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[Purpleduck]

Hi,

Well I certainly did not intend to cause such an uproar I am sorry. I was not taking pop shots at anyone. All I have to do is be in the game 15 minutes and that is the "people" I am referring to. If I offended you I am sorry that was not what I was trying to do.

As for Belle she is a great friend We agree on many things and disagree on many things- that is the way of life. I have met her and she is the kindest person and even though it is not my place to "worry" about her I do because she is my friend once again sorry if that upsets anyone.

Adventure and Duck sorry this has made more work for you

I will not post anymore since it is upsetting people. I am just not feeling comfortable. Good luck to all of you. I hope VFK can make it as I am truley hoping they do.

Bug

Bug, you and I have had this discussion several times about you not posting here anymore.  That IS NOT what is being asked of you, nor what any of us want to have happen.  You are a valued member, and provide, like in this case with VFK, a needed "devil's advocate" position, to spur people to think.

What is being asked, is do not use a generality.  You know how you just said right in this post, that it is the people in the VFK game that cause you to say that "coffee" remark.   SAY THAT when you speak of people, and noone would have mistaken your comment for being about them personally.   Whether right or wrong that they did take it personally, it was so easy to have been avoided!

I hope you will please reconsider not posting here girl friend

[Happy]

I know many friends that joined and many friends that did not join the first Founders Package.  For those that did join, I am sorry that you are not allowed access to the new items in the Aussie package.  It is my understanding some joined to show support for VFK, and others joined because they are "collectors".  Regardless of why you accepted the first Founder's Option, I do feel you should have access to the room and items. 

Last night a player sporting the new Aussie hat was saying that in the future rooms could be traded. My reaction to his statement was, "At what price?"  The new high rise room is really nice, just like the Area 51 Conference Room.  However if there is only one room given per paid membership, how likely is it someome will trade it?  The bigger question would be at what price? 

[Astro]

Curiosity (I haven't followed this too much).. could this new founders package be aimed at the Aussies?  They were not on for the original founders package 

I think you are correct Ducky.  I do remember something about that in the very beginning of VFK too.  Good point on bringing this up.   

Hi,

I do not believe for a minute that they are marketing to Australia. I also do not believe that there really is staff from Australia working on the game. I think it is all just a smoke screen. Staff could tell people anything and they would take it as fact.

Im not sure where the idea that it is being aimed at the Australian market came from that doesnt make sense to me with the time zone.  Perhaps because it says Australian Founders people have interpreted wrong, I did see someone asking if you had to be from Australia to get it.

I'm just quoting to quote.      This is where I have gotten the interpretation of the "Australian Market" from.  I know there was more said by VFK, but sadly I think it's gone now, along with their original website.  But at least Ducky and I know we are not crazy in what we did read somewhere, at some point.  This little blurb should explain on why there were specific thoughts on that.  What's in RED obviously.

This appears way at the bottom of the VFK home page currently where you sign in at.:  I cut and pasted this specific date portion only.

May 13th, 2008

We've got a lot of exciting news to share with you this week.

As you have noticed, we have upgraded our web site!

We have a new video trailer highlighting upcoming features which you can find above.

We liked the music, "A New World", which we used in our first trailer so much that we used it again in this one.

We wanted to share with you some of the behind the scenes activities that go into creating the exciting new features we will be adding to the Wild West land. To see this special sneak peek, you can visit our Wild West story board.

We are highlighting our Medieval lands, and these will be previewed in our next alpha test.

We have included our new VFK constitution, which you will find on the right, outlining our values.

We are really pleased to be introducing a new land, in conjunction with the help of our friends in Australia, which is planned to open on June 20th.

We are in the process of approving pre-registration character names, so watch your email for confirmation of your character name.

You can visit the previous Virtual Family Kingdom alpha test by visiting this page.

[Astro]

Last night a player sporting the new Aussie hat was saying that in the future rooms could be traded. My reaction to his statement was, "At what price?"  The new high rise room is really nice, just like the Area 51 Conference Room.  However if there is only one room given per paid membership, how likely is it someome will trade it?  The bigger question would be at what price? 

