What a weird week for Nuking. Not that there is any “good” week for nuking. But, Holyfreakinshirt! The number of weird coincidences that happened on Saturday, make one wonder JUST HOW MUCH POWER does Alissa really have???
She had planned our Addicts Live session about Nuking your Springfield, well before the little “SNAFU” that happened on the VERY SAME DAY in Hawaii. So…did Alissa foretell the future? Is the nimrod who sent out the false “You’re All Gonna Die” alert a disgruntled TSTO Player? Did Safi and his Nuking demonstration have something to do with it??????
And most important…Would I Nuke if I could Nuke? And, Why WON’T I nuke???
These are all important questions to ask…
First of all, the title of this post is homage to the Stanley Kubrick movie, “Doctor Strangelove,” which those of us of a certain age (old enough to have lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis) remember as a dark, and yet hilariously weird movie about how a series of events by inept political leaders, can result in the end of the world as we know it. Yes…it should be shown as the first in a double-feature, with “Planet of the Apes.”
As we are now in what feels like a “return to the 1960s” in so many ways, Nuking is something we all have started to keep in the forefront of our thoughts…especially if you were in Hawaii on Saturday.
I haven’t been able to do the math yet…and deconstruct the various time zones…but, it is possible…as in VERY Possible…that about the time that Safi was Nuking his Springfield on LIVE TV (ok…live streaming), the moron in Hawaii was sending out his “duck and cover” message to an Island that was most likely full of people soiling their garments with more than “Mai Tais.”
OK. I did the math…Hawaii was alerted at 8:08 AM Hawaii time…which would be 10:08 Pacific…or 1:08 Eastern….JUST 38 minutes or so, after Safi NUKED!!! What would Nostradamus have to say about that????
And then…it happened AGAIN on Tuesday, in Japan!
I can’t translate it…but I assume it doesn’t say, “It’s a radish the size of daikon!”
However, after hearing the details of human error…it occurred to me that EA actually makes it harder to Nuke your town (Four distinct warnings), than the State Emergency System in Hawaii makes it to send millions into panic…for 33 minutes!! That’s how long it took to hit the “undo” button on this fiasco… 33 minutes!!!
Now, imagine how long 33 minutes of “this could be the end” must feel like. Especially, some of you who freak out if the EA servers can’t connect so you can KEM farm if there is a server outage of more than 10 minutes! 33 minutes is a lifetime!! You could do all sorts of weird, “last time ever” things in 33 minutes… But, I digress.
The Good News/Bad News…is that this was a STATE SNAFU. Nobody (especially the guy carrying the Nuke Football around the golf course) even heard about it, until it was almost over. But, again, I digress…
I guess we’ll never know if the operator who was on call in Hawaii was watching our podcast, and panicked when he saw the NUKE happen in real time. (he Nukes around 30 minutes in, if you want to see a Nuke “live.”) We also can’t be sure if Alissa has inside connections to more than just the EA servers.
What we CAN be sure of…is that if we ever decide to Nuke our own towns, it takes at least FOUR “Yes…I WANT to Nuke” replies, before you can actually do it. Which is 2 MORE than the number of messages you get when you go to delete ALL of the data on your cell phone when you turn it in, or want to “toast it.” I know. I got a new phone on Sunday. And, it was weird to wipe my old friend clean with a couple of button pushes. Luckily, I had everything backed up to “the cloud,” which in the case of a giant EMP attack, may go away…along with our access to the TSTO servers.
So…what have we learned?
I want nothing to do with nukes. I’m not nuking my town. And if I get one of those horrible “This is not a drill” texts, the last thing I will be doing is clearing KEMs to get more donuts.
No. I will likely just put on my “solar eclipse glasses,” grab a HUGE drink of something alcoholic, and just watch the show.
