Hey there readers, with all the time travelling coming to an end it’s time for us to put the brakes on our adventures and relax, and what better for us to waffle on about than the event in general. Yes, Quahog’s Excellent Adventure saw us spend 4 weeks travelling back and forward in time, and to be honest I loved it, ok, I loved most of it. There’s always a but with FGQFS isn’t there.
It all started with a reveal in our App Store game information that the upcoming event and excitement levels reached epic levels, only for them to hurtle back to earth when the event launch was delayed. But we picked ourselves up, and soon stepped into our magic phone booths and off we went. Only to crash back to earth once again when we found Ted Logan was not only timed but having drop issues. This sadly saw the event thrown off track early on and sadly despite the fact it was full of fun and new gameplay, it didn’t recover. Now I loved the event, loved the time travel, the historic element, but I struggled with Ted just like many others. I git him in the end but know many of you didn’t, even premium players lucked out, And sadly TinyCo once again didn’t react to fix the issue. And as a result we saw a lot of frustrations in the comments and more long term players saying they were done.
Now admittedly I only made 1 premium purchase during the event, I bought Bill Preston, as you can’t have one without the other, and this decision played out fine during the event, I at no point felt the need to buy any other premiums to progress, but I’ve insomnia to thank for that.
I did enjoy the new Playspaces. They were a little bit of fun, I’d like to see them used more in events. And it was great to have a clam generator again. This event also seemed to bring about some nostalgia, just like the Power Rangers and Rocky event.
But now let’s take a more in-depth look at the event, and yes I will say this from the off, a lot of players got frustrated when things got tough very quickly.
FORMAT:
A 4 week event that once again had 2 dreaded timed characters, TinyCo must surely realise by now these timers are alienating players. I will give them that Tehuantl was easier than Ted to unlock, but the point being the character folk wanted from this event was Ted, not Tehuantl. It’s crazy disappointing to miss out the main character like this, and even worse that despite buying Bill, many premiums also ended up with no Ted. Time to think again TinyCo!
I did enjoy having no 48hr weekly challenges, it removed a little of the Monday madness they bring into our lives. Monday’s are tough enough without them, lol. The weekly Achievement Tasks were much more fun, but hey TinyCo, 60 Achievements for Week 4, just how high an achiever do you think I and others are. Try to keep it real!!!
Again I’d like mention TinyCo they need to remember the players who are completing events, there needs to be a reward, a little something for completing the final Main Questline, it was a very popular idea when put forth in our recent poll, and as you ask us to do these polls TinyCo it would be nice if some of the requests made, made it into the game.
CONTENT:
Movie tie in, vague Family Guy history for the some of the content. But it was more of a journey through time, and hey it was based round a very popular film so what could go wrong? Well….
TIME TRAVEL PLAYSPACES:
I liked the new gameplay of travelling to the new areas, they were fun, I’d love see more of this. But it does seem to bring with it some glitching but hey that’s Time Travel for you.
CHARACTER DROPS:
No big complaints here, a good range characters were used. The one major hiccup was having Stewie as the only one that could clear Jetpack kids to start Phase 4, this meant players who didn’t have Stewie were essentially out of the event. Now I’m a Stewie fanatic, I want see him in every event but not in a way that locks new players out. Time for a rethink on this. But as I say for the most part character drops were good, it was a few of the building drops that created chaos.
CHARACTERS:
What did I like, well we a few new freemium characters as opposed to just a whole lot of costumes. Although we got them too. Didn’t like that they used timers again. Ted was extremely difficult if not downright impossible for some players to get in Phase 1, I struggled and I bought the premium Bill, it really shouldn’t have been that tough. For an event built round Bill & Ted to end with some players getting neither character is quite sad, and the Ted timer combined with an obvious drop issue really started the event off in the worst possible way. And despite a lot of feedback on the drop issue TinyCo again didn’t act, this is sadly what is alienating players. Please TinyCo we don’t want an easy peasy game, we just want a fair shot at unlocking things that are supposed to be freemium. Anyway the other timed character Tuhuantl seemed a little easier, but then came along Rufus and his Trench Coats, tough, tough, tough. So the event started on one sour note and ended on another.
