Happy Musings Thursday my friends! Back to your regularly scheduled musings post this week…you’re welcome 😉 . Anyway, this week I’ve got some introductory thoughts about the newest mini-event to hit TSTO, Krusty’s Last Gasp. Some things on the event as we unpack it all, and what it could mean for upcoming events. You know I’ve got some thoughts, so let’s get to ’em…
-First of all, it’s important to note that this update hit late. At least late compared to what we’ve seen lately. The last few mini-events (and major events for that matter) have hit our games the night before they were set to launch, basically a Tuesday night (at least my time), with a launch time of 10am (ET) Wednesday morning. The Krusty update didn’t hit the files until late in the afternoon on Wednesday, after I had already left work to pick up the kiddos, and launched immediately once it was available for App Store download.
The key thing is, no one really expected this update to hit. Most folks thought, at least by early afternoon, that nothing would be happening so they sent their characters on long tasks. Sneaky, sneaky on EA’s part. But it’s kind of nice to be surprised by an update again. Even if we did lose at least 7 hours of playing time as a result….
-This update is not free and clear of bugs, unfortunately. The VERY annoying sound effect bug that hit with Simpsons Babies is still happening. Basically, your game will play audio for a split second (until you move the screen around), even if your in-game sound effects and game music settings are completely turned off. Once you move the screen they stop…but then will randomly start up again at various points in playing.
Also, seeing A LOT of you report that you’re seeing the Bart screen more and more while playing. In-particular when you’re donut farming. Not sure if this is something that has to do with device age, available memory on the device (think of your device like a computer…because it is…the more you have on it the slower it can get), or a server issue. Personally, I’m not really having problems with it. I get an occasional Bart screen, but nothing dramatic. (I saw Ebron say she got Bart screened to death over a 5 minute period) I also don’t donut farm. My guess is it’s some combination of all of those things. Hopefully, this is another problem that gets corrected soon.
-So let’s talk about this mini-event. The basics anyway. As always I won’t give my full opinion on it until it’s over. It’s hard not to notice that this questline prize track is longer than your typical mini-event prize track. As a mini-event standard, the prize track has always been 5 parts and 5 prizes. (sometimes you were awarded a bonus prize as part of the initial questline. Like Flanders Family reunion. The banner was part of a quest, not actually on the prize track) So to see 7 parts to the questline, and 7 corresponding prizes is something new and different.
Also, important to note that while the Krusty Koin goal is pretty low (100 and 120 Koins), it’s going to take some time to earn those. With just about all of the 8 characters only earning 5 Koins/turn, and only Sideshow Raheem earning 8/turn it’ll take at least 12hrs per part to complete. So unless you spend donuts to speed things up, it’s going to take you about 4 days to complete it. And let’s face it, most of us play this mini-events more casually…so it’ll take us about a week to complete. Instead of the usual 3-5 days.
This is something I do think EA did intentionally, to extend the playing time of the mini-event and make things a little more challenging. I hope this a positive sign for THOH, in that they’ll bring some challenging elements to it. Something we’ve all been craving for a while now. But hey, I’ve only been doing this blogging thing for 6+ years…when does EA ever listen to me?
-One big thing most of us have noticed is there are exactly zero new characters on the prize track for this mini-event. After two new characters on the Flanders Family Reunion mini-event prize track, the lack of characters on this one is quite noticeable. Surely they could have added at least one new freemium character to the track instead of the donuts. I’d settle for 0 donuts and 1 character, to make it a 6 part track, then 24 donuts and no characters.
-While we’re on the topic of prizes….this one feels a bit lackluster. The donuts instead of Land Tokens aspect doesn’t bother me, but I have the Golden Goose Realty so it may bother some of you that don’t have the GGR. It’s the other prizes that have me going ho-hum. 3 decorations, 1 new building, and a costume…for Lisa. As if Lisa doesn’t have enough costumes… Not exactly tipping the scales with these prizes. Then again, Flanders Family Reunion was so good, and the last mini-event we all have as a point of reference that maybe I’m unfairly judging this one. We’ll have to see how it plays out, and how I feel about designing with the items.
