News and Insights
October 10, 2009
Things that bother me on Farmville
posted by Murphyslaw 
I recently started to play Farmville because I heard a lot about it and some of friends were playing it too. After a while I noticed that there are some things, that really bother me and that I would like to see changed.
Out of a game devoloping point of view, I think it is a good practice to analyze current games and maybe list some points I like, I would do different or I don't like at all. So here are my thoughts on Farmville.
1. Clicking on every single cell 3 times every four hours drives me nuts!
I know I could plant other seeds that will take longer, or I could exchange cells for decorations or anything else I don't have to click on, but I reach out for effectiveness. I just want to tell my avatar to harvest/plow/plant all, or selecting a whole area at once...without paying money for gas...
2. I want to be able to see, what I will earn for collecting the master points.
It already takes forever to get those three master points, so I at least want to see, what I'm doing this for and if it's worth the effort.
3. I want to build trees, without going back into the menu everytime.
It is just annoying! Nothing else.
4. I want to rotate the gamefield.
I have certain animals on my farm I can't reach without moving something around it. I don't care if it is rotatable freely or just by certain angles, but rotate it should. My farm is twice as nice, when I have to angles to look at it.
5. I want to see the level it took to unlock certain things, eventhough they are already unlocked.
I want to be reminded on how good I was. I want to help other people by telling them, when something can be unlocked, for example if they don't sit on their own farm right now.
6. I want to see my friend on the farm.
I visit a different farm, and no one is there. I know its hard to synchronize such things but at least there could be an immobile avatar standing there to interact with.
7. Whats with the coin flipping while I'm plowing?
It took me forever to even notice it. Then the next question was, what does it do? The text is too fast and the money (100 coins) you get is hard to figure out. I hate things that happen all the time but can't be looked at correctly. Either they don't happen, or I get enough time to enjoy them.
8. I want the seed to be sortable also by amount of time it takes to harvest them.
Well, the general strategy is to pick the seed, that fits best with what I'm doing in real life right now. I want to pick the one that fits best and that is decided by how long it takes until harvest. I don't care if it's a fruit or grain.
9. I want a gift history on all friends I send a gift.
I am a fair kind of person, and I want to know what gifts I already send out to whom. Who has gotten the most gifts and what kind?
10. Introducing the Wish-Gift.
I want to be able (like in Mafia Wars) to wish a certain gift. And to top that...the button to automatically send the wished gift to all people who have an item on their wishlist.
11. I want Farmville in my own language.
I personally don't have a problem with english, but I just do not know all the seeds by name or understand the ribbon texts fully.
12. I want to hover over a ribbon to see, what I got it for.
If you get all ribbons, you can't tell anyone anymore, what you them for. That is just not right..
13. I don't want to open the gift menu, if I have multiple gifts of one kind.
Like before, it's just annoying and wastes time.
14. I want to be informed, when I get FarmCash.
Besides beeing informed, I really want to know how to get FarmCash. Even if it's supposed to be random, a little bit of information about when I receive it, would be nice. Right now, I have some FarmCash but do not know how I got it...that's not good.
15. I want to reply on message signs.
I like the message signs, but it would be even better if I were able to put a reply on the message sign. This would allow some kind of public discussion, next to all the choices I have in facebook already build in. It would make it more social, what it's actually meant to be. And once we're on there, I want to be notified, if someone put up a new message sign on my farm!
Labels: criticism, farmville, improvements