Too Late for Farmville? Part 3

Other things we want less of:  stOOpid control-freakish rules, limits & requirements...oh, and clutter! Unless it's our clutter, then it's okay - yours is not.  
 
Rules
 
I have - had - a system for my trees. Other players have - had - systems for their horses... or other critters, or whatever.... 
 
sure... go ahead and lock trees, horses, pathways, pens, whatever.... to a particular farm ... it's your game... if you want to piss off more players and make us leave because now you've decided it would be a good idea to break our collections AND our systems - if that's your goal, well done... you're doing an excellent job.
 
If, on the other hand, you'd like us to stick around, play, and give you money ... perhaps you could quit with things that really just don't matter?
 
Limits 
 

Seriously...I buy expansions using actual FC and you fill them with ugly crap I can't move that needs 28 or 42 ugly stupid parts to get rid of each one and THEN you set a limit on how many I can collect for each post?

You want I should collect daily collections stamps and then you limit each post as to the number I can get from the (very) few friends I have who are still playing?

And while I'm on the topic, why IS it that in your other games the gift box actually works and lets me access whatever gifts people have sent me, but in Farmville, the max is 50 and anything over that seems to disappear into the ether? Does anybody even bother sending/receiving gifts in Farmville any more? I don't ... too tedious to flip through pages of crap I don't want to send to get  to the few things I might ... and then the vast majority disappears anyway.


And the safety deposit box and bushel limits? Hello? We've been whining about the bushel thing for eons ... ever since you started throwing new farms at us for no good reason.

You've broken the gift exchange thing ... so we are left trying to craft the things we need ... but we are CONSTANTLY having to dump bushels that we COULD use for crafting things we need if only we didn't need so much fuel to keep trying to grow the bushels we need to craft the things we need to... well, you get the idea, right?

We're not nearly as stupid as you think we are, by the way... we know you changed the settings on the bushels that we get from farming to try to push us toward buying what we need to craft things... what, exactly, ARE you people trying to do with Farmville, kill it entirely?

Now that the farms don't load/play properly with too much (any?) stuff on them, I've been trying to clear out my junk into my safety deposit box .... not enough room there either. Which means that I have to either sell off all my old stuff, or stop buying/growing new stuff. Guess which one most of us are choosing?

I invested time and money into my trees back when Farmville was fun .... not likely to dump all that in favour of new stuff now that it isn't.

Requirements

Stop already!

I know, I know... someone went to the trouble of making the fishing hole... the yarn barn... the dairy .... whatever...  but honestly, if we don't like it, we don't like it - and constantly forcing us to do stuff like "craft 12 yarn" in the yarn barn is NOT going to change anyone's mind.

What, you thought that somewhere around #10 or 11, they were going to say "gee, this is fun after all!"?

Not happening.

Ever noticed that you had millions more players BEFORE you started shoving quests down our throats? Billions, even, by some accounts.

Less trees, less horses, less crops, less buildables, less farms - but you had many, many times more players than you do now.

I know, I know ... y'all are convinced that people started leaving in droves because they preferred other games on other platforms... they got bored, right?

Except that that is NOT what happened.

What happened is that they got frustrated, fed up and over whelmed.

Zynga lost sight of the fact that some sorts of players prefer this type of game and some prefer that...

some people like quests and demands and challenges and competition ...

but those of us that played Farmville? That was not why we played.

We liked working together with our friends.... collecting whatever we happened to be into .... mastering what we wanted to master.... and lots and lots of us LOVED decorating our farms the way we wanted them to be .... whether we were good at it or not (I'm not, but I enjoyed it anyway).

There were lots of other games that included quests and challenges and competition... if we'd wanted to be engaged in those, we would have played them.

Farmville appealed to people that liked to do things their own way - but is now being run by a whole lot of people that demand we do them their way. It's sad.

We came to Farmville...and stayed...and paid money ... for a different gaming experience - and Zynga has, over the last couple of years, completely and utterly BLOWN IT.

And yes, we know that we don't have to do the quests - but doing them is the only way to get the blasted ugly icons off our screen - so we often do them even though we'd rather not. The icons all over our screen - and stuff like the fishing hole and summer camp adventure and lost animals and... it is all clutter and every last bit of it annoys people like me no end.

