RS2 News (Nov 2017)

It's that time of the month where I throw a tantrum over the state of Restaurant Story 2. Since the Rock Star Life cruise event (which I covered in last month's edition) we've had one cruise, have started another, and endured two more batches of Lani's tedious tasks.

So let's cast our minds back to the Halloween cruise event which arrived late on Friday 20th October. The increasingly late start times for events not only in the sequel game but also the original is frustrating for me. Here in the UK it can be midnight or later before stuff drops, and despite typically still being up at that time I tend to miss the beginning of cruise events.

Main window of Halloween cruise event

This has severe consequences down the line, as a Saturday cruise start means a Monday finish. I'd much rather hit the climax on a Sunday when I'm typically at home all day and able to give more time and effort. This effect was demonstrated by my need to spend eight quick serves to polish the Halloween cruise off - not drastic by any means but certainly avoidable if I'd had the Friday start.

The decor obtained in this event was recycled from Halloweens past, meaning that as usual there wasn't much to get excited about. Until the last day that is, with the final prize introducing a new twist not seen previously. Rather than one gem producing recipe being introduced, there were two, with players given the opportunity to select which they'd like to cook.

The decision was to be made after collecting Essence from the Mad Doctor, whose one and only visit was triggered by completing the cruise. Then you could essentially spend that Essence on one of two goal strands in order to initiate the visit of the character associated with the dish of your choice. I plumped for Frankie and his Electric Tonic over Francine and her Shocking Soda simply because he is more distinctive and is a classic Halloween figure.

And so I waited for him to make his first stop with Candy Corns so that I could unlock his drink. And wait I most certainly did. It took around 48 hours for Frankie to show up, meaning that although I did unlock the tonic before the timer ran out, I stood absolutely no chance of completing the accompanying goals. This isn't the first time I've had problems with a long delay before a character's first visit, and it is rather irritating.

 RS2 News

 14/10/17 October 2017
 09/09/17 September 2017
 12/08/17 August 2017
 08/07/17 July 2017
 10/06/17 June 2017

And to be honest the two recipe situation didn't really appeal to me. What's the point of teasing us with two dishes but only rewarding one? All it does is make players confused by the procedure and frustrated at not having access to both drinks. I'd much rather Storm8 allocated the time they spent developing this innovation on producing new decorations and challenge formats.

Just to add to the woe there was a 16-part goal set ran concurrently with the cruise, and involved cooking at least 150 batches of food. Given that work on this needed to be fitted around the cruise, it's fair to say that it was a titanic effort. And all for one gold stamp. Just one. I duly gave the goals a bash, but with such a paltry prize at the end bailed out at step 10. A total waste of resources that could have been ploughed into the recipe mastery business.

An unhappy experience for me, and my mood wasn't exactly lifted by Lani waddling into my diner. She put in an appearance prior to the Halloween cruise too, meaning this was the 23rd edition of her goals. On this occasion I attempted to shoo her off, but alas she plonked herself down and offered up her usual three goals rewarding gold and silver stamps. And when I say usual what I really mean is identical. It wasn't until I was preparing for this bulletin that I realised that the requirements for each task was identical to the corresponding tasks in the 22nd edition.

Lani's gold stamp goal from 22nd edition

I continued my recent tradition of completely ignoring the silver stamp goals, and set off the gold stamp one straight away. But as is my lack of empathy for Lani, I proceeded to forget that I was supposed to be doing this goal until yesterday by which time it was long gone. Oops.

After writing theses last two paragraphs I've made an important decision - Lani is going to be the punchbag for all my Restaurant Story 2 anger. I don't like her and I don't think she likes me, so I'm just going to empty my emotions bucket over her every time she dares to enter my beautiful restaurant (which hasn't been redecorated since August 2016).

What I really need is a quiet weekend without any challenges demanding attention. Cue the Thanksgiving cruise event which commenced yesterday evening. Luckily I was having a particularly epic Candy Crush session so was alert enough to get this cruise going on the Friday. That should really make life easier with a weekend finish.

Notification for Thanksgiving cruise event

We're aiming to unlock the gem providing Maple Flan in this event, with Tommy the Turkey (cousin of Timmy apparently) the special guest who will drop the key ingredient. The notable fact here is that the flan is on the Celebration Stove - I don't know exactly when we last had a final cruise prize on the original gem making appliance, but given that the Jubilee Oven now has 31 recipes it can only be a positive in my opinion. However the Celebration Stove already had 17 entries of its own, so the best decision would of course be to introduce a new cooker. But we've been requesting that for an age so I won't hold my breath on that one.

That pretty much concludes the wrap-up of the last month's activity in Restaurant Story 2. I really am tired of this game and wouldn't miss it if the gamemakers were to pull the plug. But duty calls and I'm only 45 mastery stars behind Creme at the time of writing so there is still one big target to aim for!