Have you ever done that?
Found yourself so addicted to a game that when you blink awake halfway through the night, you reach for your iPhone to see if anything has changed in the game?
Well, it's ultra-dangerous to do that with Monopoly Hotels.
Especially if you've just bought a room and are waiting for it to finish building or painting.
See, if you're midway through the process, clicking on such a room will bring up a little dialog that tells you how many hours (or days, or miinutes) are left, and will allow you to complete the current step by paying gold.
Gold, as you well know by now, is HARD to come by in this game. Electronic Arts seems to prefer that you buy your gold bars ... not surprising, given that the game is free for now, so the gold bars are their only income from this game.
In the middle of the night, you're likely going to be tired.
I was SO tired the other night that I didn't even NOTICE I'd clicked on the "Complete Now" button ... not once, but TWICE, thus using up 12 of my hard-earned 29 gold bars to complet a couple of Top Hat rooms. I'd been saving up the gold to get to buy a Neanderthal room when it was half price.
Oh, well.
Back to the drawing board.
Now I'm slowly collecting gold again. Rooms are back to full price, and so, apparently, are the hotels.
And I have decided I am in no hurry to buy more hotels ... instead, I am trying to fill the hotels I already own with higher producing rooms.
It will take time, but I'm determined to get every hotel to produce at least M$100,000 every few hours ... that, to me, seems to be the best way to start earning the big bucks required for some of the more interesting rooms!
Tuesday 21 August 2012
Wednesday 15 August 2012
The Vermont Aquarium
The Vermont Aquarium.
It's probably my favourite property in the Monopoly Hotels game (you know, that Electronic Arts game for iPhones, iPads and, of course, iPods?). Yes, *that* one.
What I like about the Vermont Aquarium is pretty much what I like about ALL aquariums. Aquaria? Whatever.
That is what *my* Aquarium looks like right now. And it's a very calm, peaceful, sort of scene, so I will often leave my game open at this screen, just because it's so very soothing.
Here are some of the other "rooms" I could buy for the Aquarium:
So far, as you can see, I've only purchased the absolute cheapest rooms, with the majority of my purchases being the Asian Pagoda. Mostly because it was cheap and it pays out every six hours, which is a big plus for me. AND, to be honest, because I love poking the Asian Pagoda tanks and watching the puffer fish puff up!
I would certainly like to purchase some of the other fishtanks, though, particularly the colourful ones ... maybe the next time I save up enough ...
It's probably my favourite property in the Monopoly Hotels game (you know, that Electronic Arts game for iPhones, iPads and, of course, iPods?). Yes, *that* one.
What I like about the Vermont Aquarium is pretty much what I like about ALL aquariums. Aquaria? Whatever.
That is what *my* Aquarium looks like right now. And it's a very calm, peaceful, sort of scene, so I will often leave my game open at this screen, just because it's so very soothing.
Here are some of the other "rooms" I could buy for the Aquarium:
So far, as you can see, I've only purchased the absolute cheapest rooms, with the majority of my purchases being the Asian Pagoda. Mostly because it was cheap and it pays out every six hours, which is a big plus for me. AND, to be honest, because I love poking the Asian Pagoda tanks and watching the puffer fish puff up!
I would certainly like to purchase some of the other fishtanks, though, particularly the colourful ones ... maybe the next time I save up enough ...
How long do you keep a room?
When you play Monopoly Hotels, you get to pick your own strategy.
Seriously.
It's ALL about choice.
When I first started playing, I was simply filling hotels with whatever rooms I could afford (the Horse room, the Wheelbarrow room, the Cupcake shop).
As time went by, I started getting smarter about the rooms I bought.
Some rooms give you better bang for the buck. And some cost a lot to build. Well, most rooms, even now, cost more than they are worth (in my not so humble opinion).
For example, today, I wouldn't bother with a Cupcake shop, even though it pays out every 45 minutes. Why? *Because* it pays out every 45 minutes. Seriously, who has the time to check a game every 45 minutes?
Most of the rooms I buy now pay out at 6 hour intervals or less frequently.
I figure I can likely check the game 2 or 3 times a day, so this averages out pretty well.
If I check the rooms first thing in the morning, maybe once at lunch time, and again some time in the evening, I've made a decent profit for the day.
There are some rooms that I've purchased, like the Dragon's Breath room, which do pay out more frequently - every 3 hours in that particular case. This one was a calculated decision.
Given that a room's total dollar-cost-of-ownership is the sum of the price of the room (M$900,000 for the Dragon's Breath room) + the cost to build it (M$450,000) + the cost to paint it (M$180,000) ... [that's a cool 170% of the purchase price, by the time you total it up!!], there has to be some compelling reason for you to actually purchase a specialty room.
