There are several New Premium offerings in this event (at least one each week).
The first one out of the blocks, is a chance to get Hibbert’s Father and “Movin’On” a building that is OK…but, weirdly more associated with the last update (Days of Future Past).
To Quote our fearless (but vacationing) leader, “As we all know, that limited-time label can tempt us to grab everything in sight because it’ll be gone soon. But don’t sweat it! That’s where we come in to tell you what’s worth those donuts and what you might want to hold off on.”
Note from Alissa: With the downtime right now, we thought it would be fun to revisit some of Patric’s old posts from “back in the day” (circa 2014), when he was much angrier at TSTO/EA. Hopefully, they make you chuckle as much as they make us chuckle. Here’s a look back at one of those posts…
It’s not often that one gets an “insider’s look” at what goes on behind the curtain at EA. I was lucky enough to find out for myself, and have one of my biggest questions finally answered. Namely, “Who Sets the Prices for Premium Items In TSTO?”
The fact is…it always seemed random to me. I never understood how they differentiated between “Premium,” “Freemium”and “Community Prizes” that were earned back in the day by visiting neighbors.
I am now one week away from our Rotary club’s big event. I took this on, because after doing two weddings last year, I figured, “how hard can it be to do a huge event for 200 people and raise $70K?” Reading that line in print…makes me realize that maybe I should have read that line in print a few months ago, before I agreed to “chair” this thing. The Southtowne SpeakEasy is going to be epic. If I live long enough to get through it.
Anyway, to say that I am not happy that we have some down time in the game this week, would be a bold-faced lie (And let’s face it…we don’t need any more bold faced lying going on in the world. Our liar cup runneth over). But, even in downtime, when everyone else has a chance to design, catch up, be creative and expand…I find myself having to do more, with less, even though I have more to work with.
That’s right…I’m talking about the idiotic Item Limits that continue to vex me. I hit it again last week. The hard item limit. The real deal, “You need to store…blah…blah….blah…” item limit warning.
And just when I had a ton of donuts to spend! But, I found a solution!
I can’t believe how many questions the addition of the Golden Goose Real Estate building opened up! Three HUGE questions, or “goose chases,” that really forced me to do some serious research, math, and some additional Goose Guessing!
The Questions?
1. How Many Land Sections Are There, and how many do I have left?
2. Does it make sense for me to hoard my Free GGR land certificates, or should I move ahead and turn them in for Free Donuts?
3. Where in the heck is “True North” in TSTO?
Well…as much as it seems to be an impossible task to answer all of these in one single post, I am just the tapper to take it on!
I’m not going to go so far as to say that EA/Gracie always get it right. Far from it.
HOWEVER… this game continues to evolve…EA continues to listen…and the best part of it all (when compared to other mobile games), it JUST KEEPS KEEPIN’ ON!
I’m really not sure how many of you play other Mobile Device games. I admit to being pretty limited. Mostly because almost none of them hold my attention. I’m not into “Shoot ’em up” games, or games that require loads of time each session. But, more important, I am not a fan of games that get “stuck” in one mode…and bore me.
I am going to ask a very specific question…and I am asking the good folks at Gracie Films/Fox, and specifically Matt Groening… “Why In The Hell Did You NOT Choose EA for your Futurama game?” I get it for Family Guy. After all…Seth McFarland likes to “be different” (while mostly copying other shows for his content). But, Matt…you have a good thing going with EA and Tapped Out…what made you flip to Tiny Co for Futurama??
I can’t imagine it was the answer to that question might be. But the much touted, “Futurama Worlds of Tomorrow” should be renamed to “Futurama…not much future tomorrow.”
But, this isn’t about piling on to Tiny Co. This is a post about the recent things that EA has done, to prove that they still care about the game, and the best choice for Tapped Out. Even if they make us nuts once in a while! Continue reading →
OK…so, this event really took me out of my comfort zone. I was forced to do something I rarely, if ever do…in fact, I was forced to do TWO things that I rarely if ever do.
Life is like that as you age… You end up doing a lot of things you didn’t think you would ever do, mostly because your body forces you to do them. Like sleeping in a strange position so your bad shoulder doesn’t wake you up in the middle of night…again…and then waking up anyway, with “monkey brain” (look it up…it’s a thing), as you starting clicking off all of the stuff you have to do…like write a Friday Filler post, and check your town to see where the hell Grandpa is.
When and if you succumb to the fine art of Donut Farming (as I reluctantly admit to doing recently), you are going to start also becoming a player that is at least casually obsessed with Bonus Percentages Earned from buying and placing a variety of items in your town, which may or may not be bought for their beauty or intrinsic value, but entirely for what they earn. It’s like the difference between having a nice tile roof on your house, or an array of solar panels. The tile probably fits the architecture and original intent of the structure…but, the panels are EARNING their keep…all of the time.
Or…think of it like fertilizing your crop. When you add items to your town that have Bonus % increases, every KEM you farm, every character tapped, every rent or menu collected, will yield more donuts per square green patch. 30 KEMs with a multiplier of 200% will generate 1.2 donuts while those same 30 KEMS will generate 1.7 donuts with a 600% multiplier (at least according to Safi)..until you reach level 939. See His CHARTS HERE.
