I'm having the same issue too being stuck at the welcome screen. Prior to the update I did sign out of online mode through town hall, which a few pages back seemed like a big no no. Ugh.
@BlottoBrah Delete the game, re-install, play the tutorial, access town hall, put Cloud mode on, put Facebook info you used previously, enjoy! Don't forget to save you sharedData file in case.
Ivan - So after reading an earlier post regarding the possibility to get multiple Ministry of Hopes, is it a bug? Or can I safely make some more?
Bugs from Noobs Ivan, I've been thinking about how to punish these new employees who created "all" the bugs we're now dealing with - tatoo artist, freezing at startup, crashing from certain areas, et al. I think desks should be relocated. (or cubicles or whatever you use at Lambda Mu) Different floors, different areas, inside to outside; anything to show that there has been a lack of attention to detail. anyone else, what is the new number of clones? I'm sitting at Spoiler 258/255 .
I just got back from vacation, where I got to install and play with the 1.5 update before hitting the 1.51 wall. I really like some new features (splicing secret animals, water & shore decor), but really dislike some other changes. Very disappointed with the 1.51 crash. I have been unable to get past the splash page since Friday. Is there any timeline for a fix? Ivan mentioned a client-side patch was also necessary, so >2 weeks for the Apple approval? Also very disappointed with the Facebook integration. There is no good reason (from the player's perspective) that social features on iOS games should not use Game Center. My guess is that LambdaMu gets a benefit from Facebook, so I presume that it was a good reason from the company's perspective to use it instead of GC. I am debating whether or not to create a throwaway Facebook account just for Pixel People, or to wait for a future GC version. I have a second game (on another device) that hasn't upgraded yet, so at least I can play that. But now that the church has been neutered, I have decided to buy land in my second game before it gets upgraded to 1.52 (or later). So is there a limit on the number of land squares you can have? I seem to recall earlier mention of 512 squares--is that still true?
I think I am officially done. $25 for a BUILDING in a "hands off" sim like this is ludicrous. Not even ridiculous, ludicrous. Maybe you'll adjust pricing going forward, but the fact that those values were even considered in the first place is deplorable. $15 for the ministry, $25 for the mine, $25 for the farm, $3 to stockpile 400 hearts... I get the obscene prices for utopium, even though I don't agree with them, but really? $65 to boost your in game economy? Adding $0.99 spins in the casino is no better. Why not offer a 20 (or some other number) pack of VIP spins for whatever price. Then charging 20u to buy another building because some people abused it? Your free utopium deals are equally disappointing, and instead of fixing the issues with the system, you've just shoehorned more crap in. I just looked, and expired options are still sitting there, along with offers that aren't even geographically accurate (I'm in Canada, why would I see an AARP offer?). Add that with those that are entirely broken and it takes the offers down significantly, to the point where anything free is either unwieldy or broken entirely. Surveys are weirdly crammed in and not adjusted correctly, and you can be damn sure I'm not going to take a 40 minute survey for ANYONE, let alone for a couple of utopium Everything seems to have shifted to the "hey, let us see how much money we can fleece from the players of the game! We will throw a bit of new content at them, entirely nerf huge sections of the game to punish every one versus punishing the few who abused it, add in loads of ways to sucker them in to spend money and, hey, what if we even add a more rare and expensive currency!" Everything that was good about the game from the beginning has become so terribly, well, mutated. The problem is that unlike the good Spider-Man style mutation, this is the "extra arm on your earlobe" mutation that no one wants. I'm sure there are more good things as you get deeper into the game, but those things that I've mentioned are enough to effectively nerf good they bring with. It's like someone who had the power to change the course of the game completely went to a Zynga/PaD F2P seminar and furiously took notes on what they could put into this game. I'm sure a lot of people will be happy about the update, but I'm sure you have lost many players who don't take kindly to having parts of the game which we felt were *just* reasonable enough to put up with being turned upside down like a kid trying to snake out a few more quarters from their piggy bank. I think I'm most upset because I believed in the game from the get go, and freely spent some cash on the 2X upgrade and on a few other things which I can't recall. Now, and even a bit with the last update, I don't feel that's the same environment. Remember when the game first launched and Ivan didn't break character? It's that spark which I now feel is gone. Oh, and the fact that this uses FB INSTEAD of GC and not at least having some way to use both. I have all of one person on FB that plays this game. I'm not going to add random FB people just to have towns to visit. I did that years ago when playing FarmVille, but that was, what, 6 years ago? It was silly then and it is now, but I'm also not going to go and, say, create a shell FB account to do this. It's another design question that seems to eschew common sense and ways WE want to play for the potential to spam FB walls and interest people into downloading this game. Seriously, has that ever worked to a meaningful level? That kind of "advertisement" seems to lead to nothing more than posts getting ignored and people getting blocked because of the spam. It wasn't popular years ago, and it sure isn't now.