Even if the farms weren't so bogged down with bad programming, unnecessary pop-ups, and other issues, I still wouldn't bother doing any all out decorating the way I used to - between the "new" hideous facebook and the sheer number of idiotic ugly icons your devs scatter all over my screen and around my farms, why bother wasting my time?

I don't know if Farmville can even be fixed any more... it may well be too late...

but I do know that it won't get better if someone up there in Zynga-land doesn't smarten up and start paying attention soon.

Class Action Lawsuit Filed against Zynga

Pomerantz Law Firm Has Filed a Class Action Against Zynga Inc. -- ZNGA

So many so very lousy decisions that have been made at Zynga over the past more than a year now... I, like many many others, am beyond frustrated with how persistently they have been focussed on nothing but shooting themselves in the foot (they apparently have a LOT of feet!) .... but seriously?


If you read the article about the class action lawsuit, you will see that they are basing their action on the notion that
 (i) the Company was experiencing a rapid decline in the number of users for its existing web based games;
(ii) the Company was experiencing substantial delays in launching new web based games;
(iii) the Company was failing to take advantage of the changes on Facebook's web platform;
(iv) the Company was unable to effectively monetize revenues from mobile devices through its web based games; and
(v) as a result of the above, the Company's financial statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.


Ludicrous! It takes seconds to use Google to find out how well (or not) Zynga has been ~retaining~ players. (It's not, btw - they've been leaving in droves and for very good reasons).


The forums for each and every Zynga game are wide open - you don't even have to play a single game or create an account to wander through and have a read. And of course, there are plenty of other blogs and wikis and fan sites and news articles and....   give me a break!


If potential investors couldn't be bothered to spend 10 minutes having a look, they deserve what they got.


If they didn't, well ...as my brother would say .... "wah".  So now you've figured out that you blew it and want to do something about it? How 'bout instead of wasting your time & energy on lawsuits that reveal that you didn't take any time at all to research anything before you jumped, you spend a few minutes demanding that Zynga smarten the hell up and listen to its players? Far more productive.


They do have, among their many offerings, some winners... or would-be-winners if they could just stop with the foot-shooting thing for awhile.


Fortunately, there is, finally, a tiny glimmer of hope that things might be about to improve at Zynga!


Apparently this John Schappert dude has been there about a year - and that is about how long things have been going really REALLY badly  - if he WAS the sabateur that has been so intently driving Farmville and other games in to the ground, perhaps things might get better now?


I'd be happier if they had not just demoted him, but got rid of him entirely  - and I think that they really do need some new blood in there, or at the very least, an advisory board of players for each of the games (that they actually LISTEN to)....


but maybe, just maybe......

Spending money on Facebook

Do you? 

I do...well, I have done....   up until this week, I have loved doing the tree farming thing on Zynga's Farmville....  had to have the trees, therefore had to have farmcash.

I won't make that mistake again.

It's quite possible to spend a LOT of money on facebook games - they make it easy for you ... but what they do NOT make easy is maintaining your account.

If you somehow breech their terms & conditions by having too many friends, or sending too many messages, or posting something they don't like, or ...well, whatever.... when they disable your account, you lose everything and they DO NOT TELL YOU WHY.

Nor do they give you any sort of explanation when you ask.

Nor do they respond to your queries.

They just shut you down, wipe you (and all your stuff) out and there you are... no pictures, no contact info for the people you were connected to, no past posts, and no access to anything you spend real money on.

IF it were true that only spammers or people who harrass others or whatever were subjected to this sort of treatment, that would be one thing...

but it's not...

it's all sorts of people who never deliberately did anything to deserve it.  Google it... you'll see that in far too many cases, it's people like my friend, who never did anything against the site's T & Cs as far as she knows...not once.

After it happened to my friend, I did google it.... and it makes me sick to think that all the time, energy and money I have invested on Facebook could be wiped out in an instant and I would be left hanging just as my friend is.....    no recourse .... just canned responses and lies.

Invest in Facebook? Or Zynga?  Are you out of your freaking mind?

I am done. 

Farmer Appreciation Week

So .... Zynga has decided to have a week long double mastery event - with daily surprises, even.