Man…OK…so it still sounds complicated. But, using our fertilizer analogy again, your KEM plant will generate way more buds, if you fertilize it with Bonus %. Wait…are were still talking about TSTO? And what kind of plant are you growing there, son??
As a recent convert (I won’t go into the why right now), I also started caring about Bonus % for the first time. The two go hand in hand. If you are going to take the time to farm Bonuts…you better pay attention to the BO-part of the term Bonuts, as in Bonus Donuts. Especially after you crest over the now-storied Level 939, and find yourself having to earn TWICE the number of XP (currently 1M) vs 500K (again currently before you hit 939).
So…Bonus % Items Really Start Mattering…if you want to play in the “big leagues of donut farming.” I’d like to come up with some romantic or cool term for the “Big Leagues of Donut Farming,” like the “Sprinkle Show,” or the “Big Time Donut Duster” or the “Tragically Obsessed Addicts Who Play Too Much For Their Own Good.” But, now that I am aspiring to be one of them, it is a waste of time and space. I’ll just call it, BTDF… Big Time Donut Farming.
“Back in the Day,” (when TSTOAddicts, TSTOFriends, TSTOTips, and yes…even TSTOTopix) were all struggling to get “audience share” in what was then known as “the Great TSTO Blog-O-Sphere,” I used to write regularly for both TSTOTips (that is a long story of intrigue, mayhem, and backchannel espionage, because 4 years ago today, TSTOFriends hadn’t even launched yet), as well as TSTOAddicts. For TSTOAddicts, I wrote three regular weekly posts, “ManicMonday,” “HumpDay” and “TGIF.” That was a loooooooooooooong time ago. And of course, we all know the sordid tale of how Alissa ended up being the “Godmother of TSTO” and TSTO Addicts came out on top as the de-facto “Legit Leading Syndicate” of TSTO Blogs. We are all better tappers for the journey…The right blog came out on top!
If you don’t know all of the history…tough beans. We aren’t going to rehash it all again. Most of those who were in the middle of the “Great Blog-O-Sphere Wars of 2013″ are swimming with the fishes, or have skulked off into some corner of the ” TSTO Dark Web” (TSTO message boards, Facebook pages, Reddit, the Forum, or in the case of Ryan, got a real life!). They now spend most of their time talking among themselves, to further mythologize their roles in the early TSTO history, or whine (through text messages or subtle comments on blog posts), when one of us who was actually on the inside, gets too chippy. But, I digress…
It’s HUMP DAY (also known as Wednesday…the day you get over the hump for the work week), and I am here to offer some helpful tips in making your Black Friday Sales Shopping EAsier!
I bring up the “history” of the “Blog-O-Sphere” because in TSTO terms, we have been tapping and blogging FOR AN ETERNITY. If a human year equals seven “Dog Years,” then there has to be fifteen TSTO years in a human year…which means in TSTO Years, we have been blogging for well over 60 years (which ironically, crosses over into my human age, of “soon-to-be-64”). What any of this means, is that we have been around the block for ALL of the TSTO Black Fridaysand know our way around the BEST DEALS, that offer the BEST VALUES, for the BEST PRICES!! Continue reading →
Let’s just start by saying that my “welcome back” to TSTO Addicts was a little rocky (as in having an effigy of me thrown down the 500 foot cliffs of Dover onto the rocks). I deserved your mistrust…as those who knew the history, knew that I was a complete jerk to Alissa while I was a “competitor” after starting out as a contributor here. It is a long story…and thankfully, as has been stated several times, we both buried that hatchet (because Riley told us to), and life has been pretty darn sweet every since.
But, there was that lingering doubt by many (and stated publicly on occasion) that I was going to “ruin the site” by “writing about things other than TSTO” and trying to “guilt trip” people into donating to our work in Uganda. Again…I get it…I was the interloper, and the outsider, who was darn lucky to be here at all.
But, with the tacit support of Alissa, I ventured once again into trying to help Addicts be “more than just a TSTO info site” while doing something that mattered in the world. And I quite frankly, was scared to death that it would unravel all of the work I had done to prove that I had indeed seen the error of my ways…and was grateful for Alissa’s support.
As it turns out…this community not only blew my mind…but broke all of the fundraising records for any project in regard to funds raised in the shortest time. And even more amazing, the comments of support you sent were simply overwhelming.
Here we go again…another way to celebrate New Years on a different date, with yet more traditions that beg the question, “Why???” What’s so great about another new year when it doesn’t even fall on New Year. Unless it does…but does it?
Let’s start by making the distinction between those who celebrate the New Year with the start of the Gregorian Calendar and those who apparently have never met Greg, and are willing to celebrate willy-nilly (with no real deference to Groundskeeper Willie), on random dates that are somewhere in between other dates, yet to be determined by the sun and the moon.
Case in point. The current update which is celebrating the Chinese New Year…which follows the Lunar Calendar and is actually called Yuan Tan and can happen anytime between mid-January and mid-February. It can last up to 15 days (undoubtedly using soup as its main food group) and culminates in the exchange of money in red envelopes for good luck. Nothing says “lucky” like soup and money. But, as I am writing this, my wife has reminded me that the soup is actually Wonton, and NOT Yuan Tan, but the money part is accurate, even though the day it is celebrated every year changes. See why I’m confused?
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