I’m not going to get into the geo-political side of this topic, as I think we are all freaked out by the saber rattling, and “whose button is bigger” conversations these days. My only hope, is that unlike the poor sap in Hawaii…the REAL buttons, have loads and loads of “Are you sure? Are you rEAlly sure???” messages before you can push anything that has real consequences. It only seems right…
Meanwhile…stand down. We’ll follow up with Safi to see how his “Post Nuke” town comes together. No worries there. Safi has a spreadsheet of his layout. Safi is super organized. Safi is the kind of guy I’d trust with the real button…
What would YOU do in your last 33 minutes? If you have Nuked…did you think of the confusion your actions created for your characters?? Come on…they’re people too…right? OK. Maybe not.
Carry on…discuss among yourselves. I have a huge drink to fill up.
If only 33 mins were left I would clear my browsing history lol. roll one up and enjoy with family and kids… I have nuked my TSTO town and it was a hassle, I believe that I even lost some items, my percentage was not the same. But it was a fun experience.
In real life, I would call everyone I know and tell them I love them & we’ll see each other again in some form in heaven. Then I will post it on FB for all of them who are on FB more than they read their texts 😂😂😂 Maybe a mass group text 😂😂😂 I’ve nuked my Springfield and will never do it again.
And of course come here to tell everyone thank you for being there to help all the times I needed you & you made me chuckle, smile, & cry (in a good way), that I love you in some weird way since we’ve been together for 4 years 😁 Wow, I just realized my relationship with Addicts has lasted longer than any of my 3 marriages 😂😂😂 I guess I’ll just say it now… I love coming here, I love our little family, & I appreciate every single one of you 💋
If I only had 33 minutes left alive I would want to be with my pets. I’d get under a big blanket, me and the pets could take a nap and be warm. Mostly I just would never want them to be scared and alone, and at least it would be a happy last memory. Phew, with that thought exercise done, let’s hope we never have to think about it again!.
Let’s all agree on that last line!
My daughter used to play Tapped Out and stopped. So I nuked her town just to see what it was like, and oh man! Inventory was a pain! It was overwhelming just to go through everything and try to place everything. Not to mention that you have to pull out all buildings that have character’s attached to them, and forget about generating cash for awhile from buildings. Big mistake. Glad it wasn’t my town lol
I would laugh, roll a fat one and be grateful that i live in the southern hemisphere.
Speaking of Nukes—I think we all want to see a post from Saffi documenting his progress.
AGREED!! Safi???
Dr. Strangelove! Another one of those movies I really like but can’t get anyone in my family to watch… Did miss the Cuban Missile Crisis by a couple of years myself, but I can imagine that living through that could change your perception of the movie.
As for how I would spend my last half hour on earth – I can’t imagine. Though I’d love to think I would do something cool, the most probable scenario is my rushing out to buy as much food and water as possible before the rationing starts, just in case we survive. But since I live smack-dab in the middle of Europe, it’s unlikely, and not all that desirable.
Nuking TSTO: I would never nuke my Springfield – I spent about five years working on that, I can’t imagine doing that over again. Plus, I tried once in my B-game, just as a test, and it was a complete disaster. Maybe if I could muster up the time and energy to draw up a plan beforehand, but building from scratch, without a net – no way.
Yep…the Cuban Missile crisis “left a mark” on my young boy’s psyche. Going to bed every night for a week, reciting the “now I lay me down to sleep” prayer…and believing it…not fun!
Dr. Strangelove should get another run in the theaters… it is a classic, and pretty darn timely for our current situation…
I started playing in November so I don’t have a whole lot of things in my inventory so nuking isn’t a huge deal for me. I’ve done a lot of drop and deal with them later to get me through quests but once i reach level 61 and the snow is gone I’m gunna nuke my town and start fresh. I’m level 50 at the moment (and just unlocked sideshow bob as a character)
If I was at home then I’d already be safe from both the blast and the radiation as I’m 25 km from the city and only something like the Tsar Bomb could affect me. There was a website where you could check the blast + radiation radius of various types of bombs, ranging from the Fat Man up to the Tsar. If I was in the city, then 30 minutes is plenty of time to get away from the city centre either by road or train.
well…I like your confidence. However…the roads would be jammed with panicked drivers…and it would be like rush hour in LA. 20 minutes would equal about 2 miles traveled. And frankly…the last place I want to spend my final minutes is in a traffic jam!!
