Brandine and the Saint Patrick's Day Quest aka Brandinegate [spoilers]

Same problem. I went onto the online chat, waited 20 minutes to start and then chatted on and off for 25 minutes or so. In short, I was told that there was nothing that the customer service representative could do; that they did not have the ability to credit doughnuts. I told her that I had heard that others were receiving compensation and she told me that they were likely lying. Go figure. lol.

I left this in the little survey box after the chat:

I have played this game (Simpsons Tapped Out) multiple times daily for the last year. I have spend $48 on premium currency. I have recommended this game to many friends. The *.Pat's mission that requires Brandine to complete is unfair and penalizes people who have spent money on this game. Many people who purchased this premium player did so on Valentine's day and are in the middle of her 90-day mission. In order to complete the current mission and obtain the end prize, you must either spend doughnuts to complete her current quest or cancel it. This is not fair and only frustrates supporters of the company. I requested some doughnut compensation in order to complete her quest and was denied (she claimed that it was outside of her ability). It's not the $2.00 worth of digital currency, it's the principle. Unless this is resolved, I will absolutely never spend another dollar with EA and will joint the majority who plays this game for free.

Regards,

Brandinegate is the new Islandgate.

This annoyed me for the possible time lost if I chose to stop her spucklering and go for the quest. I've now seen the stack of beer though and am not interested so she'll keep that bun in the oven.

mokujin222 wrote:
In short, I was told that there was nothing that the customer service representative could do; that they did not have the ability to credit doughnuts. I told her that I had heard that others were receiving compensation and she told me that they were likely lying. Go figure. lol.

On a side note, what is the deal with this? I have heard lots of stories of donut compensation, but have been told by EA that this is not possible. Are people really making this up?

I basically use the 1-hour and 8-hour tasks which almost every character has (except for Helen, who I have to buy a premium building for). This way I can click through them at an extremely fast rate, knowing the button will be in roughly the same place on the screen. Until they fix this, Cletus's task menu will be out of order, with the 4-hour "Make Cletus Catch Green Creatures" stuck at the top. This always throws me off and it makes me start sending people to the wrong tasks.

cdepast wrote:
just store her and reset the clock. After she gives birth to the three kids the task is gone forever. There is honestly no rush or reason to be upset.

Sure, once she completes having the three children (9 months total) that particular task is gone forever. But while she's on that task she can't be doing anything else.

Aborting her kid doesn't just mean delaying that task. It means I could have been collecting a lot of in-game cash for the past 30 days. Assuming I could have been getting $1500 per day from her (possibly more), that's about $45,000 from that one character alone – which I paid donuts for.

It would be one thing if she was a character you could get any time, and this was just bad timing on my part. But when they released her AND included a birthing quest that would need to be aborted... that's trashy. Even by Spuckler standards.

cdepast wrote:
just store her and reset the clock. After she gives birth to the three kids the task is gone forever. There is honestly no rush or reason to be upset.

There certainly IS a reason to be upset. Instead of having her finished 8 months from now, if we store her we'll have to wait 9 months. A month is a lot of time to lose. Honestly, your comment sounds like you either got Brandons last year so you've already done her pregnancies, or you don't have her at all.

anaquarind wrote:
On a side note, what is the deal with this? I have heard lots of stories of donut compensation, but have been told by EA that this is not possible. Are people really making this up?

No, we're not making it up. I was given 200 extra free donuts in January through the live chat because I had to contact them twice to get my Christmas Gil deal donuts. I didn't even ask for them, it was just to compensate me for the inconvenience. I don't know what we'd even gain by making it up...

yes, I got her a year ago. I just don't see the big deal in having to start the 90 days over again. Annoying? Sure. If anything it extends the fun of having that task in the first place. In regards to the comment about in-game money - once you hit level 50 and unlock all land, in game money is abundant. I wish I could go back to when I started the game and give myself the advice to slow down and enjoy the ride. Its not like you are losing real money or donuts to lose time against the task completion.

cdepast wrote:
yes, I got her a year ago. I just don't see the big deal in having to start the 90 days over again. Annoying? Sure. If anything it extends the fun of having that task in the first place. In regards to the comment about in-game money - once you hit level 50 and unlock all land, in game money is abundant. I wish I could go back to when I started the game and give myself the advice to slow down and enjoy the ride. Its not like you are losing real money or donuts to lose time against the task completion.

I bet you like growing corn too.

I dislike having to choose between missing out on part of a quest (and one with a premium reward), or losing out on 30+ days of a 90-day task. Maybe if it was simply a bonus task separate from the main event quest line, that would be better. As it is, they're creating unhappy (premium!) players.

As far as not losing real money or donuts, we are losing time. Keep in mind that EA charges 30 donuts to skip through the task, so clearly it's not like the time doesn't have value.

Ultimately, it's either short-sighted or just outright rude of EA to do this. But somehow I'm not surprised.