Anybody play FarmVille? (Kebir Blue)

I've been reading about the tremendous success of FarmVille with about 55million players. It sounds like a kiddie version of SC but i know of grown ups who play. The elements sound similar. What's its appeal and could SC take some hints to make our game better?

FarmVille is a click game.

There's no real thinking involved, you just log in and click on stuff to get money and make your farm look nice. I'd prefer that most games did not aspire to become FarmVille.

It was an ingenious idea for making money though. You get rewards for inviting your friends to the game, so it grows exponentially...

so why can't SC have the same exponential growth?

Because of the increasing complexity and non intuitive game-play. When I came into sim the most common sense things you could do often led to the most undesirable consequences. Like contracts, common markets, etc.

To add to the confusion, bad docs that never get fully updated and confusion about separate functions in the game.... to name a few.

Oh, and most of all, lack of immediate gratification. I don't mind taking my time to build something, but most don't.

So what is it then?

The feeling of accomplishment as their farms are looking nice? Yeah, it's probablly the feeling of success being provoked, which is a positive emotion and feels good.

I think there is an element of escapism. I also think that escapism is the biggest factor in selling these kinds of games. There is something about the game that allows us to feel better about ourselves, more in control, more powerful etc. They harness the imagination and as we play our lives suck a little less. Not that our lives are all that 'sucky' only that it can always be better. Being Ceasar and leading your legions to victory is much better than going to work Monday morning.

I believe the best selling games are the ones that harness this the best. I believe that the more we are able to allow our players to escape into a world where they are much more than they can be in real life is the key. This is my basis on posts that deal with preserving the simulation factor of the game, keeping it as real as possible so that we are taken out of our illusion as we play as little as possible.

I don't think this is the only factor either, but I think it has the most bearing on participation. I also think that, in broad terms, factors differ in degrees depending on things like gender and age.

All of the 6th graders at school beat me up, so I play SC and try to beat others up... it makes me feel good!

That's pretty 'sucky' Serpent because you're a 10th grader!


haha!

All because Im 15 dont mean I gotta be in 10th grade! I mean c'mon, Im not a genius!

Now dont go harssing 10th graders now, Im a tenth grader. And im 15! -.-

No i dont play farmville, My Grama and my mom do, And my sisters, And there frineds to! And i know some people who play it to, They keep trying to get me to play and im like "NO!"

Way to stand up and fight 'THE MAN' Barren! SAY NO!!

YUP, Fight The farmer and his dumb farm

SC can't have the same exponential growth because unlike farmville, here the longer you play the less money you make and the more frustrating it becomes to keep on top of changes and the less and less you're able to lay a good smackdown on noobs.

LoL

i think a lot of you are onto things that make it popular. particularly Barren's observation that all the female members of his family play (not that SC doesn't offer something for female players too [whew, missed the bullet]. it sounds quite social. but others have said that it's got a short shelf life (keeping people's interest). does anyone know how it interfaces with Facebook? we seem to have some kind of interface with Facebook, but i can't figure out how to use that feature. any one use it?

What is 'Facebook'?

it's a porno site. just conjure up the possibilities for a site called Facebook.

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SC can't have the same exponential growth because unlike farmville, here the longer you play the less money you make and the more frustrating it becomes to keep on top of changes and the less and less you're able to lay a good smackdown on noobs.<!-/Quote-!>

The Gamemaster needs to take special note of Aaron's post. If he finds it to be true can we all agree that it needs to be repaired?

There are many of us that won't use Facebook or it's look-alikes. They're a govt intel projects. Heck SimCountry probably is too but I don't mind because the Dutch and the whole wooden shoe thing just isn't as scary to me. lol

Actually goose stepping in wooden shoes would be a lot of fun to watch.

i agree with Arron too. but i note that in the past month or so, the number of players on Farmville has dropped about 10%. (6million) people continually need to be stimulated.

maybe if you could buy matches from farmer joe to burn farmer bobs farm down to help sell your cows at a higher price it would hold more peoples interest, until they sold fire protection for barns at 30 cents a day and made all silos fireproof.....and then made it so you could only burn down farms that were within + or - 5% of the acerage of your own farm......maybe it might be stimulating

See though? If they limited the farm burning to +/- 5% their size then they will never experience(lets call it) the 'co-op' where a bunch of smaller farmers get together to gang the big farmer. a player developed strategy that could make the game more fun. That now can never develop because, in this case no problem was fixed only an anticipated problem was thought to be avoided.

To limit it to 5% over an anticipated problem is counter productive. There should have been a real problem to fix to restrict it like that, not just out of fear of one.

I'm convinced that many anticipated problems and anticipated problems that become reality are self correcting, meaning that the players themselves through play correct the imbalance.

I would like the see SimCountry allow time for self correction in many cases.

So what you're saying is that making an interactive game less interactive is counter productive and sometimes fewer GM interventions are needed because the game will most often times balance itself given some time?

the 5% +/- isn't fair, it should only be allowed if you have the exact same acrage. and then only if the other guy gives you permission