Thank Grog It’s Firday!
Our little game has always had a bit of a problem with time as a construct. Time is supposed to be linear…always moving forward. But, of course, in our game, the time/space continuum has been off since they started having multiple versions of the same characters wandering around in the same space/time.
As any fan of movies like “The Time Machine,” or “Back to the Future” know, messing about with the past can have disastrous outcomes for the present and the future. The fact is, changing even one tiny fraction of an event in the past, could ripple forward with cataclysmic results. People aren’t born, inventions aren’t invented, and we have to deal with multiple takes of the same event from differing eras of the same person! It’s like watching “Inception” on acid…which you don’t need to do, because watching “Inception” makes you feel like you’re on acid. But, I digress…
EA seems to disregard this fact, and has apparently placed the game once again into some sort of “suspended animation” that is keeping us locked in Christmas 2019, without the ability to do most of what we love about the game.
Let’s take a look at where we are…
The list is long…and growing longer, as it pertains to things that are limiting our lives as “Tappers.”
1. We are still stuck in the Christmas event…with no reward for playing. All of the prizes, event dialogue, and rewards for completing the chapters have been disappeared…with nothing to replace them.
2. The opening screen is waaaaaaaayyy outdated. This is January 2020…and by the time they do something about it, we will be halfway through the first month of a new decade. Homer fighting anti-aircraft flak (where was that in the storyline?) is Sooooo 2019!!
3. Many of us still can’t visit a good number of our neighbors to tap/tag their towns with a cheery “Hello! Happy New Year!” My hope is that this gets fixed when they finally kill the event…but, who knows? It’s EA. And they are clearly in EALP mode.
4. They have STILL not raised Item Limits…which really eliminates me from caring about earning anything new…as I can’t really decorate something to make it look good when placed…and have to remove something else that was making another item look good, to have enough room to place it This is SOOOOOO 2019!!! As in since late spring 2019.
Look… I get it. 2020 is looking like it is going to be one hell of a year. So maybe EA is trying to cling to the “good old days” of 2019. But come on, 2019 wasn’t all that great!
Maybe they are trying to reverse engineer the “Christmas Creep” that is happening these days, as “Christmas Sales” seem to start earlier and earlier, with some “black Friday” deals showing up at the end of September. Perhaps their logic is that if they just keep it Christmas, then all of the bad things that we are fearing in 2020 can’t happen!
This isn’t a new thing in many cultures. It occurred to me while in New Orleans last week, that the entire “Mardi Gras” culture is centered on a huge event (that moves with the Christian calendar each year) and yet allows the “season” to start on January 6th.
According to the WIKI, Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, refers to events of the Carnival celebration, beginning on or after the Christian feasts of the Epiphany (Three Kings Day) and culminating on the day before Ash Wednesday (known as Shrove Tuesday). Mardi Gras is French for “Fat Tuesday”, reflecting the practice of the last night of eating rich, fatty foods before the ritual fasting of the Lenten season.
To help you understand the “wiggliness” of Mardi Gras in time/space, you have to understand that while it always STARTS the same date every year (January 6th) it doesn’t actually end the same time every year.
January 6th is Epiphany…it is celebrated 12 days after Christmas on 6th January (or January 19th for some Orthodox Church who have Christmas on 7th January) and is the time when Christians remember the Wise Men (also sometimes called the Three Kings) who visited Jesus. (And is the actual reason for the insidious Christmas Song, “12 Days of Christmas”).
However… Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras falls on a date that is actually determined by when EASTER comes. Buckle up…this gets complicated. Again, according to WIKI…Easter falls on the first Sunday after the Full Moon date, based on mathematical calculations, that falls on or after March 21. … The date of the Paschal Full Moon, used to determine the date of Easter, is based on mathematical approximations following a 19-year cycle called the Metonic cycle.
I know. This makes no sense whatsoever. While most everyone knows that Christ wasn’t really born on December 25th…that date sticks hard every year, along with Epiphany (the Wise Men took their sweet time to get there).
But, apparently, Easter, the day that Christ rose from the dead, after being crucified on Good Friday (weird name), moves around according to the full moon, and most likely the tides and planting seasons. Weird. But, again…we have just accepted it.
Which is what we are going to have to do as it pertains to EA’s very lazy, very boring cycle of game play and misaligned seasons and dates. Just accept it.
