Hey Howdy Hey Tappers!
Ok, let’s talk about this Shattered Dreams Mystery Box that so many of you are asking about…and confused about. And I can’t say I blame you for being confused, EA did drop this on us during an Event…but didn’t really drop it. They kind of teased it out. So, let’s see if we can help get everyone on the same page.
Now I’m going to stipulate this with a word of caution… box is NOT live in our games right now. So take everything I’m saying with a grain of salt because EA could still make adjustments to this up until it goes live in our games. At which point I’ll have another post with more specific information. For now, this is just some basic information gathered from the game and the files, and some assumptions I’m making based on what I’m seeing.
Now, let’s get to it…
Let’s start at the very beginning…for those that may have missed the kickoff dialogue when it launched in our games last week, here it is:
Lisa: I’m depressed. I can’t even do things I normally love…like homework.
Marge: Is this about not getting that thing you wanted for your birthday?
Lisa: No, it’s way bigger than that. This is about climate change, and wealth inequality, and voting rights, and…and why didn’t you get me the Malibu Stacy Hollywood Beach House?
Marge: You already have the Malibu Beach House and the Hollywood Penthouse. What does Hollywood Beach even mean?
Lisa: It’s a place in Oxnard. It’s where people in Los Angeles go to get away from all the good restaurants and culture.
Marge: I’m sorry, sweetie, but life is full of disappointments. You have to find coping mechanisms.
Lisa: Like how Dad drinks, or how Bart always gets in fights?
Marge: That’s why they do those things?! Actually I was thinking of my shattered dreams box. The one I keep in the disappointment closet, off the failure room in the regret wing of our house. All those things that represent life’s letdowns, you shut away in a box where they can’t hurt you. Until you pull them out to look at them, or show them to your daughter, or move them to the re-glued-together dreams box if things have improved.
Lisa: Hmm. I like that. Maybe I’ll start a shattered dreams box of my own and get it out occasionally to reminisce.
Marge: Not too much. You don’t want to confront missed opportunities too often.
Lisa: I was thinking like once per event.
Marge: That’s perfect.
So from that dialogue you can gather that there will be some kind of box appearing once per event. Other than that, that’s all you missed from that dialogue if you skipped through it.
the Shattered Dreams Mystery Box
Here’s the panel we all saw in our games about the box:
So off of this panel, we can all make the same assumptions:
Let’s take them one by one…
-The Shattered Dreams Box will return between every event. When you complete each event you’ll reveal a new one.
Here’s how I interpret this: When you complete Act 4 of Hell on Wheels, the Shattered Dreams box will appear in your game. It will only last until the next event (I would assume it would be a mini-event or multi-event) starts. In this case, the files indicate this box leaves on May 25th. Which is 1 week after the Hell On Wheels Event ends. And of course, by now we all know EA’s pattern of updates, so that should be when the next mini-event starts. And it will appear again after you’ve completed the next event.
Here’s what we don’t know for sure: if it’ll only appear after multi-events, or if it’ll appear after both mini-events and multi-events. I would assume it’ll appear after both types of events are over, just something to do for that week between events. But again, we don’t know for sure until it happens.
-The box requires a Shattered Token, which can be earned by completing events, from daily challenges, or as a bonus with donut packs!
We’re already seeing this now in our games. The tokens look like this:
And you can earn them, as some of you have been doing, via Daily Challenges (I haven’t seen it appear as an option for me yet, so I don’t have a screenshot…but I know several of you have commented you earned them via daily challenges), and via purchasing donuts from the store. Here’s the donut options, and the tokens they unlock:
As a side note…don’t buy anything other than the Dozen Donut option if you’re just buying them for the tokens. If you’re getting it as a bonus because you want the donuts, than get what you need…but if you’re buying just for the tokens just buy multiples of the dozen donut option. At $1.99 for 1 token, you can get the 15 tokens (that come with the boatload) for $29.85+ tax if you buy the dozen donut option 15 times…vs spending $99.99 USD + tax for the boatload and getting the same 15 tokens. Make sense? Basically, if you just want the tokens, only buy the Dozen donut option…it’ll save you the most money.
What we don’t know yet is the part that says “which can be earned by completing events”. I’m not sure if they’ll be a token awarded when you complete an event or something else. We’ll just have to be on the lookout for this and see what it means as we wind down this event.
Basically, this looks to me as another way for EA to get you to spend money on actual donuts if you want any real chance of opening multiple boxes.
–Shattered Tokens are persistent and can be kept for future boxes. Collect all items in a box to reveal more non-unique items!
So I’m interpreting this to mean that the tokens are just continuous in our games, as in you can always earn them and you won’t lose them if you don’t use them. These tokens will not be able to be converted for donuts, like other mystery box tokens. You can just hold them until you see something in a box that you like and want to give it a try.
