in fact forget the hackers they dont really count- there are plenty of real donut spenders who have accumulated huge amounts of in game currency and a decent bonus. this invents a new "currency" (for lack of a better word) where your % bonus or huge pile of in game money wont really help you. this gives everyone who legitimately plays this game something new to look forward to unlocking. except tiles are really not that exciting
Honestly, who's to say that tapping on your buddies' tile isn't the exact same as tapping on one of their houses? Or hell - even exactly like Cletus' farm? If I have a crop ready to harvest you can click on it and get money, and when I come back to my town I still get the money I would have gotten for harvesting. It doesn't change the mechanics of growing that crop one bit though. Same with all the houses, and the cemeteries, and the snake rocks and everything else in the game that generates money. EA typically only institutes a social policy when something is limited so as to help you get as much as you can before everything expires. This is a new feature that's not going anywhere so there's no *real* urgency involved.
Can you guys imagine if tapping on the tile gave the person visiting that tile? If we could really steal each other's tiles, lol. I'm laughing a little at that. So we should be glad, at least, that they can't actually take them and put them into their own towns.
I think it's a glitch and I'm sure it will be straightened out soon enough. In the meantime, guard your precious tiles closely.
I'm not going to be nasty/ugly about it. What's the need for that?
However, I don't understand why anybody would be so upset? The game can be played without spending a penny. The game can be enjoyed without spending any real money. The only real investment required is time.
I just don't get it, sorry but I really don't understand why it's being called a "cash grab" and a "rip-off" when nobody is forced to actually spend money. There are other games that DO force the players to spend real money if they want to go any further, this one does not.
Also, you can start Squidport at level 15. So for new users it will grow with the rest of their town. So it is just one more long term thing to keep them interested.
Perhaps it's because we live in a "Now" society. You just have to have patience and enjoy what you have. Why speed thru something just to get to the end. If you already have it built, your interest wanes and, if this event is created to last that long; there likely aren't going to be any other updates for a while. Also, as things are kind of pricey, maybe this is a pace set for those that don't have a lot of money. Gives you a chance to farm and make money for expanding and buying decorations and buildings etc. I can't believe the number of people wasting donuts speeding thru things and for what?
That's what is going through my head when I see people are mad that they can't get entire Squidport today. You have to work and spend time getting it.
I guess as a person who plays Warcraft, I'm used to some goals taking weeks or months. So, yes it sucks not getting the whole thing today, it gives me a reason to log in every day and play. Patience young Padawans.
Watchdog, dispatches, LETS GET EM ALL ON THE CASE! I can picture it now in my head... Channel 4 dispatches-The Tapped out Boardwalk Scandal. Or TONIGHT ON WATCHDOG, ea leaves fans angry over Springfield squid port... I want a hidden camera there, there AND THERE! Then I loose control and jump off a skyscraper
Here's a wrench I thought of. What if at each new level, the time's reset? So you can get another tile at 1, 2, 4 hours, etc. So that way you don't build it out super fast. (similar to the bonus levels)
I'm GamerGD3. Lost all 3000+posts for my (now) former name.
Perhaps it's because we live in a "Now" society. You just have to have patience and enjoy what you have. Why speed thru something just to get to the end. If you already have it built, your interest wanes and, if this event is created to last that long; there likely aren't going to be any other updates for a while. Also, as things are kind of pricey, maybe this is a pace set for those that don't have a lot of money. Gives you a chance to farm and make money for expanding and buying decorations and buildings etc. I can't believe the number of people wasting donuts speeding thru things and for what?
Totally agree, and I feel like this was intentionally designed to keep us invested for the next few months, at least. But a year?? I could see making it last 3 months, through the summer, but imagine working on your boardwalk at Christmas with snow on the ground...that seems weird to me.
