Treasure Map Piece Pattern, along with your guide to Don't Rock the Boat

[sydney88]

This thread is organized into three sections:
1. What to do if your pet gets spooked by the ghost
2. Quantitative research conducted October - December 2008
3. Qualitative look at three members in their quest for treasure map pieces

1. If your pets get spooked by the ghost while rocking the boat, their happiness level drops to zero. If you would like to raise the happiness level back to 100%, you can play games in the arcade/tournament arena for about half an hour, take your pet to the spa (this can get expensive, especially if you have many pets), or wait 24 hours to take your pet on another vacation.

Also, doing the dailies and feeding your pet fool's gold chocolate (one of the Rock the Boat prizes) will boost the happiness level quite a bit.

2. Click the spoiler to see a detailed account of the quantitative research conducted by several WI members.

Spoiler: show

A special thanks to: suzette424 for starting and posting the spreadsheets, and to me2me2 for calculating the first probabilities from her own results! I could never have done this without them!

We have calculated the probability of getting treasure map pieces with the data we have collected.

*To see our first statistics starting out on Oct. 23rd (thanks a million me2me2), click HERE (post #62).
*Me2me2's second update can be found HERE (post #197).
*To see the statistics as of Dec. 7th, click HERE (post #338 ).

Statistics as of December 14th @ 2am:
Treasure map pieces (36 recorded)=6.63%
Pirate costume pieces (61 recorded)=11.23%
Kinz Cash (66 recorded 50 KC; 59 recorded 100 KC)=23.02%
Fool's Gold (207 recorded)=38.12%
Ghost (114 recorded)=21.0%
Total=543 recorded

Therefore, in order from highest probability to lowest probability, here are the prizes you can obtain from rocking the boat:
-Fool's Gold chocolate
-Kinz Cash (50 or 100 KC)
-Ghost
-Pirate costume pieces (hat, shirt, sash, pants, boots, or eye patch)
-Treasure map piece (there are four pieces you need to collect total)

Here are a few members' results for treasure map pieces. As you can see, for some it seems random, and for others they consistently find treasure map pieces at the same time every day. The "same time" differs for each computer, but perhaps you can find that "magic time" on yours! I think the time depends on your server, and that is something we have no control over.

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How we calculated the results:
WI members recorded the time in Eastern Standard Time (EST). This is the time that the American accounts have as Kinz Time. If they had an Asian or European account, the time was converted to EST. Scroll down to the bottom of this post for the time conversion chart. Members posted their results like this:

12:07 am - 100 KC
12:13 am - Pirate shirt
12:21 am - Ghost
etc, etc, etc

After a couple months, I added up all the results and calculated the percentages that you see above. They may not be 100% accurate, but they are the best statistics for Don't Rock the Boat that you can find here.

Time Zone Conversion chart:

3. Now for the reason we rock that silly boat in the first place. There be treasure hidden on that ship!
Me2me2 documented her discovery when she found her fourth treasure map piece on December 16th:







And here is a picture from nana's account showing the prizes in her room.


Case Study #1 - Nana:
Date discovered treasure: 11/14/08
Strategy: According to the record, Nana took several accounts on vacation every day. She always rocked the boat during the hour of 1 - 2am EST. During the two weeks or so that she went on vacation, she found several treasure map pieces across a couple different accounts. Finally she found her fourth piece and won her prize.

Case Study #2 - Me2me2:
Date discovered treasure: 12/16/08
Strategy: Me2me2 also took several accounts on vacation every day. She however, rocked the boat whenever she could, so the time varied each day. After about two months or so of doing this, she finally got her fourth treasure map piece through sheer determination.

Case Study #3 - Sydney88:
Date discovered treasure: The Future
Strategy: I began taking daily vacations with four accounts (three were "borrowed"). After about two-three weeks of doing this, I found one treasure map piece on the JOY account. After that, I only went on vacation once in a while, but never with the JOY account (since it wasn't mine).
On February 16th, I happened to be up late, so I decided to buy a vacation on the JOY account and rock the boat. It was at 1:34am EST, during nana's very successful hour. To my surprise I found my second treasure map piece. I plan to continue rocking the boat on the JOY account when I can.

In conclusion, if you are having trouble finding treasure map pieces, try this strategy:
-Take at least three accounts on vacation daily until you find one treasure map on an account. Record the time that you found the map.
-To save money, continue with just that one account that has the treasure map piece (unless you want to take multiple accounts to the Coral Cove parties). Continue to record the times when you have success in finding another piece of the map.
-I suggest that you try rocking the boat between these hours EST:
1:00 - 2:00 am
7:00 - 8:00 am
1:00 - 2:00 pm
7:00 - 8:00 pm
For several members, these times have brought success. Perhaps the accounts are on the same server which might explain why some accounts have success during these hours and some do not. It is up to you to determine if your accounts are on the same server or not.