-Anyone think we’d see Sideshow Raheem in TSTO? I know I didn’t! So that’s a pretty cool addition. And priced at the going rate for combos…150 donuts. A fair price. (I’ll have a SIB up on him tomorrow, with the full breakdown)
The Clown College…finally! It’s only been teased for, what, 2 years? But 100 donuts seems quite overpriced for a stand-alone building. I know it’s been teased for a while, but really not priced well. I think this would have been better suited for the prize track, and Krusty’s retreat as a premium item…for say 55-60 donuts.
-One thing is clear, at least to me, this mini-event sets us up nicely for Halloween to start October 1st or 2nd. Roughly three weeks from now. I’ll talk more about Halloween/THOH as we get closer to October, but don’t be surprised if it’s another 4-week event…although that would mean it sends before Halloween actually starts…but with EA nothing surprises me these days.
-And finally…something to think about. Could Last Gasp be a metaphor for TSTO? I’ll leave that for you guys to discuss in the comments below…
And that’s it guys, my latest round of random TSTO Musings. Thoughts? Care to share your own musings on the topic? Sound off below, you know we love hearing from you!
I don’t believe that last gasp will mean something else for TSTO apart from the fact that it was a chat show hosted by Krusty at 3am whose best guest is Jimbo Jones. If it was called Endgame and released in April then I would’ve been concerned by it.
The donuts are ok as prize fillers since I got 60 donuts soon to be 72 donuts on the prize tracks over the last 6 weeks but if they replace land tokens as prizes then I’ll be annoyed as a non-GGR player.
The first half of prizes will be more trickier to design than the second half since it seems like they should be separate from each other, the pool and retreat look like they work together if the adult resort isn’t bought.
To all my neighbors
I’ve been out of town and dealing with just back home issues and dealing with inability to send emails (I can receive). Running all the quick fixes.
Sigh
So please bear with me as I pop in just enough to take care of necessaries
Loves the post then steps back into the bushes
Good evening. I’ve been reading this blog for years and I often find it very helpful. But, there is way to much complaining. I have never had the Bart scream, hopefully I didn’t just jinx myself. I do experience some glitches, especially loosing donuts, but I earn 25-40 donuts a day so missing a few free ones isn’t going to ruin my experience. I hope everyone will take a moment and think are authors for all the try and do for this community.
The complaining has nothing to do with the very helpful people here. This site is great, It has to do with EA,
The thing that bothers me is that the devs do not seem even remotely interested in fixing the BSOD (Bart Screen of Death). I get bumped out of the game about 10 times each half-hour. At one point, it will simply be too bothersome to even log in.
I’ve been experiencing the same thing – it happens almost every 2 times I get a donut pick (I’m highest level and have the XP Collider on all the time – I also KEM farm a little and sometimes run bloodmobiles for donuts.) so this is happening to me about once every 15 seconds of game play while I’m farming – it’s driving me MAD!!! Part of me is wondering if they’re doing this intentionally to check games somehow and also limit large run donut grabs. Now I can’t lay out numerous bloodmobiles, I can only do about 6 max at a time, and then the BART screen comes up and I lose any of my queued donut screens. It’s infuriating – especially since I’m not actually doing anything against any rules. It’s making me not want to play anymore.
Same here. Yesterday I had some time and I decided to bloodmobile some donuts to go a raiding in the yearbook. Managed to burn through 4 million in game cash for 9 donuts as after the first donut screen it ‘barted’. 3 times in a row. Whilst it happens when I collect the KEM donuts, at least they occur singly so I don’t lose anything.
Not sure it has much to do with memory or age of the device as I have the same issue on both my Ipad (5 years old) and my Iphone XS (6 months old). Both have plenty of storage free.
Meh event.
I sped this event up with donuts just to be done with it.
The prizes are unimpressive and the quest dialogue is terrible.
Like most everyone else, still getting consistent crashes particularly when farming.
I’ll check back in a week or two, which is a far cry for playing close to every 4 hrs for years.
I don’t think this is a sign that the game is winding down. As long as The Simpsons is on TV I think the game will continue to exist…unless perhaps there is some huge drop in users.
I guess we will see, but I expect the game to still be running a year from now.
As far as last gasps being a metaphor for the game ending…..maybe. But I don’t think EA will outright pull the game. I think they are are being strategic and deliberately causing “things” to happen, or not happen in the last year, making the players so frustrated that they eventually quit playing so EA can say there isn’t enough players to keep the game going…..”not our fault “.
