The green rivers are still there, but the O’Flanagan’s tasks have gone. Tom O’Flanagan’s pub is about to become a sad and lonely place – nobody can go there to drink and Homer can no longer promote the bar. Tom can still work there, of course, but he’ll be all alone from now on.
The question still remains – will the rivers change back to their normal blue and will we see an update sometime later on Thursday US time? Nobody but EA knows for sure.
This post has been significantly update – see here: http://wp.me/p35pG7-29x
I posted this a while back, but here’s an updated version. I’ve revised this a bit to take into account some new information that surprised me.
According to your Conform-o-meter, to boost your Obedience rating you need to have public buildings to keep your people docile!
Keeping the Obedience rating high helps move your Conformity Bonus to its 5% maximum, giving you extra cash and XP every time you tap. Now, it can be quite challenging to improve at lower levels, as most of the public buildings you need to unlock to boost this rating arrive at later stages of the game.
So, what are the public buildings? Well, they’re the buildings that have piles of cash above them and include:
- the Library
- the First Church of Springfield (and its Heck House variant)
- the Police Station
- the Post Office
- Springfield Penitentiary
- Springfield General Hospital
- the Hibbert Family Practice
- Springfield Observatory (a premium building)
- the Springfield Subatomic Collider (a limited-time item available at Halloween)
- Springfield Cemetery (a limited-time item available at Halloween)
- Springfield Pet Cemetary (a limited-time item available at Halloween)
- the Mausoleum (a limited-time item available at Halloween)
Those are all obvious enough. But here’s the surprise – they also include O’Flanagan’s Pub, Barney’s Bowl-a-rama, the Volcano Lair, the Android’s Dungeon, the Bad Dream House from Halloween, Burns Manor and the Wiggum House. And so are the Christmas Tree and Santa’s Village from the Christmas update! And they don’t include the Springfield Elementary School or the Town Hall – these buildings have an impact on your Righteousness rating, as does Moe’s Tavern.
That’s not the full story, though. Like all the other elements of your Conformity Bonus, the Obedience rating seems to drop when there’s a new level or when you expand your land area. Fortunately, you can also improve it by putting up signs – and planting lots of the Stop Signs ($385 and unlocking at level 22) and the Hail Ants Sign ($450 and unlocking at level 23) can give it a significant boost. Exactly how many you need, however, will depend very much on the size of your town. And, if you’re a donut-user, police-cars help, too, although they’ll set you back 40 donuts each.
St. Patrick’s Day is going on a little longer than most of us expected. While there was an update on Monday US time, it was a little like the pre-St. Patrick’s Day update – with nothing new happening immediately. That means players still struggling to get to level 10 in regular gameplay to build Willie’s Shack had a bit of extra time to do so and still finish the St. Paddy’s Day quest, your Springfield citizens had a few extra days to drink pints of Guinness together at O’Flanagan’s – and Springfield’s rivers remain a nauseating green beyond St. Patrick’s Day itself.
So when will we get our blue rivers back? The best guess based on recent experience is sometime in the afternoon of Thursday, 21 March US time. Apart from re-bluing the rivers, exactly what will happen then is still anyone’s guess – it may be level 27 or it may be an Easter update or it may be both (I’m taking the fight between the Easter Bunny and the Leprechaun in the opening credits of last week’s episode as an indication that an Easter update is still a possibility – but maybe I’m reading too much into it!)
And for those who are still not sure why the rivers are green in the first place, it’s a Chicago St. Patrick’s Day tradition. Here’s a link sent in by Edd explaining everything: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/odd/news/a466465/chicago-river-is-dyed-green-for-st-patricks-day-pictures.html
The Leprechaun and and Fruit-Bat-Man are both limited-time items, so if you want them, you’d better decide quickly. That’s because Monday, 18 March is quite possibly the day they’ll no longer be available in your premium store.
St. Patrick’s Day is Sunday, 17 March and we’re all assuming that the event will wind up sometime on Monday. After all, it’s not really a big event, and there’s no reason for it to be around much after the day itself. You’ll get to keep everything you’ve acquired once the event is over, though. But the quest will probably end and nobody new to the game will be able to get Tom O’Flanagan, O’Flanagan’s Pub, the Wishing Well, or the Leprechaun. That means you’ll need to hurry through the quest so that you can get the Shamrock Topiary before the event ends if it’s still going on for you.
Fruit-Bat-Man is part of an episode promotion and, if the past is anything to go by, this costume for Mr. Burns will also no longer be available after Monday, 18 March. If you’ve bought it, it’s yours for the life of the game – but new players and those that haven’t bought it will no longer be able to do so. They’ll also be wondering how you got the Fruit-Bat-Signal.