[missjod]

Originally Posted by sydney88

I play the Don't Rock the Boat game daily on 5 accounts (usually within the same hour), and I THINK I'm noticing a pattern.

And I've come to a conclusion that the "prize" of rocking the boat changes every hour.

For example, today I rocked the boat on one account at 11:45 and received cash.
Then, on two accounts at 12:30 I received fool's gold.
At 1:10 I rocked the boat with another two accounts and received pirate costume pieces.

I've noticed a similar result on other days, but sometimes I might get a combination of two prizes within the same hour on all 5 accounts.

I'm not sure if it matters what time you buy the vacation, what time you first enter the vacation, or simply when you decide to play the game.

I will test my theory out, and if any of you have any comments, please feel free to do so.... Maybe I'm just

Thanks - this could be useful information, I haven't gone on vacation this month - been saving for Rares and halloweenie things - I will try to take notice and report back

[suzette424]

OK, I see there might be a pattern of handing out certain things all within an hour. That would coincide with the parties lasting an hour.

Next question would be is there a pattern of which order? I only have the one account so I can't check every hour to see the pattern. But your pattern would be cash...gold...pirate costume.

So I'm going to track what time and what I get but it will be a long time in tracking as I can only go once every 24 hours. BUT if we can get plenty of people to report the times they rock the boat and what they get we might see the pattern is oh lets just say cash...gold...pirate costume...ghost....map...cash...gold...pirate costume...ghost...map...etc.

So my first rock the boat was on 10/19 at 3:47 and I got cash. So that would mean the 3-4pm hour gives out cash.

So if anyone and everyone can record when and what they get I will track it and maybe we can see if there is a pattern.

Now there could be other things that affect it. Maybe rocking the boat before spinning the wheel might affect it but we will assume that isn't the case and just see if there is a pattern with the time.

Thanks for figuring this out now lets see if we can go a bit farther with it. Be sure to record your times and prizes here and tell anyone else you can to do this too.

[sydney88]

I think that there is a possibility that the time is affected by when you first enter your vacation. Thus, using suzette424's example above, if you first enter your vacation at 3:47 but you don't rock the boat until later, you might receive still receive the cash prize.

Tomorrow I will start posting 5 different times during the day that I rock and the boat and the prize received (if you can call the ghost a "prize" lol).

[suzette424]

Let's see what all we can do. I will try to stay current with your postings and if you do two of your accounts during the same hour and I can get in on that same hour we can see if your theory of getting the same prize in the same hour holds up. Be sure to say when you entered the vacation site time also.

Now we are assuming this is same for Kinztime right. Since you have accounts on different actual time zones. My time zone is Mountain so I am two hours off from Kinztime but we are assuming this works with the same Kinztime right?

[sydney88]

I am also in Mountain but I will post the times in Kinztime. The 5 accounts are all on the same time zone.

---------- sydney88 added 115 Minutes and 11 Seconds later ----------

At 3:26 KT today I bought a vacation and rocked-the-boat immediately following. I received 50 KC.

Next update should come in a few hours; I have to wait for other vacations to finish before I can play again.

[suzette424]

oh no. I bought the ticket at 3:37 KT and went to rock the boat and got fools gold.

Does this disprove the theory????????

[sydney88]

Hmm.. well I did originally think that there might be two prizes every hour. I think that the theory will be disproved if I get three different prizes the same hour.

Later tonight I will do all four accounts at the same time (they have 1 - 3 hours left on them) and post the results here.

Yes, it does look like my theory is nothing at all. Oh well.

---------- sydney88 added 0 Minutes and 36 Seconds later ----------

Tonight we shall see if it is disproved or not. Thanks for the help.

[suzette424]

Please be sure to let me know what you get and the times too. It just might be random but Ganz "random" usually has some method of madness.

I'm just dying to see if anything can be figured out about this though so keep those ideas about the pattern coming. I'm tracking what happens to me but just can't figure out what.

Keep experimenting and I will be looking for more threads from you.

Thanks!!!!!!

[KittyFanatic]

well, there has to be a pattern of some kind, simply because it is a computer program, and therefore cannot be totally random! ; ) Computers can't think anything but what someone tells them to think...

It would be interesting to track something in a spreadsheet format, using KT as the base so everyone is talking about the same time...