darkSpyro

How awesome would Olympian Freeze Blade be? It'd also simultaneously avoid a second Valentines Day alter ego. Sorry if anyone else has thought of this or similar already - I didn't steal the idea from anywhere. Just thought it'd be neat

My guess is that new alts will be discontinued after January, or they'll recycle the existing ones if you haven't won it yet. That would be a good explanation for the well changes (and glitches) for the past two months.

Rather than just continuing to add skylanders, I'd rather they spend time fixing the economic issues (overcrowding, kudos, wish stones, etc.) and usability issues (skylander selection screen, wishin well updates, more storage space, etc.).

For the well updates, I'm suggesting that they come up with a way to wish with more than one stone at a time and add more top prizes to the well (like other one-time offer items like the valentines house or thumpback statue - the two items I know I don't have).

Qanai, I love you like a forum brother but I sincerely hope you're wrong about this. The new alts are one of the biggest reasons I'm still playing this game. I really hope they continue the "tradition" in 2014.

Quote: Qanai

My guess is that new alts will be discontinued after January, or they'll recycle the existing ones if you haven't won it yet. That would be a good explanation for the well changes (and glitches) for the past two months.

There's really no reason to think that Alter Egos will be discontinued in the future. The "well glitch" is a side effect of time travel/cheating and it popped up last month even though there were at least 2 Alter Egos still in the pipe. What well changes are you referring to?

Quote: portalflip

Quote: Qanai

My guess is that new alts will be discontinued after January, or they'll recycle the existing ones if you haven't won it yet. That would be a good explanation for the well changes (and glitches) for the past two months.

There's really no reason to think that Alter Egos will be discontinued in the future. The "well glitch" is a side effect of time travel/cheating and it popped up last month even though there were at least 2 Alter Egos still in the pipe. What well changes are you referring to?

The well change in November that put a house, companion, or skylander as the grand prize if you time traveled. And then there was the well change in December that kept the grand prize from flipping to different things with every month change. It wasn't like that prior because when a bad save removed 5 skylanders from my arsenal, I tried traveling to previous months and was able to re-win the missing alts with stones. Since November, the old alts are no longer grand prizes in past months.

Explaining that gave me another thought as well; the well changes could also be to keep going with new alts. They'd have to do something like the November change to take the old alt out of the well so a new one could be introduced in February. In any case, all my supposition is moot until February comes, but it's fun to guess.

I don't think they the well glitch was added intentionally to reward time travelers. However you're probably spot on that this glitch is due to them changing how Alter Egos show up in the well since, as you mention, the Alter Ego in the well was tied to the month that your device is set to. They would have to change that once they hit February 2014's Alter Ego. Either way this change/glitch only effects whatever percentage of players that time travel and is invisible to everyone else.

Speaking of well behaviour, isn't it about time they fixed the totems to be consistent with all the other ways you can get wishstones? Getting a wishstone from wizards, sanctuaries, shrines, nothing to see here, Orville, gifts, MaBoo, etc - none of these methods force you to visit the well whether you want to or not. Even though I've got Cherry, I've stopped clicking on totems because the forced well visit really peeves me.

Quote: portalflip

Quote: Qanai

My guess is that new alts will be discontinued after January, or they'll recycle the existing ones if you haven't won it yet. That would be a good explanation for the well changes (and glitches) for the past two months.

There's really no reason to think that Alter Egos will be discontinued in the future. The "well glitch" is a side effect of time travel/cheating and it popped up last month even though there were at least 2 Alter Egos still in the pipe. What well changes are you referring to?

I'm a touch uncomfortable with the casual inference that time travel and cheating are the same thing. Is time travel open to abuse? Yes. However, some of us use time travel as a way to redress developer screw-ups.

Via time travel, I accumulated the gems to pay for Thumpback's House, which the developers gave out freely to some players and then changed their minds mid-update.
Via time travel, I also recouped the gems and kudos lost when the devs made it impossible to visit other kingdoms for about two months.
Via time travel, I am currently recouping the wishstones my shrines are currently NOT giving me.
Via time travel, I can get the rewards from a whole 24 hours of each Super Tuesday instead of less than half that number of hours because the developers can't get their head around the concept that the earth isn't flat.
Ditto corrupted saves, saying that all companions or skylanders will be 50 per cent off but charging full price for some, releasing a companion that's supposed to double the number of bats but doesn't, etc etc.

Time travel is the insurance policy that protects our investment in time, and our investment in dollars for figurines and dollars for in game purchases. While I've never purchased gems, I've invested heavily in the first two, with my figurines purchased exclusively for the Lost Islands app. Time travel ensures I get the appropriate value for money.

@Woz: But I stand by my statement despite how uncomfortable it might make you.

Despite my disapproval of time travel/petty theft it doesn't bother when others utilize it. But it is an exploit of the game's mechanics and despite an individual's reasons for time traveling/puppy killing that fact remains. Like any other player I get annoyed by the bugs that pop up but I just chalk them up to growing pains. Lost Islands is a rare bird as far as iOS games are concerned in that it is updated every week (or so). That level of support is nearly unheard of for mobile titles so I'm much more lenient when something goes wrong.

• For your first three points regarding lost gems/stones, didn't you receive thousands of gems/stones from the Hyde/Maboo glitch? That's a tad more than the 100s you missed out on. Lost kudos can't really be accounted for but I'm not sure how many people would actually time travel/snatch babies to recoup them.
  