When on Monday will this happen? For international players, we’re taking Monday, 18 March in the US – and exactly when on Monday is anyone’s guess. Again, based on past experience, updates seem to come through in the afternoon or the early evening. But it could be any time.
It may seem a little late to be talking about a limited-time premium character from the Valentine’s Day update, but this question has been coming up a lot.
The sad news is that you can’t unlock her (and you shouldn’t even be able to see her in your premium store anymore). In The Simpsons Tapped Out, “limited time” means just what it says – you have a certain amount of time to get the limited-time character, costume, building or decoration and then it seems to disappear forever. EA treats these things as a reward for donut-users and regular players.
There’s no guarantee they will ever return, either. After all, there are many, many Springfield residents still to appear in the game, which means we’re a long way off recycling. And, sadly, that means that your Toughies set will probably never be complete.
The small comfort is that if you’re playing now and have Tom O’Flanagan and his pub (and maybe the Leprechaun), there will be new players next month who’ll be asking how they get them – and they’ll probably be envious that you have them, and they don’t.
When we left off in part 2 of the St. Paddy’s Day walkthrough, your characters were partying for the second time at O’Flanagan’s Pub. But now the party’s over, everyone’s seriously hungover, and you’re into the final stage of the quest. This stage only involves Willie, Homer, and Tom.
An important note to new players: you won’t be able to complete the St. Paddy’s Day quest until you reach level 10, build Willie’s Shack, and unlock Willie. The St. Paddy’s Day quest won’t unlock him – you can only do that in regular gameplay. If you don’t have him yet, take a look at the walkthroughs page to see how far away you are from getting him – and then spend lots of time on your game over the next week or so to make sure you unlock him in time.
So, on with the quest:
1. St. Paddy’s Day Part 7 Homer and Willie need to be free at the end of the second party at O’Flanagan’s Pub to kick off the next stage of the quest, which begins with Homer putting his foot in it:
Needless to say, this doesn’t make Willie very happy…
Willie: I’m not Irish, I’m Scottish! We’re totally different kinds of English-haters!
Homer: You both talk funny. that’s pretty strong evidence you’re the same people.
Willie: Now I’m looking for a fight!
At that point, Willie’s task comes up. If you already have Willie, this is what you’ll see:
If you don’t have him, you’ll need to go back to your regular gameplay and progressively unlock all the buildings up to Willie’s Shack until you do (level 10 is the minimum level you’ll need to be to do this – it may come later.) Once you have him, though, you can send him to drink and look for a fight at O’Flanagan’s Pub (4 hours – keep both Tom and Homer free as he finishes to be safe).
2. St. Paddy’s Day Part 8 Homer encourages Tom and Willie to put aside their ancient cultural differences, which leads to Willie going for another drink at O’Flanagan’s Pub – this time without looking for a fight (4 hours – keep Tom and Homer free when he finishes)
3. St. Paddy’s Day Part 9 To thank Homer for helping them to resolve their differences, Tom and Willie make Homer a Shamrock Topiary, which they put in your inventory:
All you need to do then is place it. As you can see here, I’ve put mine outside O’Flanagan’s Pub:
And that’s where the St. Paddy’s Day quest ends. Time for a drink!
This stage of the quest involves most of your Springfielders. You may have noticed that Homer, Principal Skinner, Edna Krabappel, Apu, Cletus, Comic Book Guy, Willie, Ned Flanders, Grampa Simpson and Barney all have an additional 4-hour task to drink at O’Flanagan’s Pub (that it’s at the top of their task lists probably means it won’t be there after St. Patrick’s Day). Don’t worry if you don’t have some of these characters. You can still get through the quest. In fact the only characters you really need to complete the quest are Homer, Willie and Tom.
So, continuing from part 1 of the walkthrough (which you can find here), Homer and Tom should be free at the end of their pub promotion and jig dancing to open O’Flanagan’s Pub. Before you can get on with that, though, there’s a conversation involving Cletus and Lisa promoting the Wishing Well and Leprechaun that goes something like this (neither Cletus nor Lisa needs to be free for this):
Cletus: Saw me a little green fella this morning – and not a drop if moonshine the night before.
Lisa: That must be a Leprechaun. According to Irish folklore, they’re miniature old men that frequently have pots of gold.
Homer: By “gold” do you mean grind currency or donuts?
Lisa: Neither. I just mean gold.
