While many people have multiple toons (up to six on member accounts), there are some good reasons for having a second toon with specific characteristics. Creating an additional toon can help your main toon in several ways:
1. Multiple Doodle Toon-up at your estate: Each toon on your account can own a doodle. Having more than one doodle means that you can train all of them at the same time, with pretty much the same effort as training one. With four doodles, you can get up to 20 heal points with Jump! (4 doodles x 5pts) - and more if they are maxed on Jump! (up to 4 doodles x 10 points = 40 points if they all jump at once). You can see how you can very quickly heal at your estate after a battle if you have multiple doodles. Also - I'm not sure - but I suspect that the doodles help each other learn tricks - as it seems that they train faster when there are multiple doodles around. Of course, you can get the same effect if you invite your toon friends to a doodle training party at one of your estates - but each toon only brings one doodle with them on their visit.
2. Different gag tracks: Since a toon can only have six of the seven possible gag tracks, it's good to be able to develop a toon with a different set of gag tracks. You can see how having a different set of gags affects your battle strategy. For extra challenge - develop a toon without Sound or Toon-up - but be prepared for some grief from immature toons.
3. Keep a "New toon" new: If you keep a toon at 25 Laff or less, you can use this toon to help friends who need to "Help a New Toon..." for a toon task. If you use this toon enough to max the gag levels - you'll have an Uber toon who can still help with those New Toon tasks without worrying about going sad - like when doing cog buildings.
4. Doodle Training: My main toon usually has friends that are online - and always too busy fighting cogs and helping friends to train the doodles. Buy doodle tricks for a doodle trainer toon so that you will be able to train your doodles in peace - without feeling bad about not answering help requests from friends.
5. More Friends: Since each toon can have up to only 50 friends, having multiple toons means you can have more friends! 6 toons x 50 friends = 300 friends. You can have toons for different time zones.
6. Different Toons: You can have boy and girl toons, different animal toons, toons with a theme, etc. I have a toon that's got a cowboy outfit and is named after a famous "gunslinger" - his house is decorated with all things cowboy.
7. Twin toons: With your friends - you can each create identical toon twins. I've even got a toon that is part of a triplet. If you all create these toons at the same time, you can see how long you can keep the tasks and gags in sync. Give all the toons the same outfits and speedchat phrases and emotions. And watch a crowd of other toons gather around just to watch!
Wednesday, March 18
Saturday, January 31
Shopping for tasks
One peculiar aspect of TT is that you can see some of the tasks that other toons are working on. Heck you can ask and they can tell you - mostly useful for cooperating and collaborating efforts. But at the end of a battle, the results shown during the dance reveal the tasks of each toon. Sometimes you see some extremely onerous tasks - such as "defeat 1,000 cogs" or "200 5+ story buildings" - tasks that I know will take in inordinate amount of time to complete, with no different a reward than other tasks offered by shopkeepers or even other Toon HQ staff.
I've read about the advice of shopping around for tasks - but I wanted to find out just how varied they were for the same reward. So here is a sample of tasks offered in Donald's Dreamland by various shopkeepers. You can see that for a given reward - 1 Laff boost, for example - there are tasks ranging from 100 to 140 Lawbots to 20 Big Cheeses or Robber Barons, to 10 5+ story buildings, and so on. Some will require you defeat them in Dreamland, others can be anywhere.
Like a good shopper, one needs to evaluate the various "features" and decide what is the best choice amongst many. There is no right answer per se - as the "cost" or difficulty of any given task is subject to individual preferences and perceptions, as well as circumstance. For example, you might be on Nutty River or another district that happens to have a lot of invasions of a particular cog type - Bossbots, for example. Otherwise, in general, having to defeat any kind of Cashbot is easier than having to defeat only Number Crunchers - even if you need to defeat more of them. I once had chosen to defeat 180 Bean Counters -and it took me two weeks of diligent hunting to find and defeat enough of them - usually on streets heavy with cashbots - like Seaweed Street in Donald's Dock. Another consideration is the type of cog - whether its found only in cog buildings or cog HQs, or is typically found on streets.
Another approach to select tasks that have a lot of overlap - allowing you to fulfill the requirements of more than one task with each battle. You can look up many of the tasks at toontask.com for each playground and see what the requirements are. For example, it would be great if you took a task to defeat 40 lawbots at the same time as defeating five 4+ story lawbot buildings. Some tasks are "Just for Fun" - and you can accept several of the same exact ones and fulfill all of them for the price of one. The most profitable ones to do this with are the tasks for helping a new toon for a reward of 200+ jellybeans. I once had 4 of these at the same time and was able to earn 800+ jellybeans for helping a new toon defeat just one building.
