Producer's Letter 03/2014

You must have been luckier than I was with the barrels then!
I would have an average of 1 per day.
Sometime none, sometimes 1, on odd occasions 2.
I never kept track but 1 per day wouldn't be far off.

I've had 3 (or 4) since the change last week, so down about 50%.

Same with the driftwood. Been having somewhere between 4-6 per day, which is probably down about 50%.

I always looked upon it as a bonus. Before the coast was released, there were none.
The quickness of the new method of picking up trash/boulders/driftwood more than makes up for any small "bonus" loss. Which in reality is about 1 xpresso per day, and maybe a handful beams, plus what a dozen or so lumber? Hardly a gigantic loss.

But that's just my tuppence worth.

 

Since last maintenance i have not one barrel yet and i agree MrMungo that these are a bonus,also with the new methods are fantastic so over all a lot of gain and only a little pain

 

The issue is why do we need to suffer any pain for any gain. But that is life

 

unfortunately we dont live in utopia

 

I'm going to chip in with my tuppence worth. In my opinion I think the changes made to clearing the obstacles are great. Only having to wait 10 seconds to clear them is so much better. Yes there may not be as many obstacles as there were,but i believe the new clearance rate outweighs the smaller amount of obstacles available to clear overall. I know others will disagree with me on this,however as i said,it is in "my opinion". And after reading the proposed upcoming changes to the game my toes have gone all tingly. A 3rd playfield,quests with better/different awards and level scope,a workshop for building update thingy's,a MM conformation for accidental purchases,fantastic. The letter alone has bought great excitement to my current drab existence,life seems ,i don't know, just brilliant again. I know there will probably be the odd glitch as the new planned ideas are introduced but hey,if everything worked 1st time without any glitches to iron out we wouldn't have this part of the Forum available to moan,curse and grumble about things in the game,and that would be a sad thing so it appears. So a big thankyou to all people behind the scenes,working very feverishly and tirelessly to make the game we love even better than it is now. Keep on grooving fellow Mayors,from a Mayor with unbridled happiness and the sweat of joy, Sleepylee.

 

I posted a reply to a question in another thread, and was chastised and the thread was closed. Interesting. I was also told to post in this thread my comments on the producer's letter ... so:

If you folk are changing the game concept (like you did with the horrid emergency system), I'd like to know so I can start a different game. I would hate to have as much money invested in my city as fweil or Bambina92 and then have the pleasure of playing it ripped away by some ill thought out 'improvement'. That would definitely move me off of Bigpoint to one of the many, many competitors.

The brush and trees never bothered me. I often left the trees to be part of the decorating of the city. The brush I usually just let accumulate in unused areas until I wanted to build on it. I did hate have to click forever on the event drops, but that actually seemed to fit into the game. So what if a tree sprouted while I was deciding which building to move or build? Just click and go get a sandwich. A new one won't grow until you click again to remove it. It was just part of the game. But, there are apparently some whiners out there that just wouldn't shut up about it...or the developers (producers, managers, project managers, whatever they're called) have something else in mind and haven't decided we need to know yet.

Frankly, it gets tiresome worrying about 'changes' breaking things and changing the play style. No notice at all, just log on one day and half your mood or power has disappeared, your buildings won't complete upgrades, rewards for things have lessened, or the game loads forever and you never see your town. I'll never forget how disgusted I was with the emergency system and the randomness it introduced. I dumped a well developed city and started over to get rid of that annoyance.

Now I have a Cinema stuck on a single ad that doesn't work. It's been that way for over a week and since that's detailed in a different thread the producer will never see it.

Social aspects ?? We can't even see each other's cities unless we capture a picture and post it on a thread originally created by the players. Multiple playfields? Sounds nice unless its implementation follows the other changes: one step forward, two steps back. Nice to hear that you're finally going to add a confirmation for all those places we keep losing MM because a popup comes in late, the buttons are right beside each other, or the reaction of the servers is slow and we double click. Would have been nice to have that, oh, about 300 or so MM ago.

I do have one suggestion. Why don't you try giving advance notice when you're going to fix a major bug or add a feature that affects play. Not the night before or a couple of days after you do it, but maybe a week before so we can get used to the idea before it comes crashing into our free time. Sure, discovery is part of the game, but get real, it's only polite to tell us something new is coming and may have some new bugs ... er uh, features.

Since I copied most of this from the other posting, will this thread get closed also?

 

Bonus or whatever? Everything in the game is kind of "bonus". This distinction doesn't make much sense in a game like this. That it was not in the game before? I wonder if you would say the same for some houses removed or Nuclear power plant removed, or events. Would you say "it was just a bonus"? This kind of thinking is really a bit veird. What I find important is that it was a part of the game, many players liked it and used it. Then when we finaly get improvement in picking, which was really a nuisance, this part of game is sort of taken away, without any early advice, and when we then complain the explanation follows which really sounds like a cheap political propaganda.

For those hard of hearing let me repeat: 3 click picking was a nuisance, not obstacle spawn. From what I have seen in the forum I have a little doubt that vast majority of players would agree with that.

Saying the above it's still truth that this is only a game, nothing important, and everybody is absolutely free to apply their own view and understanding. For me, the way things are treated, defies reason and honesty. That's me, of course.

