In this installment of DID (Designing In Downtime), we are going to address the options you have for designing with the “New Normal.”
What is the New Normal?
Many of you are facing the growing number of restrictions that have become “normal.” And as we have mentioned before, these are the hurdles you may need to jump if you are going to keep playing a game that seems to be sputtering to meet the demands of long-time users.
I’ll deal with a couple…
Lack of Land, and Item Limits That Seem Stuck
First, as it pertains to the “Lack of Land,” it really is more of a problem for some, in that they are still stuck in the inability to earn enough Land Tokens in order to be able to access the remaining land being offered. A rEAl conundrum, indeed!
Yes…many of us have the Golden Goose Realty, which continues to spit out Land Tokens at a regular pace. But, the fact is…there are some that don’t. For those of you who are stuck…the only rEAl answer, is to Do MORE with Less! Sorry…
I have a TON of untapped/un-bought land left…and 147 sitting in limbo…
What that means for others, is maximizing space, into logical designs of neighborhoods, that still look good, but don’t take up as much space to do so.
I get it. Some of you are from smaller towns, or cities that have LOADS of wide-open spaces. But, the fact is, in most places (including Springfield), land is at a premium. Main streets are packed with businesses, and neighborhoods are usually restricted to smaller lots. This is the case in loads of European countries. This requires the need to be very creative in small places.
Take for instance, the beautiful English garden in our very own Loobs’ home in blighty! Gorgeous! (and the flowers are pretty too, wink, wink).
If we were to try to recreate this lovely space, and maximize the color and texture, using the tools available to us in TSTO…It might look something like this…plenty of color…room for some neighbors…and all in less than one square of land.
Compared to using an entire chunk of land…for ONE house…and sparse decoration.
And…if you are going for a higher density, MORE REALISTIC neighborhood, you can get a TON of houses into relatively small footprint of just 4 squares of tiles.
BUT…all of this lovely landscaping requires enough headroom on your Item Limits…WHICH DIDN’T CHANGE.
I have been trying to give EA the benefit of the doubt recently…but, the “new normal” always came with a bump in the limit with each new major event. But, NOT THIS TIME. Same…old…limit. Capped at 13,000 Items.
Which means, when I wanted to create the example of Loob’s house…I was only a couple of multi-colored fences into the design…when I saw this…
So…once again…I had to scour my town for “Over plantings” that happened when I didn’t care about item limits. Things I could delete, without changing the look too much. In this case…it was a handful of shrubs and flowers hidden by a business…
So…delete to make room for more designing? Many of us don’t have a choice. Which is why I ended up storing a lot of what I “won” in the Year Book, and even stuff I got during this past event.
I have to admit it. I really didn’t offer much of a solution for either limit, except “be creative…and learn to live with it.” Unfortunately, life is full of compromise…and in the case of TSTO these days, compromise is at almost every turn.
In my case, I moved my newest creation into “Krusty’s Very Minimum Security Prison for the Elite and Bribe-Worthy.” (nothing implied here, Loobs), fete all, it is Sideshow Bob’s house.
Here’s hoping for two things… That the GOLDEN GOOSE comes back for those who don’t have it…and EA INCREASES THE ITEM LIMIT sometime soon. Otherwise…designing during downtime is going to be a moot point.
Are you listening EA???