It could be worse… you could spend your last 20 minutes at work! haha
…and we go into a panic when we can’t get into our game for 33 minutes.
Kinda puts things in perspective.
Not even sure what I’d do with my last 33 minutes. I’d probably have to drink something just to suppress the urge to panic, even though logically I know there’s nothing I could do about the situation.
And if Alissa really does have a communications network inside EA, good job getting them to listen to your 2 acts per event suggestion! Hopefully that becomes the default length in 2018 and they don’t go back to 3.
Interesting question. If we were at Disneyland we’d queue up for Mr. Toads Wild Ride. If in Escondido, dash to the humane center, unlock all the cages and play with all the fur faces until the flash. If we were at home, I’d call my sister and say, “I told you so!”, hang up quickly, roll a “cigarette” (hey it’s legal now) and blare The Doors song The End. A trite, stereotyped action I know but I’ve always been a hippie at heart. SIDENOTE: Back in the 60s a reporter ask Colonel Sanders what he thought of hippies. His response was, “They eat chicken don’t they?”
LOL!! Yep! And as I have said before, when the zombie apocalypse comes…we all taste the same!
What would YOU do in your last 33 minutes? Pray to God(s) that I won’t go to hell. Text my love ones good-bye messages. Set the camera to upload video of the final minutes to the cloud. Have a nice meal. Break open the best bottle of liquor I have in the house.
Given the scenario that there is only 33 minutes left in my life it would depend where I was at the time.
I only work 5 minutes drive from home and my husband also works at the same place so the first thing I would do is get home with him.
I would lie in bed with him, tell him I love him and hug him tightly until the end knowing we would rest in peace together forever.
Well…that is sweet! I’d do the same. But, with my wife…not your husband.
If it was a real scenario I think a better question is would you want to know? It’s not a bad storm alert!
So you spend a 33 minute panic attack lathering up in SPF 1 million.
Or just deal with the aftermath if you’re lucky enough.. or unlucky enough.
I visualize our inventory system as a filing cabinet 20 feet high and 20 ft across…so around 400 drawers. Now imagine everything is filed by the event name (or some other forgettable adjective) instead of a basic header like “fence” (look for white fence under “w” and iron fence under “i”…and of course a brick fence is a “wall” but filed under “b” for brick🤪). Once in that black hole, I would never find anything again.
Tip for Safi, and anyone else thinking of this. Put dirt/concrete down where you think you want your roads and rivers, and you can drop stuff on there while you figure out if your ideas work, then go over with roads and rivers later.
With the inventory system as is, and all the troll stuff and who knows what cluttering it up I’ll stick to area select combined with toggling item types ( like only move buildings ) to shift stuff to a dumping ground and then reorganise it all at will – half done when the snow hit, and now I’ve got more to include so I’l be busy in spring, probably after any easter event.
Oh, and if they do decide to launch, I want to kiss the nosecone as it strikes rather than deal with the mess later – call up another of those drinks Patric, but I don’t think shades will do much.
Suggestion for EA. If someone does elect to nuke their towns wouldn’t it be great if, as a “gift”, there be a ground zero portion of land after the fact? It would be cool to see craters, possible radiation quarantine areas and maybe even a no-mans land surrounding the crater. It would be fun to visit friend’s towns and you could see evidence that they did nuke their towns at some point in the past.
The thought of all my stuff….poof….gone…..in that dreaded Inventory….. Reminds me of trying to find something specific in my own basement. Ain’t gonna happen, bub. Nope. No. Uh-uh. Never.
If EA changes the inventory so that you could search for the item, I might consider it. If they made it like scrolling alphabetically through phone contacts, I might give it a whirl. But scrolling all the way through to find something and then having to do it again and again to find like items is no way to go through life. Until then, it’s a big NO WAY!