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darkSpyro - Spyro and Skylanders Forum > Skylanders Mobile > Skylanders: Lost Islands > Explain Time Traveling to me..
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Explain Time Traveling to me.. [CLOSED]
claudekennilol Red Sparx Gems: 42
#1 Posted: 16:31:13 21/01/2014 | Topic Creator
So it's my understanding that you can time travel to obtain past event things (buildings or alter egos and whatnot).

Besides whether or not this may be considered cheating, are there repercussions to this? I've seen mentions that it breaks the wishing well..? How does that work?

I've also seen that it's only possible when the device is put into airplane mode. Is that all that needs to happen? Just turn the signals off and change the clock then the time is changed in game?

Basically I'm just looking for the pros and cons and how it's done so I can determine whether or not it's worth the risk (if there is one). If I could get that information it'd be very much appreciated.
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Activision names: claudekennilol & AriannaMae
Qanai Yellow Sparx Gems: 1327
#2 Posted: 17:55:12 21/01/2014
Alter Egos: Time travelling to the past no longer changes the wishing well grand prize.

Quests: If you have not previously activated a timed quest, time travelling to a date during which that quest was offered can activate it. In some cases, people have reported missed quests being reactivated. I think the mechanics of this is still pretty much a gray area that involves trial and error, and probably a lot of patience.

Special offers/events: you can only take advantage of the specials/events that are active in the games current calendar. What I mean by that is that in most updates, Activision adds data for upcoming offers/events and removes data for previous offers/events. So if you time travel into the past further than the game has offer/event data, you can't take advantage. The current calendar of events includes the week before Christmas to present.

Some offers Activision has recently added are random and seemed to be turned on/off instead of set for specific dates: for example, the random discount on giant/alt houses and super tuesdays. These random events seem to occur even when to TT outside of the game calendar.

When you TT, it's best to enable Airplane mode so your device doesn't try to connect to Activate (I think with Lost Islands you'll get a message stating to check your date). And before disabling airplane mode, return to current time and open the game so it sets the save date before connecting to Activate (otherwise, you get a prompt to choose a save file).

As for pros, you can take advantage of things you missed if you weren't able to play as well as plow through resource/XP collection to accelerate you toward your goal. Cons, you can run into unexpected behaviors (the well locking on a non-alt grand prize, unintentionally clearing timed quests) and you potentially take some of the fun (challenge) out of the game. Note that the example cons I gave are recent behaviors from time travelling to the future - I don't know of any issues encountered travelling backwards.
obidawsn Gold Sparx Gems: 2901
#3 Posted: 18:00:26 21/01/2014
I sent you a PM, claudekennilol. It's a bit lengthy, and I feel like we've probably discussed it too much on these forums.
Rom713 Yellow Sparx Gems: 1347
#4 Posted: 18:39:18 21/01/2014
Personally I have nothing against time travelling in this game, everyone can enjoy the game in the way he/she wants.
Just be warned that it might kill all the fun of the game if it is abused regularly or too much smilie

As of now 21-Jan-2014 for version current version of the game:

1. Shutdown the game (it should not running in the background when you mess with time).
2. Make a backup of your game saved data (iTunes on iOS, not sure what to use on Android to physically copy save game file(s) to some backup location like another SD card or something similar). Better safe than sorry.
3. Disable all Internet connections on your device (Wi-Fi, 3G, etc - on iOS it's done when you put iOS in Airplane mode).
4. Change the current date and time on your device to whatever you want.
5. Run the game and enjoy the past or future, get all goodies you wanted.
6. Shutdown the game.
7. Set date and time back to the present.
8. Turn on Internet connection by turning off Airplane mode or what you used on step #3.
9. Run the game and welcome to the present.

Pros:
1. You have all time in the world for timed quests, no more missed quests because the were not enough Evilized Sugar Bats or Trolls or whatever. Very nice.
2. No need to check your game every hour, go to the school/job/holidays/honeymoon/whatever and enjoy your real life. Get back home, time travel and enjoy your game.
3. As of now you can get all past AlterEgos on sale (afair around New Year 2014) and some companions (not sure on the dates, search this forum for dates they were on sale). This can be removed from the game code at any mmoment if developers change the current version of the code in game and remove these past promotions from the game entirely. Didn't happened yet but who knows. I'm still tempted to get Thumpback Statue back from last September but didn't try it yet, it might not work because code has changed many times since that.
4. Get gold/energy/exp/wish stones/gem at accelerated rate if you go to the past and send your Skylansders to the various tasks in the past and then time travel to moment when tasks are finished and ready to collect bonuses. Rinse and repeat.

