darkSpyro

I check Lost Islands top earning status on the App Store every week or so, and just before Christmas it was 66th and now they're nearly off the list at 198. That's over 140 drop, so I'm thinking there's going to be a decent update soon as some bean counter somewhere is missing their beans. Hopefully it'll be Monday.

I really hope you are right. I am getting awfully close to that dreaded topped out status. I am at level 40, have all 129 Skylanders, all 44 companions, completed every quest, have all 6 Wood Stack Houses. All but 6 Skylanders are at level 15, the remaining will be there within one week...and then what?

I really appreciated the scarcity of gems in the beginning of the game and the wishful dreaming of getting high priced companions but now the game just throws gems at you and new companions are too cheap. Whenever something new is introduced, I buy it without even considering what it is because i have too many gems. I really want to see some ultra, ultra premium new stuff that will make me pause to decide if I really need it.

And yes, I recognize that this is a strange rant and not everyone suffers the plight of having too many gems or too much gold...

You can only have six wood stack houses?!?

Yes, I don't understand why they limit it. I was hoping to eliminate some of the B&Bs and clean up my islabds ; oh well, I can always hope the well starts spitting out more Taverns as I have no more room for Fisheries or B&Bs

Quote: mcquist5

Yes, I don't understand why they limit it. I was hoping to eliminate some of the B&Bs and clean up my islabds ; oh well, I can always hope the well starts spitting out more Taverns as I have no more room for Fisheries or B&Bs

If you don't have room for more B&Bs (4 squares of real estate each), then how are you planning on fitting any more taverns?

Its not that I don't have room for the B&Bs, its that I don't have the need. I am sitting on 57,000 spare Mabu as it is. So if I manage to win a few more Taverns, I would start throwing B&Bs in inventory as it still feels wrong to sell them. Its a shame you can't sell them for gems, a few thousand gold just feels cheap for them.

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I really hope you are right. I am getting awfully close to that dreaded topped out status. I am at level 40, have all 129 Skylanders, all 44 companions, completed every quest, have all 6 Wood Stack Houses. All but 6 Skylanders are at level 15, the remaining will be there within one week...and then what?

How long have you been playing and did you spend real money ?

I have been playing for 1 year and I have spent $70. My kids also loved Skylanders Giants so we have quite a few of the characters.

The thing that really accounts for the efficiency (I.e., crazy gem and gold production) is that I am one of those that suffered the Sept/Oct game reset. After not being able to play for 3 weeks, the developers found a level 22 save ( I had been at level 38) and they gave me a ton of gems as compensation.

I am not surprised by the drop. You can even see the forum activity has died off in the last few weeks. Personally, I blame that bug. Why on earth should the devs be rewarded with gem purchases when they drop a buggy patch on us and then go on vacation?

Quote: Charred

I am not surprised by the drop. You can even see the forum activity has died off in the last few weeks. Personally, I blame that bug. Why on earth should the devs be rewarded with gem purchases when they drop a buggy patch on us and then go on vacation?

Not only that, but there hasn't been a real update in over 3 weeks. Granted, they did program 2 updates into the game to cover for 2 of those weeks, but they were mostly the Legendary Skylanders being released over those 2 weeks. Nothing that would ask for a gem purchase, especially if you had the figures to enter in. I think it would have been fine if they had an update to be released when they got back last week, even if it didn't fix the EotD. It would have, at least brought some interest.

Well i deleted my account and now my little brother is trying his luck at Skylands Lost Islands . I only played for 3 months and i never spent any money on it. I actually bought a legendary bouncer toy because i got a hall of legends as a prize .

I will try again later and hopefully its a bit more stable . Its major glitches and crashes that keep me from buying gems . I buy lots of toys and thats enough for me .
I consider this a great game after SSA , SG and SSF . Its really awesome seeing a bunch of your skylanders running around at a time .

Personally i think if you played this type of game for more than a year , its time try new things.

Quote: Dark fhoenix

Personally i think if you played this type of game for more than a year , its time try new things.

That oesn't have to be true if hey keep making fun and compelling updates, as they have done for the past year.

Portal Master mcquist5 has more money , gems and skylanders most of us can dream of . Nothing short of a whole new set of islands and mini games could keep his interest .

Dark fhoenix - I disagree with your presumption that I have more than others can dream. Anyone that has been playing for a year is probably ahead of me, maybe other than gems. I would be willing to wager that I have more gems. The attention of the upper level players has been kept because of the balance of the game. Until the most recent updates in which gems and wishstones now flow freely to newer players. And I am not against those changes, thinking back, I am not sure how I stuck with the game as it was really, really hard to collect gems and serious cash reserves. However, I would like there to be a balance for the upper level players now that gems and cash are easier to obtain. For example, after you have 100 Skylanders, the spins should probably go up to 10 million. At this point, I , and I believe others, could drop 15-20 million per week on new Skylanders should the developers even decide to release that many each week. And I am not arguing that they should release/develop that many new ones. Instead, I want there to be a balance. I should not be able to collect 2,000 wishstones per month when the Alternates only cost us 250. Instead, they should scale the well so that we need to throw more or give us something worth throwing them for. Why are B&Bs still the top premium gem-cost houses, even though they have released several new premium gold-cost houses. With the messed up balance, top tier players are able to buy every new thing the moment is released. They have nothing to work towards because they top out again, the moment the band aid update is applied.

Finally, if you read my other posts, you can read that I am not in favor of adding new islands. I simply want their to be new, super, really super premium prizes to be available to bring back a balance to the game. If you want to make this a political diatribe, I think it would be fun to argue about the merits of raising the minimum wage. At some point, costs of goods (e.g., milk and bread) will also go up. Its impossible to eliminate the poor by giving more money to everyone because all you will do is raise the overall costs.