Homer: But that’s worth nothing in our world!
Lisa: Still, it would be nice to have a leprechaun in our town. We should build a wishing well to entice one.
Leprechaun: Premium character, am I. Ain’t that a fine thing!
After that little promotional diversion, the quest continues:
1. St. Paddy’s Day Part 4 Hoping that Americans have as unhealthy a relationship with alcohol as his countrymen, Tom goes to open his bar and serve drinks (4 hours). At he same time, you need to send your Springfielders in for the full Irish pub experience. It doesn’t matter who goes, you just need to rack up 12 visits in all and you can send the same character in more than once (4 hours per visit – keep Tom free at the end of the 12th visit)
2. St. Paddy’s Day Part 5 After working so hard pouring pints of Guiness for thirsty Springfielders, Tom decides to put his feet up for a while and watch some old horse races (60 minutes – keep Homer free as he finishes)
3. St. Paddy’s Day Part 6 Homer had such a great time that he decides to do it all again, encouraged by Tom. So it’s back to the bar for Tom to serve drinks (4 hours) and time for your other pub-loving characters to enjoy another party (12 more visits by any of the characters and as many times as you need to send them for each character – 4 hours each visit and keep Homer and Willie free as the party winds up)
More to come…
About time for a walkthrough – or at least the first part of one. For those who like their game storylines to be a surprise, please hurry away quickly. There are now more than 250 posts here, so there’s probably something you haven’t read yet.
As you all know, Homer kicks off the St. Patrick’s Day storyline in a conversation with Lisa, that begins like this:
And he continues:
Homer: Too bad you can’t pub crawl in a town with only one pub.
Lisa: Didn’t you and Grampa buy a pub when we went to Ireland?
Homer: I miss that place. Sometimes I wish you could build the buildings you wish we’re built.
And there begins the quest:
1. St. Paddy’s Day Part 1 Homer prompts you to build O’Flanagan’s Pub ($1900 and 24 hours, unlocking Tom O’Flanagan at the end of the build – keep Homer free as it finishes)
2. St. Paddy’s Day Part 2 Tom arrives a little confused about where he is, but at least Homer is there to welcome him to America. Tom’s first task is to clean beer mugs while he wanders around your town (8 hours – keep Homer free when he finishes)
3. St. Paddy’s Day Part 3 Homer is happy there’s another pub in town:
Homer: O’Flanagan’s Pub is open for business!
Tom: Hold on, laddie! Runnin’ a pub is no picnic! It’s hard work – work that takes arbitrary lengths of time to complete!
Homer: I’m a guy that takes six hours to lounge in the pool but only six SECONDS to clean up nuclear waste. I know arbitrary, okay?
Tom: And there’s other tasks that might seem, well, a wee bit pointless. Like they don’t necessarily aid in running a business…
And at that, Homer promotes the bar while Tom dances a jig (12 hours each – keep Homer, Tom and half of Springfield free as they finish)
In St. Paddy’s Day Part 4, you’ll be having a party at O’Flanagan’s Pub, and it will help if you have as many of the following characters ready to go there as you can: Homer, Ned Flanders, Apu, Grampa Simpson, Comic Book Guy, Principal Skinner, Edna Krabappel, Cletus, Willie and Barney.
Part 2 of the walkthrough very soon…
The St. Patrick’s Day update gives you 2 new characters for your game – Tom O’Flanagan, who runs your new pub, and the Leprechaun. Together, they make up the Irishmen set.
Tom is easy to get – he’ll appear when you complete building O’Flanagan’s Pub to kick off the second part of your St. Patrick’s Day Quest.
The Leprechaun is a premium character and comes with the Wishing Well. He costs 150 donuts and has no tasks or Quests – but every time you tap on him you collect cash. It’s a base of $5 a tap (although, the higher your multiplier, the more you’ll get).
Thanks to all your comments and messages to go and look at the game, because there’s been an update. Here’s the official announcement:
“Shake your shamrocks! Springfield has a taste of Ireland with a new storyline, characters and buildings to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.”
But what exactly does that mean? well, for starters it means:
- a new limited time building and character – O’Flanagan’s Pub and Tom O’Flanagan
- a new limited time premium item and a character to go with it – the Wishing Well and the Leprechaun
- a new character set – Irishmen:
- a new decoration – as promised here, it’s the 50-foot magnifying glass for $3,000,000
- and the rivers are green.
There are also some new decorations – but as these come as part of the quest and are not decorations you can buy in your store, more on those later.
So, no level 27, but a bit of fun for the next week or so.
