
You know, not a lot in the game frustrates me, I tend to follow the teachings of one of the greatest spiritual minds of our time, the Dalai Alpaca.
This is after all a game, it's what we do for fun and if there's a problem...well, it'll be fixed soon enough.
But the one thing that frustrates me is when the game actively goes out of it's way to stop me playing it...
What I'm talking about is incessant and pointless popups, especially when we first load up the game.
It's a weird vagary of my mind that I'm long-term patient, if something will take a month or two then I'm fine. I am however SHORT-TERM impatient, when I load the game, I want to PLAY the game, not be bombarded with things I just close automatically.
When I loaded the game this morning I had around 7 windows I had to close before I could even begin to plan what I wanted to do on my homestead.
They ranged from the Carnival Games Manager randomly appearing despite having nothing in (Zen gaming?)...
...to the USELESS free gifting that tries to make me send a naff little lunch to my friends...
...to mission posts and even a number of build stages, most annoyingly of all the Ice Pond build which then drags you to the far reaches of your stead to look at the building you've been ordered to complete.
I think it's fair to say most of us are incredibly aware of our active missions and builds, to the point of obsession and nervous twitching, so what is the thinking behind this? Do you REALLY think you're giving helpful reminders (you're not) or are you hoping to just guilt and annoy us into finishing stuff or hurry up on it just so we have a more pleasant time in the game?
We GET that you're a business and we'll have Horseshoe Sales and stuff when we load, even cross promos we understand, that's life and we're playing a free game.
But there is very little reward for making us sit through and close a half dozen screens that are nothing less than an overbearing, officious, fun leeching version of Fanny telling us if we haven't done our homework we don't get dessert...
Seriously Zynga, there's frustration and delays enough being a Frontiersperson, let the players play.