Rooms like Dragon's Breath make sense occasionally ... this particular room pays M$31,500 every 3 hours.
But you should also keep in mind how long it takes for ROI (your Return On Investment).
The Top Hat room, for example, costs M$1,000 to buy, M$500 to build and M$200 to paint, for a total cost of M$1,700 up front. But it pays back FAST: every 6 hours, it pays back M$750, so within 12 hours, you've already recouped M$1,500 of that original M$1,700 expenditure. So, you see, a Top Hat room pays for itself in less than a day.
But a Dragon's Breath room? Gee. At M$31,500 per pay-out, you'll need some 48.57 payouts to get to the M$1,530,000 total cost of ownership. Assuming that you're able to collect rent every 3 hours for 18 hours of the day (okay, you get to sleep for 6 hours), you'll collect 6 payouts in a single day, a total of M$189,000.
You can do the math. Chances are good it will take between eight and ten days to pay for this room. *After* that initial payback period, the rest is pure gravy, so *I* find this room is worth the price.
If you're at the early stages of the game, though? It may NOT be worth your time. If that's the case, the best bang for your buck is still the Top Hat room ... stock up on those, even though it makes your hotel look boring ... remember that after a day or two, you can discard your Top Hat room without a care, it's already more than paid for itself - you've probably earned at least twice its value in profit.
There are other reasons to collect certain rooms or attractions, of course.
One of them is the pursuit of gold.
Remember that the Sticker Book lets you put together certain combinations of rooms to collect a sticker.
Well, some of the stickers also result in earning a gold bar.
Given how stingy Electronic Arts is about letting you earn gold, you may well want to pick up some attractions to gather gold.
It won't be cheap. Think about it, the Fancy Restaurant costs 55 gold bars! Which, when you think of it, isn't exactly a great return for your investment of gold ... you could surely buy a hotel or a museum for that much!
And NO rooms currently pay rent in gold, even if you paid gold to buy the rooms. So ... choose for yourself if it's worth it to pay out gold to buy a room.
In the Ventnor Museum, for example, you can pay 90 gold bars to pick up a Neanderthal room. Would I do that? In a heart-beat ... the payout is M$312,500 AND 77,968 experience points every 6 hours. Well worth the investment, even if it takes a few days to build, and wipes out my cache of gold.
So how long would I hold on to a room I've built?
Bottom line: it depends.
For a room that I picked up just for the joy of getting a sticker, like the Cupcake Shop, the Theater room, the Floral shop (still building) and the Yoga Salon (still building) that I'm collecting to get the Destination Station sticker (and maybe a gold bar):
For such a set of rooms? I personally wouldn't keep them much longer ... the cost-benefit analysis says it's not worth it to have those rooms taking up space when I could, instead, have higher-producing rooms taking up the same space.
For example, to buy these 4 attractions, here's the purchase price:
That's a total of M$4,708 in purchase price, with a total cost of M$8,003.6 if you include the building and painting cost. And it takes several hours to finish building and painting and then to collect your first payout from the pricier rooms (the Theater room only pays out every 8 hours).
BUT.
Think of it this way: no matter how much you spent, if there's a room (like my favourite, the Top Hat room) that pays out more money than this room does, why not put in one of those instead?
The Theater room takes up 4 squares, and pays out M$1,900 every 8 hours. So each of those squares pays out a quarter of that, or M$475 every 8 hours.
A Top Hat room takes exactly ONE square. AND it pays out M$750 every 6 hours.
No-brainer, no?
I would replace a Theater room with 4 Top Hat rooms just ASAP ... I'm only holding on to it until I finish my 4 attractions and get my Destination Station sticker. EA doesn't take away your stickers once you've earned them (nor does it give you any reward for collecting the same sticker twice, so don't bother!), so there's no point in holding on to a room that's served its purpose.
You'll have to do the cost-benefit analysis yourself ... your goals may be different than mine, you see. I'd rather have more bang for my buck. But my 5-year-old friend, for example, would MUCH rather see her favourite toys in the hotel - you should have just seen how excited she got when she unlocked Rainbow Dash!
So it all comes down to strategy.
Given that there is no clear way to "WIN" at this game, I'd say just enjoy the journey. If it makes you happy to fill your Sticker Book or your Guest Book, that's where your money is better spent.
If, like me, you're kinda hotel-crazy? Then you want high-value rooms paying you large amounts of rent at intervals that work for you ... remember, if you have a day job or you go to school or university, you may only be able to collect rent a couple of times a day, whereas, if you're home from school on summer vacation, you may be able to "play" Monopoly Hotels all day long and collect both rent and Community Chest bonuses ...