I was all about rushing the tiles and being angry about it taking so long...but ow that I've cooled off and started playing again I can see how things work. This is really a low level expansion and it's meant to last someone until very high levels. And the squidport on the show is fairly small and does not actually cover the entire beach front. This is good because it means we may be getting more sea based items. And an expansion that takes it's time really shows they thnking about the long run. Are premium items and rushing a rip off? Yes. Is this expansion going to make impatient people unhappy? Yes. But this is all optional and no one says you HAVE to do it, and for those of us who are patient, this is an exciting unmasking.
I was the one who posted the tile progression. I did it so people could plan accordingly. A lot of complaining about the time and I understand that whole heartedly. I think it shouldn't take more than a day to produce a tile. That would give people about 5 months worth of content. But the funny thing is, this is a good example about how much negativity is on this board. I look at it this way... if EA has it planned out to take this long it must mean the game isn't going anywhere anytime soon. That should be a good thing.
Is EA taking advantage? Well for the people who like to spend donuts to speed everything up so they can have everything now which is the mindset of a lot of people any more, especially younger generations, then yes they are taking advantage of you! It actual wouldn't cost $500 in donuts to speed through this, it would cost about $150 as it takes a little over 3000 donuts to speed through this. It didn't cost me anything as EA screwed up by giving me harpies and forced me to start a new Springfield. When I was able to get back into my original Springfield the harpies became the gift that just kept on giving and I received five digits worth of donuts when all was said and done... thanks EA! So it didn't cost me anything to speed through this on my one game. But it did help me plan and what to do with my other Springfield and I shared that information so you guys could do the same.
Is the time length outlandish? Of course it is! Will people buy donuts to speed up the process? Of course the will! Will EA make millions of dollars off of this update? They sure will! Does this help to insure this game will continue for sometime down the road? It sure does! Is this a free game? Yes it is but I like to liken EA to drug dealers. You don't have to buy drugs but a dealer will give you a free sample to lure you to buy. EA throws you donuts here and there. During the game between leveling up and getting a dozen donuts for Halloween then for Christmas and Valentine's Day and Whacking Day, you still don't get enough to quite buy a decent premium like a building with a character, so they do tease you into buying at least a scratcher and as soon as you buy one donut, this is no longer a free game. I just hope that EA will spend some of its profits on some more servers and storage space so my game stops disconnecting from the servers!
I was the one who posted the tile progression. I did it so people could plan accordingly. A lot of complaining about the time and I understand that whole heartedly. I think it shouldn't take more than a day to produce a tile. That would give people about 5 months worth of content. But the funny thing is, this is a good example about how much negativity is on this board. I look at it this way... if EA has it planned out to take this long it must mean the game isn't going anywhere anytime soon. That should be a good thing.
Is EA taking advantage? Well for the people who like to spend donuts to speed everything up so they can have everything now which is the mindset of a lot of people any more, especially younger generations, then yes they are taking advantage of you! It actual wouldn't cost $500 in donuts to speed through this, it would cost about $150 as it takes a little over 3000 donuts to speed through this. It didn't cost me anything as EA screwed up by giving me harpies and forced me to start a new Springfield. When I was able to get back into my original Springfield the harpies became the gift that just kept on giving and I received five digits worth of donuts when all was said and done... thanks EA! So it didn't cost me anything to speed through this on my one game. But it did help me plan and what to do with my other Springfield and I shared that information so you guys could do the same.
Is the time length outlandish? Of course it is! Will people buy donuts to speed up the process? Of course the will! Will EA make millions of dollars off of this update? They sure will! Does this help to insure this game will continue for sometime down the road? It sure does! Is this a free game? Yes it is but I like to liken EA to drug dealers. You don't have to buy drugs but a dealer will give you a free sample to lure you to buy. EA throws you donuts here and there. During the game between leveling up and getting a dozen donuts for Halloween then for Christmas and Valentine's Day and Whacking Day, you still don't get enough to quite buy a decent premium like a building with a character, so they do tease you into buying at least a scratcher and as soon as you buy one donut, this is no longer a free game. I just hope that EA will spend some of its profits on some more servers and storage space so my game stops disconnecting from the servers!