GAMEPLAY:
TinyCo promised us some new gameplay and we got it in the achievement tasks etc, keep it coming TinyCo.
SUPPORT:
There had been improvements in this area, but it seems to be going backwards. I get it’s a tough shift on the TinyCo support but too many responses really just consist of telling us either things are ok, or yeah we know there’s an issue but we can’t do a thing about it. Personally I had reason to contact them this event and neither issue was resolved despite a very nice message from them telling me they understood my issues, and were sorry. I think I’ve talked before about better communication, we are getting that but now we need better actions!!!
MYSTERY BOXES:
It’s no mystery what my feelings on Mystery Boxes are, I’ve long despaired at the way TinyCo implements Mystery Boxes in events. And the 3rd box released in this event, the Blast From The Past Mystery box was the worse I’ve seen yet, full of useless materials most of us had an abundance of, a clam prize that was only 5 clams more than the box cost and one character costume, for a character rarely used. I advised players to avoid it like the plague, I only you listened. It’s bad enough to have 3 Mystery Boxes in an event, but to have such poor value is just bogus.
BOSS BATTLES:
Genghis Khan seemed possible at the lower levels and you could just chip away at him. But I’d like see the cool down timer start from the minute the Boss goes into it, not when you next access your game. As this means if he goes into cool down at say 11pm whilst you’re sleeping, instead of being ready to wake up when you do, his cool down timer doesn’t even start until you’ve gone back in the game. Silly!!!
QUESTLINES:
No real issues arose in these apart from no completion reward.
DROPS:
Completely random drops on items for timed characters should be banned!
So fellow addicts, that’s just some of my thoughts, and I want to stress they are just my thoughts, they in no way reflect what Bunny or Lotty felt about the event.
Anyway that’s my ramblings, now I want you to tell me your thoughts. But please don’t turn this in to a time rift of rage, or Bunny will send me off on a one way journey to the dark side of the moon. Please give us your feedback and thoughts in a Bill & Ted sort of way. Tell us what you liked, didn’t like? What you’d like to see more of, what you’d like to see less off. Share with us everything and anything you think would improve FGQFS, as TinyCo do read this blog and of course Bunny also takes your feedback to TinyCo. And if you can please take a minute to complete the end of event poll at the end of this I’d be very grateful.
And just incase you can’t see the poll or find it jumps about when you’re trying answer, here’s the direct link:
https://goo.gl/forms/N4KbvpRjYGoBh5ta2
~ Russian Tigger
Family Guy Addicts 
Did anyone get their stuff from Excellent Adventure in their inventory yet?
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Dropped into my game a few hours ago
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I did okay considering how far behind I was when I didn’t understand the claiming bit. I ended up in the middle of week 4. No Rufus for me and I really wish I could have earned Jetpack Joe.
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I messed up!
Saved all my Fusion Fuel to Fix Time Rifts, except my first and only try at Trench Coats!
Then got busy the final day of the event and didn’t completely the last character. I had planned to use clams to complete the few Trench Coats I needed for Rufus, but ran out of time!
[Smacking hand on forehead!] “Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!”
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Oh that’s tough….
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only opened up to Mayan got Ted and davinci,locked out the new 1920’s event ,as l always seem to be locked out for a few days.
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The last week left a bad taste in my mouth, which is unfortunate given that I thought the preceding three weeks were pretty fun. Not sure why TinyCo had to rush through week 4 to get to this stupid prohibition event.
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To be honest this event could have waited, it’s not tied in to anything current. I’d have delayed it and extended Quahog’s Excellent Adventure if it were possible. But I also know extensions have caused coding chaos in the past so I think TinyCo avoid them. Thing is they could simply then reduce the unlock requirements rather than extend, but nope!!!
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I enjoyed it. The achievement system was a gteat new style that I would like to see return in future. However I agree thst Freemium players would get frustrated, as even though I had EVERYTHING needed to drop for Ted before even starting his timer, I still had to use clams to unlock him due to poor poster drops. I had to do the same for Rufus due to the frankly mind-boggling amount of time it took to get even 1 shot at a trenchcoat. However, I liked the mix of playstyles used like bombing and crafting items and having different zones to go between. If they take the feedback on board I would like to see more events like this one in future.
