Thank Grog It’s Firday!
I admit it. My head is a bit broken. I’ve tried to curb my viewing of “current events,” but have failed miserably. So, it was a welcome surprise, and a nice diversion when EA came across with an early (kinda) Black Friday/Thanksgiving mini-update.
I say “kinda” early, because the fact is, it mostly happened the same time as last year, and the year before. It’s Thanksgiving that is late this year. How DARE they make Thanksgiving and the REAL Black Friday so late in the month, and so close to Christmas???
Anyway, there was plenty to unpack for this event, and I’m sure most of you are very excited about the chance to get a ton of stuff that had been offered, at discount prices, as long as you were willing to spend real money.
Wait. What??? They are doing THIS again? Forcing us to spend REAL MONEY (instead of farmed donuts) to get some of the stuff being offered????
Well…there IS A SOLUTION THIS PROBLEM!! I’ll Tell You how to get real value out of your real dollars spent!
I’ll get to the solution in a minute…
But, first…you had to know that this was going to happen. There was going to be some content that was going to be held ransom, for real money. They haven’t done this in a long time…but you had to know that it was coming! After all…this is the most important quarter for profit every year. Q4 is where the American buying public, sets aside common sense, and blows every dollar they have (and a ton they don’t) on gifts, deals, and “discounts” that help drive the overall GDP into the “plus column” every year. Many say it’s impossible to increase every year…that it is not sustainable. And yet…by triggering the buying frenzy that is the holiday season every year (and earlier and earlier), they do it. But, I digress…
Let’s break this down into the “Must have” column and the “I don’t really need this” column. It’s the only real common sense way to shop for anything.
In the “Must Have” column, I have...Nothing.
There are so many reasons for this. First, the FREE content that we get for just performing the quest-line, is by far the best content of the update. I don’t need to spend money, or donuts, to get it. That’s a good thing.
The rest? Not so much. Especially as it pertains to the vaunted “Gold Box” content that requires the gold coins, which require you to spend real money (after the free coin you get at the beginning of this event).
So…this is what I was offered in the “GOLD BOX!!” All of it. A bunch of stuff I passed on in other events…that I could have gotten with donuts before. I admit, I am confused as to why EA thinks I would pay actual money for these things. But, I was happy to take a “Free Something” from the Gold Box, with the free gold coin they gave me.
Looking at the list of stuff…the only one that made me laugh, was the Radish Station. And BOOM! I got it with my free coin! Woot?
It was cool…until I went to place it…and once again, was reminded that I was at my HARD ITEM LIMIT. Argh!!. So…I stored a handful of Wailing Walls (as I wailed my disdain for Item Limits).
So…when it is presented to me, that I should spend REAL MONEY in order to win a variety of random buildings, that I CAN’T PLACE…I am not so inclined.
I just don’t care about this stuff. Sorry. More buildings. Unrelated to anything. Just buildings I can’t place.
So…….yes….that makes the “MUST HAVE column” a big blank vortex…sucking away my desire to care about the Black Friday Deals that are offered in the rest of the update. If I have to store something, to get something that I didn’t want in the first place (when it was originally offered), I would have to be really, really, really bored, or desperate to buy something. Which I am not.
I get it. There is a ton of content in the different Boxes being offered. And yes…as always, if you want to roll the dice with donuts (farmed or otherwise) that you will get the item your heart desires, have at it.
I also understand that there are loads of newer players who have missed out on some of this content, and can now catch up through these offerings.
But, I have to ask…how is this really any different than the Yearbook Mystery Boxes that have been with us almost the entire year? If you haven’t farmed, and plundered the boxes by now, the Black Friday Mystery boxes have to be loaded with things you have likely seen all year…and passed on.
AND WAIT!! It looks like a lot of the SAME STUFF being offered at a HIGHER PRICE??? Come on!!!
Case in point… I saw the Ghost Pirate Ship being offered in the “Men’s Mystery Box” for 80 donuts a whack…
Meanwhile…in my regular Yearbook offering…I cycle through and BEHOLD…
The SAME Ghost Pirate Combo being offered for 30 donuts a whack.
Do they think we are stupid???? Wait. Don’t answer that. Of COURSE they think we’re stupid. After all…we have proven over decades of mass consumption this time of year, that all they have to do is label something as being ON SALE!! and we will rush to partake. Man. It makes me ashamed of all of the years I spent owning an ad agency, before I got into Internet Broadcast Services. It has turned me into a very reluctant “sale shopper.”
