farm too such exorbitant amounts. These few abusers are ruining it for everyone.
It’s like when people leave a basket of Halloween candy outside on the porch and write “please take one”. They’ll continue to do that every year so long as it appears people are taking one. But if they check outside and someone took all the candy ten minutes into trick-or-treating hours, you can be sure they will modify the way they dispense candy in the future. Heck, they might not even give out candy in the future. That one abuser just ruined Halloween for everyone.
Same goes for KEM. What are you gaining out of maxing out on donuts every day? Surely there is more to life than logging in ever four hours on the dot to build a farm of hundreds or even a thousand KEM just so you can max out on the donut limit every day.
I have no problem with players who KEM farm 1, 2, 3, or even 4 times a day, and collect even up to 100-150 donuts a day. But that small 0.001% of players (less than 0.1% of KEM farmers I assume) who are donut farming to the limit every day are abusing KEM farming and will ruin the game by changing the very foundation of it’s in-game economics.
So if some one decides to waste their life by farming 1000 donuts a day, what does that do for them? McDonald’s doesn’t raise it prices because a few millionaires buy Bic Macs. Their is an unlimited amount of donuts EA can give out, I doubt it has anything to do with the price of any item. Maybe an item was 100 donuts before the monorail. EA adds the monorail, knows you can “earn” 20 donuts per month , and raise the price to 120. Now it makes the monorail unlimited, meaning you can earn 60 donuts per month and “raise” the price to 140. It all just a action/reward technique. Like a slot machine. They want you to feel you are accomplishing things versus just wasting you life. Those who earn (or pay cash) can get things right away. Others must wait for items to appear on Black Friday or wait for their return to mystery boxes at a discount. If one wanted to, one could sit all day on teh screen sending Homer to space earning $35 per second and farm thousands of Brown Houses. Others might want to visit just once a day. There is no wrong way to play the game, it just depends on what you want to accomplish.
Millionaires buying big macs isn’t the question. The question would be if McDonald’s gave out free big macs if you completed a task. If a small % continuously got big macs for free McDonald’s would likely raise the price of a big macs to cover the abusers of the free one. Which would punish those who didn’t know about the promotion or those who chose to just spend cash on one.
Actually, McDonald’s has a an App to get free stuff. Last month you could get a free drink with any purchase. A free frozen desert anytime. Free fries on Friday with any purchase. This month includes BOGO free Big Macs.
And, unlike at McDonald’s, free items given away doesn’t cost EA anything.
Anyways, I assuming EA is a profit orientated business. It can get real cash by (A) convincing people to buy special items for real cash only, or (B) convincing them to buy donuts to buy “premium” items or speed up the game. In case (A), someone having 10,000 donuts doesn’t change a thing. In case (B), they must have type of calculation where if the introduce a Gil’s deal, a premium item, or mystery boxes of how much cash is subsequent received from people buying donuts to purchase some items. If not enough cash is generated from a too high price (Gil’s deal or Dragon) then EA will lower the price the next time to get more people to buy.. The amount of fictional purchases (i.e. purchases through earned donuts) would have no effect. Either those people wouldn’t purchase the item in the first place (all freemium players) or EA would consider them incentives for long term players. EA can create more opportunities to earn real cash by generating more premium items or create time crunches requiring people to spend donuts to finish a task/event. That they don’t do it, but in fact has made it easier to finish task and earn more donuts says a lot about EA.
My personal belief is that EA likes to have players who show items to their neighbors. So even if they don’t generate cash directly to EA, they cause their neighbors to spend on items they normally wouldn’t if they didn’t see how it would fit in their towns.
(I hope you are having a good time at the wedding. More play, less work. 🙂 )
🤷♀️thats the beauty of the debate, no right or wrong lol
Can anyone tell me what the magical essence sucker does? I’m wondering if it’s worth all of that goblin gold or if I’d be better just stocking up on walls since it’s so slow to collect.
Thanks 🙂
It’s just a cool decoration. When you tap on it, a puff of smoke appears, then we see wizard Ralph strapped in to it and getting his essence sucked.
I’m about to watch this episode but I’m like a minute and a half in and PATRIC YOU ARE MAKING ME SO CRANKY RIGHT NOW!!!
His background noise?
Precisely.
I’m afraid it will get to a point and we are already kind of there, were those who don’t donut farm will get penalized.
Hey Safi, cool BATting gloves btw 🤜
Thank you!
Safi you should have done a Bautista bat flip lol
LOL!
🦄🌈🦄🌈🦄
https://imgur.com/a/0RSk9
🦄🌈🦄🌈🦄
https://i.imgur.com/U3pUXUz.jpg
Hey cranky pants! I know I’ve posted this before, but I am enjoying how easy this event is, I finally, after all these years, completed an ACT 1 of an event, and on my way to acing ACT 2. I’ve had this little game on my phone for years and years, so let’s not forget the little guys who have get tapped out super easy! I totally agree with Patric, let’s get some more stuff to make our towns great again! Trees, shrubs, FLOWERS, gates, new paths! I am all about it, I’d even pay a few doll hairs for them too. I love the craftables, since I have missed literally all the Halloween events (well I have one set of bats) I am so excited to make my town spooky. I can understand why this event would frustrate more experienced players, and I can see why this event is not spooky enough. I am pretty sympathetic to those viewpoints. But I love the Mana System! I hope EA will bring back more of that type of “fighting” during events. Visually, it looks like an achievable goal, versus event requires X (buttload of points) to complete. Would love to hear what TSTO addicts actually liked about this event, (but I’m only a half an hour into the video) instead of what they didn’t like. EA may over correct if we just talk about the stuff we didn’t like!
Cranky pants!!! 😂
I really do wish EA would let us dump all stored items – even for free. I just get tired of swiping through the endless lists.
Missed the show but was wondering if the draw for the Mr. Plow jacket has happend?
Yes, i just haven’t had a chance to do the winner post. But the winner has been emailed.
Just one final though, why would EA change the Mystery Box (6 donuts) to only give out 9 items, 2 being donuts (30/10 – +24/+4), with only 2 decent items (van, billboards) for increasing % and one for generating cash (Lard Lad), if they didn’t want you to increase your percentage?
Okay I have officially swooned!!! 😁
Great live episode addicts you guys are awesome 🦇
Awwwwwwwww ❤😍😘
Favorite Halloween memory is the one house that made you sing a song, or do an act to get the treat, a full size candy bar. We were afraid to do it, but could not pass up the large treat. Now I enjoy taking out my grandchildren. Last year we all dressed up as characters from the Wizard of Oz.