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Rufus may not have had a timer, but since we couldn’t start on him until the last week of the event, we had less than 7 days to unlock him. Much less for many players. At least TinyCo cut us a break on the clam price for trench coats.
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Positives:
New areas is always good.
The new weekly task system, please keep that TC.
Characters – loved Bill, Ted & Rufus.
Old characters – making much more use of characters and a lot less over lap on their use.
Negatives:
Timed characters, I got them both clams free and with plenty of time to spare but I know at least for Ted I was the exception in managing that.
Cool down timers – Make them start automatically.
Starting late, late start without extending the end by the same amount means a cut down time limit for what was already the hardest week when it came to achievements and character unlocks (Trench Coats being the issue)
Disappointment:
I love the Bill & Ted films so when the theme was announced I was really excited for all the new characters and areas we would interact with. By the end I’ll say I was disappointed with the incorporation of the film. Outside of the three main film characters and the phone box this could of been any generic time travel event.
With the exception of the future area none of the play areas were relevant to the film and other than the three main characters none of the unlockable characters had anything to do with the film. Lincoln was there but only as a deco, Genghis Khan was stuck as a boss and I guess Joan Of Arc was there as a skin but stuck behind a mystery box.
With all the available material in the films from time periods they could of used to characters I would of loved to (and paid to) own they really dropped the ball.
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Yeah, where the heck was Napoleon, the two Princesses, Beethoven, Socrates, Freud, and Billy the Kid? Where was San Dimas High School? I don’t even know why we had a Mayan location as that wasn’t in the movie at all.
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I was able to get Rufus, by paying 60 clams. I was also about 8 tasks short for the wyld stallions van. I liked the change in event, but would of been nice to have a few more days and/or make the tasks easier. I didn’t think it was very fair to get the trench coats (?) needed for Rufus.
I also bought Bill right away and this did help with some of the tasks, even in stage 4.
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I loved this one. Maybe the best event of the year so far.
The only thing I wasn’t able to acquire was the Wyld Stallyns van and one of the buildings. I think I ended with 51/60. My main objective was getting Rufus so I’m sure that cost me there.
Overall I give it an A. I really thought this one was great. Lots of freemium stuff. 4 characters + a couple of skins and who knows how many buildings. I loved jumping around from place to place and having different things to do.
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Wasnt really any decorations in this event. I thought we would have got all the buildings we unlocked in each time zone. But all i got were 4 Time Trees in my inventory, with the other 6 items, 4 for doing the achievements and 2 others. Thats gotta be the lowest amount of items a big event like that gave us. Unless its a bug, and we should have gotten all the buildings we unlocked like that pop up message said as the event ended. Otherwise it sucks.
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I’ve got the trees also but still getting a pop up about the other teams being in my inventory soon, so maybe still to come.
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Agree to all the comments!
Particularly liked the new game play of having a list of achievements to complete then getting game currency and a weekly prize. Find this motivating. Recent costumes easier to unlock due probably to Tinyco listening to feedback that costumes had previously been hard to unlock hence delay game progress. Credits to Tinyco!
What I did not like most was the tough and inconsistent rare drops for Ted. First time gave feedback twice for the same issue. Fortunately, it was either Tinyco divine intervention or luck of the draw that I managed to unlock just 12 hours before expiry, not without spending clams to speed up. Less of timed characters would be my no. 1 suggestion.
Overall, I ended the event satisfied, with 2 costume characters and 3 new ones. One fact I did appreciate is Tinyco efforts to create hilarious tasks for each new Peter costume. Colonial Peter’s task to Fly A Kite cracks me up!
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To rate the event I had to choose between Unfair and Impossible, so I went with Unfair. The event started 2 days late, then I couldn’t start part 4 on time because I just couldn’t seem to finish part 3 (did I make a mistake somewhere?).
