darkSpyro

I know with Quickdraw Rattle Shake, a lot of folks are under the belief that Activision will just *have* to have a standard release of him so that the kiddies can have a "complete" on-screen collection.

But - what about the Platinum Treasure Chest? Here's a figure that even if you own, you're bork'd.

To recap for those who don't know - The Treasure Chest was an item released in an Adventure Pack for Spyro's Adventure. During Giants, Activision released the iOS Starter Pack for Battlegrounds that included a couple of figures, a portal, and a download code. One of those figures was the "Platinum Treasure Chest". This figure was a little odd at the time. It's the same mold as the standard Treasure Chest, but with an all-platinum paint job. As far as I recall, this is the only figure before and since that has a special paint job and is reflected on the included trading card (in both name and artwork) - but doesn't show any different in-game. The figure acts the same in all Skylanders games released before, during, and after this Starter Pack was released. However - with the release of SWAP Force, the Collections screen shows the Platinum Treasure Chest as a separate item. Since the figure that's been released is coded in the same as the stock Treasure Chest, there's currently no legitimate way to unlock this item in-game... meaning that one will aways have an incomplete on-screen collection.

There are several possibilities.

A) Nothing. Nothing will ever be done, leaving us poor, hopeless souls without a complete collection screen. Possible - but when the alternatives include selling us more stuff, it seems that Activision would be more inclined to take our money.

Update the game. On all systems but the Wii, the game *could* be patched one of two ways.
- The easiest patch would be to just remove the Platinum Treasure Chest from the collection screen. Again, no money in this for Activision.
- The more insane patch would be to make the Platinum Treasure Chest work. I don't even know if this is possible - the figure itself reads as a standard Treasure Chest. The only way to make this work, in theory, would be to take the unique character IDs for every Platinum Treasure Chest. When a Treasure Chest is detected by the game, it would do a check to see if the ID is a Platinum version. A *lot* of work for not a lot of pay-off (and it may not even be realistically possible).

C) Sell us a working Platinum Treasure Chest. A few possibilities here.
- Re-release the Battlegrounds bundle with a working PTC. Perhaps an Android-compatible bundle?
- Re-release a special edition of the original Adventure Pack with a PTC included. Kinda lame, but could work.
- Release a new figure bundle and include the PTC. Perhaps a Royal Double Trouble + Platinum Treasure Chest 2-pack? And release this one in Europe? Just throwing Royal Double Trouble out there... could be any figure really.
- Do a mail-in promo. Something similar to a Frito-Lay/Sidekicks promo. Seems kinda like a lame pay-off, but heck, the Treasure Chest does more in-game than the Sidekicks do (so far, at least...).

D) Exchange our non-working "Platinum" Treasure Chests with real in-game Platinum Treasure Chests. Similar to how some folks have had to mail-in broken figures for replacements, could let folks mail in their fake-PTC for a real-PTC. I hope that if they *do* decide to release a real-PTC that they give folks this option (although I'd keep the fake one and buy the new one! )

So what are your thoughts? Do you even care about this one icon on the collections screen? What kind of packs would you be willing to buy to get a working Platinum Treasure Chest?

They probably don't care enough to go through all the hassle for a silver treasure chest.

E) Don't care and move on. You don't need every single Magic Item to get the Accolades related to the Magic Items right? I know it's annoying for "OCD" people, but the Platinum Chest doesn't unlock content in itself anyway.

The OCD side of me would like some resolution here, but I'm pretty sure Activision will ignore their follies, and all of the kids will forever be lamenting over their incomplete collection screen. One may even think it's a cruel joke put in by the developers for all of us foolish collectors in this game.

How is this any different from the Spyro's Adeventures hat inventory never being complete? Which was also never 'fixed'.

I did some experiments and never managed to make a Platinum Treasure Chest appear as anything other than a normal one.

It does NOT look good for ever seeing a working one.

I think it would be great if the folks who hacked the character IDs for unreleased characters out of the code could confirm that there actually is a unique identifier for the Platinum chest in either Giants or Swap Force. The way this has been handled, I'm inclined to believe that the unique identifier may have actually been left out of the code. Kind of like how Giants wouldn't recognize more than a single special version of a character (Pumpkin and Blurple Eye Brawl, for example) but Swap Force could. If they just assumed that they put the identifier in and never bothered to check, they might all be wondering why we're up in arms about this.