The “All American Auction” is the only place that I saw any content that I really wanted…but even there, it was pretty much old content, with the new addition of the Storage Locker and CJ Pro Bidder which I grabbed right away (using farmed donuts).
OH…WAIT! What about my promise of telling you how to get Real Value out of the money you spend??
Spend some on something that matters.
It is time once again to begin raising funds for our School in Buyijja. Winter term starts in January, and the holidays are coming soon. So, we are starting our campaign early. Changing the lives of children, or buying a digital nothing that you can’t remember in a month? I’ll let you decide.
CLICK HERE TO DONATE!
Alissa said it best about this update…”Well…at least EA is still giving us content.”
Yes. But, at what price? I’m happy that we have more content, and the game is still alive. I’ll leave it at that.
Last yeah they offered 2400 donuts for $19.99. I don’t remember if it was black friday or christmas time. Any idea if this will be offered again?
What’s happened to the autumn colours with this update?
patric, in a time when random acts of kindness are indeed random, what you & yours are doing in buyijja is just mind-blowing. please keep the pics coming.
Thanks very much. We do it because we can. But nine if it would be possible without the support of those who support our efforts.
Changing the lives of children, or buying a digital nothing that you can’t remember in a month? I’ll let you decide.
Once I pay the bills in January I’ll see what’s left..However Guilt will not factor into decision!
Guilt isn’t the intent. Just common sense.
As a person that plays Xbox and PS4 and spends $80 Canadian on a new game, I don’t have a problem spending $70 one time on TSTO to get a building (Cosmo) that generates me 2200 donuts a year for jumping into my game once a day. I will play this game for years at a $70 investment whereas a new $80 Xbox game I can beat in a month, or a night out to dinner and a movie for 2 costs over $100 for one night of fun. To me donut farming seems tedious and like it would take away from the enjoyment of the game, turning it into work but maybe others don’t. I don’t have time every 4 hours daily to have my face glued into my phone. I also don’t collect and just plop down every single building, character or decoration the game has to offer in a chaotic mishmash but others do. I wouldn’t find the game fun unless I designed a beautiful town when others don’t. As much as you think people that play like me and with my perspectives are maybe dummies that you don’t understand, we all have different play styles. Your way isn’t right, my way isn’t right, there are a number of personal variables that factor into our decision making and what’s right for each unique person. I will be spending real money on this game, yes, even after reading your wise post telling me I’m perhaps not too bright for doing so, but I will because it suits my tastes, needs, perspectives, and game time commitment preferences. I also see must have items this event whereas you may not because I don’t have everything already. I don’t farm and previously spent 225 hard earned donuts for Barney and his Bowlerama that I could have gotten for 1 token that’s equivalent to 12 donuts had I waited. Also, I notice the players like me when sounding off in the comments are typically happy with the events and get enjoyment from the game whereas the farmers who buy everything seem in a perpetual state of disappointment by events because they want for nothing. All they’re often left with is mediocre fun, disappointment, and frustration on item limits. So who’s playing wrong? Lol, the truth is no one is playing wrong but it is something to think about. If you have endless donuts and all content you’re not as excited, just like the excitement of Christmas would be drastically diminished if people celebrated it 365 days a year. Anyways, these informational posts are great, and would be even better if a bit of the judgemental close-minded conjecture was slightly reduced. Thanks for all you guys do on this site, Alissa is my favourite hard worker because she sticks more to the facts and doesn’t lace a good chunk of her posts with subjective intense opinions, though I still do like you, ya old crank you. I will end with a big your welcome for spending real money on this game to fund EA’s continuing content for all you free farmers. Merry Christmas from your friendly Canadian real cash spending friend. Happy tapping all.
“Anyways, these informational posts are great, and would be even better if a bit of the judgemental close-minded conjecture was slightly reduced.“
Seriously??? I didn’t say a word about the way people play…or spend. Play however you want…I honestly don’t care how you play or how you spend. If you can defend the Black Friday “deals,” then you are a “true fan.”
Welp, at least he found a forum to publish his dissertation.
🤘🤣👍
You said the must have column or don’t really need column are the “only common sense way to shop” so it suggests that anyone that doesn’t categorize accordingly would then lack common sense.