Whatever you do, just enjoy the game ... that's really the bottom line.
And DON'T, for crying out loud, wake up in the middle of the night to play ... it's simply not worth it, you'll be tired, and you'll wind up spending your money/gold on things you realise in the cold light of day that you never wanted.
Ask me how I know ...
Seriously.
It's ALL about choice.
When I first started playing, I was simply filling hotels with whatever rooms I could afford (the Horse room, the Wheelbarrow room, the Cupcake shop).
As time went by, I started getting smarter about the rooms I bought.
Some rooms give you better bang for the buck. And some cost a lot to build. Well, most rooms, even now, cost more than they are worth (in my not so humble opinion).
For example, today, I wouldn't bother with a Cupcake shop, even though it pays out every 45 minutes. Why? *Because* it pays out every 45 minutes. Seriously, who has the time to check a game every 45 minutes?
Most of the rooms I buy now pay out at 6 hour intervals or less frequently.
I figure I can likely check the game 2 or 3 times a day, so this averages out pretty well.
If I check the rooms first thing in the morning, maybe once at lunch time, and again some time in the evening, I've made a decent profit for the day.
There are some rooms that I've purchased, like the Dragon's Breath room, which do pay out more frequently - every 3 hours in that particular case. This one was a calculated decision.
Given that a room's total dollar-cost-of-ownership is the sum of the price of the room (M$900,000 for the Dragon's Breath room) + the cost to build it (M$450,000) + the cost to paint it (M$180,000) ... [that's a cool 170% of the purchase price, by the time you total it up!!], there has to be some compelling reason for you to actually purchase a specialty room.
Rooms like Dragon's Breath make sense occasionally ... this particular room pays M$31,500 every 3 hours.
But you should also keep in mind how long it takes for ROI (your Return On Investment).
The Top Hat room, for example, costs M$1,000 to buy, M$500 to build and M$200 to paint, for a total cost of M$1,700 up front. But it pays back FAST: every 6 hours, it pays back M$750, so within 12 hours, you've already recouped M$1,500 of that original M$1,700 expenditure. So, you see, a Top Hat room pays for itself in less than a day.
But a Dragon's Breath room? Gee. At M$31,500 per pay-out, you'll need some 48.57 payouts to get to the M$1,530,000 total cost of ownership. Assuming that you're able to collect rent every 3 hours for 18 hours of the day (okay, you get to sleep for 6 hours), you'll collect 6 payouts in a single day, a total of M$189,000.
You can do the math. Chances are good it will take between eight and ten days to pay for this room. *After* that initial payback period, the rest is pure gravy, so *I* find this room is worth the price.
If you're at the early stages of the game, though? It may NOT be worth your time. If that's the case, the best bang for your buck is still the Top Hat room ... stock up on those, even though it makes your hotel look boring ... remember that after a day or two, you can discard your Top Hat room without a care, it's already more than paid for itself - you've probably earned at least twice its value in profit.
There are other reasons to collect certain rooms or attractions, of course.
One of them is the pursuit of gold.
Remember that the Sticker Book lets you put together certain combinations of rooms to collect a sticker.
Well, some of the stickers also result in earning a gold bar.
Given how stingy Electronic Arts is about letting you earn gold, you may well want to pick up some attractions to gather gold.
It won't be cheap. Think about it, the Fancy Restaurant costs 55 gold bars! Which, when you think of it, isn't exactly a great return for your investment of gold ... you could surely buy a hotel or a museum for that much!
And NO rooms currently pay rent in gold, even if you paid gold to buy the rooms. So ... choose for yourself if it's worth it to pay out gold to buy a room.
In the Ventnor Museum, for example, you can pay 90 gold bars to pick up a Neanderthal room. Would I do that? In a heart-beat ... the payout is M$312,500 AND 77,968 experience points every 6 hours. Well worth the investment, even if it takes a few days to build, and wipes out my cache of gold.
So how long would I hold on to a room I've built?
Bottom line: it depends.
For a room that I picked up just for the joy of getting a sticker, like the Cupcake Shop, the Theater room, the Floral shop (still building) and the Yoga Salon (still building) that I'm collecting to get the Destination Station sticker (and maybe a gold bar):
For such a set of rooms? I personally wouldn't keep them much longer ... the cost-benefit analysis says it's not worth it to have those rooms taking up space when I could, instead, have higher-producing rooms taking up the same space.
