By Misty Dady
On the Mistyfied blog, some of our admins have posted a series of articles regarding items they would personally like to see changed about Mafia Wars. I give you my personal list of things I would change, for all you Mafia Spirit fans. These are my ideas of how Zynga should handle Mafia Wars and certain game features. Somewhere along the line, Zynga took the wrong garden path and followed number spikes instead of loyal players, and now here we are.
- Firstly, I would reinstitute some form of means by which Zynga and Mafia Wars programmers, designers, and community managers have an open forum with the players. The forums don’t work. PAC didn’t work, although not for lack of trying on our parts. After the exit of 2 community managers who worked with us, we slid off of Zynga’s priority list. Get Satisfaction didn’t work, either. Believe it or not, many Zyngons who work with Mafia Wars and other games want to hear player feedback, but Zynga's business model of the Almighty Dollar doesn't give heed.
Cut the event fatigue! There's just too much going on in the game at one time. Zynga is too focused on their “metrics”, which unfortunately mean nothing in terms of player enjoyment—that silly little thing that keeps us coming back for more. They like their number spikes, and don’t concern themselves with the following valleys. It makes no sense, in terms of business or gaming, but Zynga refuses to listen.
We need a game that isn’t so frenetic that, if we’re forced to be away for a few days, we don't run away screaming when we log in and see everything we're behind on. I faced this situation personally just two weeks ago, after the death of a family member. I had to be away for several days, and on top of all that I’m a college student with a sizable class load. Mafia Wars has now fallen by the wayside, sad to say, because I couldn’t keep up, lost interest, and honestly? I started dreading logging in.
- So let’s talk game. One of the first things that comes to mind is those help limits. “You have already helped 5 people today.” How many times have you cussed at your computer monitor over that? I could start counting…but I’d fall asleep! I understand why limits are in place, truly I do, but 5 or even 10 helps per feed is just too low. I thought this was a social game! Something more realistic that would keep us online and playing longer would be 25 or so, similar to job helps. Or make it 5-10 helps per 4 hours.
- Mission events shouldn’t detract so much from our regular game play. Some of the requirements involve multiple thousands’ worth of energy! For a balanced player like myself, that can slow me down for days, and cause me to make no progress in other areas--which is frustrating. Then again, many players have the energy and time, and will be proclaiming their boredom within minutes of an event’s release, so maybe another approach would be to scale the energy cost of a mission-required job to a player’s overall ability. I would like that much more.
- Lastly—let’s get rid of that ZMC pop-up every single time we enter the game! Is that really necessary? It slows the overall loading of the game, and for those of us who jump between the game and our news feed regularly, it’s a pain. Especially when the ZMC is empty! Ever miss out on a good Daily Take post because the ZMC loads over the Daily Take pop-up? I know I have!
I totally agree.
ReplyDeleteThank you Misty. Very nice post and I know many of us feel the same.
ReplyDeletei want the game to live!!!! LOL, but seriously, what will it take to save our game? Great article Misty. Much love from your fellow {ℳ} admin - {ℳ} ßrµ†µ§
ReplyDelete@ {ℳ} ßrµ†µ§ - Pulling together as a community, as Misty and I have done, is a small start. Hopefully we can pull more together to help in our cause.
DeleteCould not agree more Misty!
ReplyDeleteIf only we could find a way to get Zynga to listen to what is everywhere through out the gaming community.
Thank you ⋖Ş☠ÍЯÍŦ⋗ for allowing Misty to post this here to help spread the message. The more who see it the more it can spread and the more Zynga might listen. It's all we have left.
~ Mr. Wizard {M} admin
It's the communit(ies) of longtime players out there that make putting up with the nonsense zynga sends our way worth it. Fab review, on point with a number of my own personal beefs and put into a message that even newer players would understand/appreciate. Great work ⋖Ş☠ÍЯÍŦ⋗ and Misty on this team approach. Always nice to see players working together towards the common goal: making the game better!
ReplyDelete{M} An~isty
Great guest post!!!! As you basically stated, most has been posted at one time or another on your blog, but since you were guest posting on another blog, to a different audience, I thought it was a wise choice of subject matter. The more people who are thinking and talking about your points, the better
ReplyDeleteApart from all these I am pissed by the way cs agents "act" stupid instead of helping it. There were many occasions where I received compensation when I didn't ask and it wasn't required. The worst is when you deserve one but you don't get it. Personally, I don't enjoy the game anymore and so I have left it. There are many aspects which needs to be improved. Like the wizard (another admin of {ℳ}) pointed out that damage done should be related to att-def defense so that it isn't impossible to ice someone with high health.
ReplyDelete