I haven’t played like I used to or had fun playing in about a year. Too many reasons I lost the “fun” in the game….bad events, when we do get them, the prizes are lackluster, too much down time, item limits, getting the BART screen every few seconds to a couple minutes, etc. but the most irritating to me is the no-brainer events. You only need the IQ of a rock to complete them. I miss all the earlier events where a thought process was needed to play and win a prize that was useful and fit into the town nicely. We used to be able to involve our neighbors and have to have some knowledge of the characters in the game to progress in the event.
I was once interested in making my town look like a city that I would like to visit or at least resemble a town. I don’t really mind having the fantasy stuff in my town but there are too many different themes to cohesively make it look good. So for months now, since the yearbook, I haven’t even tried to develop my town….I have become a plopper!
I think the game may be near the end but only because the players will be the ones to kill it. Who wants to fork out real cash on something so mindless? That being said, I will still play, mostly out of a routine and habit after so many years but dammit to heck, I don’t love it anymore…..what can I say?, I have an addictive personality and until the game is pulled or I go to game rehab, I’ll be here, but not enjoying it!
I do feel like EA is pushing people away to not play, so they can have an excuse to bring the game down… blame it on the community. Hopefully when they do pull the plug, the servers stay up so we can log in to our games/towns and re-arrange everything… this new event is ok so far… so far..
I feel the exact same way. I’ve been playing since Oct.2013 everyday…but I notice now that I’ll miss days & just don’t look forward to events AT ALL. They’ve become so completely un-eventful that I could care less about them. Feeling very apprehensive about the halloween event. I think if they don’t get out of this sluggish event slump that ppl are going to leave the game. I wonder if it’s just all us long-time players that are keeping it going. 100% agree with your observations.
To me it looks like they planned the usual 5-part event, and then just randomly threw in two rounds of donuts, to pad it out a bit. Way to half-ass it again, EA…
1st play of the day and am thrown out offer 2 seconds, multiply trys and just get the count down and Bart screen 🤷 EA time for an upgrade
Using an almost new iPad pro with lots of free memory and am getting dumped every time I play for more than 8 minutes.😬Happens with the collider on and without the collider on, and I’m not farming any donuts lately, so who knows what is triggering it.
I usually only get about half way thru collecting and resetting my “vignette” jobs before I see the Screen of Death💀, so I call it a day. May not make it thru the whole event, but I don’t need the donuts or another Lisa skin, so no great loss.🤷♀️
It’s nothing you’re doing… The servers are just wonky right now. Has nothing to do with the device you are using… Or the memory… It’s all on their end.
Absolutely
This is happening across the board to different devices old and new and with tons of memory. There’s really not a lot going on graphics wise even if all your animation is going in the game and or farming (which they let us do). It’s not using tons of resources. It’s a pretty simple game. It’s for sure their servers.
Personally I don’t think the game is ending. It’s fairly popular and they don’t really have anything to replace it with.
Lol i love how everyone is quick to tell me im wrong about the device thing. Except they’re all missing that I said probably some combination of all things…device, donut, and servers. It’s not exclusively one thing or another, if it was everyone would be impacted.🤷♀️
Oh I don’t think your wrong at all. I think all those problems have a common fault though and that’s their servers. They are just very glitchy. I don’t think they ever truly fixed the problems from before. I don’t think it’s coincidence that these things seem to keep coming back when they do updates.
This type of thing used to happen all the time on GTA on the PS3 every time they did an update because they didn’t want to put any money into their servers. The same problems as TSTO. Glitchy, getting kicked off, constant connection errors, etc. They would fix a problem with a patch but then on the next update they would come back with the same issues or new ones or a combination of both. But now that you pay to play it on the PS4 these things don’t happen.
Think EA have put a switch in the program, connecting donut farming and the xp bar, when farming either by kem or rat truck’s the counter stick at 0 and the Bart screen appears, crashing the game
If it crashes while the counters are still collecting but the total means you only earned one bonut round it will add all the XP.
If you had loads collected but uncounted and were due more than one bonut round it gives up, triggers one round and zeros the counter.
I’ve got 6GB of memory and 64GB of storage and very little other stuff running but that doesn’t help.
I’ve also got a humongous bonus so when I tap a hat full of characters at Smooches on the Beach I should get around 3.5 mil. XP – guess how often I get Bart as soon as I tap that . . !!