For example, to buy these 4 attractions, here's the purchase price:
That's a total of M$4,708 in purchase price, with a total cost of M$8,003.6 if you include the building and painting cost. And it takes several hours to finish building and painting and then to collect your first payout from the pricier rooms (the Theater room only pays out every 8 hours).
BUT.
Think of it this way: no matter how much you spent, if there's a room (like my favourite, the Top Hat room) that pays out more money than this room does, why not put in one of those instead?
The Theater room takes up 4 squares, and pays out M$1,900 every 8 hours. So each of those squares pays out a quarter of that, or M$475 every 8 hours.
A Top Hat room takes exactly ONE square. AND it pays out M$750 every 6 hours.
No-brainer, no?
I would replace a Theater room with 4 Top Hat rooms just ASAP ... I'm only holding on to it until I finish my 4 attractions and get my Destination Station sticker. EA doesn't take away your stickers once you've earned them (nor does it give you any reward for collecting the same sticker twice, so don't bother!), so there's no point in holding on to a room that's served its purpose.
You'll have to do the cost-benefit analysis yourself ... your goals may be different than mine, you see. I'd rather have more bang for my buck. But my 5-year-old friend, for example, would MUCH rather see her favourite toys in the hotel - you should have just seen how excited she got when she unlocked Rainbow Dash!
So it all comes down to strategy.
Given that there is no clear way to "WIN" at this game, I'd say just enjoy the journey. If it makes you happy to fill your Sticker Book or your Guest Book, that's where your money is better spent.
If, like me, you're kinda hotel-crazy? Then you want high-value rooms paying you large amounts of rent at intervals that work for you ... remember, if you have a day job or you go to school or university, you may only be able to collect rent a couple of times a day, whereas, if you're home from school on summer vacation, you may be able to "play" Monopoly Hotels all day long and collect both rent and Community Chest bonuses ...
Whatever you do, just enjoy the game ... that's really the bottom line.
And DON'T, for crying out loud, wake up in the middle of the night to play ... it's simply not worth it, you'll be tired, and you'll wind up spending your money/gold on things you realise in the cold light of day that you never wanted.
Ask me how I know ...
Tuesday 14 August 2012
Hotels are STILL on sale! 30% off!
Well, I don't know if they are "still on sale".
I do know they are the same price as they were last week, when the in-app advert claimed that the price was only good for that weekend.
However, the prices have NOT gone back to the previous values, so maybe these are the new "normal" prices. Good of Electronic Arts to realise the prices might have been a bit steep, especially for newbies like me ... how on earth were we going to get to those high numbers before we got bored and stopped playing?
For those, like me, who downloaded the game prior to the advert, it still feels like a giant sale.
Pennsylvania Avenue, the most expensive dollar-price purchase is still M$28,000,000 - the old "normal" price was M$40,000,000.
I am diligently filling my smaller, cheaper hotels with TopHat rooms to get the best bang (and time to ROI) on my buck.
At present, I am averaging about M$220,000 every 6 hours or so ... yes, I have a few Golden Oak rooms (I just like the payout on those) and a few Sweet Apple rooms ... that's for the experience points, of course. I will take 200,000 experience points any day. In fact, I've built one in each of my hotels, just for those experience points.
At lower levels of the game, you'll find those experience points shoot you up multiple levels at one go. But as you get higher in the game (I'm at level 25 right now), you'll notice that you need more and more experience points just to move up to the next level (and unlock new rooms and new sticker collections).
Level 25, for example requires almost a million experience points before you can graduate to level 26.
I'm working on it.
____________
Update, August 21st:
Well, the last time Electronic Arts updated the game, the hotels went back to the higher prices. I guess I just lucked out in having the cheaper price for a while longer than advertised!
I do know they are the same price as they were last week, when the in-app advert claimed that the price was only good for that weekend.
However, the prices have NOT gone back to the previous values, so maybe these are the new "normal" prices. Good of Electronic Arts to realise the prices might have been a bit steep, especially for newbies like me ... how on earth were we going to get to those high numbers before we got bored and stopped playing?
For those, like me, who downloaded the game prior to the advert, it still feels like a giant sale.
Pennsylvania Avenue, the most expensive dollar-price purchase is still M$28,000,000 - the old "normal" price was M$40,000,000.
I am diligently filling my smaller, cheaper hotels with TopHat rooms to get the best bang (and time to ROI) on my buck.
At present, I am averaging about M$220,000 every 6 hours or so ... yes, I have a few Golden Oak rooms (I just like the payout on those) and a few Sweet Apple rooms ... that's for the experience points, of course. I will take 200,000 experience points any day. In fact, I've built one in each of my hotels, just for those experience points.