+ infinity. Round of applause. Could not have said it better myself. Are those of us who benefitted greatly from Harpies supposed to apologize or return our donuts?? Give me a break. 1 year to complete SP without donuts is beyond ridiculous, and I think everyone agrees on that, but once again, it's FREE. Still waiting for someone to explain to me how a free update that requires patience and no real money(outside of the performers/planet hype/ferris wheel/hot dog and popcorn stand) is a rip off?? Not one person who feels this way has posted a legitamate argument other than "Wah, Wah, I want everything now!!" ... Hard to argue with that sound logic.
I was the one who posted the tile progression. I did it so people could plan accordingly. A lot of complaining about the time and I understand that whole heartedly. I think it shouldn't take more than a day to produce a tile. That would give people about 5 months worth of content. But the funny thing is, this is a good example about how much negativity is on this board. I look at it this way... if EA has it planned out to take this long it must mean the game isn't going anywhere anytime soon. That should be a good thing.
Is EA taking advantage? Well for the people who like to spend donuts to speed everything up so they can have everything now which is the mindset of a lot of people any more, especially younger generations, then yes they are taking advantage of you! It actual wouldn't cost $500 in donuts to speed through this, it would cost about $150 as it takes a little over 3000 donuts to speed through this. It didn't cost me anything as EA screwed up by giving me harpies and forced me to start a new Springfield. When I was able to get back into my original Springfield the harpies became the gift that just kept on giving and I received five digits worth of donuts when all was said and done... thanks EA! So it didn't cost me anything to speed through this on my one game. But it did help me plan and what to do with my other Springfield and I shared that information so you guys could do the same.
Is the time length outlandish? Of course it is! Will people buy donuts to speed up the process? Of course the will! Will EA make millions of dollars off of this update? They sure will! Does this help to insure this game will continue for sometime down the road? It sure does! Is this a free game? Yes it is but I like to liken EA to drug dealers. You don't have to buy drugs but a dealer will give you a free sample to lure you to buy. EA throws you donuts here and there. During the game between leveling up and getting a dozen donuts for Halloween then for Christmas and Valentine's Day and Whacking Day, you still don't get enough to quite buy a decent premium like a building with a character, so they do tease you into buying at least a scratcher and as soon as you buy one donut, this is no longer a free game. I just hope that EA will spend some of its profits on some more servers and storage space so my game stops disconnecting from the servers!
I disagree somewhat. To me, it seems like its less about money and more about extending it as much as possible. Sure they probably expect some people to speed up a few tiles here and there but the reason people got upset about spending so much money on unlocking the content straight away is because of their preconceived notions of how long things should take and how much they should cost. I think ea is trying to delay instant gratification, not encourage it. While premium item prices are high they are somewhat reasonable, so how would it help them sell you a tile for charging so much to speed it up? It's more likely they want to discourage you from doing it.
How successful such a strategy is at keeping you invested or making the game more enjoyable is another topic altogether.
I just added up the dollar costs for the boardwalk tiles and it comes to a little under 1.8 Million bucks... ($1,797,450 to be exact). Sorry if someone posted this elsewhere, but I didn't see the total in this thread.
Well considering I'm the OP I'll let you know what the status of mine is.
For one, I think some compromises on this need to be made. I get everyone's arguments but there is an incongruency here on the road, water, and cement versus Boardwalk tiles.
The inherent problem is that as the questlines go on, there is very limited space to build the buildings that cost money without waiting, in some cases, up to 3 and a half days. That being the extreme here, I'll take this back a notch.
When I started I barely had space to put down the Itchy & Scratchy store. When I did, I hated the way it looked. I had a more-or-less perfect town that I put a lot of hours into, and here was this odd looking piece of deck with an oddly-placed store on it. Things compounded when I started buying street performers. The fact that they are almost immediately available and stay only on the boardwalk area made for some really clumped-up and non-enjoyable animation and entertainment.