We don’t control EA any more than we control the moon. But that doesn’t stop those in New Orleans from staging Seventy Nine (79) Parades between Jan 6th and February 25th (Fat Tuesday). That is a TON of strutting, marching, playing and drinking. A ton.
This is all because on Ash Wednesday (the day after Fat Tuesday), everyone is supposed to go into Lent, and give up something that is difficult to give up. And if EA doesn’t get their act together, I may be giving up TSTO for Lent.
But, HERE’S a SOLUTION!
Make the next major event a “Simpsons Go to the Mardi Gras!” It’s Canon. The Simpsons went to New Orleans (S29E17). It could be a great event…full of challenges and fun!
1. Fill the town with beignets…and make us tap them to earn Mardi Gras points!
2. Invite our friends and neighbors to tap in our towns to earn “Krew Points!” (Krews are the teams that put on the parades).
3. Bring back side task prizes where you earn and spend beads!
4. Create a French Quarter for our towns.
There’s loads of content ideas in this clip alone!
If you started it next Wednesday…you’d be able to do a SIX WEEK EVENT! (which is lazy…but better than nothing!).
Come on, EA!! It would be Rad! And a GREAT way to rock in 2020!
OK. I tried. Let me know if you agree…we need something that makes more sense than a lingering Christmas screen.
For all of you interested in more about Mardi Gras…THIS is a GREAT Site!
We’ll keep tapping…as long as there is something worth tapping.
So get on it EA!
You’re making a big deal about Time in TSTO, which is about a show where no one has aged in 30 years??
That would be an amazing event! Get on it, EA!
I like the sound of a Mardi Gras event. Good idea! I just want to get rid of the Christmas stuff!
Agreed!
You know what event I would like to see… Find Bobo! We have to go in neighbours towns and find Mr Burns beloved bear Bobo! find him so many times win a prize, or something along that line.
Anything to make Burns more human sounds good.
The next decade starts next year in 2021.
Ah yes… there is one in every crowd. Or should I say there is a zero in every crowd.
I really liked the ski lift and the humour surrounding Flanders tight fitting ski suit.
Bending over to pull a bible out from a crack in the floor while the church ladies watch .
Bending over to change a tire on Burns car as Smithers watched.
Me thinks ye have a thang for Flander’s man buns.
Given Flander’s strong religious leanings…..
It give rise to a new definition of
‘Hot!’ Cross Buns
Now you’ve got me jonesing for some king cake
Mmmmm…king cake.
Did you make it over to Mardi Gras World? That was the first time we had King Cake.
We missed that…but ate sooooooo many desserts. For me, my favorite is still the humble beignet.
Oh…and anything with pecans.
My wife was born in NOLA.
We returned home to California from a visit and I brought into work a batch of Pecan Pralines and those heathens dismissed them.
Fine, I took them home — more for me!
“Lisa Gets the Blues” (Season 29, Episode 17) ♥️ this Episode, ♥️ the idea of a Mardi Gras Event (I’ll even let L-EA-Z-Y stretch it out 6 Weeks) …. and I lol’d at those foreign tourists who took inspiration from the same Episode with their NOLA food binge! 🃏🎊📿🥖
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pKBgOrYbRLE.
C’mon EA! I know it’s a skeleton crew running TSTO, but do something! (maybe us Tappers need to make a more direct approach towards getting what we want in the Game App to happen! flood EA’s Twitter and Facebook? a petition directed at the right EA Department? anyone honestly feel we’re getting anything new immediately Event wise?)
Thanks Patric for inspiring! 👍🏻
Speaking of Time Machines that can travel to the past.. A great hypothetical first date question/friend group/family group question. Where would you go? What event would you like to witness first hand in History and discuss?
Where would you go?
I’d like to witness the birth of Christ…I think Bethlehem in June sounds grand!
My husband and I went to NOLA a couple of years ago. Now I just started reading Confederacy of Dunces. Everything is coming up New Orleans!
(1) Easter is based on on Passover. Passover is based on the Hebrew calendar which is moon based (as is the Arabic calendar). Because the moon and sun are on different cycles, Passover – Easter – Mardi Gras change date on the solar calendar. Christmas is the Church’s way to absorb the pagan’s holiday. It is based on when you can see the sun returning (growing) with the naked eye in the Northern hemisphere. We don’t jut “accept it”, it just what happens when cultures collide.