• As far as I can tell, the Monday updates are rolling out with the data for the following week's Super Tuesday so this should be less of an issue in the future. Probably in part to you being so vocal about it.
  
• Honestly the only insurance policy you need is backing up your iDevice every so often so you have a restore point in case the inevitable happens. Two weeks ago I lost my 14 month old save file to a load error that couldn't be recovered but an old backup of my phone meant I only lost 4 months of progress instead of 14.
  

Maybe we can at least agree that we're both way too invested in Skylanders?

I abuse time travel up one side and down the other, and if Activision doesn't like it then they can hire someone from game loft to teach them how to program a game clock that that isn't subject to the operating systems calendaring, this isn't hard.

I would however, be lying if I said it didn't bother me a little when people call me a cheater for time traveling, but then again it is cheating so I gotta except other players calling me out. Can you hold on a second, I'm going into airplane mode to syphon off another 25-100 gems from molekin market... Ok, I'm back and will finish by saying I love all players willing to tap this LI beast, time traveller or not. Hopefully, non TTs can dig me back, but if not I understand, it's gotta be hard watching me stack up fisheries and dark houses while they spend two weeks saving 300 gems so they can snag their first swapper.

@portaflip - maybe we can start a "way to invested in LI" support group! LI anonymous has a nice ring to it...

Quote: portalflip

@Woz: But I stand by my statement despite how uncomfortable it might make you.

Despite my disapproval of time travel/petty theft it doesn't bother when others utilize it. But it is an exploit of the game's mechanics and despite an individual's reasons for time traveling/puppy killing that fact remains. Like any other player I get annoyed by the bugs that pop up but I just chalk them up to growing pains. Lost Islands is a rare bird as far as iOS games are concerned in that it is updated every week (or so). That level of support is nearly unheard of for mobile titles so I'm much more lenient when something goes wrong.

• For your first three points regarding lost gems/stones, didn't you receive thousands of gems/stones from the Hyde/Maboo glitch? That's a tad more than the 100s you missed out on. Lost kudos can't really be accounted for but I'm not sure how many people would actually time travel/snatch babies to recoup them.
  
• As far as I can tell, the Monday updates are rolling out with the data for the following week's Super Tuesday so this should be less of an issue in the future. Probably in part to you being so vocal about it.
  
• Honestly the only insurance policy you need is backing up your iDevice every so often so you have a restore point in case the inevitable happens. Two weeks ago I lost my 14 month old save file to a load error that couldn't be recovered but an old backup of my phone meant I only lost 4 months of progress instead of 14.
  

Maybe we can at least agree that we're both way too invested in Skylanders?

Well said and a complete echo of my own feelings on TT. I'm not saying that I've ever done it, but there was a recent perhaps temporary change in the cost of Halls of Legends that *might* have inspired me to seek the type of redress that Woz was talking about. And this might have happened right when I was going on a cruise with no wi fi (aka long term airplane mode).

While I would most certainly not call TT "cheating" (how can it be cheating when there is nobody to cheat against), I *may* have concluded that I personally don't like the idea of availing myself of this "exploit" because it makes the game a meaningless slog. With TT you can constantly be loading and harvesting everything in the game with effectively no wait time (or so I've been told, wink, wink). This allows for massive generation of all of the games various currencies, except maybe for kudos. To me, this makes the game boring and a chore. This game is all about the journey, there is no destination. Rushing to acquire stuff effectively makes the game meaningless. For me, anyway.

Of course, it's easier for me to say this now that I spent most of a year playing this game and slowly building my way to the top, including through spending some real cash (not to mention buying extra toy skylanders at least some part so I could import them into the game). Newer players looking up at the level 40 posters (and in game friends) may feel a stronger compulsion to catch up and me saying "be patient" probably sounds pretty jerky to such people.

The thing I worry about the most is that TT is becoming ubiquitous (or seems to be) due to how much it is talked about on this forum. One thing that TT definitely does is make it completely unnecessary to ever buy gems again. That cannot be good for the long term health of the game. We only get weekly updates because people are spending real money on the game. If even a significant minority of gamers turn to TT instead of buying gems, that puts this thing that I really enjoy in jeopardy. I hesitate to mention all this, but the devs have to know this, right?

Yes, there is no question I'm way too invested in this game myself. I hope I don't make enemies by having a likely unpopular view on this boon to players.

As an unabashed time traveler I do want to jump in one more time and say I do throw a few bucks at Activision here and there. I don't have to but I know if I don't spend some money there won't be a future to tt to. So crack that wallet tts, but you non tts gotta know I ain't ever gonna pay five dollars for a dragons house in an Activision paint over of farmville.

To address the original topic, the February alt, I seem to recall unofficial "Olympic" stuff is pretty cracked down on, so probably off limits.

They may do something along the lines of a Groundhog theme also.

I'd like to see some type of Frozen Wind Blast Pop Thorn. Feb is always freezing here.

Yeah... They could do that. It is always cold here in Iowa too. Went from 48 degrees yesterday to a high of like 6 today. I was thinking of something like Groundhog Terrafin or something.

They could do something for Mardi Gras.

Star Strike, maybe? Dune Bug?

Maybe something for the Super Bowl? Football Eye Brawl?

Football Eye Brawl would be hilarious.... lol.

Why not Super Bowl Boom Jet?

It probably wouldn't have the name Super Bowl in it. As with the Olympics or Harley Davidson they are heavily protected and would cost a lot of money to get that name. It might be something like Big Game X with a football theme.