At lower levels of the game, you'll find those experience points shoot you up multiple levels at one go. But as you get higher in the game (I'm at level 25 right now), you'll notice that you need more and more experience points just to move up to the next level (and unlock new rooms and new sticker collections).
Level 25, for example requires almost a million experience points before you can graduate to level 26.
I'm working on it.
____________
Update, August 21st:
Well, the last time Electronic Arts updated the game, the hotels went back to the higher prices. I guess I just lucked out in having the cheaper price for a while longer than advertised!
Wednesday 8 August 2012
Why buy hotels?
Well, I can see why buying a hotel in real life would be a very good idea.
But in Monopoly Hotels (the iOS game from Electronic Arts, I mean)?
a) It's just a game.
b) It doesn't give me any points - rather, it takes *away* a good chunk of change each time.
c) It doesn't seem to matter how much the hotel costs, the rooms still cost the same amount, and sometimes a cheaper hotel lets you put in as many rooms as a pricier one.
The only difference I see right now between cheap hotels and the multi-million-Monopoly-dollar ones? The fact that, the pricier they are, the longer they have that "Opening Soon" sign.
This past week, as you may know if you've been following along here, the hotels have all been on sale, at a 30% discount.
Which is fantastic, of course.
But I realise that I've been trying madly to up my savings in order to acquire either Kentucky Avenue:
or St. James Place:
But now, thinking about it, I realise that I could just as easily (easier, even) buy States Avenue:
True, I wouldn't get as much of a discount, but you know what? It'd be ready to use sooner than either of the others, and I could probably stuff in just as many Top Hat rooms into States as I could into St. James. Okay, maybe one row less of rooms, but is that really worth the extra cost in both time and money?
I don't know.
Of course, knowing me, I'll probably go for perceived value at the end of the day and buy the most expensive hotel I can afford, figuring that that is the best bang for my buck. But that doesn't necessarily make me smart ... in fact, I'm wondering if that's not the stupid choice.
Oh, well.
I've made stupid choices before ... I think I'll survive another one. :)
But in Monopoly Hotels (the iOS game from Electronic Arts, I mean)?
a) It's just a game.
b) It doesn't give me any points - rather, it takes *away* a good chunk of change each time.
c) It doesn't seem to matter how much the hotel costs, the rooms still cost the same amount, and sometimes a cheaper hotel lets you put in as many rooms as a pricier one.
The only difference I see right now between cheap hotels and the multi-million-Monopoly-dollar ones? The fact that, the pricier they are, the longer they have that "Opening Soon" sign.
This past week, as you may know if you've been following along here, the hotels have all been on sale, at a 30% discount.
Which is fantastic, of course.
But I realise that I've been trying madly to up my savings in order to acquire either Kentucky Avenue:
or St. James Place:
But now, thinking about it, I realise that I could just as easily (easier, even) buy States Avenue:
True, I wouldn't get as much of a discount, but you know what? It'd be ready to use sooner than either of the others, and I could probably stuff in just as many Top Hat rooms into States as I could into St. James. Okay, maybe one row less of rooms, but is that really worth the extra cost in both time and money?
I don't know.
Of course, knowing me, I'll probably go for perceived value at the end of the day and buy the most expensive hotel I can afford, figuring that that is the best bang for my buck. But that doesn't necessarily make me smart ... in fact, I'm wondering if that's not the stupid choice.
Oh, well.
I've made stupid choices before ... I think I'll survive another one. :)
Tuesday 7 August 2012
Don't let your hotels go dark!
Monopoly Hotels, I mean. The game, by Electronic Arts? Yeah, that game.
... nothing much will change.
You can even get away with this:
... that's when you have a problem.
It's not obvious what the problem is ... after all, in real life, you routinely find your way from your bed to your bathroom in the dark without much more consequence other than the occasional stubbed toe, right?
Well, Monopoly Hotels has a nice little twist for you.
It doesn't stub your toe.
Instead, if the lights are out, it signals that by darkening the hotels, like so:
If you are like me, you *really* don't see the difference between this and:
at 2:00 a.m.
Let's face it, if it's the middle of the night and everything around you is dark, your brain, like mine, is probably way too foggy to notice little nuances like lighting on the game.
But, as I found out to my disgust (AFTER a whole hotel's worth of collecting rent) is that Electronic Arts, to make the game more interesting, have decided that when the lights are out, you only get to collect 50% of the room rent! That is to say, if your favourite hotel pays out M$15,000 on a normal rent day, you will be able to collect only M$7,500 when the lights are out.
That's powerful motivation: now, before I go to sleep, I try to make sure I'm ON the electric board screen, so that I don't have to think too much when I glance at the screen in the middle of the night ...