(2) Time travel backwards is impossible. For traveling back in your own timeline will cause massive effects in the future no matter how trivial it seems to you. However, one can travel to alternative universes is possible, since any action you take will have always happened and thus does not change the “future”. Thus the time travel “toaster” is actually an alternative universe machine that may enter at any point in the timeline. And thus each character in our towns are just people from alternative universes which is why they may appear at different ages.
(3) Happy New Years (common, Chinese, Hebrew, ….)!
(4) As for your item limits you should be able to eliminate your KEM farm, especially if you bought God. 24 hour $777,777 task, your %, and RTT farming should provide you with all donuts you need. After you get your donuts cache up your can store your % items for more item space.
Ps. Okilly Dokilly rock!!
Another good filler Mate, I love your idea for a follow up event, that would be cool. I too am getting a bit over the current event situation. We need a change. Or I too may be giving TSTO up for lent!!
Thanks! Hopefully EA reads this.
I enjoyed the event and am looking forward to whatever they have next.
PS I would love a Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz in my town 🙂
Or we could throw beads at our neighbors. Oh wait… I can’t even tap on my neighbors because there’s nothing to tap on. Never mind…
Well…I’d throw beads at you too…if I could.
The Big EAsy is a brilliant idea but unfortunately it makes too much sense.
Ugh…I hate it when that happens.
Great idea! Love it!
Buildings and memories that I actually love plus the biggest problem I have with the current format (4 week mini events) is the lack of a specific event “space” which becomes a staging ground for the entire event.
Game opens there, etc.
Makes the bldgs meaningful and you also can tell which of your neighbors are still playing.
I also miss the NPCs, although I know many of you don’t
Yep…so many things changed in 2019…not for the better.
Awesome idea Patric, but unless it’s EA’s New Year’s resolution to put more effort into events I think we may have a repeat of last year’s lag. They still need to optimize this game before extending much more or BSODs may become the norm.
I stumbled accross this today at lunch ( https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/okilly-dokilly-ned-flanders-band-the-simpsons-824087/ ), and thought how nice would it be to improve the rock stage things while adding to the game the only known Heavy Nedal band in existance. Maybe a glitch with the Re-Neducation Center creates Head Ned, and then God says, “Let there be ROCK!”
One could only hope.
So many hopes…we’ll see.
Have another vote for Mardi Gras – it makes much more sense than anything I could come up with! 🙂
Boom! If EA agrees…it could be ready for next year. They aren’t exactly timely…
I love the idea. It would bring back some of the old days of the 😊game
Great idea any event based on those principles would be great, thanks for the early Friday filler, don’t normally read this till Saturday, make it a bit harder and have friend interactions, got my vote 😁
Well…my vote for your vote makes three…or two…or something. Let’s see if EA takes the beignet!
@Patric that’s a hella good idea… on the video though, all I saw was food.. to which now I am hungry… thanks a lot… lol. my coffee and crackers will have to do. On other things.. Catholics have the most paganistic non-Christian holidays… but they party hard for them… 79 days!!!!! aprox…
There are a LOT of saints to celebrate!
Great idea, Love it.
Excellent suggestion! Having been to NoLa a couple of times now, I’d LOVE to have my own French Quarter!
So many landmarks to choose from…
I like this idea.
When I was in New Orleans last year with my wife, we dined at Antoine’s and got to tour the krewe rooms and wine cellar. Neat place. We had Oysters Rockefeller to start and closed with their famous Cafe Brulot. It’s a flaming coffee drink prepared at your table and it involves lighting your table on fire!
https://antoines.com/about#our-history
The waiters wear ties and many have been there for years. Here is a video of our waiter:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=video&cd=16&ved=0ahUKEwiop662ifnmAhUSH80KHSpCBNQ4ChC3AghEMAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DoEpUzRofW6A&usg=AOvVaw2slsTX7ZvNAokfevoyKsTb
The amazing thing about NOLA, is that almost every restaurant, bar, and location has a rich history tied to a segment of the population. The Krews are insanely rich in tradition, and likely responsible in part, for people staying and rebuilding.
So unique.
Love the Mardi Gras idea 🙏🏽🎉
Great idea Patric! Let’s hope EA Is listening 👍
Thanks!