Gaming: Another Pet Peeve

Let me get this straight, Clipwire...

You put a new building in the game and associate it with a quest. That's cool. New things are always fun and shiny. What's not fun and shiny is the fact that you require the players to "hire" friends to work in the new building. Why is that not fun and shiny? Because of how the requirement works. If I have 20 friends and they're already working in another one of my many buildings then they cannot accept a job in the NEW building. The game doesn't allow it. So, that means to complete the building I have to persuade enough friends to start playing the game that I will be able to complete the hiring portion of the building quest and be able to complete the building.

How utterly ridiculous. Your game isn't that popular. I'm lucky to have 20 friends that have accepted my invitation to play. Out of those 20 perhaps 5 play daily. Maybe. And I can't hire them to work in my new building because they've already accepted a job request from me for a different building.

Change the requirement, Clipwire. It's great that you're adding new content. It's great that you're trying to get new players engaged in your game but this isn't the way to do it. Hidden, forced recruiting is a huge turn-off. If I want to invite a friend, I will (and have). It's a fun game and has a lot to offer. Emphasize those areas instead of trying to trick your players into recruiting. You'll find your daily and monthly active user numbers soar.

Gaming: A Pet Peeve

Don't make your player buy a duplicate of an item if they already own it. If the player owns an object and it is in storage allow the player to pull it out and place it in the game to fulfill all relevant portions of a quest, not just one portion. Once the item is placed in the game update the quest so that the requirement to buy one from the shop is fulfilled. If it's not the player has no choice but to waste gold buying a duplicate to fulfill it. If the intent of requiring the player to buy a duplicate of an object is as a money sink then mark the original object as broken. It will introduce a new object state in the game but this could be used to an advantage to soak up all the extra gold floating around.

Gaming: Stop Lurking!

A fan-site for a game I'm stoked about has advertised for staff. I thought to myself that I would be good at that. I'm very interested in the game and have been following its development for a long time. Then I saw that you had to write about what you've contributed to the community as part of the application process. That killed it for me. There is a community of sorts but it's not very big and I've never contributed to it. I never saw the need because, even though game info started leaking around 2007, it was always the same people discussing it. So, I maintained my wallflower status. Now the game is in super-secret closed beta, the hype is heating up, and this opportunity presented itself. I'm wishing I hadn't lurked on the edges. Moral of the story? Don't lurk. Get involved. Even if all you do is say "Hi" at least you're participating in the community.