A Quick Award Ceremony...

As we've now been around for two years I thought it might be fun to have a little dig through the last two years in a nostalgic fug and see if I could pick out the best and worst moments of the last two years in the game, in my opinion.

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Worst Building

It's fair to say sometimes, just sometimes, either the developers or the art department have... well, lets be generous and call it a blip. This award looks at those moments where things just don't go quite right.

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Holiday Hall - The buildings that store buildings are awesome, we will all agree, but sometimes they're just a leeeetle bit pointless.

The Holiday Hall stored all those buildings from certain events on the Homestead, Halloween, Christmas, 4th July etc. The problem here is that other than two of them they were all storable in the shed and we all did, because they were largely useless with no great rewards.

Had the Holiday Hall been slightly smaller than, say, an ocean going liner it might have been alright, but with the Hall being about twice the size of the only buildings we really cared about storing in it this one was about as successful as Bess' eharmony profile.

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Ferris Wheel - Some folks said it was anachronistic but actually they had Ferris Wheels in Pioneer Times, so that's not why it's on this list, it's more just about the building itself and the story that surrounded it.

First up, we're meant to make our child safe by having them ride something made by Hank. Hank.

I don't think I would trust my child sitting on a stool made by Hank, let alone high up in the air in a Ferris Wheel, unless of course they take a really extreme view of facing your fears over there.

The other big factor was it was a building with no actual use beyond this one mission thread, and the mission thread had no use but to build the wheel, the whole thing just stuck you in ever decreasing circles of uselessness.

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Detective Office - Where on earth do I start?

Do we start with Finkerton looking like an axe murderer? (He and Jacques could make a good Pioneer-era Saw movie) How about the ugly green colour we couldn't change? Maybe it's the largely broken mechanic and the collection reward of a "pair of footprints".

No, I think it was the animation in the window at the back. If you've had your building hidden and have a strong constitution just take it out and take a peek, it's been known to make weak players faint.

I guess it was meant to be a sneaky detective fluttering the curtains to peek out. Instead, when you added it to the grim looking Finkerton stood out front you instead imagined a victim dressed in rags trying desperately to get aid for their strife by sending "help, I've been kidnapped and imprisoned by a psychotic detective and forced to make him tea" in morse code with their blinking.

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Best Building

Of course, whether it's graphics or use, they get it right sometimes as well...

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Ranch - The Ranch is easily my favourite looking building, that's as clear as I can be. It works to open up a ton of space storing buildings, it wasn't onerous to build and it's gorgeous.

The look of it is so perfectly Frontier, the horse out front, the spinning windmill, the barn... You look at the Ranch and you see it on a Frontier homestead, which really is the best we can ask for.

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Saloon - Ahh, the Saloon. Drinks, barmaids, a curvaceous nude painting over the bar... The thing about the Saloon is we can ALL see inside it even though we never really do.

Every western movie from a John Wayne special to Carry On Cowboy has themselves a Saloon, as does any book, video game or TV show. The corner design, the upstairs rail with some special rooms inside, the saloon doors... it's all so familiar it leaves a warm and loving feeling in our eyeballs.

Of course, the fact we can concoct drinks also helps...

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Library - Ah yes, on the subject of boosts.... The Library just has to get a mention here. It's an attractive building (although now stores) but the greatness of the Library has to be in those wonderful book boosts you can craft inside it.

How many extra drops have folks got over time thanks to those magical doublers? Potentially the best boosts around and we wouldn't have them without the Library.

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Worst Missions

If you've ever woken up at night in cold sweats thinking about a nightmare mission, it was probably one of these...

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Canning - Right, lets start with one of the most iconic and remembered mission threads.

Here's the difficulty with Canning. It took the food.

That seems like a really simple thing and oh well never mind, but remember it's the food and the energy that it buys that keeps us all playing the game. Canning was a little like making us go through a whole heap of work just to remove our ability to do a whole heap of work...