Also, when you said “does EA think we’re stupid?” it came across as though you meant anyone that buys those items are stupid because they cost more than they did in the past or in other boxes (which by the way cost more donuts per random generated prize for those people that don’t have all items so it is actually a better deal with different prize options that people may like more).
Then at the end you told us “And how do you get Real Value out of the money you spend? Spend some on something that matters” implying that the donuts for non farmers don’t matter and we’re wasting our money as the game and donuts for us have no value even though we need to buy donuts to gain them as we don’t farm.
Then your implied recommendation for our money instead was that we should be donating the money we would have spent on donuts to causes such as the one you linked to following that sentence.
You can’t say you didn’t tell us how to play or spend because you kind of did.
I’m just saying we’re all different and some of us want to buy those items in certain boxes that EA is apparently tricking us dummies into buying without feeling as though we are dummies for doing so. That’s all I was referring to in my response which I attempted to keep from being inflammatory while still highlighting the opposing side and bringing up how your words can be perceived by different people that read them.
As I said, thank you for the posts and I like you but I disagreed with how some of that came across. Sorry you had issue with my word choices of judgemental, close-minded, and conjecture. Some came across as I explained above as judgemental; some could be considered close-minded when you weren’t aware of or speaking on other views but rather just one stance; and the conjecture was your opinion suggesting how we proceed without thinking about how others play differently and there’s basically only one logical thing to do when there are actually plenty of good options depending on the individual.
I wasn’t trying to start a fight and I can only imagine how stressful being a poster on pages such as this can be for you guys when you’re dealing with lots of different types of people and viewpoints responding to you and some people can be pretty darn mean. You guys sacrifice a lot of time and energy to help us all and it is appreciated but when you’re making public statements certain word choices can have unintended effects such as inadvertently insulting others.
As an example I wasn’t trying to frustrate you but it happened even though I read and re-read my post 20 times before sending it. I hope I clarified what I meant more effectively and we are all guilty of being close-minded, sharing conjecture, and being judgemental at times, it’s just harder when more people are exposed to it or it came across that way when that wasn’t how it was intended.
Also, I wouldn’t call myself a “true fan”, I just like the game. And I’m not defending EA’s prices, I just have no control over what they charge but I’m happy to get bonus items that weren’t offered every other day.
As far as I’m aware the 900 donut price is the same as always but have extra token, donut, and building incentives currently. I wasn’t prepared to buy that package previously but all things considered I am satisfied with the current bonus offerings and will likely pull the trigger and still give to charity with other money budgeted for good causes separate from my donut purchase. Thanks for reading and happy tapping 🙂
In short… to a very long reply…you clearly took several of my points incorrectly as well as personally.
It’s a game. It’s not life. Finding value in things that are worthy of your time and money are important to happiness and contentment.
But sorry, the choice between digital baubles that can go away with the flick of a switch, and changing the lives of children, is a pretty easy decision.
I have made the same observation, that players with such a huge bonus % and unlimited donuts with no challenge do indeed seem to suffer from “bored prince” syndrome. Only recently did I go from premium to farmium. Because I have such a large reserve of cash, I can quickly harvest bloodmobiles to obtain a desired premium but I’m not building up a cache of donuts for the same reason- that it takes enjoyment from the game for me. In fact I’m still considering getting the $50 bundle 1. To contribute to the game 2. To get a double daily dose of hearing Homer drool, “Mmmmm, premium currency…” 3. To cruise from Christmas to Valentine’s day at least without even thinking about bloodmobiling.
Patric, I agree with you that the All American Auction questline prizes are the best part of the event. [I find it appropriate that EA is stretching out Black Friday to mirror the rest of the retail industry. No accident I’m sure] What I do have in the boxes is mostly stuff I’ve already passed on many times before. I passed on the Syzlaks last time, happy to see them come back. Like you and Ebron have written about, I recently hit my first item limit warning so now I need to be even more selective than I already have been, so looks like CJ will be future mystery box fodder.
Thank you for providing this forum Addict Moderators. Happy Tapping everyone!
Item limits. Argh. It has really ruined my design mojo.
In my Gold Mystery Box, I had one item: University Nerds. I was pretty happy about that. I had three items in the retail box, the Calabresi’s and the Pharaoh Guard in the International box, Scotland Yard in the hidden agenda box, and the Hypnotist in another box. A lot of items that were either originally cash or very limited. I picked up the new character combo even though I have no idea who it was. And I picked up the new premium buildings. What else was I to do? I’ve been sitting on 11,000 donuts. I don’t even farm or run the monorail. I do feed the XP Collider every 10 days.