So, because of the design/artist side of myself, I bought a lot more tiles, a lot more. I put a lot of money's worth of donuts into them. I didn't speed anything else up, like tasks or buildings, but for this, I needed my canvas to be able to create. I needed my performers, and myself, to be able to BREATHE.
So yes I've spent a lot of money now on it. I also had 4.5 mil banked up from always sitting at the maxed out level (at least since I hit level 20 I had been steadily going along with the updates one by one).
Since my underlying argument is that this update has kind of stifled creativity a bit, I'm proposing a few solutions:
1. Take down the cost of the tiles. The most expensive tile costs $17,500 for 1 tile. The tiles should be cheap and shouldn't increase in cost that much.
2. Take down the waiting period. I'm willing to wait a day for one, but not three and a half days. People have creative sparks and ideas. They think of things they want to do and then act on them. You can't be sitting around for over 3 days sitting on a creative impulse in a city-builder game, it just doesn't work.
3. Allow us to get bonus tiles by doing various things in the game. I think building a SP building should get us a free tile, or maybe buying land could get us a few. EA forgot to put nuclear debris on the lakefront land, so maybe they should include it and we can pick up some bonus tiles here and there for doing those tasks.
Anyway I understand the argument and everything, like it's a summer event and it's nice for people at level 15 to have something else to work on while they're building their city and leveling up. And it's a way for people with a lot of money to have to actually pay their way through it if they want to go that route, and for the others to enjoy it as a free game and wait the time they should for a good thing. BUT, I still think it stifles creativity. That's all I'm saying. I just wish EA had thought some of this through but this is kind of the way the game has worked for a while now.
Ah well, Krustyland, level 31 and WolfCastle Mansion seem to be fun things to look forward to. I just hope we have the space to build them.
I do agree that it shouldn't take more than a day to build one tile, especially since a neighbor can come in and screw it up for you, which also shouldn't be done. If it was a day, it would still take 5 months to complete which is better than a year. I've been playing for 8 months now and I play everyday which is amazing for me. Even when I had the harpies and couldn't play, I started another town so I could still play. The new town was a lot better because I knew all of my mistakes with the first town. I was able to get to level 30 in just over 3 months. For this expansion to cost about $4 million to get including land and tiles in game money it will be hard for a lot of people to complete who don't believe in house farming.
Replies
I think it's a glitch and I'm sure it will be straightened out soon enough. In the meantime, guard your precious tiles closely.
Also, you can start Squidport at level 15. So for new users it will grow with the rest of their town. So it is just one more long term thing to keep them interested.
That's what is going through my head when I see people are mad that they can't get entire Squidport today. You have to work and spend time getting it.
I guess as a person who plays Warcraft, I'm used to some goals taking weeks or months. So, yes it sucks not getting the whole thing today, it gives me a reason to log in every day and play. Patience young Padawans.
Totally agree, and I feel like this was intentionally designed to keep us invested for the next few months, at least. But a year?? I could see making it last 3 months, through the summer, but imagine working on your boardwalk at Christmas with snow on the ground...that seems weird to me.
Is EA taking advantage? Well for the people who like to spend donuts to speed everything up so they can have everything now which is the mindset of a lot of people any more, especially younger generations, then yes they are taking advantage of you! It actual wouldn't cost $500 in donuts to speed through this, it would cost about $150 as it takes a little over 3000 donuts to speed through this. It didn't cost me anything as EA screwed up by giving me harpies and forced me to start a new Springfield. When I was able to get back into my original Springfield the harpies became the gift that just kept on giving and I received five digits worth of donuts when all was said and done... thanks EA! So it didn't cost me anything to speed through this on my one game. But it did help me plan and what to do with my other Springfield and I shared that information so you guys could do the same.