The alternative would be to NOT check the screen in the wee hours of the morning when the gremlins wake you up ... naaaah, it's way too tempting, given that the phone's right beside me ... what if there were to be a super-bonus-special gift of gold provided only to those who are awake at wee-hour-number-3 or something? :)
So, normally, your Electric company looks like this:
Nice and bright. Glowing like a light bulb.
Oh, wait.
That *is* a bloomin' lightbulb.
Anyway, do you know what happens when it goes from BRIGHT like you see above to ... not so bright?
Well, if it looks like this:
or even like this:
... nothing much will change.
You can even get away with this:
... but when your Electric Company page looks like this:
It's not obvious what the problem is ... after all, in real life, you routinely find your way from your bed to your bathroom in the dark without much more consequence other than the occasional stubbed toe, right?
Well, Monopoly Hotels has a nice little twist for you.
It doesn't stub your toe.
Instead, if the lights are out, it signals that by darkening the hotels, like so:
Let's face it, if it's the middle of the night and everything around you is dark, your brain, like mine, is probably way too foggy to notice little nuances like lighting on the game.
But, as I found out to my disgust (AFTER a whole hotel's worth of collecting rent) is that Electronic Arts, to make the game more interesting, have decided that when the lights are out, you only get to collect 50% of the room rent! That is to say, if your favourite hotel pays out M$15,000 on a normal rent day, you will be able to collect only M$7,500 when the lights are out.
That's powerful motivation: now, before I go to sleep, I try to make sure I'm ON the electric board screen, so that I don't have to think too much when I glance at the screen in the middle of the night ...
The alternative would be to NOT check the screen in the wee hours of the morning when the gremlins wake you up ... naaaah, it's way too tempting, given that the phone's right beside me ... what if there were to be a super-bonus-special gift of gold provided only to those who are awake at wee-hour-number-3 or something? :)
Monday 6 August 2012
GOLD!
As some of you may have noticed, I'm mildly (mildly???) addicted to the Monopoly Hotels game on my iPhone.
I have been spending a few hours too many on the game every weekend.
People have started to notice and some have even commented on it (the gall of some people!).
The game itself?
Not that exciting, if you really think about it.
You don't shoot aliens, there are no high-speed chases, you don't even need to tax your brain thinking through clues or outwitting duller-witted competitors.
You don't even have the opportunity to play against an opponent. Not even to the extent of joining in a bidding war when hotels go on sale (remember that 30% discount this past weekend?)
Like real-life real estate deals, the only hook is getting you to figure out what the best bang for your buck is in terms of buying rooms to put into your hotels. (You can find plenty of strategy posts and guides if you just do a quick web search, so I won't bother with details here.)
The cash aspect is fairly straight-forward. You put in a room, and, at intervals of several minutes (or hours, or days), you collect the "rent". Pretty straight-forward, as I said.
But then you discover that there are rooms, attractions, even entire hotels (AND the Ventnor Museum!) that you need GOLD to purchase. Gold bars, actually.
And they are HARD to find.
You see, you get a few free gold bars when you first start the game. Then, if you click on a room or attraction you'd like to purchase but cannot afford, the game offers you the opportunity to top up your gold reserves.
You can BUY gold, of course. Various price points.
I am cheap. I like FREE games, and, having installed a FREE game, I am not actually very likely to shell out cold, hard, cash just in order to buy some fictional property.
You can also collect gold bars by signing up for an Origin account and then using it to invite "friends". Right. Like any of my friends have the time or the interest ...
I've wound up asking Professor Google for some hints as to people's handles on Origin and then sending them "friend" requests. Fortunately, several of them have responded and accepted the invites, enough to help me earn 3 gold bars (for siging up) and then a further 5 gold bars for actually having "friends". I think it topped out there, so I haven't added any more in a while.
So, how *else* can you get some gold?
You can watch ads or sign up for various "free" memberships to things ... only, all of them require credit card details, and, guess what? I don't just hand out my credit card information for a game ....
Any other ways to get gold? Yes, actually. You can click the flying carpet when it comes by:
Then, as prompted, roll the dice:
And if you're lucky, you'll roll two 1s, which will reward you with 3 gold bars:
Much more often, though, it'll pat you on the back for your effort and hand out a few dollars:
And here's the addictive bit, the thing that has me spending hours on the dashed game:
The Monopoly dollars and the Community Chest (the flying carpet thing) float past on the screen as long as you're in the game. Clicking on the dollars gives you cash, but typically only one or two M$ (although I *have* seen it as high as M$19).