The items offered in the Buy Donuts Prize Track are boring buildings, which I also would have difficulty placing because of the item limit. They have no attraction for me.Why buy donuts when my supply is unlimited?
I yearn for events of yesteryear when it cost nearly 3000 donuts to get all the premium content. (That’s why I started farming in the first place). Each event has had fewer and fewer premium content and my donuts kept multiplying. The Wailing Wall Goof allowed me to increase my XP bonus to over 2000%. I guess after I earn another 1.5 billion in game cash, I can just stop sending characters on tasks.
The B Sharps task and the Paul Bunyon Homer are great prizes. I can’t wait to get the new Homerish character. But the game play has become stagnant. I’d like some variety, neighbor interaction and a challenge.
I fear the Christmas event will be another snorefest.
Agreed!
My eyes hurt😵 so I skimmed all this.
Please continue to enjoy this wonderful game and Matt’s artwork and be very grateful for all involved with TSTO!
Remember too, it is wonderful that we are able to…
HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all!
I bought Springfield Storage locker, I didn’t remember this either from the show, but it’s not a bad building.
What they should have done is create a Smorgasbord containing any and characters and buildings that the user currently doesn’t own. Then for $2.00 you get to pick and 3 objects or characters. For $5, offer 10 choices, etc.
I think they would rake in the cash with that, and us old timers could finally pick up long sought after items that never otherwise become available.
That is a great idea… but it would force the EA programmers to do so something.
So, I ended up completing the Black Friday Sales and the Yearbook this week. Both of them.
About 18 months ago I made a £20 purchase for some donuts in relation to a special scratch card event. At the time, I had about 80 characters, no ingame cash to speak of and a handful of donuts from farming the monorail and the Find Maggie game. I’d used the XP Collider once, but given I had a bonus of about 112% and not much going on, a week of constantly farming KEMs within my limited cash budget, I turned 25 donuts into 38. Aces.
Seeing everyone else boast cash stocks in the millions and hitting item limits, I figured I’d missed the boat on house farming (I actually hadn’t, but when they changed the formula I sold all my houses for an instant cash boost before realising my mistake – an approach I like to refer to as the ‘military way’ of meeting budget requirements) and so there was no real way of making progress, lest it be via small gains on these little donut purchases.
I’d spent about £300+ on donuts before, so the extra £20 wasn’t going to break the bank. Only, the purchase failed, I didn’t get my ingame content or my scratchcard despite the money moving from my account to EA’s. Despite protesting and appealing to both EA customer service and Google Play, I was told there was nothing I could do and they weren’t going to honour (yes, honour with a ‘u’) my purchase. That stung. Either way, I vowed in that moment never to spend another penny (cent) on this game.
About April of this year I came back to the game, realised I hadn’t been maximising my bonus %age after reading that all the Springfield Heights buildings offer bonus % and I had a load of items tucked away in my inventory I didn’t know had a % bonus in them. This site was massively, massively informative. With some tactical bonut spends and a full deployment of available modifiers, I cranked my standing %age to over 1000%. Now it was possible to get over 100 bonuts a day through farming.
I invested in house farming, reasoning that if I was going to “stick it to EA” over the long-term, however high an outlay it would be for houses, eventually they would pay off in 100 taps or so, then I was into the ‘pure profit’ zone. Especially with my bonus % helping out.
I was slowly and tactically making my way through the yearbook, sometimes spending an hour to line up all 5 barrels on the items I wanted (they would all cycle through sequentially so for the most part it was just a case of waiting for the stars to align, as it were). Within a few months, my bonus % had gone from 120 to 1500 and I was bringing in the things I really wanted from the Yearbook, with absolutely no monies invested. Take that, EA.
Still, I couldn’t set about designing my town because the free land expansions had all weirdly appeared in the top corner of Springfield whilst there are still sections in the middle of town I haven’t been able to purchase. Because they made all new land token-only, and have since stopped giving out tokens. As I said, I missed January and so missed the Golden Goose Realty. Nightmare.
