Friend Visit Payouts

tbuddy442 wrote:

KrustyBrand wrote:

PhoenicianSn wrote:
Wasn't aware of any glitches on the payouts, but money payout glitches are not as big of a financial issue to EA compared to Donut glitches where they actually lose money. I understand a glitch is a glitch and thus poses a need to rectify the problematic code, but honestly, what difference does it matter to EA as a business when a player finds a means to cheat the cash when the cash is free to boot? Meaning, the game is free, the cash generated from the game can only get the player so far, while taking advantage of glitches netting the player Donuts actually does pose a financial threat to the Publisher.

Notwithstanding this position, I was not aware that there was a glitch on the friend payouts resulting in EA patching the code to remove the payout progression. I still would like them to bring it back though. Why not?

At the risk of sounding self-centered, I didn't really care about the effect of the glitch on EA. I don't think anyone did. I cared about how it affected *me*. The manner in which the glitch was exploited (and its effect on the game servers) was widely held to be one of the causes of the game's instability at that time.

Totally agree there. Visiting friends was pretty much sure way to disconnect for me.

I had a different experience. The progressive bonus didn't make my game less stable. In fact, I'm much more likely to crash when visiting friends now (though only about once a day, following the Green Screen).

The fact that the progressive bonus/friends glitch/what-have-you generated payouts so out of line with the game's price structure, and that it was ultimately removed does suggest that it was an unplanned and undesired (on EA's part) coding side-effect or error. But I'm not convinced that it was one of the causes of the stability problems.

That said, I'm not sad to see it go. At first it was exciting to score all that extra cash, but it was a TON of work. It became a grind, and sucked the fun out of the game. After a few rounds I stopped doing it, but was nagged at by the knowledge that I was leaving so much money on the table. When the bonus disappeared, it was actually a relief.

Now I'm back to looking around my friends' towns and re-designing my own, and having more fun. My only regret is that the whole thing may have influenced EA to put those crazy price tags on the escalator, skyscraper, and magnifying glass, only one of which I like, but all of which I'll buy because I'm an obsessive completist (please, oh please, let the mausoleum be offered again next Halloween!).