Monopoly Hotels Bug: Players lose all their rooms with no warning!

Every once in a while, I see a comment regarding people having lost all the rooms in their hotels - on this blog's comments, on EA's Monopoly Hotels' Facebook page, in other forums and chats around the web.

This bug has been plaguing users of the Monopoly Hotels game for at least a couple of months now, possibly more. 

In the early days (September? October? of 2012), I saw only a few players complaining that they had lost their rooms or that all the hotels they had already purchased now said "Buy Now" once again.

Because it hadn't happened to me, I basically shrugged and moved on. Pretty much as anyone would, to whom this hasn't happened.

As I got higher and higher in levels of the MH game and nothing happened, I started to assume that those other players had been unlucky, but surely it couldn't happen to me!

And then, Black Friday came along.

Yes, I lost all my rooms, just like all those others.

One minute I was fine.

The next time I opened up the game, poof: no rooms in any of my hotels!

I still had all the cash on hand (more than M$100,000,000 and 500+ gold), plus all my stickers and guest book entries. But no rooms, which meant no RENT! I still was at level 43, just on the cusp of level 44.

And this is where I really lucked out. Having all that cash and gold available made it easier for me to pick up my first 2 Golden Cauldrons before that weeks half-off sale ended (which it ended on a Monday, not a Thursday, at least for the gold-producing rooms).

Then I invested the cash I had to building several Tiny Pilgrim Hats - at M$12,000,000 every 36 hours, my cash reserves continued steady. Yes, of course, I filled all the remaining slots with Thimbles and then (getting impatient at collecting every 45 minutes!!) replaced those Thimbles with Top Hats.

My Golden Cauldrons and Pilgrim rooms kept me interested ... without those rooms, I'd probably have stopped playing, because there was no way I was going to start again from scratch!

So that's my advice. 

Whether you have already lost your rooms once and have rebuilt, or you are one of the lucky ones who've escaped so far ... either way, your hedge against totally having to start from scratch is just like in real life: you need an emergency fund.

I would put aside at least one day's rent collection, preferably 2 days' worth, plus at least a couple of hundred gold if at all possible. If you don't have gold, that's not as big a deal: you can build up some gold just from your trains ... it will be slow, but it's doable.

To me, the cash was the more important aspect: without cash, I would have really had to start from scratch again, with thimbles and wheelbarrows, and had to wait months to get back to a decent daily M$ collection!

So, bottom line: set up your emergency fund today. And, no matter the temptation, don't let yourself dip into that fund!

For me, I'm currently trying to stay at about M$1 billion in emergency funds - never dipping below M$800,000,000. This way, I can always buy a couple of Tiny Pilgrim Hats right away, and then build from there.

Your mileage may vary, but I'd rather be safe than sorry - there are definitely people on EA's Monopoly Hotels FB page complaining that they have lost progress not once, but twice - it seems to just be a question of luck whether or not you hit that nasty bug.

Play safe!

Will we have an update today?

Technically, we should ... after all, it's Thursday, the day that EA usually provides updates.

However, because we have just had the 12 Days of Christmas promotion with daily updates, PLUS the bonus Christmas update, I'm wondering if EA will actually do an update today.

Especially considering that the Holiday Gift #3 sticker had Mr. Monopoly wishing us all a Happy New Year ...

Not to mention, I suspect most of their staff have taken the remainder of this week off for a mini-vacation - most software companies seem to do that around the holidays, at least in the U.S. and Canada.

What do you think?

I am hoping for no update, I'll admit, but that's because I selfishly want to buy a few more rooms while the half-price sale is on ...

What to Buy: Mayan Calendar versus Golden Cauldron

Yes, I know. 

I usually compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges.

Or, in the case of Monopoly Hotels, rooms that produce gold to rooms that produce gold. And rooms that produce M$ to rooms that produce M$.

But in this particular case, I'm really torn between two rooms. One, the Mayan Calendar, that you buy with gold, and produces M$. The other, the Golden Cauldron, you buy with gold and it produces gold.

Here is the thing. Typically, the strategy in this game is to ultimately enhance your M$-producing ability. Really, all the chasing after gold that we do is simply because the best M$ producing rooms are purchased with gold.

Which creates my dilemma.

