darkSpyro

Is it just my imagination or is there more vacant space around our islands? Is seems to me that I can scroll much further out around all islands. Maybe we are getting more islands. One can only hope. Any thoughts?

Unfortunatly i could not confirm that. Everything like always here.

I agree it looks like we have more space. I imagine we'll be getting at least 2 more large islands.

We had 9 originally.... 1 for each Sanctum right and a center island, right? Well with the new Light and Dark Skylanders, we'll be needing two new Sanctums which means at least two new islands.

Yes, extension on the bottom right of the current islands, I agree there will be two large islands and I think there my be 2 small ones added as well.

Save up those gem and wish stones, exciting times ahead.

I can imagine that may happen when sky 5 comes out and there is more then just 2 light and dark figures but not at this time .

No, that's just space accommodating the right most edge of the kingdom and the bottom most edge. The way the middle right island stretches over and the bottom right small island makes that space necessary since the kingdom has to be rectangular. If they were going to add something, they would add the scrolling ability with the new islands, there is no reason to do it beforehand. Just wishful thinking - the gateways are the light/dark "sanctums" - element based, run for a long time and rewards are similar (the energy cost however, is like a house however).

The game is obviously in some sort of hibernation right now, no update for almost three weeks, no new weekly quests, houses (and I think companions) all available for the past few weeks, no Memorial Day sale, generic personal offers instead of sales. These aren't things that would be done if they just ran over a bit on an update - it is a deliberate "holding pattern", and it is similar to when they have done this before. Either they are working on a bigger update or they have decided to stop investing in it until possibly Sky 5.

Given that the other mobile games have been pretty much abandoned, it might be done - I don't know how much money there is in continuing to add content that really only the higher end players will enjoy - and then only briefly. It's hard to add compelling stuff that lower level players consider feasible when you have higher end players with practically unlimited resources.

I would guess that there is no money to be had in continuing to add content that only the higher end players can enjoy. "Higher end" players generate so many gems each day that they are extremely unlikely to spent real money on the game at this point, even if they did in the past.

And with the personal daily offers, lower level players will wait for sales, not buy things full price. From a money-making point of view, I think they are foolish to have daily offers. Way back when, they had special days every Tuesday. I think it would be better for them to go back to one day a week being special - even if it is still a random personal offer. And as a player, it is somehow more exciting to wait for that one day than knowing something will always be there.

I don't know if this hibernation is temporary while they work on a big update, or if they've abandoned the game. And I don't know whether or not I'll stick around to find out. With the nice weather finally arriving, it's easy to get busy with other things and forget about something in a holding pattern.

I wouldn't say it's all personal offers, not on huts/houses at least. I get offers on huts/houses I already have.

Quote: Nenne

I wouldn't say it's all personal offers, not on huts/houses at least. I get offers on huts/houses I already have.

We started calling them "personal offers" back when they first did this last year as everyone was getting different items for sale (meaning it just wasn't a daily sale for everyone). It doesn't mean they are personally assigned, but that everyone can get something different. One thing we figured out last time, though, that if you time travel, your offers would change, even if you changed days then came back, as it just randomly selects an offer when it detects a change in the day. I'm not sure if they fixed it, now, or not.

They definately haven't abandoned the game considering how fast things were going last month(monthly quests were starting to get actually complicated), but it feels like they just shut all devs in the console/handheld area until Sky5 is announced. Not even the splash screen got changed from Rocky Egg Roll's yet. If they don't use that as an excuse to stop developing the game,really hope they come back all out to add things to endgame as well as gimmick stuff.
And, though I doubt that'd be 2 new major islands, wouldn't be surprised if we got only small ones since the Gateways aren't 5x5 like a Sanctuary.

If they were just slowing down until Sky 5 reveal, it wouldn't have just suddenly gone dark. The Rocky Egg Roll message is a good example of how things have been just ... stopped. If they were just waiting, minimal stuff would be done including weekly quests and updated splash screens. What we got is all the alter ego houses dumped on the store and everyone gets random deal of the day. It seems more like Activision shut it down and they just dumped the stuff on the store before stopping for people to buy with gems.

Can you imagine how you'd feel if you were a new player, paid real money for gems, and tomorrow the developers said, well thanks for the memories, we're shutting down in a couple of days? Surely when it comes time for an exit plan, it will be a plan that pisses off as few players as possible. Unless a large company like Activision doesn't mind leaving a sour taste with a lot of its customers, there'd need to be a good whack of notice before closing the app down completely.

It seems like last year to me. Maybe they changed the splash screen then but overall they just walked away for 4 months. The finally came back with that Grilla Drilla alter ego and kept up for a year. Maybe they'll be back with Sky5, but they might just quit. I have no faith in Activision with this game.

I am sure they are just taking a break or at least taking a time out to create more content and fix bugs . We will see what happens next month .

They have done this before and we got no personal offer screens then . This is kind of a step up .
They will only end it if Acti ends the skylander franchise . Lost Island is way too much advertising and publicity tool .

Quote: Woz

Can you imagine how you'd feel if you were a new player, paid real money for gems, and tomorrow the developers said, well thanks for the memories, we're shutting down in a couple of days? Surely when it comes time for an exit plan, it will be a plan that pisses off as few players as possible. Unless a large company like Activision doesn't mind leaving a sour taste with a lot of its customers, there'd need to be a good whack of notice before closing the app down completely.

Activision does NOT mind a sour taste, though they're not EA to shut something down like it was for the best. They warned that Skylanders Universe was going to close, but they'd obviously not remind us that it was because of their own fault in not having servers that can handle it. So if it really gets that bad, we'll know, but they won't be stopping anyone from buying gems and finding out they're a waste in the last days, most likely.

I think Lost Islands is a benefit to the franchise, but then again so were the other apps they have abandoned. Activision is probably looking at the bottom line and how much money it makes and not how it also makes money off figures by giving people more stuff to do with the figures.

If they are abandoning it, they will leave it up we just won't get anything more new. Eventually they will shut down the friend interface, and it will leave some people out in the cold, but that's a danger for anyone that plays an online based game and gets in later.

Yeah, they did this before (although earlier in the year), with no updates for a while and offering the "personal offers". It went for a few months. The splash screen means nothing. They sometimes forget about changing those, even if there are constant updates. You have to think that splash screen was from April (actually March since it was promoting an upcoming alter ego), and yet we still got updates in May (including a new alter ego). We did get a mini update with the final 3 non-variants added (even though they didn't make a fanfare about it).

As of today, I'm sitting on 46,764 gems, 1,674,801,246 coins, 108,258,098 energy, 22,481 token and 17,963 wish stones. We need some good stuff added.

"Personal offers" means it randomly picks a different special for each person (and apparently it doesn't care what you have) and everyone has a different deal or two. This is as opposed to deals everyone has at the same time and are obviously set up deliberately by the developers.

They also differ in picture since personal offers cycle between 2-3 backgrounds while sales for everyone have more personalized pictures, though every now and then it uses the personal offer one for shrine sales for some reason.