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Andy's Workshop


Game chat and stories along with some articles probably for the more geeky among us,
all written by me, Andy.

Click here for my Frontierville Addiction Therapy Guide

Friday 25 March 2011

PopOff...

I think it's fair to say...

Esta's Blog needs readers, Visit Esta's Blog?!

...that at the moment there's...

You seem tired! Why don't you ask someone to make you a sandwich?!

...something of an annoyance...

Frontierville Express Souveniers, now 30% off in a SHORT TERM SALE! (That you'll see every day for the next two years)

...in Frontierville.

Did you know other people will do things for money? Why not pay Andy to come around and do things for you?!

Popups. The bane of the rest of the internet and now the bane of Frontierville. It's not like they haven't ALWAYS been there but I think most sane people are seeing something of a frustrating increase in amount.

I just sold 30 Goats for a mission. THREE times I was told to go visit a neighbour and just managed to get back in time to click the doobers and keep my streak alive for the second Pony Express delivery of the day.

Three times in just a short couple minutes (I wasn't driving them individually to market) could be deemed excessive.

Thankfully so far this morning I haven't had Bob hawking his wares at me with yet another Horseshoe sale... are we supposed to think we've been specially chosen? Is this supposed to tempt us while they're cheap? How stupid do we look? Humble Bob is the only man who has a sale on more often than a sofa warehouse. If anyone has managed to buy full price Horseshoes lately they were incredibly unlucky considering that so far I think there's been a 2 minute window on January 22nd when he WASN'T trying to offload them for 30% off.

As for Jack... oh Jack I do feel for you. I know you don't wan't to be an annoying git, I really do, but what they've got you doing... have some self respect, man!


You spent the first 20 levels of our Frontier lives teaching us how to do something, and now you spend the rest of it watching over our shoulders, reminding us and stating the bleeding obvious.

Go visit a neighbour! Yes, we did that VERY early on, I haven't hit my head or had a lobotomy, I know! I also take this as an insult to my social ability, like in real life I'd need someone to pop up EVERY 50 SECONDS and tell me to phone one of my friends, send a text or compose an email.

I have some social skills, there's also the fact half the missions at the moment seem to REQUIRE us to visit neighbours, so this is ridiculously undesired.

"You've run out of energy!" Yes, I know. That's why my avatar has stopped working. If you'd just SHUT THE HELL UP I'd be able to open the market or my inventory and get some more energy but noooooo... with the machine gun three popups that appear every single time I dare to use all my energy it's nigh on impossible. (You've run out of energy, ask friends for energy, BUY energy while waiting for a friend do send it...)

For starters I have lots of excellent friends, I have many, many tasty lunches, dinners etc in my inventory and food out the wazoo. I'm not going to spam my friends and use up gift requests for a measly 3 energy points. If I ever did it would mean I was in dire straights and therefore unlikely to want to BUY a meal while waiting... who would annoy their friends for a pitiful 3 energy, then go off and buy a meal because they're impatient?

Seriously, stop it. NOW.

I love the game and I totally understand the need for some kind of marketing but it's got too damn much. annoying ruddy popups every 30 seconds is not the way to keep people playing your game, it's the way to annoy them the heck away.

Have you noticed popups have been vanishing on the internet recently? It's because everyone considers them the second most annoying thing ever to spawn from this World Wide Web of ours (coming in a close second behind Justin Bieber) and companies have been finding better and less frustrating ways to get the message across... it might be worth you thinking of doing the same, or at the very least make it so we can play for a few minutes before feeling a deep desire to smack an old pioneer around his beardy face.

12 comments:

  1. Well said (or written, in this case)! ^5 Andy

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  2. Fantastic post and love the Jack pic, wish we could have it for real!! It is so frustrating, I cant do anything without at least three pop ups, that includes moving dog to doghouse!! I think they have increased!

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  3. OMG This is awesome! I'm so sick of the popups I'm ready to run from the Frontier screaming! You can't feed your animals, harvest a crop, collect bonuses, check your inventory, trade in your collections, NOTHING, without at LEAST a popup every 60 seconds! If you're visiting neighbors you're constantly being told to visit someone else that you're eventually going to get to if the popup doesn't cause the browser to crash first!

    And like you said, I'm slammed with at least 3 popups to ask for energy from friends or buy more energy all while I'm trying to get my inventory to open so I can use the 490 lunches or 300 fruitcakes or 286 breakfasts that I have in my inventory but can't get to because of the popups!

    It's getting insane!

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  4. Oh, wouldn't I love to punch Jack! He has ruined more things than I can count. I'm always looking for the virtual shotgun. They give you something to do that is timed and then send several pop ups to keep you from doing it. If it weren't such a great game otherwise ...

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  5. Please, please, please send this to Zenga!!!

    ps: I'm not anon on purpose, but I dunno which profile to choose - too confusing!

    Rachy

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  6. Oh my, you sure hit the nail on the head!!!!!
    Terrific post.

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  7. My sentiments EXACTLY!!! Especially the reminder that your friend needs help on their homestead and you should visit them. Can't they tell I've already visited all my friends and there is no longer any work to do. Reminding me is rather redundant at that point!!!!

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  8. I noticed last week after I started keeping count, that he popped up every 30-45 seconds. That was annoying as he..

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  9. Fabulous. If only I could punch Jack....lol

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  10. Bravo, sir! I've made similar posts on the forums, but I don't believe that Zynga are listening.

    And thanks for confirming what I was pretty sure of in that the number of pop-ups have increased. Oh, yay.

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