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Tape - Tape. Just Tape. Do I need to say any more? No, didn't think so.

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Prize Pairings - You know that annoying person in work who picks up any meme, TV catchphrase or joke and rattles it off... Every. Single. Moment.

That's the partnering missions, something that started as a nice idea, and has swiftly degenerated into something that grates on the nerves like the latest American Idol single and is as discomfiting as horsehair underpants.

Each thread taken on it's own is ok, the general idea of growing a prize animal is a good one... but it's a harsh lesson to any game developer. A good idea executed well will still be hated once you've flogged the donkey off it...

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Chilli - Let's be honest, even Heston Blumenthal couldn't create a chilli that uses 954 items, which was the amount of required requests for the Family Reunion missions, more commonly known as the Chilli missions.

In the time it took to complete these missions I could have gone to cookery school, specialised in chilli, created my own supreme chilli recipe, started a chain of chilli cafes, sold them to Starbucks and blown my new found fortune on wine, women and song.

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Barter Office - Was anything ever more disingenuous than the Barter Depot? We heard Barter Depot and got all excited at the prospect of being able to trade things with neighbours or the game and swap things around that we needed.

Instead, it was a 1016 to 1696 item craftathon where everything we made and bartered for just ended up being something else we would use to barter with ad nauseum.

Even the REWARD we received at the end, the Victorian House, actually needed us to build it by going through the whole tedious "bartering" procedure again and again... In my eyes, easily the worst missions we've ever had.

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Best Missions

It could be requirements, or storyline, or reward... but some mission threads become more memorable and just better than others.

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Canning - Right, lets start with one of the most iconic and remembered mission threads... OK, deja vu much?

Let's accept that taking the food made Canning a really bad mission. But then, once you realised you could buy the requirement with just one Horseshoe and keep your food, the whole thing changed and it just became a mission of true homesteading, plating, harvesting, tending, tracking down what animals gave what food...

There's a certain irony that after being so reviled before more and more times these days we see people harking back to it with rose tinted specs, and wishing for another mission like it.

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Cattle Drive - I know, I have placed a set of repeatable missions in the best missions set... let me explain my apparent insanity.

"I hate repeatables" has become something of a mantra for Frontierville players, but this was a set of missions that changed a lot of people's minds. Once you stopped the knee jerk to the R word it became clear the missions were actually (whisper it)... nice.

Although the final one was iffy (how many people knew what alfalfa was before these?) they were generally not bad missions, and soon a new mantra arrived... "I'd rather do a good mission three times than a bad mission once."

I can honestly say I would rather get the Cattle Drive missions all over again than the Barter Depot!

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Kissing Tree - The Kissing Tree gave us a lot of new stuff. It gave us romance, it gave us interaction where we could pick a storyline, it gave us the chance to be a real controller of destiny.

Of course, we all know how it ended with Hank getting Fanny, but that feeling of interaction and control meant something, we had a hand in our own game, even for a short time.

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Prairie Pox - How often have we seen "this isn't realistic, this wouldn't have happened in the Frontier." Well, this was VERY realistic...

The wild frontier, a ravaging illness and the desperate need to get cured by building a Doctor's Office and getting good 'ol Doc Auburn in to help.

Mission wise these were basic, but storyline wise, it really was as true to Frontier life as any game would be. Plus they looked fun while sick, it made you connect to your avatar and WANT to heal them!

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Make Believe - I'm going to finish off with one of the most recent mission threads, and one of the best.

The recent Make Believe missions had a great storyline, a fairly gentle set of requirements and fairly nice rewards... so what's not to like? That's as simple as I can say it, everything about the missions was enjoyable to do, they were a thread i almost regretted was over.

But in it's excellence the Make Believe series does open up a question. How often will we get this kind of thread?

I think it's fair to say that a lot of people would be happy with more Make Believe series of missions, but is that what we'll see? Or will we get more partnering missions?