Do you REALLY want to even know?  Maybe your job at the Purple Feather Cafe?      You know I'm just teasing you Happy.  But seriously, I highly doubt it will even be virtually affordable for anyone sadly.

[awesomepatty-cake]

Well I guess I just interpreted this sentence a different way.  "We are really pleased to be introducing a new land, in conjunction with the help of our friends in Australia, which is planned to open on June 20th."  I always thought it just meant they have a company (people I have no clue who) that live in Australia who work on that land for VFK. 

[NotAZoo]

Bug come back!   

[PrincessWendyBird]

Well, King and I have been quiet about this new "founders" membership. I can only speak for myself and King, but I want to share our take on this. When I first saw this new package offer, I felt like I had been punched in the gut. Then, I saw the link below for players who had already purchased the founders package. My thought, as I clicked the link, was that we would be receiving the virtual items at a discounted rate. When the order form popped up, I again felt sick to my stomach. In retrospect, I think I was simply stunned and confused about what the founders membership we paid for was really about. We had expected to receive access to all game items. I personally could care less about a boomerang or another T-Shirt, but that room is really nice. We have studied Australia in our homeschool studies because King has always had a real passion for the country itself. His eyes lit up when he saw that hat and didgeridoo. So, now we feel VFK has placed us in a pretty stinky position. We love the new items. We do not love the idea of forking over $47 again this quickly, especially with so many of the game's features not being ready. There are many who have already purchased the new package and I have no problem with that at all. In fact, if money were no object here, we might do the same. A solution which would make us happy is for only the virtual items to be offered at a discounted rate to current founders. As I said, I am not interested in the real items, but I'd like to have a chance to be able to have some of the virtual items.

In the end, I suppose one thing VMK taught King and I was that virtual items can be gone in the blink of an eye forever, as can an entire virtual community. We would like the virtual items, but life will go on if we do not get them. Hopefully VFK will rethink some of this, but it may be too late for that now. As of this time, we will not be purchasing this new plan. However, this could change in the future if things change. (or if King starts gassing me until he gets his didgeridoo  )

Hugs to everyone. 

[NotAZoo]

I think the "punch to the gut" summed up the feelings perfectly and it is basically the feeling I had, but couldn't simplify it so well.

Now I am typically a person who avoids conflict at all costs and usually make excuses for people so as to not see fighting or arguements ensue, however what makes it tough is that a big part of me feels like I am being or got conned.    I know I am not being conned and trust that VFK is legit, however the fact that what they did is actually making me feel that way speaks volumes on how bad of a decision this was.   On top of that I don't know how seriously I can take any other offer they may put out in the future.   

At this point VFK needs to provide a "mea culpa" and find a way to win back those it dissapointed, otherwise I am afraid the numbers will dwindle for sure.   Maybe some kids will remain, but those who actually pay for stuff will slowly go another way.

All I can say is, I pray now more than ever for the Second Coming of VMK.     

[Astro]

Well I guess I just interpreted this sentence a different way.  "We are really pleased to be introducing a new land, in conjunction with the help of our friends in Australia, which is planned to open on June 20th."  I always thought it just meant they have a company (people I have no clue who) that live in Australia who work on that land for VFK. 

I did some more searching and came up with this statement from VFK dated 5-24-08.  I don't know, I could take the statement either way too, but now that I found this one, it kinda makes more sense to what I had seen before.  VFK specifically made reference to targeting the Aussie's, that would be joining VFK later.  Sadly I can't find that anywhere, because I think it was posted on their first website, which has now been taken down or changed.

5-24-08:

A Word From Sara

Woot! Is this the greatest community or what? You guys ROCK! But hey, what's this? You DON'T want invisibility magic?  Now there's something I never thought I'd hear!

Thank you all for standing on top of roofs, hanging from walls, being ghosts, moving the "pink couch" incognito, and of course, being the best beta testers ever! You made it possible to create a stable environment in less than three days and we've had an awesome time doing it!

