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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

Saturday 19 January 2013

Players Wanna Play...

 [As usual, all thoughts in this blog are mine and mine alone. They do not necessarily represent the views of the admins or members of Frontierville Express.]

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.

11 comments:

  1. You read my mind, Andy! I, too, am tired of seeing popups regarding things I completed long ago. I'd like to move on to the things I really need to do please.

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  2. I agree with you Andy! My other frustration is clicking on peoples post getting the item and them not showing up in inventory. Contact support and they are aware of the problem and working on it and then releasing a new mission and experiencing the same problem. Sorry to all of the fans eagerly waiting for their next mission but why release a new mission if it is still broke.

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  3. Amen! I was just commenting in my own little group the other day about how most of the popups I get are for things I've already finished. Down with popups!

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  4. The pop ups are annoying.. My biggest gripe is how to close them.. Not all of them have the enat little red x in the corner.. Some of them you actually have to look around to close them. Give me my x in the upper right corner. I will be fine. D

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  5. In agreement to all of what you said Andy. I could make a list of all of the things that drive me nuts in this game..but it wouldn't matter...Zynga never listens and I keep playing regardless.....lol

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  6. Oh the one that sends me all the way across the screen after I just got to where I wanted to be between popups. That one is MOST annoying, especially when they drag you over to the Merryville thing and the Merryville popup comes up so fast you accidentally click another Merryville mission which won't go away until you complete it for the thousandth time.

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  7. AMEN to all complaints

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  8. OMG this is so true true, just when I work my ass off to finish a mission it just goes to another mission. The old missions... I post for them and never get them, I have even tried using my daughters account and then when I it says that I am out. How the hell does that happen.
    Now with neighbors... If a person no longer plays the game remove them from the list and why can't we deleat the ones on the page that have no name? This game has issues. and now ALL My horseshoes are gone.

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  9. People have only been complaining about the pop ups since the game began, and if anything they've only added more. Shows how much they listen and take our feedback into account.

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  10. TY TY TY!! Those really do take the fun out of it!!!! That free gift thing is the worst. I send out dinners and get stinkin lunches or whatever back from that dang thing... and i have deleted people because they will not listen to me when i tell them not to use the dang thing.

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  11. When a popup takes me to the sideboard mission that I have already completed - the other is "dontcha want to ready your letter", etc.... then I have to stop trying to harvest a crop to go down and click the stupid thing at the bottom of my homestead!!!!

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