It's with the Halloween cruise event that we kick-off.
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| Notification for Masquerade Ball cruise event |
This challenge docked in the game halfway through October and provided a slightly different take on Halloween. As far as Storm8 games are concerned we tend to associate Halloween updates with one of two sub-themes - trick or treating or monsters. Typically everything can be associated with one of these categories, yet this cruise diverged from the norm.
A masquerade ball theme meant that we were looking at some slightly more fancy decor than you may typically expect for Halloween. The animated Mysterious Man was probably my highlight, with him throwing a spell between his hands. But the Liquorice Cake Display wasn't far behind, with a mask perched on the glossy topping of the cake and a spindly spider sat alongside (it looks so creepy on the white tablecloth!)
As for the cruise itself, the final prize was the regular visits of Masked Marilyn, who delivers Black Liquorice. This special ingredient is a component of the Liquorice Cake, a new gem producing recipe housed on the Jubilee Stove. I won out in the cruise without much in the way of drama, and now just have to find the time to make this dish among all the other gem makers found on the Jubilee Stove!
A fortnight after the masquerade ball cruise's addition, a familiar character popped up. That's right, Lani was back with her sixth collection of stamp goals.
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| Three silver stamp goal from sixth set of Lani's goals |
There was one particular goal in this batch which had me literally laughing out loud. That was the three silver stamp goal, which called for 38 Lobster Bisques to be served. Excuse me?! The Lobster Bisque is of couse a six hour recipe, and requires Lobster which has a 22 hour refresh time (and let's not overlook the Butter which needs 16 hours to restock). Add on that many players only have one Chateau Stove and this task was truly preposterous. Indeed with one Chateau Stove it would be literally impossible to complete the goal within the time-frame without spending gems. And even with two appliances (as I have) it would be ridiculously hard.
But with only 8 gems needed to skip the step, there's something didn't add up. Could it be that the game's developers had accidentally invoked a glitch? Well, yes. It turned out that only six bisques were necessary, and this was eventually corrected, but not until the Tuesday. The initial error was obviously not clever, but mistakes do happen - to take five days to correct it is just downright unacceptable. I hope nobody spent a ton of gems thinking they really did need to fire out 38 bisques.
From Lani's sixth set of goals we progress to... Lani's seventh set of goals.
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| Notification for seventh set of Lani's goals |
Released this past Thursday with the same format once again, there was another chance to gather gold and silver stamps for cooking those high yielding recipes.
And Storm8 in their infinite wisdom have decided to throw in another outlandish requirement in the three silver stamp goal. This time it's Veggie Juice which is in high demand, with 60 needed. This objective is not impossible, although it is a steep ask. My instinct is that this one is genuine rather than a bug in the system, and at the time of writing I've served up 12 batches of the juice, and will certainly have a go at reaching the target.
In case my tone hasn't already conveyed this, I should come clean and admit that I am sick of Lani and her stamps at this point. The feature itself is well-founded - I have no issues with it on that front. What bugs me is that it has effectively replaced the traditional goal events. We've had seven stamp rounds since the second wave of stamp recipes landed at the end of August, and it's all just too repetitive.
Fortunately that latest collection was accompanied by another challenge - the Australian cruise event.
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| Main page of Australian cruise event |
It's still early days in this cruise, but there's no doubt that this is a theme that works. Australia was executed with aplomb in the original game back in April, and it appears that the gamemakers have done a good job again here. The animal based decorations - Joey Roo, Koala Climber and the Watering Hole - are the most impressive for me, and even better is that they can all be won in the cruise.
This time Crocodile Jack is the special customer whose presence can be obtained by completing the cruise. His drops of Croc Meat have the power to unlock the Crocodile Skewers on the Jubilee Stove. That takes us up to eight dishes on this appliance which are capable of providing gems, which matches the Celebration Stove. Could this mean we get a third prize cooker with the next cruise?
RS2 News
08/10/16 October 2016
03/09/16 September 2016
06/08/16 August 2016
09/07/16 July 2016
11/06/16 June 2016
03/09/16 September 2016
06/08/16 August 2016
09/07/16 July 2016
11/06/16 June 2016
That pretty much covers the last month's goings-on. There's no doubt about it - I am beginning to grow a little disillusioned with Restaurant Story 2. We seem to have reached a stage where the events are just a mix of cruises and Lani goals, and this is highly monotonous. I'm still visiting the game every day, but not with the same regularity as in the past. My disenchantment is perhaps best encapsulated by the appearance of my restaurant. I've not redecorated since doing my Olympic themed set-up, and thus completely overlooked Halloween. That's not like me, and I'm feeling a tingle of guilt about it! I'll make sure to pull out all the stops for Christmas!
But before Christmas there is of course the small matter of Black Friday. Maybe it can re-ignite my passion for RS2? Last year's sale was okay without sparkling, with some past cruise prizes returned and the additional gem appliances available at 30% off. Hopefully this year the sale will be more widespread, including the likes of expansions and pantry capacity upgrades, with maybe even some decent deals on the gem producing cookers. I can hope!
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