TSTO Christmas Keys to SUCCESS!

First off, thanks a million for the thorough information, brettolmsted! There is one thing I'm wondering about. The Golden Coins seem to be one of the best items you can collect, since they give you a decent shot at premium items, so I'm wondering how to eke out a few more.

brettolmsted wrote:

Krusty's Non-Demoninational Holiday Giveaway Wheel
To play this minigame you need golden coins that can either be bought or you can earn them. There are four ways to earn them: 1) 1 coin regenerates daily from the Egg Nog Bar, 2) you find them randomly by tapping gift cards/bags, 3) after the finish collecting all of your personal prizes you will get one for every 1,000 Gift Cards more you collect, and 4) you can purchase more with donuts.

So, for #2, I haven't seen that yet. Do you mean that if we allow our cards/bags to auto-collect or use the elves to collect them, we may lose out on coins? Has anyone seen a coin appear from either of these methods?

And has anyone else thought that the elves seemed to generate more items than expected based on the number of boxes/bags? Or is that maybe just an illusion because they're all opened at once, as opposed to manually tapping them?

111111simpsons wrote:
First off, thanks a million for the thorough information, brettolmsted! There is one thing I'm wondering about. The Golden Coins seem to be one of the best items you can collect, since they give you a decent shot at premium items, so I'm wondering how to eke out a few more.

brettolmsted wrote:

Krusty's Non-Demoninational Holiday Giveaway Wheel
To play this minigame you need golden coins that can either be bought or you can earn them. There are four ways to earn them: 1) 1 coin regenerates daily from the Egg Nog Bar, 2) you find them randomly by tapping gift cards/bags, 3) after the finish collecting all of your personal prizes you will get one for every 1,000 Gift Cards more you collect, and 4) you can purchase more with donuts.

So, for #2, I haven't seen that yet. Do you mean that if we allow our cards/bags to auto-collect or use the elves to collect them, we may lose out on coins? Has anyone seen a coin appear from either of these methods?

And has anyone else thought that the elves seemed to generate more items than expected based on the number of boxes/bags? Or is that maybe just an illusion because they're all opened at once, as opposed to manually tapping them?

I can tell you that in the last 2 days of visiting 100 neighbors each day from 2 towns, I have found like 3 or 4 coins from tapping buildings/gift bags & presents. One was from an elf.

brettolmsted wrote:
I can tell you that in the last 2 days of visiting 100 neighbors each day from 2 towns, I have found like 3 or 4 coins from tapping buildings/gift bags & presents. One was from an elf.

Oh! So you're talking about in neighbors' towns, too? That's great, I'm going to try to do 100 per day, which is much more doable since they put in those "next/previous town" arrows down in the bottom left. (And also quicker once I realized that gift cards do auto-collect, you just don't see the numbers go up until you go "home".)

I only completed the Egg Nog Bar most of my way through my tour of other towns last night, and I'm pretty sure we can't get bonus coins (or any, really) until it is built, so maybe I'll see some tonight!

toby_gwz wrote:
for the multiple springfielder events-
if you REALLY want to maximize your gift cards, doesn't it make the most sense to do it this way?

if you need 11 people to do something,
send ten people to do it, let them complete, and THEN send everyone through again including the people who already went through once?

While that is definitely true, most people do not want to wait another full 4, 8, 12 hour cycle and want to progress in the questline

I have a question Brett. Is opening presents and friends dropping them the only way to get gift bags without using donuts? I've seen some posts that seem to imply you can get them from friends towns. I have 100 friends, have visited them all twice, yet have seen nothing but gift cards. Thanks for putting this up.

psideresider wrote:
I have a question Brett. Is opening presents and friends dropping them the only way to get gift bags without using donuts? I've seen some posts that seem to imply you can get them from friends towns. I have 100 friends, have visited them all twice, yet have seen nothing but gift cards. Thanks for putting this up.

I do not believe you can get them from visiting friends' towns. I have only seen them gained from tapping in your town (or elves who find them) or by using donuts

brettolmsted wrote:

psideresider wrote:
I have a question Brett. Is opening presents and friends dropping them the only way to get gift bags without using donuts? I've seen some posts that seem to imply you can get them from friends towns. I have 100 friends, have visited them all twice, yet have seen nothing but gift cards. Thanks for putting this up.

I do not believe you can get them from visiting friends' towns. I have only seen them gained from tapping in your town (or elves who find them) or by using donuts

I see. That's what I was thinking. Man are those gift bags hard to come by. Nothing like having a handful of friends leave you multiple gifts, yet I only have three gift bags to hand out haha. Oh well, maybe I'll get luckier.

KillaSqirl wrote:
Nice guide Brett, thanks a lot for this. Just a suggestion, it may be worthwhile to remind players that they have to tap the gift cards and collect before exiting friends towns. Gift cards and bags do not auto-collect like cash and xp. In my excitement last night I think I missed a bunch myself.

I disagree. I thought this was issue back in Whacking Days. It was pointed out to me that you had to exit back to your own town, and then lo and behold, all of your tapped eggs (cards) would magically appear. And as I was informed during that game phase, this phase works exactly the same.

I haven't waited or tapped out the gift cards at any of my neighbors. I have have yet to lose any, getting 3000 or so with every sweep of my neighbors.

Tap three cards, drop gifts and move on!!! No waiting required!

Thanks Brett for the guide!!!

If we visit a neighbor and their Egg Nog Bar has generated a coin, should we tap on it? Would it reset their timer but not interfere with their coin?

I finally found a thread about it: http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9849781.page
The OP seemed to have a problem, but others are saying it works for them.

So I guess the consensus is yes, tap the bar. But if you're not getting coins from handshakes, hide your bar from your pesky helpful neighbors.

Right?

Extremely helpful; thanks! These gift cards are a bit easier to collect this year than the special event currency collection nightmares of yore. Lol. Too bad Plowman and Homer Santa from last year do not pay out in gift cards, though.