It was also impossible because I didn’t have Stewie. You couldn’t unlock Jetpack Joe without Stewie, so there was no way for me to get ANY Joysticks. They didn’t have to do that. They could have left that one task out and more people might have had a chance to complete the event. All I managed to do was unlock the first building by trading in Time Capsules from previous week’s challenges.
Oh, and then there was Lois. To get her skin for the event you had to spend Clams and cross your fingers so that MAYBE the prize you needed came up.
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Yikes, and no sooner than I submitted my comment, a new event begins…a break, TinyCo, is not that pedal you press to stop your car, not even spelled the same, no, a break is a day or two between events, please…
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Yeah, I was quite disappointed a new event started already. There should be at least 2-3 days between events. Heck even a week would be nice. I realise there’s not much to do when there’s no events on, but catching up on some tasks and taking a breather is all we need
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I liked the event, I liked the theme, I liked the new game play, but I had some of the same reservations and issues you stated. The one word I picked to describe the event was “Expensive” – I really think the premium characters and costumes are just way overpriced and the timed characters makes people have to spend clams just to have a shot…the biggest grrrr I have with this event was the fact that it was a “Bill and Ted” event and there’s probably a good number of players who ended the event without either being able to afford Bill and unable to unlock Ted…really, TinyCo?!?
I liked the fact that you could use previous phase currency to purchase present phase currency, but the exchange rates were a little tough…what was tougher was the fact the last week’s creation task to play the Rift game was ridiculous – 12 hours for each shot?!? REALLY, TINYCO?!? Forget about trying to get capsules from different phases by creating crates or wine or headdresses as every possible minute was needed for the jetpacks/fluxes…I did speed up a few to earn more trench coats and in the end, I did pay 46 clams to obtain Rufus…I don’t mind that at times (I wanted Rufus), but feeling like this is the new norm is discouraging…
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I barely know the film the event was based on, so I didn’t feel very attached to it. It was Ok anyway. I only missed Rufus, but it’s alright since I don’t know who the guy is (excuse my bubble-living). This is what I liked about this event:
– The achievement system to get the weekly rewards. I liked it more than the old weekly timed quest.
– The variety of characters used. It was nice to see more ‘advanced’ characters like Stewie, Connie, Brian and Dr Hartman being useful for a change. Maybe Stewie played a way too important role which left some players aside, but I liked how Connie and Hartman were used, like some advantage for ‘older’ players.
– The variety in the system to get characters: I liked that there were costumes, untimed and timed characters. I’d love if all events were like this. Yes, Ted was too difficult, but I don’t mind timed characters – challenge is ok. Maybe TinyCo should revise the requirements and/or drop rates.
The gameplay was ok. I’d just wish they hadn’t added that shouting when travelling in time but, well, it’s gone now 😛
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TinyCo’s idea of being helpful is to tell me “everything is fine” while the house is burning down.
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IMO Rufus should be considered a timed character. When they made him available exactly 1 week before the end, they didn’t need to put a clock over his head. This might have been my favorite event if it had been 3 weeks long. Releasing a freemium untimed character that was neither free or untimed is annoying.
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My main issues with this event were
1 timer on Atilla was too long
2 having to hit a second button to initiate time travel was annoying
3 having 5 different times to visit each time you opened the game was too time consuming.
4 play areas were too cluttered making it hard to find characters at times.
Overall it was fun & interesting but I only got to week 3
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Off topic, but here’s what the stores are saying now:
When Mayor Adam West bans booze in Quahog, the Griffins rebel in Roaring ’20s style.
Fight Prohibition with Burlesque Peter, Roaring ’20s Brian and Stewie, and more!
Bust speakeasies with Mayor West and Cop Joe!
Resurrect the ghosts of those vaudeville guys!
Cure the Griffins’ Roaring ’20s party hangovers!
Will Prohibition prevail? Will Burlesque Peter steal the show? Find out in Quahog!
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I liked the new playspaces. Using these they could really set up a scenario for different storylines instead of changing our worlds. Biggest issue is characters you have to clear being on roads behind buildings but with playspaces they could design an area with visible roads that everyone would use.
