This week in Designing In Downtime (DID), I want to elaborate on a couple of key points about the newly discovered joys of tagging, as well as discovering the “New in the Old of the Yearbook.”
One is pretty obvious, the other only really reveals itself when you are in the process of taking on our new pastime, “Tagging All Of Your Neighbors.”
Both are great ways to deal with “Downtime Lulliness” in TSTO, which may or may not be the “new normal” for the game. In either case, it is a great way to “keep the action lively” when you are bored.
During the great “To Tag or Not to Tag” debate that took place over the past couple of weeks, I made the suggestion of adding a “Add Me As A Tagging Neighbor” to offset the “Graffiti Free” section we already have…which makes me nuts…because it is so whiney, but I digress.
As Ebron is one of my neighbors, I was pleased when she suggested that she was going to go on a “tag every neighbor spree,” as it was clearly an act of defiance against the “Graffiti Free” set. I loved this idea. In fact loads of people loved this idea. In fact…it would seem that almost ALL of my neighbors loved this idea. I got (and continue to get) tagged profusely!
I loved it! And, wanting to play along, I commenced to doing the same with my list of neighbors, which brought about the need to write the very post you are now reading!
In my rampant tagging spree, I noticed several “Tagging Truisms” about the process of attempting to “Tag Everyone.”
1. Tagging everyone takes a TON of time and dedication! As there are only four buildings that are “Tagable,” out of the hundreds of structures and decorations in our game, unless the town you are hoping to tag is “Tagvenient,” it can take a long time to find them all. I have 100 neighbors. Full boat. Now, do the math. To Search And Tag (SAT) all of them, even if it only takes me 30 seconds for each neighbor…I’m looking at 50 minutes. And the fact is…some of these took WAY more than 30 seconds.
2. There is a difference between being “Tagvenient” and “Tagomodating.” The former actually makes tagging easy…the latter just puts up with it. You can make it easy to tag, by placing your tag-able buildings near one another. That is Tagvenient. Tagomodating is simply putting up with tagging, and not deleting or deriding someone for doing so. It’s kind of like the difference between being Tag Tolerant and Tag Accepting…or Tagolerent and Tagcepting. But, both are still acceptable.
I am almost 100% Tagvenient. My tagables are all pretty much clustered as they have been since their inclusion in the game. You’ll find Moe’s, the Police Station, and City Hall, all within “Ground Zero” of our towns. I call this area “Ground Zero” as it is the core of the organic growth that most towns took (with obvious personal variations”) during the first few levels of the game.
During Downtime (when we don’t have a major event going on), when you visit a neighbor, it almost always opens up to the Simpson’s House. If your town is Tagvenient, the tagable buildings are somewhere close to the opening screen.
I call my town “almost 100% tagvenient,” for the reason that while three of the four tagables are close (as pictured above), my Springfield Elementary is not. In fact is is a long way away from Ground Zero.
On a side note- I have noticed that a ton of my neighbors have opted to turn their Springfield Elementary Schools into the “Crypto Farm” versions. I’m not a fan of crypto currency, or garish displays of national colors, or oil wells. So I show this only as an example.
3. Ploppers are ironically Tagvenient. For many other functions, having neighbors that are ploppers is kind of a waste of space for me. However, in this case, it is WAY easier to find tagables, as everything is just plopped in one place, and the spray cans stand out. If they are ploppers, they clearly aren’t bothered by the appearance of a tag. BOOM! Tagged. Move on.
4. Bonuts are still a Bonus…but not a reason for tagging. During my hour-plus-tag-fest, I actually got 6 Bonuts (free bonus donuts), while tagging. Pretty cool, and better than a poke in the eye with a spray can (which is just a weird visual…no matter how you look at it). But, it is not a good REASON to tag. As a casual donut farmer…who is near at 1,000% in Bonus XP…it takes me about 45 seconds to earn 6 donuts. So, while Free is good, it should not be the motivation for visiting/tagging neighbors.
5. A Cleared Town…Except Tagables…is Telling You Something. Basically, when you see a town that is completely cleared, with nothing left to tap except tagables…this is a person who DOESN’T LIKE GETTING TAGGED. The word is out. Their neighbors get it. I of course didn’t care…and tagged them. I didn’t go back yet to see if they have deleted me or not. I don’t really care. I have been pretty specific that I am decidedly in the “TAG ME-TAG YOU” camp. I’ll say it again…”get over it.”
On Another Side Note-
If You Don’t Want To Be Tagged…Make It Difficult!
This should be obvious. If you really hate being tagged…don’t whine about it…make it hard. Spread your 4 tagable buildings all over your town. Then move them randomly…perhaps getting up at night to move them indiscriminately to places that make no sense, during times when your neighbors can’t detect your clearing patterns! Keep them moving, and they’ll be harder to SAT!
Or…just get over it.
There are likely other bits of info I learned and could pass along during my “Tag-A-Thon,” but I’ll hold off for now, as I want to do a bit more research on the topic. Bwahahaha!
The Other DID Topic Today is one that should be obvious to anyone who is using the Yearbook to get old decorations and characters. In short, if you didn’t already have it, even if it has been around for years, when YOU get it, it’s NEW!
As you can tell by my screen grab here, with all of the downtime, and casual donut farming, I have gone back and bought a ton of character/building combos for my town. Some of these go back years and years….
I was trying to figure out why there were so many gay characters in my Yearbook, and then remembered that I had pretty much missed the Pride events due to travel. So, no…this isn’t a huge new revelation about inclusiveness in my town…it is just a tip of the hat to my laziness.
It also reminded me why I had passed on the Chief and the Indian Casino. The dialogue is pretty abysmal and ugly. I won’t dive deep on this…but, I do find it interesting when a bunch of entitled Ivy League writers (as many of them are, including the main show runner) show their indifference to intolerance. But, that is a topic for another time.
However, I do love playing all of these Questlines…because there is hilarious dialogue in many of them (which is why I forgive the writers when they are insensitive).
Ironically, with the New/Old yearbook content and questlines, I almost found the actual update short, and boring. Which would also describe some of the writers (*Rim Shot*).
In conclusion, it is pretty obvious that there are still LOADS of ways to play the game, stay challenged, have fun, and mess with your neighbor’s heads!
We’ll see if the current Downtime is another extended period of Lulliness…or if it just fell too close to a holiday (because I’m sure that the programmers and writers all needed a break after all of their hard work…pfffffttttt).
In any case…keep on tappin’! Have fun! Tag a Friend!