Snake Whacking Day Post Mortem [ Edited ]

[schneyer]

I first want to start out with saying that I am trying to help with this post, no snark involved. Of course the snark factor would be “If EA actually cares to read this”, but I’m actually being good here.

First, good idea with the Snake Whacking Day theme, that was fun. Since there is 24 seasons maybe we can pull some other themes to try. But that’s for another post. This post is to tell you what you did right and what you did wrong.

The Good

It was fun and lively, the play in-town and in neighbors’ towns were ok, and the prizes and characters that came with them were great.

The Bad

To have to get that much snakes for the prizes was insane. Yeah I know you’re trying to incentivize buying donuts, but you really need to give a chance here. I would’ve had to smack well over a thousand snakes a day, when the most I did was 450, to be able to get to them all.

I did notice this morning. Before in the morning there would be several notifications on my iPhone that “Springfield was overrun by snakes”, which actually was kinda silly to do each morning. This morning, after the event is over, I’m still getting notifications that “Springfield is overrun by snakes”. I find that hilarious.

Then there’s the real egregious part, which was that it was outright said that by laying eggs people could get donuts. That never happened. I can understand the underlying hope, that users would visit neighboring towns and lay eggs, then they would lay eggs on yours. Didn’t happen. I laid a good thousand or two eggs, and I got may, stretching, a good 50 throughout. A couple of days before the end I was IMing everyone to send me some eggs. Not one.

So as I mentioned on a previous post, the next time you do that you should incentivize people to lay eggs in each other’s towns, or get penalized. Or don’t have it that way at all, the way you had it for Valentine’s day was good.

Anyway I do look forward to the next event, how soon before that comes?

[bstskippy]

Here here!

Shortly before the event started, I had an accident that left me spending the majority of my waking hours sitting on the couch with my leg inclined. Being off of work, I had a significant amount of spare time. As such, I kept up four separate accounts, releasing snakes every four hours and cleaning up snakes. Two account purchased some extra rocks, stumps and logs while the other two accounts spent no donuts on premium items. All of the snakes eggs from the accounts with premium items were left in the other two non-premium accounts (at least until all accounts got the Motel). After all accounts achieved the motel, I left the eggs for all of my friends. For the first account, I ended with almost 28000 snakes. For the second account, I ended with almost 22000 snakes. For the third and fourth accounts, I ended with almost 15000 snakes. That is almost 70000 snakes in the end. So figuring that to get that number, I probably had to actually tap well over 115000 to 130000 snakes. Not a single donut.... Like the original poster, that makes me wonder if it was really possible to receive donuts.

Also, even with "releasing snakes" on average 4.5 times a day, it took me until May 2nd to get to the motel for the non-premium accounts. Needless to say my friend and my cousin whose accounts they were, were very appreciative but would have never been able to spend that much time playing a game. So looking back, I struggle to see how working people who actually have a life would have any chance at all in getting all the prizes without spending donuts. That could be very discouraging. And for others that spent a lot of time like I did, they are probably a little burnt out and may need to take a break for an extended period of time.

I don't think EA had to make it SO hard. I am disappointed that they did. I don't think EA made more money than if they would have made it little more achievable. My friend and my cousin will never spend money on donuts no matter how hard it is to achieve the prize. As for me and my sister, the owners of the other two accounts, will spend money on donuts, yet we are getting a little unhappy about how much is requiring us to use donuts to get. I am actually starting to buy less and less premium items because it is obvious that EA could give a rats a$$ about their customers. With as much money as they have made off of Tapped Out alone, they should provide a support phone number, but no, they couldn't do that with as many bugs there are.

I love the game but I will not be spending so much money on it in the future. The event and the bugs have inspired that in me.

[schneyer]

Thank you, that reminded me of a few of points I forgot to mention. The first was the bug issue that costed people snakes. From what I could see, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that EA's solution was to extend the time by a week. Not saying that's a bad thing, but as I mentioned in a previous post there wasn't any notice. So people spent donuts, then complained. I personally stopped whacking for a few days that I could've easily gotten one or two of those snake boxes.

Then there's the fact that as I'm whacking snakes I'm also getting eggs. As I've said before, I'm laying them for people not reciprocating, so they end up wasted. Had I just gotten snakes instead of eggs that could've been another couple of thousand snakes. Alot of work and effort, and I really mean work, yet still a muted result. If I'm having to get eggs, which means I HAVE to leave them on other town's, and they don't reciprocate? Then they're wasted either way.

Lastly, all I saw were posts after posts about bugs here and people asking for help on eggs. Yet not once did I see a post on the main wall like you did with the Harp'o'death a couple of months ago. EA, you guys really need to work on the Tech Support, and I'm in the business. You want people buying the premium stuff, which means buying the donuts, which in turn goes to pay your salaries? Then you need to stop making feel as though people are being taken advantage of here. You need to address each and every post, even if it's some wise-acre, and more importantly when there's a bug issue like, oh say, snakes are disappearing and you're going to extend the event by a week, how about a notice on the main wall and a little notification in the game. You have plenty of notifications going on in the game.

Anyway, I'm going to bed. 'Night all.