Happy Musings Thursday my friends! I’m back with another musings post for you. I’ve got some thoughts, so let’s get to ’em…
Alright, guys, we’re in the home-stretch of the Black History Event (it ends 1 week from today…10am ET) and now it’s time to share my overall thoughts on the event.
I covered some initial thoughts a couple of weeks ago here, and as promised now it’s time to share my final thoughts. You guys know I like to reserve judgment until an event is over (or almost over), so let’s get to it…
The Good
-I’m glad EA FINALLY tackled Black History. This event was long overdue and was nice to see it finally hit our pocket-sized towns. We’ve had Virgil’s cabin forever…it’s nice to finally have Virgil to go along with it!
-The price on the Gil “Deal”. 150 donuts was FINALLY a fair price for a Gil deal. The Patriarch isn’t over-priced, and he’s a fun character. So, for a change, this event brought along a good Gil “Deal”.
-Mabel is easily the BEST premium character of this event. Aside from the fact that she’s a Marge doppelganger (which is weird because she’s HOMER’s relative…not Marge’s), she’s a fun addition to this event. The Candian Border, the “building” Mabel comes with, actually makes sense as a combo item with Mabel. And…Mabel will actually use the border! Plus she’s voiced.
-4 out of 5 prizes on the prize track were new content. And each Act had at least 1 new Freemium character, with Act 2 having two new characters.
-Premium characters can be used for more than 1 act to earn event currency. This was something that used to happen when you purchased and event-specific premium character, that character would earn currency throughout the entire event. However, it disappeared in recent years, so it’s nice to see it make a comeback for this event. Really makes premium characters worth buying during an event, instead of waiting for a Mystery Box.
-The Dialogue. The dialogue with this event was great! Nice to see the writers return to form after the awful dialogue of Days of Future Passed…
The Bad
-Virgil doesn’t use his cabin. What a missed opportunity!
-Buildings and characters in the premium offers didn’t really go together. Why is Hibbert’s Father with the Moving On Building? And Hard Lad with Stoogie? Both buildings are from future episodes…but the characters are not.
-Jay G bundle available in the store even if the player already had the bundle. This was just a bad optic and frustrating for a number of players.
The Ugly
-Prizes on the Black History Event prize track from Future episodes of The Simpsons. Talk about disjointed…
-9 day Acts. Players have been going on 1 week Acts for over a year now, making the Acts 9 days was confusing and led to a lot of players unsure if they still had time to complete the act, if they were on schedule, or even just when the heck the next part started. Making Acts 1 (or 2) week(s), allows for a uniform start date for each new act, which is a little easier on players.
-EA tried to make the event harder by upping the currency requirements. Yes, this was harder…but it was also boring the frustrating. TSTO players don’t want harder for the sake of harder…they want harder with puzzles, games, and other achievement markers.
Final Thoughts
Overall I’d give this event a C+. They tried to do something fun, so give them credit for that, but their efforts kind of imploded on them.
Thoughts? Sound off in the comments below, you know we love hearing from you!