I'm so excited.....NOT

Unless the surprises include some of the following, there really is very little point to the whole thing, in my opinion. If you actually appreciate your farmers, Zynga, how about:

1. fixing quest requests so that when people post a request it actually shows up! Or at the very least, adjust the deadlines to account for your glitches. And speaking of quests (and other new features), how about you assign someone to test them BEFORE you release them?


2. slow down! There is a fine line between offering enough new things to maintain interest and overwhelming - and you've clearly crossed it. Farmville appeals to a lot of collectors - trees, horses, water features, masteries, whatever... most of us collect something - but when you swamp us with too many somethings - or when you do really dumb things that prevent us from getting one or more of what we collect - our collections get ~ruined~ and then we stop collecting. How's that working out for you?


3. get real re: Lighthouse Cove expansions. Even those of us who can afford to buy FC are for the most part not willing to pay ridiculous prices for a measly 10 more plots


4. while you're at it, fix prices to be a/ reasonable and b/ fair. It is neither reasonable or fair to expect some players to pay 4x as much as others for the same damn thing. They are PIXELS, y'know.


5. removing EC access, and the EC quests so that some players can't get there at all, and others have no way to ever earn shared storage between farms was STUPID. Fix it. Now. And while you're at it, give us shared storage with LC as well


6. Customer support. This is the one area you show a great deal of potential - sometimes - but the no live chat for nonpaying customers - especially when many of the players who get that BS message before being rudely kicked from the service actually are paying customers - is ridiculous! It is also aggravating when everyone who contacts CS for the same issue gets told something different depending on who they happen to get. Do you people not talk to each other?


7. Stop by the forum once in awhile. Read the feedback that is right there available for you and pay attention! The players who bother to post are a small minority - but they are reflective of the majority and if you actually bothered to ~appreciate~ them and hey, here's a thought - how 'bout you actually talk to them once in awhile too! - you would not have lost MILLIONS of players already. (did y'all miss the class where they explain that it's easier to keep a customer than to keep getting new ones or to get the already pissed off ones back?)

7 days, 7 suggestions - tackling those would go a lot further towards showing some appreciation for your customers than a week of double mastery will, in my opinion.

Did I miss anything? Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

Price Testing - again

Seriously ...that's what Mr. Live Chat called it when I contacted them to complain that I was unable to buy a candy corn tree in my market.

How is it price testing if some people can pay the stOOpid exorbitant price of 8FC while others like me can not buy it at all? SO IRKED!!!

That does not even make sense!

If it is not available to buy I am not going to buy it - there... are we done ~testing~ now?

Can I pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top have a candy corn tree now?

HOW many flipping feet do you HAVE, Zynga? Are you almost done shooting each and every one of them? How 'bout you hurry it up, already?

In other news, they have started to offer an expansion in Lighthouse Cove for coins. Of course, everyone that paid actual FC for it is now irked. I did not so am not - but it does irritate me no end that there is no consistency - once again - in how many neighbours one must have to expand for coin.

Some people in the forum are reporting that they need to add more than 30 neighbours to expand ... others, not a one ... and there seems to be no rhyme nor reason for the difference. Me, I only need to add 1 - from 165 neighbours to 166. But I am not inclined to go so much as one itsy bitsy teeny tiny bit out of my way for Zynga any more.

I am IRKED...and then some.

Still steaming over the 4x increase for biplaning orchards.... and now no candy cane tree in my orchard (I am, once again, not worthy).

Know what you can do with your expansion, Zynga? And your quests? And even your 40% off FC offer?

Same thing you can do with your game.

You obviously do not value your players' loyalty - so why should I have any?

Again with the price-gouging

More new trees this week - and again, different players, for no discernable rhyme nor reason, have different prices.

The bur oak is - for me, 8 FC. But other players can buy it for 4, 10, or even 12FC.

So - this test is what? To see exactly how stupid/addicted to our trees we are?

Newsflash - for those of us who are serious collectors, pulling this crap only results in people walking away.

If I can't (won't) be able to keep collecting the trees, I won't bother to continue playing - and I am far from the only one. Check out the forums, why don't you?

How is this good business? How does it support your IPO?

The fact that you are so intent on shooting yourselves in the foot (how many feet DO you have?) is not likely to impress investors (speaking as a potential purchaser of stock).

Ridiculous!