Although, I feel the achievements became increasingly hard to do. Not because of the number of objectives you had to complete but because you had to use your time crafting materials for the newest phase to progress therefore older materials weren’t getting the time they needed to be crafted.
Phase 4 saw a nice selection of characters being used. This should be done more often. There’s the argument that not everyone has the same characters but main characters could be on loan for specific events with them disappearing after the event to be unlocked at a later time,unless you already own them.
This was, for me, the worst event for unlocking new characters that weren’t clam purchases. No Ted, Tehuantl, Rufus or Jetpack Joe for me. The last 2 due to entering phase 4 with only 4 days left of the event.
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I unlocked all the freemium characters though I did have to spend some clams on Rufus since I was out of time and needed 8 jackets. All the rest I unlocked without a problem, even the timed ones.
As for clam TV, it’s back in the game (a new enhanced version), but the button to actually watch videos is disabled.
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wish i would of got the wyld stallions van but only needed 10 more achievements and man do they get tough towards the end
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Forgot you asked about Clam TV. Mine just started working again today. I think it’s been longer than just this event that I haven’t had it though.
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It’s kind of a bummer that I had to restart all my in process tasks that were going on when the event ended.
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I disagree with the complaint about using Stewie for the main item drop in Phase 4. I don’t want to sound elitist, but you should expect out of the game the same amount of effort you put into it.
The Events are meant to give players who have “done everything” something new to do so that they don’t get bored and abandon the game.
Even “newbies” who don’t have Stewie can still participate in the event…they just can’t progress in Phase 4. But that seems reasonable to me…if you’ve only unlocked 75% of Quahog…you should probably only expect to participate in 75% of an Event.
One aspect I really liked was the fact that with 4 different Times/Areas, they almost avoided any overlap of characters required. On the one hand, it made Phase 1 SUPER tedious by the end (I mean…why did I even bother sending Peter on his task still? I had plenty of Revolution Energy). But on the positive side, I had to pull about 5 characters out of the Resort for Phase 4 alone. Which was a welcome change.
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I usually always agree with you Russian Tiger! You always make same very valid points. Here are my thoughts:
Pros:
3. The weekly achievements (weeks 1 – 3 only): these were much better than having the regular weekly 24 / 48 hour challenges. Usually there is always a rush (and clam spending) to try to complete those challenges. Although there were MANY more of these challenges, at least they were not on a timer, were things that we should have been working on anyway and could still be completed even when a new week in the event began.
2. A Bill and Ted Adventure! I love it when they take movies from my childhood (80s [childhood] or 90s [teenage years]) and use them as concepts or inspiration for the game – Bill and Ted was no exception!
1. A new way of playing (with 4 different time periods / lands): it was great to have different areas in the game to explore instead of the usual just one (sometimes highly congested) area to play with
Cons:
5. Mystery boxes – yes, move along, nothing new to see here
4. Crafting: 3 hours in the final week to craft each item and then you needed 4 of them! Why was the crafting time so long? Then, if you accidentally missed the target(s) when playing the mini-game, that means that 12 whole hours were wasted!
3. Timers: especially when you ARE playing the game as intended but nothing is dropping which leads me to this next point..
2. The completely random drops (as you said, they should be BANNED!). The drops for vests [Ted] were atrocious. I never missed one drop and placed the building right from the start, yet I was still far behind when the timer ended and needed to pay around 200 clams or more just to unlock Ted. Not cool. I paid for Bill and then had to pay for Ted as well, the two main characters whom the event was based around..
1. The weekly achievements (week 4): 60 achievements in one week, seriously? I even spent clams (around 350!) to try and rush many of the tasks because I love Bill and Ted and would have loved to have the van in my town. I made it up to 57 tasks FINALLY and then the event ended. I should not have even bothered. Trying to complete those tasks was nothing but a waste of time. 😔
Last point: why did we not get to unlock their phone booth? I was waiting for it to appear as an unlockable in the game..
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The thing I liked about this event was the use of primary characters being spread out (somewhat) evenly throughout the phases – Peter & Chris staying on Redcoat duties, Quagmire sticking to Plague Doctors, etc…
I also enjoyed that each phase had its own designated play area, and would love to see this more often.