The Golden Cauldron produces just 10 gold every 7 hours.

The Mayan Calendar produces M$791,666,667 every 38 hours.

At first glance, you'd still go "Huh?", because this really looks like comparing apples to oranges.

But you see, as I said earlier, my ultimate aim is to increase the daily rent collection of M$. Why? Hmm. To buy more rooms that would give me more M$ ... er, that sounds a little silly.

But here is the bottom line.

I already have one Mayan Calendar.

    

Virginia Avenue is now my highest producing hotel, simply by virtue of having this room in it.

It will produce more than three-quarters of a billion M$ every other day.

Which means, I can buy just about any M$ room that I wish for the foreseeable future. (Of course, EA will come up with rooms that will quickly make nonsense of M$791 million every 38 hours, but that's a different story).

So buying another Mayan Calendar really won't do me much good - it will mean that I average M$791 million every day instead of every two days.

Which means, in turn, that I really, really won't have much incentive to play the game any more - anything I want, I can buy at that point.

On the other hand, I already have five Golden Cauldrons: two in Mediterranean and another three in Pennsylvania.

    

If I keep buying more Golden Cauldrons, I will wind up in pretty much the same boat, but with gold rooms instead ... I currently earn an easy 150 gold from those gold rooms every day, which means I already don't bother sitting around with the game open all the time like I used to in order to click on every single falling note in the hopes of gaining gold.

What to do?

I think the sane thing is to collect another Golden Cauldron ... 180 gold per day is not quite as drastic as M$791 million every single day in terms of continuing to play the game.

So that is it. 

I guess I will save up for another Golden Cauldron hopefully before this sale ends. I already have the one Mayan Calendar, so I won't be crying at having missed out on a great opportunity when the Mayan Calendar room disappears at the end of the "Limited Time" sale.

Of course, if the sale ends before I hit 1,400 gold, then I may change my mind and pick up another Mayan Calendar ... or perhaps not ... maybe a couple of Volcanoes would make more sense to accelerate my XP earnings instead.

Choices. The more choices I have, the more I fear making a choice in case I make the wrong one. But, as in life, a wrong choice is better than no choice at all. I guess if I miss out on the next Golden Cauldron, I will just pick one of the available rooms at random, depending on what I can afford at that point.

Mayan Calendar or Golden Treasure or Volcanoes ... and my heart leans towards Volcanoes just because it's so much fun to watch that volcano go "BOOM!"

What would you do?

Christmas update: New Hourglass and Ice Skates rooms

Remember those two new, unknown placeholder spots in your Guest Book?

Today EA has released the rooms that will populate the Guest Book with the new guests: Hourglass Room and Ice Skates room.

The Hourglass room takes up 2 squares in your hotel, costs 1,006 gold at half price (presumably 2,012 gold at regular price), and pays out rent every 3 days and 22 hours. Rent is M$43,083,333 and 700,000XP. Given that that's once in 99 hours, it works out to M$217,592.59 and 3,535.35XP per square, per hour. 

Not bad, but, not that great, given that you could instead pick up a Winter Scarf (as long as it's available) for 625 gold at half price right now, earning a neat M$2,000,000 and 25,000XP per square, per hour. 

Or even better, you could pay 1,100 gold (just a little bit more than the Hourglass) for a Mayan Calendar, which averages a whopping M$5,208,333.34 per square, per hour - but only 986.84XP per square, per hour.

Alternatively, once the Winter Scarf and the Mayan Calendar are removed from circulation, you could spend almost the same price as the Hourglass to pick up the Flute room, which pays M$10,000,000 and 225,000XP every 8 hours, for an average of M$1,250,000 and 28,125XP per square, per hour!

I'd guess the only reason to pick up this room would be because you are either looking to fill up your Guest Book, or trying to complete a sticker (no sticker uses this room yet), or perhaps are just bored of all the high paying rooms you already have. :)

The other new room, the Ice Skates room, is slightly better. It also occupies 2 squares in your hotel, but costs a bit less, at 750 gold at half price (presumably 1,500 gold once the sale is over). 

Rent on this room is M$8,750,000 and 20,000XP every 6 hours, which averages out to M$729,166.67 and 1,666.67XP per square, per hour.