Is the time length outlandish? Of course it is! Will people buy donuts to speed up the process? Of course the will! Will EA make millions of dollars off of this update? They sure will! Does this help to insure this game will continue for sometime down the road? It sure does! Is this a free game? Yes it is but I like to liken EA to drug dealers. You don't have to buy drugs but a dealer will give you a free sample to lure you to buy. EA throws you donuts here and there. During the game between leveling up and getting a dozen donuts for Halloween then for Christmas and Valentine's Day and Whacking Day, you still don't get enough to quite buy a decent premium like a building with a character, so they do tease you into buying at least a scratcher and as soon as you buy one donut, this is no longer a free game. I just hope that EA will spend some of its profits on some more servers and storage space so my game stops disconnecting from the servers!
+ infinity. Round of applause. Could not have said it better myself. Are those of us who benefitted greatly from Harpies supposed to apologize or return our donuts?? Give me a break. 1 year to complete SP without donuts is beyond ridiculous, and I think everyone agrees on that, but once again, it's FREE. Still waiting for someone to explain to me how a free update that requires patience and no real money(outside of the performers/planet hype/ferris wheel/hot dog and popcorn stand) is a rip off?? Not one person who feels this way has posted a legitamate argument other than "Wah, Wah, I want everything now!!" ... Hard to argue with that sound logic.
How successful such a strategy is at keeping you invested or making the game more enjoyable is another topic altogether.
It was free.
For one, I think some compromises on this need to be made. I get everyone's arguments but there is an incongruency here on the road, water, and cement versus Boardwalk tiles.
The inherent problem is that as the questlines go on, there is very limited space to build the buildings that cost money without waiting, in some cases, up to 3 and a half days. That being the extreme here, I'll take this back a notch.
When I started I barely had space to put down the Itchy & Scratchy store. When I did, I hated the way it looked. I had a more-or-less perfect town that I put a lot of hours into, and here was this odd looking piece of deck with an oddly-placed store on it. Things compounded when I started buying street performers. The fact that they are almost immediately available and stay only on the boardwalk area made for some really clumped-up and non-enjoyable animation and entertainment.
So, because of the design/artist side of myself, I bought a lot more tiles, a lot more. I put a lot of money's worth of donuts into them. I didn't speed anything else up, like tasks or buildings, but for this, I needed my canvas to be able to create. I needed my performers, and myself, to be able to BREATHE.
So yes I've spent a lot of money now on it. I also had 4.5 mil banked up from always sitting at the maxed out level (at least since I hit level 20 I had been steadily going along with the updates one by one).
Since my underlying argument is that this update has kind of stifled creativity a bit, I'm proposing a few solutions:
1. Take down the cost of the tiles. The most expensive tile costs $17,500 for 1 tile. The tiles should be cheap and shouldn't increase in cost that much.
2. Take down the waiting period. I'm willing to wait a day for one, but not three and a half days. People have creative sparks and ideas. They think of things they want to do and then act on them. You can't be sitting around for over 3 days sitting on a creative impulse in a city-builder game, it just doesn't work.
3. Allow us to get bonus tiles by doing various things in the game. I think building a SP building should get us a free tile, or maybe buying land could get us a few. EA forgot to put nuclear debris on the lakefront land, so maybe they should include it and we can pick up some bonus tiles here and there for doing those tasks.
Anyway I understand the argument and everything, like it's a summer event and it's nice for people at level 15 to have something else to work on while they're building their city and leveling up. And it's a way for people with a lot of money to have to actually pay their way through it if they want to go that route, and for the others to enjoy it as a free game and wait the time they should for a good thing. BUT, I still think it stifles creativity. That's all I'm saying. I just wish EA had thought some of this through but this is kind of the way the game has worked for a while now.
Ah well, Krustyland, level 31 and WolfCastle Mansion seem to be fun things to look forward to. I just hope we have the space to build them.