Social Events Update

The Banquet Hall update was released on the 10th of September 2015 for Android players, with release still pending for all other platforms.

The Banquet Hall update introduced 1 new picture, Banquet Hall, 16 new collections, 105 new quests, and fixed the Desktop Awards so that they can once again give out a bonus reward if charged by visiting Friend.

The Banquet Hall Update also introduced a new set of non-holiday themed timed challenges, which gave players a chance to win a lunch chest along with a once off talisman, the Solemnity Talisman, and a new unique game avatar.

The Banquet Hall Update is unique in the game, in that it was the first update to be released on Android devices first. All previous updates were released on iOS devices first, with other platforms coming later.

The Banquet Hall Timed Challenge
The Banquet Hall timed event introduced 3 new challenges for players to complete within a set time frame:
 * Achieve 'Academic' level in Banquet Hall to win an unique game avatar.
 * Collect 500 Air Balloons by winning games of the Gem Match puzzle to win a Lunch Chest
 * Complete 30 challenge quests to win a special once-off Talisman - the Solemnity Talisman - which increases the rate of energy restoration by 5 times for 24 hours once activated.

Important: The amount of time available for the Banquet Hall timed challenges will vary across platforms. For example, Android players were given 21 days to complete the challenge. It is important to note that the Challenge timer begins counting down from the moment the update is released in a devices appstore, and not from the moment a player downloads the update.

How to Win the Lunch Chest
Players can win the Lunch Chest by collecting 500 Air Balloons. Air Balloons can only be won by successfully completing the Gem Match puzzle. For each successful win of Gem Match, you can potentially win between 1-5 Air Balloons as one of the rewards for completing the puzzle.

When you open the Research Window for Gem Match by tapping on the Gem Match puzzle icon on your Home Desktop you will see Air Balloons listed as the first item in the 'Can be found' list for the puzzle. Air Balloons are available to win for every play of the puzzle at every puzzle level.

You must keep playing (and winning) Gem Match until you have collected 500 Air Balloons in order to win the Lunch Chest. Once you win the Lunch Chest it will automatically go into the 'Special' tab in your inventory. To open the box, open the inventory section and select the 'Special' tab. Tap on the Lunch chest to bring up a window with details about the chest, and press the green 'use' button at the bottom of this window. The chest will disappear from the Special tab of the inventory and the items it contains will be added to your inventory.

Once opened, the Lunch Chest will add the following energy items to the 'Energy' tab of your inventory: 2x Cappuccinos (2x 30 energy points); 1x Ice Cream (1x 50 energy points); 1x donut (1x 100 energy points); 1x Lunch box (1x 150 energy points) and 1x energy drink (1x 250 energy points). You can use these items any time you want by going to the energy tab of your inventory and going to the 'Energy' tab.Tap on any item you want to use and a window giving details of the item will appear. Tap the green 'Use' button at the bottom of this window and the energy points will be added to your total. You will also automatically be offered to use these items if you try to play a picture/puzzle that requires more energy than you currently have, which means you do not have to go through all the steps in the inventory tab if you wish to keep playing.

Note: Just because an item is on a picture/puzzles 'Can be Found' list, it is not guaranteed you will win that item every time you play that picture/puzzle. There is an element of chance in the game that determines what items you will win when you successfully complete a picture/puzzle. All items are weighted based on their value in the game. Higher value items, like the Air Balloons needed to win the Lunch Chest, are weighted in such a way that they are less likely to be won than low value items such as some low level collection items and most combining elements. This means you will not win multiple Air Balloons every single time you win a Gem Match Game. However, all of the Timed Challenges are designed to be completable within the given time limit, so it is possible to collect 500 Air Balloons well within the time given. The task is designed to be challenging, but it is not impossible!