So really, if you want those gold bars, you have to either sign up for those credit-card-hungry "free" offers, or pay cash for gold, or .... you could sit and watch the screen, waiting for flying carpets.
I am still new enough to the game that I've chosen to do the sit and watch thing a few times too many, despite swearing "Not today, I won't".
Anyone know of any less time-wasting ways to "earn" gold?
I do wish Electronic Arts was a bit more generous with the gold bars. In their defence, I hear they did have a few days recently where the open-the-game bonus was gold instead of the Monopoly dollars ... but that was before I had even installed the game, so it obvioulsy did me no good. :)
Ah, it'll keep. I can still have plenty of fun with out gold bars ... and I really, REALLY don't have the time or the inclination to waste any more hours watching for flying carpets.
I mean, REALLY!
I have been spending a few hours too many on the game every weekend.
People have started to notice and some have even commented on it (the gall of some people!).
The game itself?
Not that exciting, if you really think about it.
You don't shoot aliens, there are no high-speed chases, you don't even need to tax your brain thinking through clues or outwitting duller-witted competitors.
You don't even have the opportunity to play against an opponent. Not even to the extent of joining in a bidding war when hotels go on sale (remember that 30% discount this past weekend?)
Like real-life real estate deals, the only hook is getting you to figure out what the best bang for your buck is in terms of buying rooms to put into your hotels. (You can find plenty of strategy posts and guides if you just do a quick web search, so I won't bother with details here.)
The cash aspect is fairly straight-forward. You put in a room, and, at intervals of several minutes (or hours, or days), you collect the "rent". Pretty straight-forward, as I said.
But then you discover that there are rooms, attractions, even entire hotels (AND the Ventnor Museum!) that you need GOLD to purchase. Gold bars, actually.
And they are HARD to find.
You see, you get a few free gold bars when you first start the game. Then, if you click on a room or attraction you'd like to purchase but cannot afford, the game offers you the opportunity to top up your gold reserves.
You can BUY gold, of course. Various price points.
I am cheap. I like FREE games, and, having installed a FREE game, I am not actually very likely to shell out cold, hard, cash just in order to buy some fictional property.
You can also collect gold bars by signing up for an Origin account and then using it to invite "friends". Right. Like any of my friends have the time or the interest ...
I've wound up asking Professor Google for some hints as to people's handles on Origin and then sending them "friend" requests. Fortunately, several of them have responded and accepted the invites, enough to help me earn 3 gold bars (for siging up) and then a further 5 gold bars for actually having "friends". I think it topped out there, so I haven't added any more in a while.
So, how *else* can you get some gold?
You can watch ads or sign up for various "free" memberships to things ... only, all of them require credit card details, and, guess what? I don't just hand out my credit card information for a game ....
Any other ways to get gold? Yes, actually. You can click the flying carpet when it comes by:
Then, as prompted, roll the dice:
And if you're lucky, you'll roll two 1s, which will reward you with 3 gold bars:
Much more often, though, it'll pat you on the back for your effort and hand out a few dollars:
And here's the addictive bit, the thing that has me spending hours on the dashed game:
The Monopoly dollars and the Community Chest (the flying carpet thing) float past on the screen as long as you're in the game. Clicking on the dollars gives you cash, but typically only one or two M$ (although I *have* seen it as high as M$19).
So really, if you want those gold bars, you have to either sign up for those credit-card-hungry "free" offers, or pay cash for gold, or .... you could sit and watch the screen, waiting for flying carpets.
I am still new enough to the game that I've chosen to do the sit and watch thing a few times too many, despite swearing "Not today, I won't".
Anyone know of any less time-wasting ways to "earn" gold?
I do wish Electronic Arts was a bit more generous with the gold bars. In their defence, I hear they did have a few days recently where the open-the-game bonus was gold instead of the Monopoly dollars ... but that was before I had even installed the game, so it obvioulsy did me no good. :)
Ah, it'll keep. I can still have plenty of fun with out gold bars ... and I really, REALLY don't have the time or the inclination to waste any more hours watching for flying carpets.
I mean, REALLY!
Yes, the hotels were on sale!
So, to respond to my own previous post ... yes, indeed, the hotels were on sale this past weekend.
If you read closely, Electronic Arts claims that it's "THIS WEEKEND ONLY".
However, they obviously have a different meaning for weekend than I do.
I've just been scrolling through the properties I do not yet own, and I still see prices that are way lower than I'm used to seeing them.
For example, Pennsylvania Avenue usually costs M$40,000,000.
Today?
Okay.
So, the sale is on for a couple more days, maybe?
Which ticks me off a tiny bit. Is it because August 6th happens to be a holiday in Canada? I know it's NOT a holiday in the U.S.