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House of Hibernation, Lullaby Lane
80 Level 8+ Cogs = Medium Backpack (70)
140 Lawbots anywhere = 1 Laff boost
Nightstand Furniture Company, Lullaby Lane
Five 5+ Story Bossbot Bldgs Anywhere = 2 Laff boost
100 Lawbots Anywhere = 1 Laff boost
Shut-Eye Optometry
20 The Big Cheeses = 1 Laff boost
40 Level 10+ Cogs Anywhere = Medium Backpack (70)
Pillow Fights Nightly
10 Level 12+ Skelecogs, Cashbot HQ = Medium Backpack (70)
130 Cogs Anywhere = 1 Laff boost
Make Your Bed Hardware Store
20 Robber Barons Anywhere = 1 Laff boost
10 Mint Supervisors, Cashbot Coin Mint = 2 Laff boost
The All Tucked Inn
70 Level 9+ Cogs Anywhere = 2 Laff boost
180 Cogs Anywhere = 1 Laff boost
Snore or Less
100 Cashbots Anywhere = 1 Laff boost
Help a new Toon defeat 35 Cogs, TT Central = 250 Jellybeans
Help a new Toon defeat a 2+ Story Bldg = 300 Jellybeans
Crack of Dawn Repairs
70 Name Droppers Anywhere = 2 Laff boost
140 Sellbots Anywhere = 1 Laff boost
For Richer or Snorer
10 Five+ Story Cog Buildings Anywhere = 1 Laff boost
I've read about the advice of shopping around for tasks - but I wanted to find out just how varied they were for the same reward. So here is a sample of tasks offered in Donald's Dreamland by various shopkeepers. You can see that for a given reward - 1 Laff boost, for example - there are tasks ranging from 100 to 140 Lawbots to 20 Big Cheeses or Robber Barons, to 10 5+ story buildings, and so on. Some will require you defeat them in Dreamland, others can be anywhere.
Like a good shopper, one needs to evaluate the various "features" and decide what is the best choice amongst many. There is no right answer per se - as the "cost" or difficulty of any given task is subject to individual preferences and perceptions, as well as circumstance. For example, you might be on Nutty River or another district that happens to have a lot of invasions of a particular cog type - Bossbots, for example. Otherwise, in general, having to defeat any kind of Cashbot is easier than having to defeat only Number Crunchers - even if you need to defeat more of them. I once had chosen to defeat 180 Bean Counters -and it took me two weeks of diligent hunting to find and defeat enough of them - usually on streets heavy with cashbots - like Seaweed Street in Donald's Dock. Another consideration is the type of cog - whether its found only in cog buildings or cog HQs, or is typically found on streets.
Another approach to select tasks that have a lot of overlap - allowing you to fulfill the requirements of more than one task with each battle. You can look up many of the tasks at toontask.com for each playground and see what the requirements are. For example, it would be great if you took a task to defeat 40 lawbots at the same time as defeating five 4+ story lawbot buildings. Some tasks are "Just for Fun" - and you can accept several of the same exact ones and fulfill all of them for the price of one. The most profitable ones to do this with are the tasks for helping a new toon for a reward of 200+ jellybeans. I once had 4 of these at the same time and was able to earn 800+ jellybeans for helping a new toon defeat just one building.
---------------
House of Hibernation, Lullaby Lane
80 Level 8+ Cogs = Medium Backpack (70)
140 Lawbots anywhere = 1 Laff boost
Nightstand Furniture Company, Lullaby Lane
Five 5+ Story Bossbot Bldgs Anywhere = 2 Laff boost
100 Lawbots Anywhere = 1 Laff boost
Shut-Eye Optometry
20 The Big Cheeses = 1 Laff boost
40 Level 10+ Cogs Anywhere = Medium Backpack (70)
Pillow Fights Nightly
10 Level 12+ Skelecogs, Cashbot HQ = Medium Backpack (70)
130 Cogs Anywhere = 1 Laff boost
Make Your Bed Hardware Store
20 Robber Barons Anywhere = 1 Laff boost
10 Mint Supervisors, Cashbot Coin Mint = 2 Laff boost
The All Tucked Inn
70 Level 9+ Cogs Anywhere = 2 Laff boost
180 Cogs Anywhere = 1 Laff boost
Snore or Less
100 Cashbots Anywhere = 1 Laff boost
Help a new Toon defeat 35 Cogs, TT Central = 250 Jellybeans
Help a new Toon defeat a 2+ Story Bldg = 300 Jellybeans
Crack of Dawn Repairs
70 Name Droppers Anywhere = 2 Laff boost
140 Sellbots Anywhere = 1 Laff boost
For Richer or Snorer
10 Five+ Story Cog Buildings Anywhere = 1 Laff boost
Tuesday, January 6
Free Speech comes to Toontown
While there was always the ability to create "True Friends" on TT that allowed nearly free speech - it was still subject to monitoring and account suspension for inappropriate words or privacy issues - Disney has very recently allowed "SpeedChat Plus" which allows more freedom of speech amongst toons even if they are not True Friends (TF). SpeedChat Plus (SCP) has automatic filtering - so that anyone who is not a TF will not be able to see unacceptable words - which are automatically replaced with "arf" or "eepy" or some other "sound" depending on the type of toon animal.