In addition, the change to the Weekly Challenge format has renewed my interest in pursuing them – which shows what a huge difference that a subtle change can make.
The downside would have to be the bottleneck in the General Store. It would maybe be better to have shorter crafting times as more options become available (or just eliminate that extra crafting step altogether).
Another downer was the “Sleeping Boss” (this time it was Ghengis Khan). This format has been done to death, and it really needs to stop being recycled.
Of course, the biggest negative were the micro-timers (aka: Clam Pumpers). Those things have simply got to go.
Overall, this event was a major improvement over the last dozen or so. It had a decent balance between simple and challenging, and moved along at a fairly moderate pace. I will call it a step in the right direction…
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I just have one statement among many thoughts about this Event. That week 4 achievement Van… I had been running jetpacks for fusion fuel since 3 hours after week 4 started. With Stewie producing jetpacks since the beginning. I never did or had to stop making them as I had enough of the other supplies built up and premium producers for other needs. I had also coughed up the $9.99 for the (paltry) 6 pre-made Fuels.
After pushing hard through every other achievement available this week, I ran down to 56/60 achievements. There were 3 options left for me. One was to clear 12 more jetpack kids(I managed 6/12 by event end), two was to clear 6(!) more Time Rifts(0/6 by event end), and three was to craft 12(!) more Fusion Fuels(2/12 by event end).
Mathematically, there was no physical way to get 60 out of 60 achievements without spending a significant amount of Clams. I would have had to spend several hundred clams if not over 1,000 to finish any one of the 3 options I had left, let alone an additional 4th set beyond the 3 available here!
All that said, I think TinyCo really needs to man up here and award that Van to anybody that managed a MINIMUM of 50 achievements for week 4. A weekly challenge that can be attained without Clams is one thing, but requiring clams and money spent is just dirty ball.
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Almost got away with getting Tehuantl completely freemium. Had to buy the last item that clearing birds dropped (can’t quite remember what they were called). The drops on that were not good. I was even setting alarms to pick those up on the last few but still came up short. I did start the timer on him right away though. Had to spend clams for Ted too. I had a bad start on this event because I had Peter and Chris tied up on 12 hr tasks. I only just started week 4 late Monday night/early Tues. It was pretty much exactly midnight. I wish they have us an extra week at the end just to catch up on everything. Would have at least gotten Joe’s outfit with a few extra days. Got 3 buildings from week 4, and managed to finish the last 3 tasks I needed to get the deco item from week 3 today.
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Needed 3 trenchcoats for Rufus so spent 30 clams.
Very difficult to achieve in time allotted.
Otherwise, great event.
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Unlocked Leonardo da Vinci with seconds to spare. That is as far as I got. Didn’t even have the time to complete the Week 2 quest line. Admittedly only played 2 or 3 times a day at most. As usual I only got to see half of the event in my game. TinyCo is wasting their time/resources programming these 4 week events when many of us only get to see 2 weeks of content. Wish I could have gotten Rufus, time ran out and I didn’t get Ted. Definitely didn’t buy Bill if I wasn’t able to get Ted. Maybe TinyCo will figure out some day that if they have interesting character sets that players could earn easier, they might actually buy the premium character to complete the set. If I was able to get Ted I would have bought Bill. Sorry TinyCo, Clams ($) you lost again due to difficult game play. I bought Spock during the Star Trek Event…Bought John McClane during Christmas…Haven’t bought any more since the timed characters have been so difficult.
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Overall enjoyable, especially the various “worlds” going on, though it added more time juggling – 3 hours here, 4 hours there, 5 hours somewhere else. It certainly made the event more interesting. Hated how impossible Ted was to get because some of the drops were just not happening. Good mix of costumes and characters. Hope they can fix Stewie in the main game so more people can have him and he can be used more, even if it is to be a second person to gather required materials, as opposed to the main jobber like with Jetpack kids. A move in the right direction overall.
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Can we have more options for the contacting tinyco question as after about 5 times contacting for this event they finally fixed things, so eventually they were helpful but not at first.
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