Again, this room doesn't come close to the payout you could get from the slightly cheaper Winter Scarf room, or the 33% more expensive Flute room ... making me wonder why I should want this room. 

Would you buy either of these rooms? I don't know if I would.

The only thing I can think of is that EA may be planning to bring out a sticker using these two rooms, or may make them also "Limited Time" to tempt us to buy them.

For now, I think I'll focus on saving up my gold to attempt to buy another Golden Cauldron before the "50% off rooms you buy with gold" sale ends - it hasn't ended yet.

If I cannot save up the full 1,400 for a new Golden Cauldron, I'll probably aim for a second Mayan Calendar. And if even that is not feasible, I'll settle for a Golden Treasure or perhaps a Volcanoes.

Giant Snowflake and Winter Scarf are now Limited Time!

I missed this while looking through the changes that today's update has brought: 

That's right: The Giant Snowflake and Winter Scarf rooms are now also marked "Limited Time". (I missed those, because I just scanned quickly and assumed they also still said "50% off" like all the other rooms you buy with gold.)

Again, your guess is as good as mine if you're wondering how long these rooms will be available.

I already have 6 of the Winter Scarf rooms, don't know if I'll be able to save up enough for any more of those (I'd prefer another Golden Cauldron right now).

So, EA giveth. And EA taketh away.

I think that's part of the fascination of the Monopoly Hotels game ... you pretty much never can predict what they are going to do next. Rooms appear, prices for those rooms change, rooms disappear ... it's all unpredictable and makes for a wild ride.

I can understand why players get frustrated with all the ups and downs, but I find it strangely compelling.

Back to your regularly scheduled commentary: Go grab some of those Winter Scarves before they disappear!

Mayan Calendar and Holiday Decorations are now Limited Time!

That was the downside of today's update ... all the holiday-themed decorations and the Mayan Calendar room are now marked "Limited Time".

     

How long is "Limited Time"? 

Your guess is as good as mine.

I am hoping the current goodies stay available until January 1st at least, but it's entirely possible that they may disappear as early as tomorrow, or perhaps in a "normal" Thursday update this week.

If you want your "Deck the Halls" sticker, or the fabulous output of the Mayan Calendar, I'd suggest you stock up now, before those rooms and attractions are history!

Monopoly Hotels' 12 Days of Christmas: Day 12 update: Holiday Gift #3 sticker, Boardwalk is released

There it is, folks: the final update for the Monopoly Hotels' 12 Days of Christmas promotion.

Today, we have a new hotel: Boardwalk. And, amazingly, it only costs M$5,000,000!

I forgot to take a picture of this hotel before I purchased it, but I am pretty sure I saw M$5,000,000 as the price, and my savings also only went down by that amount.

Given that Park Place debuted at M$99,000,000, it's entirely likely that this price is some sort of introductory special and will change before too long.

As I said, I've purchased the hotel, now I have to wait 3 days for it to open. Well, okay, not quite 3 days. 282 gold works out to ... 71 hours? Okay, that actually is just about 3 days. :) I guess it's been at least an hour since I bought it.

Here's the new and improved skyline: Boardwalk is on the far left, of course:

And the other goodie in today's update: yet another Holiday Gift sticker. This one is Holiday Gift#3, and pays out 100 gold! Nice!

     

     

     

That's it.

The 12 Days of Christmas goodies have now all been delivered. Enjoy the windfalls of free gold, and stock up on those "rooms you buy with gold" while the half-price sale lasts.

Given that the new sticker wishes us a Happy New Year, I'm hoping the 50% off sale will last until January 1st, but I am not actually counting on it. So I am going to stock up on the best gold rooms I can afford by mid-morning tomorrow - after that, who knows whether the sale will still be on ...

Enjoy your holiday!

What will the 12th Day of Christmas bring to Monopoly Hotels?

This is it, folks.

Day 12.

The final day of daily updates in the Monopoly Hotels' 12 Days of Christmas promotion.

So what do you think today will bring?

We've already had some marvelous sales: first, the 30% off all million-producing rooms, and then the current 50% off all rooms you buy with gold.

I am hoping the 50% discount on rooms you buy with gold will stick around for another week - there are so many rooms I want to buy and would prefer to buy at half price! :)

Chances are, though, that the sale will likely end soon. If not today, then most likely on Thursday, if EA does their regular "Thursday update" on the 27th.