One of the interesting aspects of this new SCP is which words are not allowed. Because of privacy issues, number are not allowed - even number words - to hinder exchange of phone numbers, addresses, age, etc. Though you can say a few cities or states, you still could get "banned" for inappropriate exchange. There are words like "meet" and "hat" that are not allowed - the former probably to hinder real world rendevous, the latter just incomprehensible. So while you can't say "cowboy hat," you can say "baseball cap." Generally, you can not use single letters, except ones like "I" or "u" - to prevent spelling out banned words with spaces between the letters.
But beyond the technical aspects of SCP is the impact on the whole TT experience. Suddenly, battles can take on a more coordinated effort when toons can discuss strategy or even just inform other toons of intentions - for example, "I'm close to getting fog horn - can we use sound?" And while mostly this added freedom of speech goes a long way to minimizing misunderstandings, it also cuts the other way. Some toons have used the new found freedom to scold other toons or worse -"I want to watch you die." Fortunately, the incidents were infrequent, and seem to have diminished further as the TT community gets used to the new feature.
One very interesting impact of SCP is on friendships. Suddenly, toon friends have even more apparent personalities. Humor and and advice elevate the experience. Players share more personal experiences and are able to recount past events. As sure as instant messaging (IM) enabled online friendships and even romances, SCP will do the same despite whatever limitations Disney may have imposed. Players find ways around the restrictions - even exchanging TF codes through SCP. Clearly, SCP supports an even more actively social online community.
Toontown just became a more interesting place for older players, while remaining relatively safe for the younger children. I think it will be a very fascinating experiment on the implementation of multiple levels of freedom of speech not found elsewhere online - SpeedChat, SpeedChat Plus, and True Friend chat. For example, in any battle or group interaction, there may be toons with various levels of chat freedom. How the group is able to interact and maintain communication is an interesting challenge. Will there be "class" segmentation? Will toons with SCP prefer play with like toons? Will toons without SCP avoid SCP groups where they can not comprehend much less participate in chat?
One of the interesting aspects of this new SCP is which words are not allowed. Because of privacy issues, number are not allowed - even number words - to hinder exchange of phone numbers, addresses, age, etc. Though you can say a few cities or states, you still could get "banned" for inappropriate exchange. There are words like "meet" and "hat" that are not allowed - the former probably to hinder real world rendevous, the latter just incomprehensible. So while you can't say "cowboy hat," you can say "baseball cap." Generally, you can not use single letters, except ones like "I" or "u" - to prevent spelling out banned words with spaces between the letters.
But beyond the technical aspects of SCP is the impact on the whole TT experience. Suddenly, battles can take on a more coordinated effort when toons can discuss strategy or even just inform other toons of intentions - for example, "I'm close to getting fog horn - can we use sound?" And while mostly this added freedom of speech goes a long way to minimizing misunderstandings, it also cuts the other way. Some toons have used the new found freedom to scold other toons or worse -"I want to watch you die." Fortunately, the incidents were infrequent, and seem to have diminished further as the TT community gets used to the new feature.
One very interesting impact of SCP is on friendships. Suddenly, toon friends have even more apparent personalities. Humor and and advice elevate the experience. Players share more personal experiences and are able to recount past events. As sure as instant messaging (IM) enabled online friendships and even romances, SCP will do the same despite whatever limitations Disney may have imposed. Players find ways around the restrictions - even exchanging TF codes through SCP. Clearly, SCP supports an even more actively social online community.
Toontown just became a more interesting place for older players, while remaining relatively safe for the younger children. I think it will be a very fascinating experiment on the implementation of multiple levels of freedom of speech not found elsewhere online - SpeedChat, SpeedChat Plus, and True Friend chat. For example, in any battle or group interaction, there may be toons with various levels of chat freedom. How the group is able to interact and maintain communication is an interesting challenge. Will there be "class" segmentation? Will toons with SCP prefer play with like toons? Will toons without SCP avoid SCP groups where they can not comprehend much less participate in chat?
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