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PROTEST: We, the undersigned, will not purchase gold until our complaints are heard.
We, the undersigned, refuse to purchase gold until you have made progress on and/or addressed our complaints, being:
1. Fix missions to allow for more robust competition that does not benefit only the gold players.
2. Change game play to make it so that there is a more even use of gold and game $, so that varying levels of gold spent can still make game interesting and productive.
3. Fix co-op research and projects so that it is not impossible to accomplish things with only game $$.
4. Allow partial contributions of collectibles.
5. Stop with the hidden nonsense with calculations that makes later contributions less valuable (charity mission).
6. Do something about the water tower change, such as put the prices back to where they were, or allow anyone who had a tower prior to the price change, stay with the original prices.
We enjoy this game and we want to keep playing. We appreciate good entertainment and are willing to pay appropriately. We are insulted by the insidious nature of the gold-grabbing inherent in most aspects of the game and in protest will no longer purchase gold until changes are made.
Fred1234
(PLAYERS: If you agree with this protest, and will abide by the terms - meaning no gold purchases - please sign by replying. Please also ask everyone in your co-ops to consider signing. If we want change, we need to show GGS that people agree.)
Comments
Also I see nothing in there about the Water Tower fiasco and their sudden decision to hike the price even though it does not solve the problem it claims to have.
Certain research projects require gold to start. The amount of gold required starts modestly with the first project and then jumps enormously.
Every update is worse than the one that precedes it--here specifically the bees.
OMG i could go on.
You had better start to listen GGS or you will be loosing your most valued assets--your faithful players.
At least till someone from GGS listens to our complaints...
I said it once already - I was looking for a game when I found this one and my money will go to someone. It doesn't HAVE to be you!
Petiton signed ~
Jaded Jewel
I know it's a business and that Big Farm wants to make money, but it's quite disappointing to never have a coherent response from GGS about why their improvements always result in more money being taken from players, as if we are all just bottomless money wells!
For the time being I accept I can only play without purchasing gold, and just use the dollars my farm generates, when that stops being fun I'll find another online game to enjoy, there are so many more out there after all...
No problem.
Yeah #3 wasn't clear to me, so I had to ask. I think the $$ threw me off instead of the actual word "Gold."
I don't agree with how they have the research structured like that. We're in a co-op and I don't agree with anything that has the explicit intention the make the player spend money like that in order to advance in the game. I believe Gold should always remain an option that can add an advantage, not include that advantage as a task, research, or project.
It's ridiculous.
If GGS doesn't smarten up and learn from the failure of other companies, then they'll end up going out of business. Something isn't right when real concerns aren't addressed and a user's leisure time is more like a nightmare.
~I sign~
Fred, I to am insulted by the blatant money grabbing tactics that gg uses.
You have my promise that I will no longer buy even one piece of gold until things change. If things stay the same or get worse, I feel sorry for my livestock that will starve while my crops rot in the field since I wont' be here to maintain anything!
I understand that program writing and server space all requires real dollars, but when there are tens of thousands of people playing the costs can be mitigated fairly easily I believe.
Pigs get fed....hogs get slaughtered.
-GGS won't be getting money; witch could cause for it to shut down
-if that happens, people will end up upset that a good game ended, but your other games could end too
-People will have less and less friends
-you will barly have people to send advice
-people with co-ops will end up with no body.
and others could happen too. SO JUST CLEAR IT UP ALREADY GGS!! >:(
1. Fix missions to allow for more robust competition that does not benefit only the gold players.
As said before, the Game Design team is working on this. Up to now, we have a general pre-sorting based on the accumulated number of reputation points as well as levels, Thing is, since all players get thrown together for one mission, and then sorted to sets with 10 players each, sometimes this won't work for everyone. But yeah, working on that.
2. Change game play to make it so that there is a more even use of gold and game $, so that varying levels of gold spent can still make game interesting and productive.
You can do _everything_ without spending a single buck. Everything. We give out gold for free, with each Level up, with a lot of Login Bonuses and even with a few quests. Right now, there is no "You NEED money to play this" point in the game at all.
I may or may not have to remind you, that this actually happens in a lot of online games, it's either this or having to share everything you did ever, and in Big Farm you'll find none of it. I can of course see where the criticism is coming from, but in this case, I feel it's a bit overblown.
3. Fix co-op research and projects so that it is not impossible to accomplish things with only game $$.
This has been forwarded but plays into my previous point, as well. As long as you don't want to create a huge cooperative, it should be absolutely possible to do without having to buy gold, as long as your cooperative is helping out with donations and actually works together. If there are specific points you'd like to discuss, I would need a bit more information on this.
4. Allow partial contributions of collectibles.
Yup, I understand that one. Sadly, it's not planned for the near future, since this is how it's supposed to be. We forwarded this a lot of times, believe me.
The costs for the instant buy of said collectibles has been lowered significantly on higher levels though.