Will we continue to see requesting at a doable level or will something like the Barter Depot rear it's head again. Will we see threads the players would like to see, more of the Best than the Worst?

Let's hope so, because above all the Make Believe thread gave the page and the game a generally positive feeling for a while, and it's a feeling I enjoyed.

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.

My Frontierville Homestead - UPDATED

[I last posted this on 11th September 2011 so it's fair to say it needed an update!]

A little look inside the Frontierville mind of me...

As you can see, I lean towards realism with my homestead, there's very few daft animals (NO clothed ones!) or decorations as I really can't be having with dressed chickens or rings of fire. I also like having a nice thick forest around the back and some debris around just for realism (and it REALLY helps when needing bears...).

You might notice there's some buildings missing, they're either stored or deleted. If I don't like the look of a building or it doesn't feel right it's gone, Detectives Office is deleted, Pet Shop/Kennel is stored. It also counts for upgrades, I didn't like the look of the upgraded Inn or School so bam, back to basics on them!

So, here it is, the Homestead of me... (Click the picture for a high resolution version)

As you can see, my OCD has split the stead into areas! (I know, the things I spend my life doing...)

Building on Buildings...

[Please note: this is an Andy's Imagination post, purely my own thoughts and will likely not appear in game]

Recently space has become a hot topic. We know soon an Animal Hospital Upgrade is coming so those with various special animals coming out their ears will find more space, and also at least one land expansion.

But what about building storage?

Personally I think one of my highlights in 2012 was the invention of the Building Storage Building, or "Streets"  to give them their in house name.

Not only did they open up space but they were all wonderfully designed, I still think the Ranch is one of my favourite buildings for it's look and just the frontiersyness of it, if I had a Frontier town, the Ranch might be the one building I looked at first and thought... yup, I want THAT!

Still love it!

But, since they were brought out, we've seen more buildings that could, perhaps should go inside them. So this is my idea... We have a new mission thread for building storage, but NOT a new building.

Let's be honest, the ones we've got are nice enough but sooner or later we'll end up with something that doesn't work as well, as a design on a Frontier town.

So, instead of having a five mission thread with a building attached, make it a SIX mission thread with SIX buildings attached...

Each mission is the thread is do a couple homestead tasks... and expand on one of our building storage buildings.

The Ranch to now hold our Prize Animal buildings, Show Pen and the Combine Harvester. The Civic Centre to hold our Fire Station and Wagon. The Holiday Hall, expanded to hold the Snowball Fort. The Works to hold our Glassworks and Leatherworks. The Stately Estate can take the Quilting Station and Hanks Climbing Wall. The Emporium expanded to hold the Barter Office and the Bakery...

...I'm sure there's more we could slot in various places, that's just off the top of my head. The only thing I know is tricky is buildings with characters attached like the Shaman Lodge, the Barbecue or the Habitat.

So each building just gets a single new 6 item build, an upgrade to it's current level, and that adds more buildings in the same way as each previous upgrade during each buildings' own thread opened up more space...

So for example... Mission One:

Feed 50 non-rideable horses
Collect 10 Horsefeed (drops from Oats)
Expand the Ranch (a single build stage)

Yes, it would be a big mission thread, but if that was the ONLY thing we had that week, I think the rewards outweigh the length, just like the expansion missions are hard, but worth it for the extra land.

From the other angle Zynga still get what they need, requests, interaction and social stuff.

Course, I don't know how easy it would be to do... but hey, that's why it's my imagination, I can do ANYTHING in my imagination... ;) *flies off like Superman to save a damsel in distress from 42 small but extremely annoying dragons of every colour but the ONE she wants...*

If You Build it...

...They will get rather excited.

[Please note: this is an Andy's Imagination post, purely my own thoughts and will likely not appear in game]

Folks, it's been a while since I got my imagination out in public, so I decided it would be an interesting way to start the year.