Hints/Tips for Collecting Air Balloons
Although it will take many plays of Gem Match to win 500 Air Balloons, there are things you can do to make the challenge easier:
 * 1) Read the Gem Match article on this wiki for tips on playing Gem Match, including how to make special gems and combine them to create special moves to clear the board faster.Seekerseye_inventory.png
 * 2)  Use tools when playing Gem Match. You can use Seeker's Eyes and Time Machines when playing Gem Match. Using a Seeker's Eye will remove one yellow border from the game board at random. This can be particularly useful for tricky corner pieces. However, since you cannot control which border is removed by the Seeker's Eye, it is better to wait until you only have a few left to remove to increase the chances of it removing the difficult one. Time Machines add 45 seconds to the puzzle timer, which can be a great help for the more difficult board configurations.
 * 3)  Don't just play Gem Match over and over again; try to play a variety of pictures and puzzles as much when possible. The more you play a single picture/puzzle repeatedly, the worse the rewards for each win gets. In order to keep your chances of getting many Air Balloons per play high, try mixing other pictures/puzzles into your playing rotation. Perhaps rotate trying to get the Lunch Chest with the other challenges in the Banquet Hall event (playing Banquet Hall and completing the 30 challenge quests)
 * 4) Don't rely on Luck Talismans/Artefacts. Luck talismans (e.g. Horseshoes) and artefacts (e.g. Symbol of Success) do not increase your odds of winning a particular item, such as Air Balloons, i.e. they do not change the weighting of items. However, they do increase the number of items you will win for each successful play of a picture/puzzle. Because you can win more items for each play, you essentially get more rolls of the dice each time you win. However, since Air Balloons are rewarded using the same mechanism as Christmas balls/Pumpkin Lanterns/Tokens special items etc during holiday themed timed challenges (i.e a number of Air Balloons are awarded for each play, it is the number you win that is weighted not whether or not you win them) instead of using the same mechanism as collection items/combining elements (i.e. you may or may not win the item each play, it is whether the item will be won or not that is weighted), Luck talismans and artefacts will not affect the number of Air Balloons won per win of Gem Match. Since the game is coded to give out Air Balloons for each play, increasing the number of different items won per play, by using luck talismans, will not change anything. The number of Air Balloons given is also based on chance, with higher numbers weighted to appear less often than lower numbers, but Luck talismans/artefacts cannot help with this since they do not affect weighting.
 * 5) Use the Time Talisman artefact. If you are struggling to win Gem Match in the time given (particularly at lower puzzle levels, where less time is allotted to each play) then try to use a Time Talisman artefact. Once activated, this artefact adds 1 minute to every picture/puzzle for 24 hours.

The Unique Avatar - Getting Observation Deck to Academic Level
coming soon

The Challenge Quests and the Solemnity Talisman
The Solemnity Talisman can be won once a player completes all 30 of the special Banquet Hall challenge quests introduced as part of Banquet Hall update. The quests must be completed within the 21 day time limit of the Timed Challenge in order to unlock the Talisman. Once the quests are completed, the Solemnity Talisman automatically goes your inventory. The Solmenity Talisman can be activated from the Talisman tab of the inventory like any other talisman/artefact. Once activated, the Solemnity Talisman will increase the rate of energy restoration by 5 times for 24 hours (i.e. it is exactly the same as a Witch's talisman artefact).

A special decorative border in the quest list marks the 30 quests needed to win the Solemnity Talisman. Other quests added by the update, with regular gold borders, do not count towards the 30 when completed.

Note: the very first quest that displays the special decorative border is the quest to find the picture pieces needed to unlock and open the Banquet Hall picture. However, this quest does not count towards the 30 quests needed to win the Solemnity Talisman. This means there are actually 31 quests that display the decorative border, but only the last 30 of them count towards the challenge. But importantly, you will need to complete this first quest in order to complete the challenge as the 30 quests that make up the challenge will not start until this quest is completed (there is only ever one quest with a special decorative border active at any one time) and the other quests require you to play the picture Banquet Hall (which this quest opens).

The special 30 quests that must be completed in order to win the Solemnity Talisman consist of 5 collection sequences of 6 quests each. The first 5 quests of each sequence are to find each of the 5 items belonging to one new collection added by the update. The 6th quest is to combine the collection.

