The En**bleep**tification
Remember six months ago? The Railway Adventures season had just ended and our first encounter with seasonal currency and it went well enough. With a Premium Mayor's Pass, you could complete all 48 tiers of the Mayor's Pass track and earn enough of the new coins to not only acquire the new train, but level it up as well.
Then came Cairo and the Egyptian Hospital "reward" that, for anyone unfortunate enough to complete it, required 8,000 points by itself. I imagine more players abandoned the reward, and along with it, the chance of fully leveling up their Pyramid hotspot. But it was still doable without paying for anything beyond the Premium pass. It sucked, god did it suck, to the point that I almost threw in the towel, but I stuck with it in the hopes that this was just one bad season after a run of several average or better.
How wrong I was.
Chicago brought us two seasonal currencies that nobody asked for, and for the first time, the season's final reward could not be achieved by purchasing the Premium Mayor's Pass alone. In fact, we haven't been able to do so since Cairo. For the first time since I joined the game, I was unable to earn a reward. We did get a separate Materials Storage this season, and while it's great for longtime players, has to be one of the worst introductions ever for newbies. I'd give it up in a heartbeat to get rid of seasonal currencies.
Kyoto was a waste of time, Monaco gave us some pretty buildings and just as many hideous ones, Munich was impossible, and Halloween was even worse. After the week 2 event for Norway ended prematurely, I've given up on the season.
I've been in the game for a long time. I've unlocked all five regions, filled one wall to wall with Omega buildings and turned another into an art project. I have more rewards than I could ever display without multiple new regions being introduced. I've still got some empty space to build in, but at this point, I've got no motivation to do so. Neither the free nor the premium mayor's passes are half as valuable as they once were, the tasks to earn the rewards are more repetitive than ever, cheaters are more prevalent than ever, and the response from customer service is deafening silence.
I've been in the game for a long time. I'm starting to consider deleting nearly a decade of investment and enjoyment. I'm not the only one; I won't be the first out the door and I **bleep** sure won't be the last.
Fix your **bleep**, EA.
