Happy Musings Thursday my friends! I’m back with another musings post. I’ve got some thoughts, so let’s get to ’em…
It’s Thursday guys, and I have no idea what to write about. So I’m just going to start writing and see what comes out…fingers crossed it as some sort of “flow” to it.
No Christmas update yesterday, what a bummer. I was really hoping we’d see a little snow in Springfield to coincide with the influx of Christmas decorations going up all over the place! I was pretty disappointed, but honestly not surprised, that there wasn’t a shiny new update in my app store Wednesday!
While we’re on the topic of disappointed…am I the only one who feels like this was a disappointing year for TSTO in general? Sure we received updates, although it’ll be 1 less major event than we’re used to, but each one felt lackluster and like it was missing that special TSTO “spark”. We’ll talk more about this as we do our annual “year in review” podcast later this month, but it really feels like 2019 has been the lost year of TSTO.
Maybe I’ve just been playing this game for such a long time I’m starting to become a TSTO cynic! Although, I don’t think I’ll ever be as cynical about TSTO as some Tappers…I still remain positive on the future of TSTO. I just think things need a little shakeup. Who knows, maybe that’ll start with the Christmas event…
Speaking of Christmas…have you decorated yet? Gotten your Christmas tree up? Here in Jersey, the halls of Addicts HQ are officially decked, and the little Addicts are all ready for Christmas! Even Mickey, our scout elf, made his return. So Riley’s been enjoying running around the house each morning looking to see what Mickey was up to while she was sleeping! And Sam’s been enjoying watching his sister run around the house each morning acting crazy…
How about in your pocket-sized Springfields? Have you hit the light plunger on your town yet? Or are you waiting for snow? Come on, who doesn’t love to see the festive lights all over town? To me, there’s nothing quite as awesome in the mobile gaming world as our Pocket-Sized Springfields at Christmas…
The Candy Cane Cooling Towers looking so dapper in red and white…
Or the Wiggum house with the Santa falling over…Ralphie must’ve decorated…
The VanHouten’s with their Funzos swaying in the cool air…
The Mansion of Solid Gold…how Lampwick’s house has that little extra twinkle from the Christmas lights…
How cute the Purple House looks with Santa and his Reindeer up on the roof…
How Classic and simple the First Church of Springfield Looks decked out in Angels and baby Jesus…
Don’t mind how Mr. Costington is too big to fit through the doors…
How Sanjay’s House and Apu’s Apartment both look so simple, yet so elegant with their garland windows and few lights..
Only appropriate the Helen Lovejoy would be passing by…to judge.
Can’t help but love the Santa hat touch on Frink’s Lab…and even Willie’s got his shack decked out..
Town Hall has it’s tree up already too…
Even Candy Kevin can’t help but take a stroll through the lights…
And of course, who doesn’t love watching Homer and Flanders duke it out for the tackiest Christmas house on the block?!
Springfield is AWESOME for the holidays! Of course, it’s always better with snow
So I guess, if you’re like me, and pretty disappointed there’s no Christmas in Springfield yet…push the light plunger and turn on your lights and enjoy them! That’ll at least, hopefully, hold you over until the real event hits.
Enjoy strolling around town looking at the details of each decorated house. And enjoy it before the next event hits. Because soon the snow will be falling, the snowpeople will refreeze and then it’ll be too chaotic to enjoy the details! And let’s all hope that EA doesn’t screw it all up this year!
Anyway…that’s enough randomness for one Thursday. Hopefully next week I’ll have an event to muse about! Until then my friends…
Thoughts? How would you grade the events? Sound off below, you know we love hearing from you!
Is there away to have your Springfield map come back, my 5 year old daughter wiped out my Springfield and it’s all in my inventory, 6 plus years of meticulous planning wipeout in a blink of an eye.😪😢
You can contact EA and request a rollback. Just be firm with them.
Phone or chat is best during US Central time business hours
https://help.ea.com/en/contact-us/?product=the-simpsons-tapped-out
or try them on Twitter here
https://twitter.com/eahelp?lang=en
I can’t bring myself to use the light plunger with all the trees still in full autumn mode. Each day I think “maybe snow today! I love Springfield in the winter.
As far as the events, nowadays I dread them – they have been so nasty this year with lots of attempts to destroy, kill, etc. And there were way too many and always with that new method of using the same group of characters to win the piddly bits of coin and very uninspired prizes.
But for right now, just put some snow in the ground! PLEASE!!!
The content this year has been good since we got characters like Alice Glick, Mr. Bergstrom, Judge Harm, Mrs. Prince, Report Card, Lord Thistlewick Llewellyn Sinclair, Sideshow Raheem, Cthulhu and M’nthster, Zia Simpson, God, Monkey Paw’s Salesman, Invisible Man, Kamala, and Paul Bunyan.
Buildings like the Box Factory, Golden Goose Realty, Springfield U, Union Station, Shelbyville buildings, Lil Vicki’s School of Dance, Juvenile Courthouse, Jittery Joes, Blockoland, Frink’s House, Rigel VII, and the Swap Meet. Decorations such as the Sky Finger Monument, Crowd of Flanders, and Robot Homer.
The dialogue has been great throughout the year and had a flow to it like in Halloween, Game of Games and Simpson Babies. The dialogue in the Valentine’s Day event and Christmas event also did have the story telling aspect with Bart, Lisa, Maggie, Marge, Snake and Willie telling their own stories in each act.
What I think let the events down is that throughout the year, it was only multi events and mini events one after another after those weeks in April to mid May with no update then gradually things started getting taken out bit by bit from updates which include:
* the excessive amount of 4 hour tasks for everything in every update that makes multi and mini events too similar.
* land tokens removed from the prizes .
* currency totals at 50 to 100 for each prize in every act which means that acts get finished within a couple of days.
* returning items that are premiums or prizes from old events.
* donuts as prizes replacing already owned returning items in the prize tracks * new premium character building/decoration combos all costing 150 donuts except for Gil Deals.
* no item limit increases since March.
The things that I think would make TSTO great again would be:
* more different time lengths instead of 4 hour cycles like currency tasks can be 6,8 or 12 hours long with 4 hours being the lowest and the currency equal for all the time lengths.
* bring back the land tokens as prizes.
* increase the totals for all the prizes to be around 50 for p1, 100 for p2, 200 for p3, 150 for p4 and 250 or 300 for p5 as a minimum and make them different for each act with more characters added to earn the currency also use different characters each week.
* instead of donuts as alternate prizes use land tokens instead or both as one prize to make up for players already owning returning items used as prizes in new events.
* mix up the prices of new premium character building/decoration combos to be between 100 and 200 donuts.
* Increase the overall item limits by a minimum of 50 in mini events and 100 in the bigger events at least once a month.
* if elements from older events get reused then bring back stuff like the community prizes, riddles from Stonecutters and Christmas 2014, movies, neighbour actions, and bonus & secrets.
* space out the multi and mini events from each other and include update types such as episode tie ins; promotions and sales.
* include expansion updates for Squidport, Krustyland, or Springfield Heights; new Road to Riches, and Friend Point prizes to fill up weeks between events.
Overall, I still think that most of the content and dialogue has been excellent throughout the year but its still the structure of the events and the extra elements that need to be worked on and included instead of just sending characters to collect currency every 4 hours. EA should have something that stands out in each event that makes them unique and different to each other whether it be content with special features like Golden Goose Realty, Sky Finger Monument etc. or the elements that don’t get used for every single update in a row.
I didn’t realise how lengthy this comment was going to be which is why I decided to split it in 2 parts.