@Hipshot: You generally quite well express how I feel about the game, it's development, bugs, players treatment, dev team and such. Only I no longer want to devote my mental capacity into a development and improvement and feed-backing of a game where I don't see the other party taking us seriously as partners. I sure don't like being treated as if I was a silly fool without a brain. And as you suggest, we live in free world. Nobody is forcing us to play this game. There are tons of other things to do.

Yesterday after dealing with RL issues I deleated some of my "angry" posts hoping to strike some more reserved or positive note later. And here I am complaining again. How I hate that ....... Game is here to bring a bit of fun or a relaxed time. It surly shouldn't cause strife or bad feelings. If in a long term things are happening in the game which promote negative feelings, there sure is something very wrong.

 

This is off topic but I am following directions from Wizz.

On 13 March 2014 Wizz posted an explanation regarding the spawn rate and rapid boulder drop pick up. Thank you. I created a thread to discuss the posting under speakers corner. My thread was closed and I was told to post the thread here. The problem is we as player do not have the ability to create threads in the headquarters section of the Forum. Nor should we.

We do realize we are not working in a democracy and freedom of speech does not exist in the Rising Cities universe. Big Point has complete editorial control over the content and postings. Our postings are subject to editing, deletion, at their choosing.

So here is my question again. What is meant by the "new concept of the game"?

 

And I would like to re-post a question I originally posted in the speaker corner. What is the bug that was discussed -- in terms of gamers' experience?
And again, thank you for the letter. I am looking forward to the developments in the game.

 

Oh my dear ! ! ! Is it really so? ? ? I hope not !

AFTER THOUGHTS: As I have been watching what's going on around the game and forums, it made me a bit disinterested in the game. It's obvious that it's still a long long way not only for the game to function properly, but also for the team to learn to communicate properly, learn to listen to players, learn to interpret the feedback properly, learn to appreciate and value the community. Not sure why it all works out like that, but for me it's becomming all too tense and unfriendly here. Maybe it's normal in game environment and I'm mistakenly applying public/customer relationship rules and principles I know so well from other front house operations? In any case nice and open exchange and cooperation between players and the team which I was hoping for seems to be very allusive and hard to reach. Yes, I do realise that as a casual player I don't see the whole picture so some of my judgements might easily be mistaken.

OK, to strike a lighter note: How come my other two bright ideas, CH upgrade and Power Plants upgrade are not included in the game outlook? I wonder what punishment we would have to suffer for these two improvements.

 

Could this be because this is a level 1 account that you have only accessed twice and you have not yet done anything with the city. Also your game field is almost filled with trees and rocks maybe you should take a look.

 

Nope, I am level 38 (you took a look at my city a short while ago, re. a disappearing solar plant, id 3783813). I was away for a few days around the time the re-work was done, and though I have been playing daily since, I was wondering if the system is locked assuming I am still away?

 

C'mon Wizz, the user has to log into the account to get to the forum and Tamy has posted a whole lot more than twice over many days. Why was the tone of your reply so belittleing?

 

I am not sure what your remark towards me is about.

 

Ouch! I'm sorry Wizz. It was Pirate's post above that I was writing about, not you. I screwed up.

 

I was not offended by the reply, I actually appreciate Pirate looking into the issue. Am alarmed, though, that he got into a level 1 deserted city when following my post. As I do not think this discussion belong on this thread, will post now in tech questions.

And to get back to the thread, I would like to join in with Billyjim -- am curious about the new concept. Hopefully it would be more city-design, strategy oriented?

 

i guess I was unclear, but the comment in the letter was vague a reference to "new concept" with no additional information. This leads us all to speculate and speculation is fun at first, but turns into conspiracies and nefarious thoughts all to quickly. As we seen on the forums before. I much rather hear the true story rather than a pile of guesses, even my own.

 

You have to think like a management graduate. He came out with a Player's Statement:

Which he then said that providing this was his Vision for the game. Since he has his 'Vision Statement', he should follow it with Mission, Values, and Strategy statements and plans. We haven't seen those.

One problem is that not all of us (maybe even not many of us) don't have the same idea about how we want to play the game. Some want to get to the top 10 of the player's list. Others want to have a cool looking town. Some want a bunch of big buildings all crowded together to look like a metropolis. There are those that want a hamlet with a serene feel. Some just want to try out the decorations in shapes and designs. There are those that start off wanting one thing, decide they want something different, then decide they have another idea to try out.

Meanwhile, they get discouraged by having to click three times over a period of time to get rid of a weed. Tire of clicking on the Cinema and being disappointed. Become annoyed when they can't complete a quest because the button disappeared. They want to share their city with others because they got or did something cool. They want to actually get something worth keeping when they spin the wheel, complete an event, or buy a mystery building.

Notice his player's vision statement didn't say anything about fun, bug free, rewarding, addictive, or interactive. It's all about bigger.

Does this help in understanding?

 

Well, you forgot the SWOT analysis, which I wouldn't dare embark on, for this game, just figuring out the threats would probably plunge us in conspiracies..
But, now that you point to it, it does seem weird that the developer's vision for the game is a gamer's. I mean, even aside from what you have wrote (and I agree to it) of different styles, and different visions, for different players -- I would expect the developer to have a vision for the game that is wider and more complex than the grow-this-city-bigger vision of a single player, right? His vision should encompass at least the game's community.

 

Thank you Hipshot for the reminder, but this is not a new concept, we had heard this before. I like it. I agree with Tamy what are the goals and vision of the developers for the game. I would like to hear those. I also would like to see the problems eliminated, amore rewarding experience, addictive, and interactive.