And why, you ask, should it matter to me?
Well, because I was planning to save up as MUCH dough as I possibly could to buy the most expensive hotel I could afford.
By 11 p.m. last night, all I'd managed was M$1,200,000.
Not even enough to buy Kentucky Avenue:
So, I used what I'd saved up, and bought this one instead:
And then proceeded to fill it with rooms, using up ALL I'd managed to save.
Nice.
It does give me more income (especially because I saved up a bit more and then splurged on ONE square, putting in a "Purse Room" ... that room is PRICEY. Costs M$180,000 just to purchase the room, then another M$90,000 to build it, and finally M$36,000 to paint it, ready for occupancy.
And why, you ask, puzzled, would anyone want to spend more than M$300,000 on a single room??
Easy.
Because it pays out pretty nicely at M$16,667 every 24 hours. Yes, it'll take a while to break even on that one room (about 3 weeks, I estimate). But after that? It's all gravy.
However, I digress.
When I checked just now and saw that all the hotels are still 30% off, I realised I'd have been smarter (and got more bang for my buck) if I'd waited and saved that moolah for a pricier hotel.
Oh, well.
What's done is done. And I can't really say I regret it.
Life goes on.
Monopoly Hotels keeps me entertained. More than it should ....
If you read closely, Electronic Arts claims that it's "THIS WEEKEND ONLY".
However, they obviously have a different meaning for weekend than I do.
I've just been scrolling through the properties I do not yet own, and I still see prices that are way lower than I'm used to seeing them.
For example, Pennsylvania Avenue usually costs M$40,000,000.
Today?
Okay.
So, the sale is on for a couple more days, maybe?
Which ticks me off a tiny bit. Is it because August 6th happens to be a holiday in Canada? I know it's NOT a holiday in the U.S.
And why, you ask, should it matter to me?
Well, because I was planning to save up as MUCH dough as I possibly could to buy the most expensive hotel I could afford.
By 11 p.m. last night, all I'd managed was M$1,200,000.
Not even enough to buy Kentucky Avenue:
So, I used what I'd saved up, and bought this one instead:
And then proceeded to fill it with rooms, using up ALL I'd managed to save.
Nice.
It does give me more income (especially because I saved up a bit more and then splurged on ONE square, putting in a "Purse Room" ... that room is PRICEY. Costs M$180,000 just to purchase the room, then another M$90,000 to build it, and finally M$36,000 to paint it, ready for occupancy.
And why, you ask, puzzled, would anyone want to spend more than M$300,000 on a single room??
Easy.
Because it pays out pretty nicely at M$16,667 every 24 hours. Yes, it'll take a while to break even on that one room (about 3 weeks, I estimate). But after that? It's all gravy.
However, I digress.
When I checked just now and saw that all the hotels are still 30% off, I realised I'd have been smarter (and got more bang for my buck) if I'd waited and saved that moolah for a pricier hotel.
Oh, well.
What's done is done. And I can't really say I regret it.
Life goes on.
Monopoly Hotels keeps me entertained. More than it should ....
Thursday 2 August 2012
Hotels on SALE!
I just happened to be playing a little earlier than normal today, and I noticed when I clicked on the "Buy Now" ribbon across one of the hotels I've been eyeing, that its price seemed lower than it had been yesterday.
Clicked on several others (I only own a few right now) and discovered that they seem to have had their prices slashed across the board - a 30% discount.
I see that you can now purchase Indiana Avenue for M$105,000 ... I believe it was selling for M$150,000 as recently as yesterday.
Pennsylvania Avenue used to cost M$40,000,000 - today it costs M$28,000,000.
I logged out of the game and logged back in, but there was no bright overlay tellind me about the discount.
Anyone know if this is a permanent lowering of the price or just a short one? Given the odd numbers (M$315,000 for one property, M$630,000 for another), I suspect it's a temporary thing, so I'd urge you to stock up while the deal is active!
Enjoy!
Clicked on several others (I only own a few right now) and discovered that they seem to have had their prices slashed across the board - a 30% discount.
I see that you can now purchase Indiana Avenue for M$105,000 ... I believe it was selling for M$150,000 as recently as yesterday.
Pennsylvania Avenue used to cost M$40,000,000 - today it costs M$28,000,000.
I logged out of the game and logged back in, but there was no bright overlay tellind me about the discount.
Anyone know if this is a permanent lowering of the price or just a short one? Given the odd numbers (M$315,000 for one property, M$630,000 for another), I suspect it's a temporary thing, so I'd urge you to stock up while the deal is active!
Enjoy!
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