Like many others, I agree with you on the pricing. I remember when the IAP was about $2, which imo was perfect. I even opted to buy 1000 u to show my support to them (and helped me a little). When they release the next batch of IAP (the heart block and 10u a day), I was dissapointed that they raised it to about $7. I still bought both because I felt I got a good amount of entertainment out of the game this far and again wanted to show my support. I just can't help but scoff at the newest pricing. Dont even second guess spending a dime at the moment. Its a shame that they left the model that works for most freemiums. Almost anyone would be willing to pay $1-$3 for each of those non-consumable IAP without thinking. $5-$10 is stretching it. $20 for 9 animals? Forget about it.
The pricing is one thing. That whole concept of this app has just worn thin with me. Everything feels like a chore. It's so grindy and luck-based. If you want to do a 'ville type app, it should be something you can do fast. Tapping a few buildings is bearable, but filling up hearts? Always has been lame. "Adopting" animals and somehow turning them into new jobs? That weird hotel thing/vacation thing? I feel like a lot of this stuff was brought on because of the more, let's say, dedicated members of this forum wanted it, but they're things that just aren't practical if you're not obsessive. The original concept was fine. Now it's just muddled down.
I agree that the earlier versions of the game were more elegant, but the fact of the matter is that the game was not designed to be infinitely replayable. They were always planning more stuff. As for the pricing, I'd be very interested in knowing how they're doing with the $25 purchase (not that I expect to be told). On the one hand, they're probably making some money - Ivan mentioned "millions" of devices connecting to their servers, and there are plenty of people out there with more disposable income than I. On the other hand, if it was back in the $5-7 range, I'd probably have purchased it. The bit where a *later* update will justify the *current* cost is especially insane. One reason I shelled out for the Double Time IAP and the Ministry of Love was that I could see an immediate benefit from each of them. I *really* still think that where they went wrong was jacking the cost of the Enterprise in the first place. They should have left it at $1.99, made the "Overworking" mega-tap an *additional* $1.99, and priced the mine upgrade and animal shelter at $2.99 and the awesome Ministry of Love at $4.99. Something along those lines, anyway. AAA iOS releases retail for around $5. No IAP should really be more than that.
We've been promised GC integration in addition to the existing FB integration. I hope it comes through in the next update. That, and mostly fixes/mods to repair the charm this game seems to be losing. It's almost beyond saving for me. If the next update is just another content pack, I'll be putting this one away.
I should definitely add that I wasn't too hot about the Animal Shelter IAP. I was worried that there was too much on an influx of animals going into the game and the upgraded shelter would reduce the trade appeal. But relented with the condition that the shelter price should be high. On hindsight this was a mistake. We'll be lowering this price as we go along.
Hey Ivan, do you have an ETA on when the game will be fixed? I'm still stuck on the loading screen and have been since the patch.
I'd like to once again point out the following: 1) There's a very good reason why prices was increased. We'll be hearing more of this in the next content patches. The Animal Shelter will probably get a price redux. One thing we're committed to is keeping the enterprise at it's current price point. 2) Facebook was a priority due to *ahem* a certain little green robot. But GC is next. We're working on it as we speak. 3) The Burstly offerwall has been one of those things that we're a little ambivalent about. Some of the offers are pretty meh. Especially the content offers.