I'm not sure why they would do it, since at #66 I'm sure it was making good money, but I'm beginning to feel like maybe Activision is winding down support for the game. My first clue was ending kingdom level progression at 40. No reason to cap it permanently and institute the current gem reward system unless you're getting close to stopping supporting the game entirely. (People can wait for the level cap to raise, but if it's never going to be raised again, this was a good compromise to folks at level 40.) Similarly, as people have observed, they have made it way easier to get gems, which were always a precious commodity. The only reason I can think that they would do this would be to give people a way to "finish" their islands/collections and move on from a soon to be nonsupported game. Same with the constant sales on houses and companions. I feel like they're just trying to get everybody everything before they finally stick a fork in the game and call it done. The final straw is how long it's taking them to fix the shrine bug. They've been back in the office for at least a week now and now updates are in sight. My conspiracy theory posits that the reason for this is that they've already repurposed the vast majority of the development team to other projects and there's nobody left to push out a fix (or at least do it quickly). Where's our big update for tomorrow? If it's more of the same random bonuses, I'm going to start getting really worried...

(The alternate theory I have is that they're doing all these things to discourage time travel and make the rewards come quickly enough that they don't lose customers who are impatient for more progress. I certainly like that explanation better and continue to look forward to the next awesome update.)

I'd like to hope that the game got at least a year of support after being released to the Android platform, though this is Activision we're talking about. Finally porting it over to another device and washing your hands from the game when its only been active there a month seems a bit short sighted. They still clearly have more figures from Swap Force still to come for release. As of right now I'm viewing it as a small break after the huge Christmas bonuses before they drop a few more new things with the next wave of figures. Though the EoTD bonus being broken is still something that cant be excused at this point.

Some of us are still enjoying the massive influx of new stuff we were able to acquire from the holidays and are a ways from hitting the ceiling.

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Finally, if you read my other posts, you can read that I am not in favor of adding new islands. I simply want their to be new, super, really super premium prizes

I apologize if i offended you . If you still want to play a game after a year and you have done everything , go for it . I was not trying to be political about anything . I think you misunderstood me , I was talking about your "In Game" economic situation.

I am starting to think that we may have misinterpreted some of the changes rolled out in Dec. We thought they were trying to stop TT. However, they could also have been attempting to put the game on autopilot.

*The personal offers, random super tuesday, etc. Aka - autopilot.
*It seems like they tried to link the element of the day to a server instead of how it previously worked through content pushes but that has not worked properly. Done properly, this eliminates the need for content pushes.
*They also seem to have added most of the companions of Swap Force - who else is there to add? (sorry only 3/4 way through game)
*Unprecidented sales recently. 25% of houses. Shrines for 75 gems?!? As mcquist has been trying to say, they have severely weekened the economy recently.
*No feedback from devs on eotd bugs.

It is also quite rediculous to suggest that you need to stop playing a game after a year. Go tell that to all the WoW players. As long as there is content, people play. Content dictates the life cycle, not the calender.

The question is whether they were putting it on permanent autopilot or just autopilot for the holidays. With no update yet today, I'm very worried we're on permanent autopilot... If so, then it probably is a good time to retire from my islands.

Fingers crossed that it is autopilot for the holidays! But I do share your concern due to no update 1/2 way through January.

Even with minor updates, such as a variety in Super Tuesdays, new Alter Egos, and new Houses for those Egos, I would continue playing for quite a long time. But if it's exactly the same permanently, I also can't see continuing to play much longer.

The thought that they were quitting on the game crossed my mind, this morning, before reading everyone's posts, here. I think it would be cruel to do, at this point. I would expect an announcement or something. What about those who are new to the game and just put in a lot of money over the past few weeks? I would be very upset. Plus they just released it for Android and aren't they working on a Kindle version? The lack of communication, though, is a concern. If they don't release an update, today, then I think I would be greatly concerned. Even if they didn't, I'd, at least, want Advisor_Orville or someone to come on here and give us an update on the status of things and let us know that they are still working on the game.

I doubt the holiday snow was to be permanent so my guess is they are really trying to fix the major issues that have been happening in the last month.......although I do concur that not having an update for nearly a month is having me sweat a little. Specially since my daughter is really into the game now with her new ipad mini.

I had the same thought, just earlier, about the snow.

the radio silence today is rather disappointing. I was hoping for some sort of update today.

Activision released Battlegrounds for $7 (or $50 in iOS starter pack) and only half game was actually ready and they had no updates for it for how long? 9 month?
I think there is some major disaster in the development group like key developers left or were reassigned to other projects. Introducing such kind of bug and unable to fix it for 3 weeks is pathetic. Common guys, revert the changes back to the release version before your broken Friday update. Just add newly introduced skylandes (if any) to the list and that's it. Then continue trying to find what your broke in the code. We are perfectly fine without all these new bells and whistles but with working shrines etc.
The other thoughs here - how to prevent time travelling - has very trivial solution, just store the time when you made your save and calculate all relative to this. If you travel to the future, you cannot go back to the past, you have to wait till last visited future date to start collecting goodies again. Same for the travelling to the past. Problem solved. No one on our planet can actually switch the date more than once to the yesterday/tomorow during the one given day flying over Pacific. Even if you fly you can wait a half day without the game or if you are badly addicted you always have a choice to keep you home time on your device.

Yea this really isnt looking good...

And the game finally offered me the infamous $0.99 for 300 gems offer yesterday. I've never seen it before.

I think you will find that they are back to work as of now. I've finally had an issue with my game resolved since the end of last year. Fingers crossed for a decent upgrade!

maybe the next update is an App Store update and it's just stuck in the approval process :/

yeah.. i hope they resolve the element of the day bug