So, with that in mind, along with an idea I had earlier, I thought I would introduce you to the Red Dog Construction Company!

This band of intrepid jobbing builders are renowned among the Frontier and so in demand their services only come up now and again, and their list of employment conditions are around a mile long...

First up they'd insist on a palatial and well constructed Red Dog Construction Company office... because they like to make other people do some building before they do.

This will be a long building to make but, like the Expansion missions which are long but rewarding, this one might just perk you up.

So, once the building is up and the long mission thread is done, what happens next?

Well, you hire the builders of course...

This is my thoughts on the age old arguments of buildings taking too long and there being far more coins than anyone knows what to do with, eventually you can only melt down so much for statues of Fanny.

See, the Red Dog Construction Company bring their own resources, and they work QUICK... but, on the other hand, they're also expensive, but all they care about is cold hard coins.

So, once the RDCC Office is up, you click it, select the option to "build..." and get this screen...

Yes, it's a list of all your unfinished buildings and a COIN price to finish the current stage of the build. The price could be linked to how much you have left to get , so the more items you've collected yourself, the cheaper the purchase price.

Once you've bought your upgrade the RDCC are FAST and will get the building done instantly... although choose wisely, you only get one each time...

As I said earlier, the RDCC are much in demand and once they've finished a building project they have to travel on so will be unavailable for a while, but never fear, in somewhere between a fortnight and a month they'll be back and ready to go again!

On the player side we get to clear some old buildings where people don't need the stuff any more, and dump some coinage.

On Zynga's side they get happier players with one less thing to worry about, and by setting reasonable prices and with a longish timer it shouldn't impact the gameplay that much or adversely affect what Z get from it, remember we can't wipe out requesting and the other social aspects, we need to compromise...

I guess imagining fictional building companies and dog logos in day-glo waistcoats might be abnormal... it's just what the game does to you...

Five Step Plan

[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.]

In this post I'm going to try and split myself into two minds, the easy one, as a player, and the harder more serious one, putting myself into the mind of Zynga, the mind of a game developer or manager.

I know what WE want, but I don't know the business plan etc of Zynga, so I'm going to have to run on a few assumptions and guesswork, but hopefully I hit fairly close to the mark.

So, why am I doing this? Because there's a negativity over the game at the moment, we see that every release day, actually every day.

Don't get me wrong, I still love the game, I'd have to be insane to spend the time I do working a fanpage if I didn't. I also know we've had a lot of things lately go our way, smaller builds, smaller amounts of crafting, more homestead items... things have happened purely for OUR sakes.

I still think there's a lot of things to be positive about in the game, but I also think there's a few things that consistently appear when people are complaining, and need looking at.

So, because of this I've designed a five step plan I think could help the game. Am I arrogant enough to think this would make it the best in the world? No, course not, but doing any of these would, I think, enhance the fun of the game.

It won't be perfect for both sides because what we as players want, and what Zynga as a business want are different... but we'll see.

If you agree, please use the Like box, share it to friends, send it around... if I get enough likes maybe it'll help.

Step One: Players want to PLAY.

How annoying is the word "Buffering?"

There you are, on NetFlix or LoveFilm trying to watch a great movie and it st...ut...te...rs... and up comes the spinning circle and that word buffering.

Well, recently that's how the game has felt, especially loading. We're gamers, we want to game! Instead, each time we load we have to go through the gaming equivalent of previews before a movie. Popups about games, animals, Horseshoes, even forcing us to go to a build before we can even start playing the game.

Despite what people think these don't cause a big issue with loading times or performance, but they do harm the fun of gaming. By piling these on at the start you instantly break the enthusiasm of the players, we go into the game wanting to play, and then you stop us playing, you give us something that 99% of us just X out of.

Popups are never good things, forcing people to get through them when they're enthused enough to want to play the game? BAD strategy, both in gaming terms, and simple psychology. I see the reason for them, I really do. But why not slip them in through the game?