All the items that make up these collections cannot be gifted between friends (they do not have green plus signs to add them to your wishlist and they will not appear in the 'Send a collection item' tab when sending gifts to your friends. They are all also 'Quest only' items, which means that they cannot be won normally by playing pictures/puzzles. They are only available to win in pictures while the quest for the particular item is activated and will stop being available to win in that picture once the quest is completed. They may also drop as random items when you are visiting your friends and charging their desktops; from the Collectors Desktop award when collecting its rewards; and from opening Pandora's Chests, however whether or not you get any of these items in those ways is completely up to chance. This means that the only way to complete these quests is to follow the quest instructions as you get the quests. This makes these 30 challenge quests slightly more difficult than the challenge quests in recent Timed Challenges, all of which could be gifted between friends or won in regular play of certain pictures.

The Challenge Quests
The 30 quests that are needed to win the Solemnity Talisman are:

Hints/Tips for Winning the Solemnity Talisman

 * 1) Diamond_horseshoe.png the strongest Luck Talismans/artefacts you have available whenever you are playing. This will increase the number items you win for each play, which will increase you chances of winning the quest item. Diamond Horseshoe talismans (+90% chance of winning items for 120 minutes) and the Symbol of Success artefact (+50% chance of winning items for 24 hours) are the most powerful luck talismans available in the game, so when playing other pictures choose pictures which award items needed for collections that reward these talismans. By making sure that Tavern (rewards items for collections that reward Diamond horseshoes) and Venice; Buddha's Square; Throne Room; Mayan Temple; Ghost Town; Joy Cafe; Amusement Park; Bungalow; Misty Shed (rewards items for collections needed to combine Symbol of Success) are in your rotation while you increase your chances of getting more of these powerful luck talismans to use for the quests.
 * 2) Do not activate a Magic Crystal Talisman during the challenge. The Magic Crystal Talisman works as a luck talisman (it increases your odds of finding objects by 12% when activated), however no other luck talisman can be activated while using it, and it lasts for 10 days once activated. This will lock you into a 12% increase for 10 days, and you will not be able to use any other luck talismans during this time, even if you get a much stronger one. The difference between the 12% increase that the Magic Crystal Talisman gives and the 10% increase that the Fortune Talisman gives will not be noticeable in the game, so it is better to use these 30 minute talismans that are easily won in the game if you do not have any stronger luck talisman available.
 * 3) The Challenge quests usually ask for you to play Banquet Hall, so it is best to continue to work on BAnquet Hall as normal when playing and not to worry too much about the quests themselves, they will be completed as you go. That is, it is better to concentrate your resources just working on the Avatar challenge - getting Banquet Hall to Academician level. You will complete the quests naturally as you increase the picture to Academician level. The hints/tips for that challenge will therefore also aide in completing this challenge.
 * 4) Read the quest instructions carefully. Most quests just ask you to play Banquet Hall, but some will specify a mode. The item will only be available to win when the picture is in the correct mode. Most modes cannot be 'forced', which means you cannot make them appear in rotation. However, 'Text' mode can be triggered by banishing (not playing) an anomaly in the picture. If the quest asks for Text mode in Banquet Hall, then play other pictures until an anomaly appears in Banquet Hall. You can then banish the anomaly, making the next mode Text mode. (Make sure the picture is not in Night mode while waiting for an anomaly, play it to change the mode if it is in night mode).
 * 5) The items needed to complete the quests cannot be gifted between friends. However they may drop as random items when you are visiting your friends and charging their desktops; from the Collectors Desktop Award when collecting its rewards; and from opening Pandora's Chests. Whether this happens or not will be completely up to chance, but in order to increase your odds it is a good idea to visit your friends every day when doing the challenge.
 * 6) You can complete a quest by combining the collection involved in the quest. E.g. if you already have all 5 items for a collection and are currently on the quest for the 3rd item in the collection, then combining the collection will automatically complete the quest. The next quest to start will be the quest for the4th item in the collection and you will have to find both the 4th and the 5th item in the collection as normal, but the 6th quest in that sequence - to combine the collection - will also complete automatically when it starts. However, it will be rare to be able to complete any of these collections early since the items do not have a regular play location, so do not rely on being able to do this to skip difficult quests.