After today, I'll likely go back to saving up for the high-value rooms - I've already purchased one of the Mayan Calendars, I wouldn't mind having another. In the meantime, I'm going to be busy replacing all my Top Hats with Harvest Pumpkins and Tiny Pilgrim Hats and Winter Scarves, just depending on my mood. 

There have been new attractions, new decorations, and new stickers in the past 11 days. Basically, there have been some fantastic temptations, and I've certainly given in to most of that temptation ...

On the other hand, the trains in the Reading Railroad have all now been marked as "Limited Time", foretelling their withdrawal from the marketplace.

What's left?

Hmm.

I haven't seen any new rooms in the past 12 days. (No, the Mayan Calendar and Big Ben don't count ... both of those are Attractions, not regular guest rooms).

And I am hearing that the Guest book has two placeholders for new characters.

So, my guess?

I believe today will bring out at least one new room to fill out one of those placeholder characters. We may get lucky and see both new rooms today - or maybe EA will hold back one super-duper room for release tomorrow, as a Christmas surprise.

No matter - I think we can all be excited to see something interesting today!

Monopoly Hotels' 12 Days of Christmas: Day 11 update: Continental Breakfast sticker

We have a new sticker today: Continental Breakfast.

    

    

It's easy enough to earn ... all the rooms needed (Missile Silo, Black Dojo, White Dojo and Cobra HQ) have been available for ages now.

It's still negative earnings, though, even though gold rooms are currently half-priced. You'd pay 210 gold for the two Dojo rooms today to earn 125 gold.

On the M$ front, too, this is not a great sticker to get: you pay out M$15,150,000 to earn M$4,500,000 ...

Unless you really, really, REALLY love having your sticker book full, I'd hold out for either deeper discounts or the ability to complete multiple stickers with one or more of these rooms.

Reading Railroad: Trains are now "Limited Time"!

I missed one significant part of the Day 9 update: EA has marked ALL the trains as "Limited Time"!

It really makes one wonder: does anyone at EA actually think through the implications before they introduce new features or rooms to the game?

It's almost like they get all excited and push out something, and then realise that, "Oops, this makes it easier for users to earn gold in the game, so we really should take it away now".

There's a small part of me that thinks maybe the buy-for-real-money trains will disappear and be replaced by ones that you pay M$ or gold for, which will only pay out pretty small amounts of gold ... but again, who knows what those geniuses at EA are planning! 

If any planning actually goes into this game at all, that is.

All in all, that's disappointing news. 

Maybe the trains will come back for occasional "Limited Time" guest appearances, but the bottom line is that if you really want a steady stream of gold from sending out the more expensive trains, your safest option is to buy those trains now, before they disappear.

Monopoly Hotels' 12 Days of Christmas: Day 10 update: Holiday Stockings and North Pole

Two new decorations appeared for yesterday's update: the much-anticipated Holiday Stockings and North Pole.

Holiday Stockings cost 50 gold (currently on sale for 25) and pays out 100XP when you buy it.

North Pole is the first of the new decorations to cost cash: M$15,000. It also pays out 100XP on purchase.

The appearance of the Holiday Stockings means you can finally complete your Deck the Halls sticker to collect 60 gold.

And that was it for the update!

Enjoy!

Monopoly Hotels' 12 Days of Christmas: Day 9 update: New Christmas Carol and Deck the Halls stickers; new Mayan Calendar attraction

This evening, when I opened up the Monopoly Hotels game, here's the first thing I saw:

I guess EA finally noticed that half the posts on their FB page are asking "What's today's update? Where's my gift today?", etc.? :)

(We won't mention the other half that just goes: "I lost all my rooms, what do I do now?!?")

Anyway, back to business. 

Today we have 2 new stickers. A Christmas Carol and Deck the Halls.

   

    


I am not at ALL sure how this relates to Christmas or to a Christmas Carol ... I guess just from the shpiel? Whatever. 

If you build all these rooms, you earn M$56,000. 

And then we have the Deck the Halls sticker:

   

At least this one pays out gold. But it's still a negative return on your investment, even with the gold-paid decorations currently at half price: you pay 25 gold (that's 50% off the full price) for each of the decorations, making a total of 100 gold paid out to earn 60 gold.