Icing on the cake, when you hit retry and just as you get it to reload and lean in to tap there’s Bart back again – turns out my phone does bounce after all !!
No, that’s obviously not true. I’ve been kicked out trying to connect to the game, kicked out while collecting, kicked out while sitting there idle.
I bet if I fire up Wireshark and examine the message flow, I will see the server disconnecting the flow. Or maybe I will see that the game is waiting for a response from the server, and after a certain amount of time, the game disconnects as it believes the link to the server is down. This scenario could easily happen if the server is overloaded.
It seems to synchronise with the server for every bonut round so the more you earn or farm the more it needs to connect and makes it more likely it will fail as you tap.
I get what you mean on idle though, I’ve loaded the game while busy with something else and when I was ready to tap I’ve found Bart waiting
I’m getting the Bart screen of death a lot these days. I’m using an iPad that’s less than 6 months old (newest version). I stopped farming doughnuts a while back. So it not that either. I have massive device memory with this iPad. Doesn’t seem to crash quite so often on my iPhone, but I rarely play the game on my phone.
I’m dropping out for this event and probably for a long time or permanently because of the Bart Screen. It’s just not worth the frustration anymore. I really, really, really enjoyed building my Springfield and spent considerable time and $ doing so. I play on an IPad with current updates and no storage issues. Crashing happens before I can even start trying to donut farm. The issues became ridiculous about midway through the last event, I think when an Android patch rolled out. I won’t consider spending real life $ on a game I maybe/probably won’t be able to play because the developers can’t get it together. What a pathetic way for EA to drag this dead dog of game to the end of the road. Thanks to TSTOA for all the great work that enhanced the game experience and kept me tapping for all these years. Goodbye & good luck!
I had the same initial reaction to “last gasp,” a double entendre perhaps. Sadly, TSTO has played like a game on life support all year. THOH should provide the final verdict. Let’s hope for the best.
Thank you for posting your thoughts on the new Mini-Event , Alissa (wow! I learned L-EA-Z-Y doesn’t bother to give a heads up on their Mini-Event to bloggers – which sucks! because if it wasn’t for TSTO Addicts? Tappers would be left confused and/or would give up on the Game App!) Releasing a Game App Update 7 hours later than usual definitely caught me off guard! 😉
Krusty’s Last Gasp (I’m calling it 🤡 business – that sounds more accurate) and I just obtained the 2nd Prize of free 🍩’s (12 today, turned on the excellerator and Farmed enough 🍩’s to spend sprinkles on Jewish Heaven – feels like I’m winning!) 😁
My Android Smartphone is new with 6gig of RAM / 512gig of ROM (my internet is 1 gig), so I feel it’s L-EA-Z-Y’s Network that can’t handle all the Tappers at once Farming for 🍩’s and/or redoing their Springfields (doesn’t occur often for me, but it does at an inconvenient time regardless). Sheesh! they can’t even do something about “that sound” during the load screen, so now we all have to Tap without any audio! 😔
I welcome the differences / challenges this time – I’m fine if it takes 5 Days to complete it all – and felt Sideshow Raheem W/the Adult Krusty Retreat goes swell next to Kamp Krusty (so do most of the Event Prizes). I can thank EA for Jewish Heaven and when I get the Clown College next …. actually, Noobs have an opportunity to get just about everything Krusty related (even though we’ve always had that opportunity with the Mystery Box)😁
Ok, back to that 🤡 business …. yes, Flanders Family Reunion is the Event benchmark for 2019! Either an Event will be just as good (nope! no Characters as Freemiums, just a Building and Decor this time, 💜 the Premiums even if their Prices are odd), or better (nope! not yet so far), or worse (yep! I don’t have to repeat what sucked this year!) …. and like a 🤡 I am back to Tapping.
” Not sure if this is something that has to do with device age, available memory on the device”
Its nothing to do with device IMO. Just got the new LG G8 a month ago. It’s lightning fast absolute zero lag in tapped out. Huge difference from my previous phone in the game..
However still got the Bart screen for a couple weeks until yesterday. No issues today at all..
The be thing that I thought of reading the event is, the clown collage as just a random building to buy thrown in with an event seems like a waste of opportunity. there should of been an entire event were the entire town goes clown ?
Who knows maybe Halloween will be a continuation of this event were Krusty opens up a circus or Clown-a-versity ?