5. Stop with the hidden nonsense with calculations that makes later contributions less valuable (charity mission).
It's a linear progression, and it's supposed to help in the upper rankings of the list. If the progression wouldn't be linear, it would be very easy to just go ahead and "snipe" victory during the last few minutes, and we don't want that to happen. As it is now, it gets harder to accumulate points the higher up you are, but that is happening to all users who are up there. This hopefully makes sure that whoever wins (or stays in the upper rankings) will do so rightfully and not because he made one payment to snipe his way to victory.
Since this is the first time this event is running, we're obviously watching it closely, too. If it won't work out as intended, we might rethink it, but for now it's working exactly as intended. If you want, I can talk this over with the team again, though.
6. Do something about the water tower change, such as put the prices back to where they were, or allow anyone who had a tower prior to the price change, stay with the original prices.
A lot of players seem to forget this on a regular basis: The water tower and the workshop are optional. They aren't needed to get anything done, they are a vanity item that may help a bit without completely breaking game balance. These are buildings you either will have to actually buy with gold, or spend some time to save free gold to buy them piece by piece (which is entirely possible, too). But, and this is a big but (pun not intended), they are not needed. You can perfectly play the game without having these two, and you won't run into problems later, either.
And that's it
The missions are not sorted according to levels and reputation points. There are several complaints of people getting in the same group with people of much higher rank and reputation points--With that combination: the average person don't stand a chance, especially if the competitor is pushing production with gold. I have also been to farms that have ALL level 3 fancy house and so many tractors i could not count them all--yet they are in same competition. There is no problem with people buying gold, but they should not be allowed to freely abuse people that do not have the means to buy gold. The egg challenge is becoming impossible to complete because of high RP.
As for the water tower portion of your post--I am absolutely fuming! Nafaru made the announcement almost a full week ahead that the water tower was to have price increase. OMG i will have to find the quote and paste it here--The water tower pricing will be increased, since especially in later levels it got far too powerful for its current price.
Its to-buy price will be the same, but upgrade prices will be raised significantly, so if you planned to upgrade, don't wait too long
. I can't believe that GGS thinks it acceptable to acknowledge an unbalance and then fix it by raising the purchase price, but do NOTHING to reduce its power. Talk about lining your pockets! AS i remember there was even a pricing incentive to buy gold that weekend. Unbelievable.
****As for the fundraiser event--I am most certain that if the title of it had been changed to something like 'Save our Other Farms' --There would have been a lot more positive response--Especially with loosing our farm on the other game.
There has also been at least 2 separate announcements that the missions were going to be better, but so far--not a single change is evidenced as of yet. When will that make it to the updates, not just announcement???
When I have started this game, it looked quite intereseting and it was pulling my but to sit down beside the laptop and click until my fingers went tired. I was among the first ones that joined to this play, we were only 116 on inernational-UK server at that time.I got up at ranking quickly and liked the game.It made me play it whenever I had some free time.Now.........I still play it, but only cause my friends from the ex game are here and we talk daily....and let me tell you, I force myself sometimes to open it.Yes, I have bought few coins, cause we were in lack of 2 last tickets to start a coop project.By buying gold I was allowed to contribute the missing tickets.
For me, buying stops, there is no point to give and give and give and get nothing in return,noone is listening to our sugestions and requests.
GGS team, there is something called "bona fides",google for ancient Roman rules abt trading and running an honest way in all aspects of life itself.When we buy gold with our real money, game becomes a part of real life and noone wants a virtual world slipping into our wallets just to make one partner happy and content.When we make deals, there are two parts joining together and everyone should gain something from their mutual partnership.
I sighn here with the bigest pen I could find on my desk.....
1. Fix missions to allow for more robust competition that does not benefit only the gold players.
I have countless issues with the Missions but requiring us to participate in them in order to complete The Chicken or the Egg? co-op project is simply ridiculous. Reputation points are individual achievements and have nothing at all to do with co-ops and requiring they be earned does not and will not result in a more cooperative effort among players, more than once I have been pitted against my fellow co-op members. Therefore the simplest solution is to remove this requirement from that project. No this will not solve all of the problems with missions but it will solve one that causes division in co-ops.
2. Change game play to make it so that there is a more even use of gold and game $, so that varying levels of gold spent can still make game interesting and productive.
It's not a matter of whether or not the game can be played without gold, it's a matter of every facet of the game appears to be designed to 'persuade' the player to buy gold. Face it, there are those who can afford to buy gold and those who can't, GGS isn't going to persuade those who can't afford to buy gold to suddenly buy gold no matter how many gold draining schemes they hatch.
3. Fix co-op research and projects so that it is not impossible to accomplish things with only game $$.
Subsidies (Level 2) requires 20,000 gold. That's level 2 not level 10 so indeed it affects low level co-ops as well.