Pyrofer: Can you confirm if the Platinum Treasure Chest has a slightly different identifier than the regular Treasure Chest? There's something on modern chase variants that makes them show as slightly different versions, maybe the Platinum chest has this but it's just not being picked up on. (shrug)

-Doug

^I believe we've already confirmed the Plat Treasure Chest has the same identifier, hence the mystery.

Quote: Draicen

How is this any different from the Spyro's Adeventures hat inventory never being complete? Which was also never 'fixed'.

What are you talking about?

The PTC has the same ID as normal one.

Adding various flags for "special" which would normally trigger variants etc in the game did nothing.

Also, trying other IDs didn't show up any other item, but that is a LONG search and I didn't exhaust it by far.

Quote: GhostRoaster

Quote: Draicen

How is this any different from the Spyro's Adeventures hat inventory never being complete? Which was also never 'fixed'.

What are you talking about?

If I remember correctly, each system that SSA came out on had a hat that was unique to it, so in order for you to get all of the hats, you had to play a character on each version of the game (Wii, PS3, 360) and have those characters take the hat back to the other game(s).

-Doug

That is accurate, but:

A) I don't think the other hats show up on your collection menu at all (even after importing a figure with the other hat on).
That's not really a bug or such - it was specifically designed to work that way.

Quote: GhostRoaster

^I believe we've already confirmed the Plat Treasure Chest has the same identifier, hence the mystery.

Quote: Draicen

How is this any different from the Spyro's Adeventures hat inventory never being complete? Which was also never 'fixed'.

What are you talking about?

The point I was trying to make is that there were completionist related errors in all three releases that were never addressed/fixed by the publisher. Therefore, I feel it unlikely in the extreme that the publisher would make any attempt to do so for the Platinum Chest at this point in time.

As stated before, Activision won't care enough to fix a bonus item. It's not even a priority for them.

I mean does the Platinum Chest work any different from the regular one?

Quote: darkchylde28

Quote: GhostRoaster

Quote: Draicen

How is this any different from the Spyro's Adeventures hat inventory never being complete? Which was also never 'fixed'.

What are you talking about?

If I remember correctly, each system that SSA came out on had a hat that was unique to it, so in order for you to get all of the hats, you had to play a character on each version of the game (Wii, PS3, 360) and have those characters take the hat back to the other game(s).

-Doug

My 3DS version never unlocked the hat on my PS3 version.

Yeah, they don't show up on the collections menu - at all. So if I take my Gill Grunt over to my friend's 360 and put the 360 exclusive hat on it, then my wife plays on my Wii and swaps out the hat, the *only* way for me to get that hat back is to go back to a 360. But that's not a bug - the game was designed to work that way.

I would say given how long Swap Force has been out (and considering the track record for bug fixes previously), our most likely scenario will be that it'll be fixed in the next game.

Or in the least, releasing a new pack with Royal Dubs and Platinum pack would be a nice workaround to fix it for the next game too. Actually, I was thinking a figure plus magic item would be a great way to re-release old figures

They CAN NOT fix the existing items in game. It will take a combination of a new figure (chest) and game fix to recognise that new item.

It is very unlikely they will do this. Deal with it.

Quote: Pyrofer

They CAN NOT fix the existing items in game. It will take a combination of a new figure (chest) and game fix to recognise that new item.

It is very unlikely they will do this. Deal with it.

I was wondering this - and you mostly confirmed it in your earlier post... So there's no known RFID configuration that will even be recognized by the game as the PTC?

If so, that's just sloppy on VV/Activision's part. I thought it was bad enough that they put the item in there and just *assumed* the item would work... But putting it on the collection screen with no way of activating it.... ugh.

Quote: Pyrofer

They CAN NOT fix the existing items in game. It will take a combination of a new figure (chest) and game fix to recognise that new item.

It is very unlikely they will do this. Deal with it.

I wouldn't see why it would have to take a new figure AND a game fix. If it is programmed in there, they could have programmed an identifier. It's just that that identifier doesn't work with the current platinum chest. So they could, potentially, just release a new figure that works and ignore the original.

The identifier of the current PTC is the exact same as the identifer on the standard Treasure Chest - which is why it doesn't work.

If I'm understanding him correctly, there's no identifer *at all* that will activate the Platinum Treasure Chest in-game... requiring the game to have a "fix" to add it in. If that is the case, then I'd say it'd probably just be eaiser (although highly unlikely) for Acti to just send a fix that removes the item from the screen altogether.

I believe the PTC falls under the "impossibility to perform" category. As the franchise gets more complex I'm sure we'll see more nagging stuff like this.