Then Halloween dropped, and Wailing Walls were available for $1000 (something else I picked up on from reading this website). I’d initially planned to store all my houses and replace them with smaller catacombs and thus increase the amount of cash I had coming in, though I was already at $100m ish. But no, instead I stored all my tennis courts (yeah, I’d done that too) and all my houses and a load of other useless crap I had generating income and replaced it all with Wailing Walls. 3,500 of them, give or take. My bonus %age is now over %10k, and with rat truck farming I can bring in about 1500 donuts an hour. I maxed out my cash in eight days. On Tuesday of this week I emptied the Yearbook of literally everything, followed closely by all the Black Friday boxes and the American Auction items.
At this point, the only thing I’m likely to drop any money on now is the GGR. £50 for a building that gives me 6 donuts every 24 hours? With 8 hours of farming I could bring in 12,000 donuts. My revenge is basically complete.
That said, I haven’t actually enjoyed the game for the last few months, I’ve only really been playing out of spite. The minute I get the GGR and I can open up my land acquisition, THEN I can enjoy designing Springfield again. For now, cash-only elements of the game are a waste of my time, and of EA’s.
Great job of covering a lot of the issues!
have you been playing out of spite to EA? it is a game – do something you enjoy
In an ideal world I could do both. As I said, as soon as the GGR comes back around, all bets are off. Only, whilst I wait for the thing that I want, I might as well just snap up literally everything else in the game so I have the freedom of choice later on.
Last thing I want is to miss the next GGR, or game-changing building or addition because I’m sulking.
I have the GGR & it has maxed out the tiles & pays cash now. I could never use them all except for water. the item limit prevents it. I’d sulk if the free range turkey came back & I missed it 😂
Roll on Christmas, only got 1 thing from this event is the nerds, now moving on, will donate today, worthy cause 😁🤶🎅
I guess my true reward this week was volunteering to build more Container Homes to Shelter Vets (financed by John Forgerty) here in Las Vegas …. and so we have 6 Veteran Villages with the goal of making sure every Homeless Get is rehabilitated (it’s working, thanks to cool people like John Forgerty).
It’s also cool that we have choices in how we play this Game App (I lament not getting the 🍩’s deal to purchase last month, but that’s EA’s fault for their glitch).
I got the latest Premium Combo and the rest of Moe’s Family (stuff not in the regular Mystery Box). I’m being careful with what I obtain due to what else? Item Limits (which may turn into a problem for Xmas 2019 Event, if EA won’t do something).
I admire the Prize being a Building that generates 🍩’s daily, perhaps if this was a $24.99 for 500 🍩’s deal + CostMo it would attract more Tappers?
Good for you! I help load a hospital container going to Rwanda with my Rotary peeps. Every bit of good we do, helps.
No EALP in Buyijja!
~MIB👤
🤘🤣👍
Most of these items are of little interest to me.
After 3 (ish) years playing I have most of the characters & I got a warning last month that I had too many items in my town. Ended up thinning out my forests, scaling back on the monorail & I&S land. But I am going to have to be more selective what I place in my town.
I was really hoping we would see more older characters brought back. Only new characters for me are the Calibreses & President Lisa.
I don’t have most of Sideshow Bob’s family (or the stage they perform on).
Like a few other people I have seen, I don’t think I’ll ever get Ms Sinclair.
Of the Fossil Fuel Four I only have The Fracker. He’s awesome 😀
So, yes…there are a ton of things they could bring back. So, we’ll have to see what Christmas brings
Too bad the phrase “we’ll have to see what Christmas brings” just leaves me with a sense of dread…pretty sure EA will do their best (do they still have a best?) to disappoint again.😕
I know… ugh.
Fully agree. I have played since the very first Xmas event, but I have completely stopped working on my “A” town since there hasn’t been a really coherent group of prizes since, IMHO, Destination Springfield. I took over my son’s Springfield as my “B” town since I get to design from scratch. Going back through the first questlines again is a reminder of how far (really far) the game has fallen lately.
Hmmmm, take over my daughter’s Springfield she abandoned after a few months of playing…she might even have leftover donuts from a bundle I bought her. A newish start. Tantalizing thought. Thanks Sage.
Oktober10aussie. Did your Fracker guy come with a building?? I bought him but he was a stand alone character. No building !! 😠
Oh also, sorry you missed out on Ms. Sinclair. I love her 8 hour visual task, of doing absolutely nothing. She just sits on a bench all over town. Happy Tapping. 😎