4. Allow partial contributions of collectibles.
Not planned for in the near future, huh? That's no surprise since a great deal of gold that I've spent in my co-op has gone to purchasing collectibles. Bad news for GGS though, I'm not going to do that again no matter how cheap they make it, it's the principle of the matter. If it is indeed a cooperative then we should be able to pool what we have. I can and do donate money and gold to my co-op in any quantity I choose so there is no logical reason I shouldn't be able to do that with collectibles as well.
5. Stop with the hidden nonsense with calculations that makes later contributions less valuable (charity mission).
No matter how GGS tries to spin it or how they tracked the points that scheme was NOT for charity! It was a lie to call it such, it was in fact a scheme devised as a means of encouraging players to spend real money on virtual gold. That was blatantly obvious when the girl who trades cash for gold showed up right after the charity drive began. And if sniping the win is such a bad thing why don't they do something about that in the Missions?
6. Do something about the water tower change, such as put the prices back to where they were, or allow anyone who had a tower prior to the price change, stay with the original prices.
Vanity items? Really?--and here i thought they gave me a worthwhile benefit, that's why I spent so much gold upgrading them, but if they're just vanity items then GGS is definitely charging far too much for the upgrades. In all seriousness though, you can shear a sheep many times but you can only skin it once, and I feel like I've been skinned.
Anyway, thanks for replying Latten, now we at least know a moderator is aware of our complaints and taking an interest in them.
Thank you for the thorough reply.
I think you might be missing an underlying tone that I and many others are feeling and are reacting strongly about. The tone/theme that is becoming horribly apparent is the "bait and switch" that GGS is using throughout the game.
Bait: get started on things, get hooked, spend a little gold, advance, then ... wait a minute ... the switch happens and now things get very expensive.
Your reply indicates that this is intentional. GGS doesn't really care what people think as long as they continue to spend money. This petition and the comments indicate that some of your long-time supporters are done. We no longer see an entertainment value that justifies the expense and we will no longer spend money to be treated poorly.
Everything that has come out recently, and all of the responses we've seen, are intended to get more gold spent without providing anything in return that makes the cost worthwhile. The game play has not improved - it has become different and more expensive. Nothing new has been done to increase teamwork with co-operatives. Nothing new has been done with missions to make them more accessible and more competitive for all ranks. The charity drive is a joke, and the water tower bait-n-switch is appalling.
About the water tower (yet again). Many many people had a water tower that was not maxed out prior to the price change. Many of these people were budgeting gold for the next upgrade. Suddenly one day the cost to upgrade was switched. This is really bad and you pissed off *everyone* in that situation.
You refer to the charity drive as a linear progression. This is incorrect. A linear progression is a straight line. In the charity drive, greater donations of game $$ give you fewer points per game $. This is either a linear regression, or a non-linear regression (I don't have the time or desire to calculate each point value to determine if the regression is straight or stepped (linear or non-linear)). Why does this make people so angry? It is a hidden calculation that is not explained at the onset - yet another bait and switch.
You (GGS) have the beginnings of a great game. You're building a large following. Many people are willing to spend some real money because the entertainment value of this game is positive.
You (GGS) have done nothing to encourage repeated spending by improving game play and rewarding your steady customers. You hide game functions and calculations, you switch things out without notice (the forum notice for the water tower change is not a public notice), and you build the feeling that the only way to continue playing, without extreme boredom, is to spend exponentially more real money than you have previously.
Our promise to stop spending money is not the ranting of a bunch of spoiled kids. We are your biggest supporters. We care so much about this game that we are pleading with you to do things to keep us on board. It would be quite simple to just leave. We don't want to leave. We want a better game. Why aren't you and GGS doing things to find out how you can make the game better? Why aren't you finding more ways for people to spend within their budget? Why aren't you making the game functions transparent so that we're not unpleasantly surprised every time we purchase something new, start a mission, go up a rank in project levels, etc?
Latten you gave a long detailed post, but not really about what we wanted answered.
I will never buy gold if this continues.
Forgive me if I'm wrong but it appears from Latten's response to your post that us players either need to 'put up or shut up' as nothing that really frustrates us about the current game structure is actually going to get changed. Dissenting comments here in these forums are perceived as rabble rousing and I get the distinct impression that it is far from welcome. So much for free speech eh?
The main issue for me was that the coop collectables situation would at least be addressed to reflect the true nature of team cooperation, by letting us all contribute to the totals needed, I still do not understand why the developers find this so difficult to change, as it would be a fantastic improvement within the coops, but nope!
And as for buying premium 'vanity items', well they are totally off my shopping list from now on, as we've been reminded and assured here they're not a necessary requisite to play the game, nor indeed is purchasing gold in fact.
So that settled for me, time to stop being a sucker, and stop lining someone else's pockets.
We are encouraged within these forums to tell the developers what we think about how they could improve the game and that our opinions matter, but only if it does not rock the boat....
Anyone got a life raft?....