Thread:Fossiliferous/@comment-27643406-20160702121008/@comment-24668482-20160702132447

We are in uncharted waters with Tropical Evening. It is the first time the developers have tried to do this. The first time they tried to a timed challenge event at all (Halloween 2013), there were plenty of problems, but they were ironed out on the next attempt (and further ironed out with each subsequent attempt). I imagine this, being the first time they attempt to put two challenges in one update, may also have some teething problems. But not for everyone, just as not everyone had problems with Halloween 2013.

The Vacation by the Sea/Tropical Evening is set to trigger in everyone's games at one second before midnight on the 28th of July. If you decide to jump ahead in time to force it early, you may encounter glitches as others who have done this have. You may also not encounter glitches. If you decide to wait until it comes naturally on the 29th of July, you may still encounter glitches since this is the first time they have tried this. You may also not encounter glitches.

I can't really predict how it will go in everyone's game. But I can predict that a higher percentage of people who jump forward, trying to game the game, will encounter problems than the percentage of people who will when it comes naturally. Because the game is currently set to work a certain way, on a certain date. Bringing the new content in early can easily add bugs as the game gets conflicting information on what it should and shouldn't be displaying.

A thing you can do to minimise the issues is to allow the game to do what it wants to do - end the celebration by the bonfire challenges, restrict dandelions, and then some time later trigger the vacation by the sea. By that I mean, regardless of whether you have completed all 3 of the challenges in Celebration by the bonfire already, don't jump directly to after the 28th of July. First jump to the 19th of July (or whenever the timer for Celebration by the Bonfire is set to expire on your device) and let the game recognise that new date, and tell you the event is over, and remove the Celebration by the Bonfire icon from your desktop. Play a picture or something to let it settle. Then jump forward the remaining time to trigger the Vacation by the Sea challenges. That would stop both being active at the same time in a confused game that is designed to only have one at a time, and will hopefully reduce the chances of any issues occurring. Dandelions will be restricted to Japanese House and Amusement Park (as they are designed to be during Vacation by the Sea and up until a new update is released and installed on your device). The conflict between your device having content from after the 28th of July and the game's servers being on a date before then will still remain. So although the chances or problems may be reduced, it is not a guaranteed solution (and I have no intention of testing the theory myself so can't advise).

And definitely back up first. You will be forcing the game to behave in a way the developers haven't designed it to. There may well still be issues as I doubt they spent much time beta testing what happens when people trigger the event early. It really isn't their job to proof the game against that sort of thing, and I assume (hope) they spent their time instead beta testing the actual trigger date and the event starting as planned to reduce the possible issues when it happens.

Opening up Tropical Evening early won't help the quests you have (they will still be as hard/buggy as they are now). All it will do is give you a second location to find the items. But double check the Tropical Evening page here first, as if the items you want for the Quests aren't available until a high level in Tropical Evening (Academician, Magister, Professor) you will still have a lot of playing to do to get them from it, whether following the quest instructions or playing Tropical Evening instead.

And triggering the Vaction by the Sea event early may give you that content quicker, but it won't change when the next update is released and more new content comes out. There will still be a wait. So either it is a wait now for Vacation by the Sea and another wait after for the next new content. Or no wait now and a longer wait after. It will all work out the same. (This isn't an argument for or against doing it, just pointing it out).

If I had to guess, I would guess that they are trying to reduce their overall workload producing updates and also to reduce player's frustrations in waiting between them by having more content in each update/install with a staggered release of that content in the game itself. If it works, then we may start to see a longer wait in between update releases than we've enjoyed this last year (when they have really been pumping them out to keep up with demand and keep the game fresh). Whether players allow the wait to be staggered with new events triggering, or instead choose to force all content immediately and settle in for the long wait after they've finished, will be up to the players and what works for them.

But all that is only a guess, I am no more in the know than anyone else, and we are all in uncharted waters here.