On the SSA stuff, for the life of me I didn't know each system unlocked a unique hat. Learn something every day!

I also don't see them fix'in the PTC either...altho it would be nice if they did. ...but i don't see it happening.

I didn't know about the different unlock hats in the systems either....those that know...what is the unique SSA hat in each system?

Quote: UncleBob

If so, that's just sloppy on VV/Activision's part. I thought it was bad enough that they put the item in there and just *assumed* the item would work... But putting it on the collection screen with no way of activating it.... ugh.

I don't think it's primarily VV's fault that TfB/Activision made a variant that didn't have it's own unique identifier to separate it from the original. They likely wanted to include every variant figure that had been released already and so just put in the RIFD code in good faith that it would work as it should.

The **** up has less to do with Swap Force and more to do with the manufacturing of the item.

Quote: Hexin_Wishes

Quote: UncleBob

If so, that's just sloppy on VV/Activision's part. I thought it was bad enough that they put the item in there and just *assumed* the item would work... But putting it on the collection screen with no way of activating it.... ugh.

I don't think it's primarily VV's fault that TfB/Activision made a variant that didn't have it's own unique identifier to separate it from the original. They likely wanted to include every variant figure that had been released already and so just put in the RIFD code in good faith that it would work as it should.

The **** up has less to do with Swap Force and more to do with the manufacturing of the item.

Agreed--the information was made available, VV coded in good faith...manufacturing was a different story.... but then again that's why QA gets a paycheck, no?

Quote: Hexin_Wishes

Quote: UncleBob

If so, that's just sloppy on VV/Activision's part. I thought it was bad enough that they put the item in there and just *assumed* the item would work... But putting it on the collection screen with no way of activating it.... ugh.

I don't think it's primarily VV's fault that TfB/Activision made a variant that didn't have it's own unique identifier to separate it from the original. They likely wanted to include every variant figure that had been released already and so just put in the RIFD code in good faith that it would work as it should.

The **** up has less to do with Swap Force and more to do with the manufacturing of the item.

I'd almost agree - except if my understanding of what Pyrofer says is correct - that there's no way at all to "unlock" the PTC in the game... That's on VV, 100%. Even then, there's this thing called testing. No one at VV thought "Hey, let's put this figure on the portal and make sure it works."?

Quote: Phoenix_Lord

I also don't see them fix'in the PTC either...altho it would be nice if they did. ...but i don't see it happening.

I didn't know about the different unlock hats in the systems either....those that know...what is the unique SSA hat in each system?

Wii: Happy Birthday!
PS3: Straw Hat
X360: Flower Hat
PC: Bowler Hat
3DS: Balloon Hat

Quote: UncleBob

I'd almost agree - except if my understanding of what Pyrofer says is correct - that there's no way at all to "unlock" the PTC in the game... That's on VV, 100%. Even then, there's this thing called testing. No one at VV thought "Hey, let's put this figure on the portal and make sure it works."?

As apologetic as this sounds, I don't think a variant of an item is high on the priority list for a game that needs to be out within a year.

i'm glad to know about this i thought it was just my bad luck when mine didn't work... i'm still pumped to have got Royal Double Trouble though even if platinum chest doest work!!!!

I dont get it ?
Who hassles for toy chest that doesnt really do much ? Its about 2 centimetres tall.....

Quote: Iganagor

I dont get it ?
Who hassles for toy chest that doesnt really do much ? Its about 2 centimetres tall.....

+1**************

Quote: newkill

Quote: Iganagor

I dont get it ?
Who hassles for toy chest that doesnt really do much ? Its about 2 centimetres tall.....

+1**************

Dun dun dun

we should be able to take a pic of it with the bluetooth portal and royal DT email it to them and they should send us a card like the preorder card that had the ufo hat but instead the platnum chest.

Did the platinum chest come with a code on the sticker? i dont want to go through all my cards right now. But that could be a solution?

Quote: MegaDozer

we should be able to take a pic of it with the bluetooth portal and royal DT email it to them and they should send us a card like the preorder card that had the ufo hat but instead the platnum chest.

That would be a great idea for them to do MegaDozer.


Quote: SparCrux1101

Did the platinum chest come with a code on the sticker? i dont want to go through all my cards right now. But that could be a solution?

Yes there is SparCrux....


But like i said earlyer...i doubt they will ever fix it. Would be nice if they did tho... Wouldn't be hard to do either...just program it to drop a 100 or more gold then the standard chest dose. Then put it in a card like the UFO Hat card.