So-So:
1. If you time travel for relatively long time period (a few days) there will be Chompie Pods, Sheeps, Trolls all over the place on your islands. Can gets handy or annoying depending on do you need them for quests or not. Can be avoided by placing temporary buildings/decoration on all free space.

Cons:
1. You get bored very soon. Like in Diablo 3 for PS3/XBox360 you download game save with hacked items with huge DPS and kill everything by just only looking at it. No purpose in the game anymore. Strongly not advised.
2. If you have any tasks in progress (not finished yet) at the moment when you go to the past then this task will have its finishing time increased by the exactly amount of time you went to the past. Like you had 1 hour left for Sanctuary and now you went one day back (24 hours), now your Sanctuary will has 25 hours left to finish (24+1). Be careful when you travel to the future - do not send Skylanders accedentially to any tasks in the future. Of couse you can go further to the future when these task will be finished but there is some probability that you can screw your wishing well for the next month Alter Ego if you go past the 1st of the next month.
3. May be something else to screw your saved game file and you can lost your progress. Thus see pros #2. Strictly advised for every brave time traveller.
Edited 3 times - Last edited at 18:48:31 21/01/2014 by Rom713
obidawsn Gold Sparx Gems: 2901
#5 Posted: 00:19:12 22/01/2014
I'm not against time travel. I do it quite a bit myself to get certain things. I just think it's gotten too much talk on here where the devs would always read and help us out. I'm afraid if we promote it too much, they won't do it anymore.

BTW, what are you talking about with the Thumpback statue? Was it a reward? I vaguely remember, but not exactly. I'd be willing to check if I knew when it was.
mcquist5 Yellow Sparx Gems: 1010
#6 Posted: 00:33:36 22/01/2014
Thumpback's Statue was originally only available to those who bought a Gem Pack promotion.
//forum.darkspyro.net/spyro/viewposts.php?topic=89785

Not sure if they offered again afterwards, as this was around the time of the epic crashes.

I am not interested in TT but I suppose that was mainly because of my reliance on my calendar and alerts, and I reasoned (without any evidence) that TT could mess it up. It was not, and is not, a risk worth taking. But again, I made this decision in the absence if evidence.
Mariojedi Green Sparx Gems: 471
#7 Posted: 00:51:44 22/01/2014
Time travel is ok depending on how it's used. It can and will break aspects of the eventually so it shouldn't be used recklessly. The well breaking and not giving a chance to win the new NYC is a prime example.
midas73 Yellow Sparx Gems: 1379
#8 Posted: 04:33:22 23/01/2014
I love all you guys and I've really enjoyed spending time on this board over the last 9 months, so I say with with peace and love, but time travel has killed this game and this board. People used to ask for advice on how to best play this game. That's all out the window now as TT makes everything possible for the limited effort of endless clicking (boring as that must be). No need for patience or strategy any more. That's what almost all threads have devolved to. Missing something? Here's how to TT and get it right away! I'm amazed by all the "new faces" on the threads lately that TT. Where did they come from? I'm guessing they were lurkers we taught through our postings and they are the new "experts" around here ready to advise others on how to exploit this ridiculously huge hole in the game's code.

And I still fear there is a correlation between the prevalence of people using TT and the fact that the developers seem to have abandoned the game (though maybe they're just taking January off like they apparently did last year). I really hope they'll continue to actively support the game and, in the process, squelch time travel.

Peace and love!
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Activate username: "midas73". I am on a gifting hiatus so be warned...
Charred Blue Sparx Gems: 536
#9 Posted: 15:39:32 23/01/2014
I frown on me too posts...but...

I could not agree more.

We really need to stop with the TT stuff. If people want to TT, they can figure it or use the search function.
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Activate name: Charred
obidawsn Gold Sparx Gems: 2901
#10 Posted: 16:41:01 23/01/2014
Quote: Charred
I frown on me too posts...but...

I could not agree more.

We really need to stop with the TT stuff. If people want to TT, they can figure it or use the search function.



That's exactly why I decided to PM. There's too much discussion about it, for whatever reason. I think after the well glitch where you could get almost anything you want in the well with TT, it got a lot of discussion, but the biggest thing was after the EotD broke. There was a lot of discussion about TT as a work around for it, and there were a lot of new users (mostly because of Android) coming on the boards and seeing it. It seemed like almost every thread had TT discussion. I won't say not to TT, as I do it myself for certain things. But it can also be taken overboard (as we've seen, recently). That post made me realize how crazy it's gotten with all the new people (and I'm sure you know which one I'm talking about). I had already been concerned with so much discussion, but that blew it out of the water. On the other hand, I was glad to come onto the boards and read about it. I don't want to deny that from new people, but also think discussion should be kept to a minimum. Like you said, they can do a search or figure it out on their own. I hate to be mean about it for new people who keep asking, but I believe there needs to be some control over how crazy the discussions can get.
Rom713 Yellow Sparx Gems: 1347
#11 Posted: 06:44:33 24/01/2014
Am I the bad guy here? smilie