Have a think, do we REALLY need this popup? Will popping up the carnival games manager make people want to play carnival games or give them a negative feeling towards the feature? I think I know which.

Equally, Letters? Those annoying things with a yellow arrow over them. There is nothing that infuriates players quite as much as trying to get on and play the game just to see "Don't ya want your letter?"

Little garnishes like that are all well and good, the idea of the letters is quite cute... but making us click them before we can do what we WANT to do turns them from a cute bit of fluff into yet another annoyance "buffering" our game... just remove the "must click" aspect of them, let us play our game and then go click that later.

Step Two: Giving people what they want.

It used to be that the Barter Depot was the most misused phrase in the game, but these days the most disingenuous phrase is "Free Gifts".

Let me explain, Tomorrow is my sister's birthday. I've bought her something she wants and needs. If real life was like the game her birthday "gift" would have been something I wanted her to give me back for Christmas.

We don't really get to gift any more, it's just become a third method of requesting items and has become a race, who gets to ask first and get back what they need.

I understand that you need us to send free gifts for statistics, clicks etc, we get that. However, the current setup is excessively frustrating and again, takes away from the fun of the game. There's two things I think you can do to help this.

1) After 2-4 weeks, make free gift crops or animals available in the market for coins. We get at least one new free gift crop a week, standard players will always have to request something, and right now most players are stuck in the frustrating position of having to decide which they want, knowing they can't ask again until tomorrow.

They also know if they're a few missions behind, they're most likely to be "gifting" this crop to people who don't even want it. Giving someone something they don't want, that's not gifting.

2) We know those things that pop up in game are to make us gift. Problem is it's ALWAYS rubbish, breakfasts, crops we don't really need, broken things... Keep those gifting popups but make it something GOOD, remove the Level 100 limit from giving Dinners for example and put them in.

Gifting works best when we're giving people things we know they'll like. So make gifting really worth it with some great things to send that will make people happy.

Step Three: A few less rocks in the landslide.

OK, I'm just going to come out and say it. Why not try one release a week? There, it's in the open.

I see the problem that some folks, by fair means or foul, can get through a mission thread in a few days to a week.

But just think this way... Players with nothing to do can be distracted with favours, more school missions, more mastery... stuff that doesn't HAVE to be done but can be a filler.

Most players can't do the missions that quickly and overwhelming people just doesn't seem to make sense for business reasons, gameplay reasons, even just design reasons.

On the business side you want new players, you want to widen your interest base and from that, gain more marketing across Facebook. But instead of what used to happen, a drip feeding of missions in a story tree, new players, once they hit about level 15-20 become overwhelmed.

If, by that early stage, they're not emotionally invested (and there's every chance they wont be at that early level) it's very possible that they'll look at the massive mission list and just decide it's not worth it, in fact I'm worried for the future as I don't think I'd have fallen in love with FTV if it threw as much at me so early on as it does today.

There's also the simple fact that you spend a LOT of time designing these features, and we don't really get to enjoy them. Not only do people just want to rush through them knowing another one is coming soon but each release now is greeted with negativity because people are feeling overwhelmed. That's not great for your publicity and your PR.

Give us one mission thread a week and then give the folks who do rush something else to occupy them. Better favour missions (less crafting heavy) or more mastery, things they can do but don't HAVE to be done.

Also think of threading more missions, the Mae/Birdie arc was ridiculous when you were finding out (SPOILER ALERT) that Birdie was innocent and they were making a Sheriff Academy, often before a player had even completed the set of missions introducing Mae.

If we're going to have a story like that, a full on cliffhangers and episodal story, have them spawn off the back of each other like the old days, limiting the amount of simultaneous missions while allowing players to go at their own pace.

Players would greet new missions with more positivity if they knew they wouldn't have to do them until AFTER they've cleared some out.