Other Changes Made by Banquet Hall Update
Coming Soon

Awards being Charged by Friends
This glitch was introduced by the Travel Time Update, which made big changes to the charging system while visiting allowing multiple Friends to charge the same picture, but inadvertantly broke the Desktop Awards so that they no longer registered charges by any visiting Friends. Players could still get the usual rewards for charging their Friends Desktop Awards, but their Friends would never receive the benefit of their charge. The Banquet Hall update has fixed the Desktop Awards so that they now register charges again, and players will now get the benefit of additional rewards when their Friends charge their Desktop Awards again.

Server Problems Gifting and Visiting
As with all large updates released for the game, the Banquet Hall update will cause an overload in the games servers during peak times for a couple of days immediately following the release of the update on any platform. During this time players may encounter problems visiting and gifting, and be given a "Failure to connect to the servers." error message when trying to interact with the Friends portion of the game. The servers normally go back to normal after a couple of days once all players on that platform have downloaded the new update.

more coming soon.... there are always problems....

Mode dependent items won a play early
The Banquet Hall Update has not fixed the glitch impacting Collection Items whose regular play locations are determined by the mode the picture is in. Mode dependent items can only be won when playing pictures in a certain game mode, but can be won in any picture as long as it is in the correct mode. Originally introduced by the Valentines 2014 Update, this glitch results in mode dependent items being won when playing a picture the game before the picture changes into the right mode for those items.

Some items in the game can only be found when playing (any) picture in a certain mode. For example, the items from the Venetian Masks collection can be won when playing a picture in Text mode. This glitch means that a player might win an item from the Venetian Masks collection in any mode, as long as the next mode in that picture is Text mode. Players could potentially win an item from the Venetian Masks collection in any other mode (e.g. Night mode) as a result of the glitch.

Confusingly, the Venetian Masks items will then still appear in the 'Can be found' list for the picture in the following play of the picture as normal (in Text mode, which they are supposed to be won in), but an item from the Venetian Masks collection will only be won in that subsequent play if the next mode after that play is also Text mode (i.e. Text mode repeats), otherwise items from a different mode dependent collection may be won instead.

One handy consequence of that glitch was that you could tell which mode will come next in a picture by looking at the items won during the current play, as if any item from a mode dependent collection is won, then that mode will be the next mode in the picture. Seeing items from the Ghost Town collection (not the picture!), for example, in your rewards after playing a picture, will tell you that Night mode will be the next mode in that picture.

Level Unlocking Glitch
Originally introduced by the Tavern Update, this glitch causes the game to change the requirements to unlock certain pictures. This means that players must reach higher game levels than expected to unlock these pictures.

This glitch causes the game level number stated at the beginning of the game to change to a higher number once the player reaches the original level. For example, for the Flower Shop picture, a new player will see that they must reach level 85 to unlock Flower Shop. However, as soon as the player reaches level 85 the picture will not unlock and trigger the quest to open the picture. Instead the requirements to unlock Flower Shop will change to show level 87 instead of level 85. Once the player reaches level 87 the Flower Shop picture will unlock and they will be able to open it. Below are examples of some of the pictures currently experiencing this glitch, and the true game level a player will need to reach order to unlock those pictures:

Related

 * SS Home
 * Updates
 * Holiday Updates
 * Halloween Update
 * Christmas Update
 * Valentines Update
 * Tavern Update
 * Treasure Island Update
 * Halloween Update 2014
 * Christmas Update 2014
 * Valentines Update 2015
 * Spring 2015 Update
 * Travel Time Update
 * Banquet Hall
 * Quests