Oh, and before I forget: you can't actually complete the Deck the Halls sticker yet: they haven't yet introduced the Holiday Stockings decoration to the game. Yes, I'm assuming it's a decoration - it could just as easily be a room or an attraction.

And there is one MORE update, one they didn't make quite so in your face ... we have a new attraction: the Mayan Calendar Room. 

The Mayan Calendar Room costs 1,100 gold at half off - I'm assuming that full price will be 2,200 gold. It pays out  M$791,666,667 and 150,000XP every 38 hours. It occupies 4 squares in any regular hotel, so the rental income on this room averages out to ... M$5,208,333.33 and 986.84XP per square, per hour.

That's a pretty good room to purchase, especially at half price! It's actually probably the best room currently available in the Monopoly Hotels in terms of M$ earned, but not that great for XP.

Will you buy this room? I'm actually saving up for another Golden Cauldron, but this attraction is definitely tempting - it's more than double the return of a Winter Scarf room, for just about 33% more investment!

Of course, there's a teeny, tiny chance that someone screwed up: if you look at Big Ben, just below the Mayan Calendar in the list, you'll notice that Big Ben pays out exactly one tenth of what the Mayan Calendar pays out, and at exactly the same interval. Maybe we'll see some more price juggling as EA figures out what this room should really cost ...
right now, the price difference between these two attractions is pretty much minimal!

Enjoy the update - I am not going to bother with the stickers, but I likely will pick up the Mayan Calendar, just because it pays out so nicely!

Monopoly Hotels' 12 Days of Christmas: Day 8 update: 50% off Rooms You Buy with Gold; Holiday Gift #2 sticker; Earn double on packs of 500+ gold!

Today was a superb day for anyone who'd been hoarding their gold: there are 3 fabulous new opportunities starting today.

The first showed up as soon as I logged in. Initially, I saw: 

And later, when I next opened up the game, I started seeing this: 

Okay, I wasn't 100% sure what exactly they mean by "Earn double on packs of 500+ gold", but I knew it had to be one of those pay-to-play options.

Is that more gold for the same price than you used to get? I have to admit I don't really know ... I haven't paid to play any part of this game as yet. The verb still confuses me, though: how are you "earning" anything? 

Whatever.

Next, there is the much-awaited (by me, at least!) "50% off rooms you buy with gold" sale.

Again, I am not sure how this qualifies as "BIGGEST SALE EVER", because we have certainly seen the same sale before. But okay, I haven't seen those rooms go cheaper than half-off. Maybe that's what they mean.

Anyway, this 50% off sale means that you can buy all those rooms you've been coveting and coveting and coveting ... I have already stocked up on several more Scarf rooms, and I even splurged on a single Giant Snowflake so that I can earn that Winter Wonderland sticker and get back most of my expenditure when the Giant Snowflake is completed.

In addition, I also picked up a Basket room on the same principle, planning to recoup most of my investment as soon as the Basket room is finished, because I have a Tiny Pilgrim Hat and a Rake in the same hotel, so I should earn my 200 gold for completing the Incognito Turkey sticker.

And, as if TWO fabulous goodies weren't enough for today, we have yet another bonus: the new Holiday Gift #2 sticker: this one is worth 75 gold for a few simple clicks, plus another gold for posting to FaceBook, for a total of 76 free gold. 

     

     

That should give you a little head-start towards some of those gold rooms if you'd already spent all your gold during the "30% off rooms that produce a million" sale.

Oh, in case you were wondering, that 30% off sale is now history, it's been replaced by the "50% off rooms you buy with gold" sale.

I don't know how long the 50% off gold sale will last, but I have used up most of my gold today, assuming that it won't last long! 

Of course, as soon as I came out of splurge mode, I wondered if I should have hedged my bets and saved half my gold just in case there is an even better sale coming up for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day or New Year's ...

Meh.

I am no crystal-ball reader. I guess if there is a deeper discount later, I'll be too broke to take full advantage of it, and that's just fine - I'm more than thrilled with all my discount purchases today.

 Enjoy super-Thursday! Today's update was definitely worth waiting for!