Honestly, I hear "no more missions!" enough that it's something to look at.

Also see my Open Letter To Zynga: http://andy.frontiervilleexpress.co.uk/2012/03/open-letter-to-zynga.html

Step Four: Shorter Shopping List

I am going to say something that's going to sound a bit nutty. Work with me.

When people complain about the amount of items needed, they're not complaining about the overall amount of items needed.

What they're complaining about is the amount of items needed PER thing, whatever it is they're building or crafting.

We want to feel like we're achieving things, and having to collect so many wall posts and direct requests to finish ONE mission or build becomes monotonous. By the 4th or 5th item we craft it just feels like a repetitive trudge.

If your metrics or stats say you want THIS many posts or clicks, then spread them out over more missions, at least then we'd feel like we're getting somewhere, not spending a week or two requesting the same item, over and over again with nothing to show for it.

You'd be laughed out of the room if you tried to sell a game that was based solely around clicking things on Facebook's wall, but that's what FTV has become, we spend 10 times as long NOT in the game "playing" it as we spend IN it.

I know you love a lot of wall posts and virals like that, it's what YOU want to get out of the game. But what if it's costing you players? Isn't 5 wall posts from 10 players better than 20 from 1?

Less requests would equal more players because it would make the game faster paced and more fun. More players equals a much wider spread for your marketing. Pioneer Trail is in danger of becoming insulated by missing out on new players, leaving you with just the current players, posting to the same set of current players, because all THEIR friends who don't play are sick of seeing 50 posts a day so have either hidden the game from their newsfeed or blocked it totally.

Of course on the subject of new players I'll repeat something I've said before. How many people will look at a wall full of requests, often with negative and depressing counters in the comment box (I've just seen one person posting and writing "only 55 to go!") and think, oh yeah, that's the game for me! I LOVE posting wall spam.

The amounts have been dropped from the previous heights of insanity where one single build required hundreds of items, but it's still too high to be fun.

As I'm already rambling enough I'll just leave a link to another over-long article on requesting and a few fix ideas here: http://andy.frontiervilleexpress.co.uk/2012/02/we-dont-want-no-charity.html

Step Five: Bigger Trolley

You knew it was coming, I knew it was coming, everyone reading knew it was coming.

Rationing is no fun, and what seemed, to begin with, to be a fairly generous gift allocation now hasn't changed in over two years, when the game itself has changed immeasurably.

When the game started and we had 50 clicks that was fine, a few mission requirements here, a few building bits there, for months we probably never hit 50 items we needed per day.

Now we're needing twice that many items just for one building requirement, and the restrictions that felt so generous 2 years ago feel so crushingly small now.

Let me plead the business case.

Most people don't continue to click after 50. Player after player are only getting one to two clicks on a post if it's something even a few days old, let alone the poor folks trying to catch up.

Giving people more clicks might still keep them being selfish and only clicking what they need, but at least it would get YOU more click statistics and more happy players. Happy players spend money, happy players get friends to play, happy begets happy...

We then come to the envelope, an even more unfair problem. By limiting the amount of items an envelope can hold you're making it a nightmare carnival game of luck to request items from neighbours.

After the first 50 gifts get through, BAM, nothing else. We only get to DR twice a day, most players will only take advantage of one of those... and you're standing there like a bouncer outside a busy nightclub saying however good we are, however much money we'll spend... the club is at it's limit and we can't get in.

Even worse, it's not that we can't get in until some leave, it's that we can't get in AT ALL and our request is dead. That item we need, one of far too many, we'll never get because 50 people got their first.

That, even more than clicks, is the cruellest cut, things we're sent, requests we make... poof, gone into the ether. This is a phrase often misused and often overused, but here I think it's apt;

It's just not fair.

I don't know who's placed the limits on the game, if it's Facebook, talk to them. But what we need, right now, is 100 clicks and far more envelope space, even to the point of infinite space, the current setup is unfair and frustrating. Limiting clicks I get, limiting gifts and DRs smacks of meanness.

