I spent donuts on the fireworks and everyone got them free anyway.

erik319 wrote:

lll3lucky wrote:

erik319 wrote:
It's interesting to see that most of the challenges that EA has with this game are related to user expectation caused by a lack of communication 8)

Basically they don't think through "cause and effect" well enough. They should do a little bit more about (short term) scenario planning, I think :wink:

Perhaps they have touched on a new game genre, with undiscovered and very specific dynamics and dependencies.

If not then I'm interested to know what other games are comparable and how corresponding user communities respond to them!

I whole heartedly agree :) On the lighter side... no game gives directions to hidden levels. That's why so many Hints & Tips sites have become so popular. Before the www was invented, people had to play Atari and Nintendo games over and over to discover everything. Even though EA should communicate a lot of things, they don't...for whatever reason. When I purchase a console game, I never see exact directions. Maybe that's just a flaw with all games. Just my opinion :)

To make sure we understand each other. I mostly mean that if they first sell something, and then later give it away for free, then they should (1) either not sell it in the first place or not give it away for free later, or (2) communicate in advance that it will be given away for free later if they choose to do both.

Another example is regarding the maximum objects limit. People should be notified about product limitations in advance if they are going to spend money on it. It's fine that a game has a limit of 3.000 objects, but it's not fine that people have to find this out for themselves after spending months and a couple of hundred dollars playing it :lol:

The final example is about suddenly extending Whacking Day while many people bought donuts to speed up tasks or to buy snakes to be able to make it through, only to find out that this was totally unnecessary and a waste of money because suddenly they had a couple of extra days to wrap things up :wink:

I mean, it's all REALLY that simple, it's definitely about expectations and communications :D

And in the meanwhile we become more suspicious and streetwise every day 8)

I definitely agree, but unfortunately retailers do what they want with their business'. Not saying that they are right. We as the consumer either buy the product(s) right away or we lose out or we wait for the next big deal and possibly not get the same items. To me it's: "get it while it hot or not". That's the choice we have. If people don't like one retailers business practice...they normally find another that is best or better. Yes they should communicate with us, but we must remember that whether we like it or not their main concern is to make money. Even though good business practice should come into play, it always doesn't. I don't know many companies that will say that they are giving away something for free, when they are trying to make money first. If a company wants to give away in advance they let you know (i.e. EA gives away a product for an episode tie in). Also when business' want to extend an event they just do it. Sometimes the extension comes from being able to sell more or sometimes bad publicity.

Well... that's all I have for now :D I'm off to get me a cold beverage LOL :)