And, as it says…the more items you collect the more items you’ll reveal in the box.
–Each Shattered Dreams box contains a new list of themed items, available until the start of the next event.
So here’s how I’m interpreting this: Each box that appears will have it’s own separate list of items that appear in it, all themed around one past event or another. So you’ll see some items from the future for one box, or another set of items from the Rigellians in another box that will appear later, another box appearing later in the year may contain items from a past Halloween event, and so on.
You’ll never know what might appear between events, and my best advice is to hold onto your tokens if you’re going the freemium route (because they’re hard to earn) until you see something you really want in the box. But also, if you see something you want, go for it because you don’t know if/when it’ll come back.
And another note on this: initially I misread this. That’s what happens when you’re trying to do several things at one time. Now that I’m sitting here looking at it, and able to focus, I can interpret it better. So, for those who saw my comment about new items in the box…at least for now…that appears to be wrong and I apologize for giving you incorrect information. Thankfully it was in a comment and not in a post, which is why I try to take more time when writing posts vs comments. But I’m always happy to admit when I make a mistake in something like that and own up to it.
Ok so now that we’ve broken down the interpretation…let’s get to some questions I’m seeing over and over in the comments:
I’ve Earned A Shattered Dreams Token, Why Can’t I See the Box?
Because the box won’t go live in your game until you’ve finished the Hell on Wheels event (ie Act 4). So you won’t see it trigger until some time after May 10th, and the start date will be different for everyone depending on when they finish the Act 4 prize track.
When Does the Shattered Dreams Box End?
The box ends between each event. So it’ll run from when you finish the previous event (which will vary for everyone), or the last day of an event at the latest, until the start of the next event…which is usually about a week later. So in this case, this first box will leave on May 25th, when the next event should arrive (should be a mini-event).
Do I Have to Buy Tokens?
While you can earn tokens as a bonus when you purchase donuts via the store for actual real-life cash, you will also be able to earn tokens via daily challenges (and apparently some other way when an event ends, that we haven’t yet discovered). However, earning tokens via daily challenges can take some time as they don’t appear frequently. So if you’re really wanting to get items from a particular box, the fastest way (at least in the beginning) may be to buy donuts and earn the bonus tokens with it.
What Is EA Doing? Why Are They Forcing Us to Spend Money?
They’re not forcing you to spend money, they’re still providing ways for you to unlock the box without spending actual money…similar to how premium stuff worked before the days of donut farming. However, EA is still a business and TSTO still needs to make money in order for it to continue…so they’re trying to find ways to get folks to spend actual real-life cash in this game since donut farming has pretty much destroyed the economy of the game.
Remember, I’ve been warning about this for years. With the adaptation of donut farming, EA was going to be forced to find alternative ways to earn revenue. I thought they would create an alternate premium currency, and they basically have…just without the icons. It’s called cash. Similar to the cash items in our games, ie Truckasurus II, this is just another avenue for them to earn money for this game. However, unlike the cash for character items…at least this has a freemium option.
Can I See My Token Count?
Right now, I don’t believe there’s a way to see your token count until the Shattered Dreams Box itself appears. At that point you should be able to see it at the top, similar to other Mystery Boxes. Of course that’s an assumption at the moment, since we won’t know for sure until the box goes live…but I think it’s a decent assumption. So you’ll just have to try and keep a mental note of tokens you’ve earned in between events.
What’s Inside The Box?
As I’ve said before, this box is similar to the Yearbook box in that it’s FULL of returning content that a lot of folks have been asking for. There is a full list in the files, over 100 items at the moment. However, because it says the list will change with a different theme for each box, I’m not sure what will appear in this first box. If it’ll be all 100+ items listed, or a fraction of those for this box and a fraction for another box. So for now, I’m not going to list the items in the box I’ll wait until it hits and see if all of these items are listed, or if it’s just a fraction. I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up with items that may not appear for some time. So we’ll see how it goes. But here’s a little sample of some of the items:
Jenda
Future Marge and Homer
Kodos
Teleporters
Rigellian Queen
Ghose Zapper
Frink-thetic Egg Generator MKII
Radish Station
Space Mutant
And the list goes on…
I will get you guys a better list once it’s live and I can see how this first round plays out. I have a feeling, and again it’s only a feeling not 100% what’s going to happen, all 100+ of these items will appear in this first box and then another item list will show up with the next update. BUT we’ll see what happens.
For now, hopefully, this info helped ease some of the confusion surrounding this box. Don’t worry about it right now. Just focus on the event itself and as we get into May, and start up Act 4…then we can talk about it some more. For now earn what tokens come to you via daily challenges, or if you purchased donuts, and complete this event.
Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? Share em below, you know we love hearing from you!