Do you guys realize that preventing time travelling in this game is the trivial task and can be done very easily? Developers for sure are aware about this cheat and they knew about this problem long time ago. But for some reason they don't care to fix it. Why do you care? If you don't want to time travel - just don't do it. Problem solved.
Edited 1 time - Last edited at 06:48:36 24/01/2014 by Rom713
obidawsn Gold Sparx Gems: 2901
#12 Posted: 12:31:46 24/01/2014
Quote: Rom713
Am I the bad guy here? smilie

Do you guys realize that preventing time travelling in this game is the trivial task and can be done very easily? Developers for sure are aware about this cheat and they knew about this problem long time ago. But for some reason they don't care to fix it. Why do you care? If you don't want to time travel - just don't do it. Problem solved.



I think they do care, at least to some extent. They fixed the glitch in the well, causing another "glitch", although it's a consequence of time traveling more than a glitch. I'm pretty sure you were even able to TT at one point without going into airplane mode (although I could be wrong about it, I was sure I used to do it), but they put in a check to see if your device's time matched theirs. I know you have said a lot that there was an easy fix, and I was certain that there really wasn't as long as you put your phone in airplane mode or turned off your data. Then you came up with the idea of somehow saving the time you entered the game. It's a potential theory on how they could do it. It could be something they didn't think of before. It also may be a little more complicated than one might think with the way they code it (even if it seems simple, we don't know what all goes into the coding), and may cause other unseen issues.

With all that said, maybe they didn't care that a few people were doing it. But as this forum gets more and more attraction, and almost every new person starts a new thread about it or starts a new discussion about it in other threads, that's going to get their attention more. Like I said, I don't have anything against TT. I wasn't planning on ever spending real money, anyway, so it's not like they are losing a paying customer. It can be fun to find the work arounds that TT can bring. But I feel that if it's talked about too much, then it will cause more attention from the devs to want to do something about it. We don't need new threads every other week, or a new discussion about it in every thread.
MormonDude Green Sparx Gems: 297
#13 Posted: 13:50:50 24/01/2014
Quote: Rom713
Am I the bad guy here? smilie

Do you guys realize that preventing time travelling in this game is the trivial task and can be done very easily? Developers for sure are aware about this cheat and they knew about this problem long time ago. But for some reason they don't care to fix it. Why do you care? If you don't want to time travel - just don't do it. Problem solved.



Rock that logic Rom713, I see the devs figured out how to debug gem purchases, which include a ridiculous offer for 49.99, so I don't want hear. I play another game that had a similar issue, and guess what? They fixed it. These devs are clearly not to concerned, and don't sing me that sad song about frequent updates, because every update hs one goal fill pockets. Maybe make a game that's actually free, or that people have a chance of accomplishing without spending years or a couple hundred dollars. BOOM.
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GamerID: MormonDude
no friend slots available
midas73 Yellow Sparx Gems: 1379
#14 Posted: 14:03:17 24/01/2014
If everybody TT'ing causes Activision to loose significant cash from the game and decide to quit actively supporting it, then I do care. But maybe even more, I care that the board had devolved into a TT tutorial and not much else. Nobody is interested in playing the game any more, just exploiting it. It's no fun to play that way and it's no fun to discuss.

But good on all the TT'ers for having unlimited gold and gems, and all houses, companions, shrines etc. in under a month or two. Now what?
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Activate username: "midas73". I am on a gifting hiatus so be warned...
Charred Blue Sparx Gems: 536
#15 Posted: 14:16:51 24/01/2014
Yes, they could fix it. But then wouldn't you just find a new way to exploit some bug and blame the devs that the precence of the bug dictates that you must exploit it merely because it exists?

We could eliminate crime if a police officer followed every single person around. At some point people in a civilized society are expected to show some self-control.

We are simply asking people to show some self-control.
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Activate name: Charred
MormonDude Green Sparx Gems: 297
#16 Posted: 20:26:24 24/01/2014
Quote:
But good on all the TT'ers for having unlimited gold and gems, and all houses, companions, shrines etc. in under a month or two. Now what?


Then they'll lose interest and quit and the only people playing will be those who play the way you prefer, problem solved.

@how is it you've become so convinced people aren't exercising self control?
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GamerID: MormonDude
no friend slots available
Edited 1 time - Last edited at 20:36:33 24/01/2014 by MormonDude
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