I can definitely see a circus centered update in the future.
I was thinking about Bart screen today. I have definitely had it various times during game play. Refresh and move on with life.
But i have had it more frequently lately (last month or so) other day I realized I went around collected all my earnings did my thing and no Bart screen. Logged in after work collected every thing no issues. Logged in before bed collected every thing fine. Went over and started harvesting my KEMs and Bart screen after Bart screen. I got to thinking and I typically only see it when I an placing KEMs or collecting KEMs so I wonder if there is a “glitch” tied in with multiple KEMs to disrupt KEM farming.
I notice I get Bart screen when the collider is on & get it even with collecting donuts from collecting from rent & tasks. I wasn’t getting when the collider was off,,,now that I’m thinking about it. We should ask if other ppl notice that as a factor.
I’m getting it across the board under multiple scenarios. Considering the big problems they had for a long time and were fixed only a couple months ago I really think it’s their servers.
I’m thinking/hoping it’s not anything nefarious on EA’s part, but the only times I consistently get the Bart screen is when I am collecting on my KEM farms. I stopped tapping willy-nilly, because I’d lose tons of bonuts, but even tapping 10 or 11 (the number I need to get the bonut screen) still randomly results in the Bart screen.
What I find really odd is that I can cycle through all 400+ character jobs and collect their income without a hitch, but start tapping KEMs and it’s “Hello Bart screen!”.
Now to be fair, I booted the game this morning, and the splash screen disappeared and took me to the Bart screen. I don’t know how they have the game coded, but if it’s something involving their server responsiveness, maybe a solution would be to sync the data a little less often.
One word … Ugh. Clowns.
Actually , that’s two words! 😂
Hi Phil!
I’m trying to decide if it’s worth spending the donuts on this stuff? I’m not sure the gain of event currency is worth it either. Nothing in the prize track is really striking me. I’m on the fence of just saving donuts for Halloween. Is there another round of prizes after this that would make buying Klub Krusty worth it?
No this is it on the prizes
Ok thank you very much!
Can’t wait for Halloween! I hope they have new or very old stuff. I got everything they offered last year.
Redfly
Sideshow Raheem W the Adult Krusty Retreat was worth the sprinkles for me (same with Jewish Heaven) …. but there is nothing wrong with deciding if these Event Prizes are not worth the effort (you may find it more rewarding just spending sprinkles on some Premiums, then Farm for 🍩’s to use during THOH 2019 – we have options and I’m glad that hasn’t been taken away! 😉
Good to know! I checked it out in a friends town and I’m still on the fence. But there’s still time and you’re absolutely right about the farming. I’m very glad we have options. Right now I’m trying to save as many donuts as possible so I can buy a ton of stuff at once and won’t have to farm. That way I can stop getting the building limit warning.
I’ve been playing for years and hardly ever get the dreaded Bart reset screen. But for the last week or so I get it very, very regularly. I don’t donut farm and I have a brand spanking new Galaxy Note 10 with 12 GB of ram and 240 GB of storage space. It is definitely a server issue on my side.
I agree it’s completely on EA’s side of things with their servers.
This is everyone’s fault but mine.
sandytoes74
🤫
I think it’s that 🤡 business I keep mentioning that’s causing problems (blame the 🤡 for everything)😂
Lol! \m/
Hehe, sandytoes74, love it. Are you a millenial? If not, you are sure sounding like it.
Sincerely, another cranky old guy.
… not Patric the Cranky Old Guy “OG”
Again….lots of missed opportunities! U go and give us clown college. But thats it! Nothing else has to do with it. R u nuts? That freaking event writes itself!
THEN….the late night talk show set thing doesn’t even have a VISUAL task while krusty is there. Why???? (ok at least not yet…ill be patient. I dont know everything)
Im happy about the premium character though. Nice addition!😊
I was quite annoyed with the first prize myself as I actually quite liked the look of it but without a visual task for krusty there it really is rubbish and lazy on EA’s end.
I agree, even though Krusty does have a task there but it isn’t visual. Maybe there will be one added near the end of the event or the prizes. A visual with Krusty walking on the set, sitting down and then walking off the set would make me happy.
Yeah same or even just sitting at the desk ruffling through some papers before throwing them to the ground and smoking one of his cigars. Then they wouldn’t even need to worry about walking animation. We’re practically doing EA’s job for them here.