See my ideas on how more clicks could be WORKED for, not just given: http://andy.frontiervilleexpress.co.uk/2012/09/clickety-click.html

The End

Right now your plan with Pioneer Trail seems far too skewed towards making life difficult for the people who are determined to finish missions in a few days. Well, they're only a small percentage, and in making it difficult for them, you make it impossible for standard players.

I'm not asking that everything gets changed, I'm not asking for unrealistic demands like many players, no missions, no requesting, that's not going to happen.

Hopefully what I'm asking for is compromise.

Or just, ya know... let me run the game for a month ;) *shrug*

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Further reading: A few articles on gaming aspects...

Horseshoes and prices: http://andy.frontiervilleexpress.co.uk/2011/12/lots-of-little-pies-or-one-big-one.html

http://andy.frontiervilleexpress.co.uk/2012/08/the-bother-of-business.html

Missions: http://andy.frontiervilleexpress.co.uk/2012/07/misfortunes-of-missions.html

Prize Animals: http://andy.frontiervilleexpress.co.uk/2012/08/booby-prize-animals.html

Clickety, Click...

[Please note: this is an Andy's Imagination post, purely my own thoughts and will likely not appear in game]

OK, let's start by stating two pretty certain facts.

1) We could do with more clicks.

2) It doesn't look like we'll simply be given them.

So, what could be done? Get my imagination out for a compromise of course! I've thought of three ways we could see this clicks issue change that are... Zynga style ideas.

The Building Version

I know, I know. We've got a Pavlovian reaction to the word building these days, be it for space reasons (although it's rare to find a really tight space issue these days of storage and expansions) or just for building issues.

But let's be sensible, not only do we know it's a favourite of Zynga, it's also not so bad if we're building it with a view to a good outcome, like we did with the Irrigation Station. A convoluted build, sure, but with the excellent end product of something that makes a difference to our gameplay.

One building, and when completed we get 50 extra clicks per day.

I think we'd ALL agree a manual build would be far better than a Horseshoe Purchase, yes?

The Boost Version

Option two is inspired by the Clock Tower, a building with a good boost that affects gameplay.

As we don't use the Bulletin Board for the Favours any more, it can be re-purposed. After all, people post wants and needs on a bulletin board, not just requests for help...

From the Board we craft a boost that, once a day, resets our clicks. Used your 50? Just click the Board, select "Click Reset" and bam, 50 more clicks to use on the wall.

Make the boost craftable from something on the homestead and a request, either DR or wall, and we're paying 2/3 clicks or sends to get 50, pay small, get big, and with the chance to stock up.

The Mission Version

The simplest of all options. Clicks and requests are basically mail, right? So, we have a mission thread where we use new technology, including the railroad, to streamline the Frontier Mail Service.

It's a five mission thread with each mission giving us an extra 10 clicks, so we get more and more help towards the missions the further we go through them and feel we're really achieving something.

A couple missions based around the Pony Express that are a mix of things including a nice amount of Homestead... say:

Mission: We need to make sure those horses for the Pony Express are the best we have!

Tend 30 Standard Adult Horses on your Homestead to find the fastest for the Express
Collect 4 Blacksmith Bonuses to get Perfect Horseshoes
Ask your friends for 10 Freshest Feed to give your horses energy!

Then a couple missions based around the Railroad to get mail cars up and running, maybe a couple of those mailbag poles that they used to use that trains picked up as they drove through...

And bam, at the end of the mission thread, 50 more clicks, 10 per mission.

I don't doubt they'd need to be tricky missions, but c'mon... wouldn't you be happy with some tricky missions if it was giving extra clicks?

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Bottom Line, we need clicks, so maybe it's time to tell them we'd happily work for them instead of just being given them, after all, it's got to be a better reward than some more coins and a decoration, right?