Because we had over 8,000 members online at one time today, we are behind our ambitious schedule, so we are posting a new revised schedule below. Who knew we would have an opportunity to beta test with so many of you at once!

Knowing this great community, you will probably take our servers down again at least a few more times, but we can't wait!

So let's kick this party up a notch, we want to be ready for our "mates" from Australia in June.


Sara

Virtual Family Kingdom:


Revised Schedule:

Sometime this evening:


Friends List
Customize your character (maybe, if not, tomorrow morning)

Sometime tomorrow:


Victorian Setting
Rooms List
Whatever else we have time to do if our servers aren't taken down again.
Mini games if at all possible!

[PrincessWendyBird]

Hello Everyone! Princess here to throw a monkey wrench into the works.   As I have posted already, we have had many emotions going on regarding this new founders membership. Even with that, I never thought the people at VFK were trying to scam us or take the money and run sort of thing. Just my opinion here based on communication we have had with them and the fact that this would be a pretty elaborate scam. So, this evening King called VFK and spoke with them about a few questions we had about the Aussie founders program. I will start by saying we did join this second founders program. We had been waffling all day about this and our phone call this evening sort of sealed the deal I guess. We really were torn all day about what to do here. As many of our friends here know, I am in a wheelchair, and we don't spend as much on an entertainment budget, so online gaming is something we had budgeted in the off chance that VMK became pay to play or we would find another game for our family. I'm sure some of you are questioning our decision and quick turn around. All I can say is once King spoke with them, we decided to go ahead and give it a go. As I said before, this is only our opinion, but I think the intent of VFK was far different than the impact of this package offer.  But, as we have seen, even the most innocent intentions can have an unexpected impact - which I believe is what happened here. King did get some facts to pass along to everyone here.

-Duck.he and Astro were correct. This offer was really something set up for their Australian office to have something to offer for their contribution to the game. Down the line, there are plans for an Australian version of VFK. They are working towards that goal. There will be some cross over in hours and they hope for players to be able to visit both worlds. I'm sorry I did not get details on what that will entail, since this is all still in the works. Inserting my guess here - please note this is only my speculation. It would be my guess that Australian VFK would have tabs based on Australian history with a United States tab - perhaps the opposite of our American history with an Australian tab?

-Also, if you are a founder already, including your current 4 month VIP subscription (assuming you use the extra month for yourself) you will get an extra 4 months added if you choose to purchase the Aussie founder package. This is a bonus month meaning you would have a pre-paid 8 month subscription once they go Gold. This was our understanding of the phone call.

-Just wanted to add that items will be able to be stacked in room building. Sitting was more than they had anticipated as we all thought. The coding of clothes and hair to sit as well as our little folks was more work than expected. Stacking is planned. This may seem of little importance, but to a room builder like myself - I wanted to know if that would be possible in the game with the coding they are using.

I know for many, calling is not an option, but if you can, you should. Especially if you are a current founder. It did take some tries to get through, but once we did Gail and others were more than helpful.

[Happy]

Princess thanks for sharing your findings with us.

Prior to reading your post my thought was that VFK should open a "Founders Store" where the primary founder account holder,  like yourself, could shop and purchase the items for credits, not cash.  Even if they had an item limit it would at least give a non-cash option for those that did already pay.

[awesomepatty-cake]

So let's kick this party up a notch, we want to be ready for our "mates" from Australia in June.  I still took that as talking about the makers of the land I never thought it meant the people of Australia.  As you can see from Princess' post you were right in what you thought.   

[KingQuackATac]

VFK says they will have an Australian version at some point, with their own servers and playing hours, etc. Sounds like the Australian arm of VFK is on a course to make this happen. It was even suggested that they are trying to work with the Australian Zoo (Steve Irwin's) to have an on-line representation of it on the game. I don't know if that means the American or Australian version of VFK would have this, but sounds interesting none the less.

It was also said that there will be player cross-over, like American players able to log-in to the Australian VFK and vice versa.

[Astro]

Quote from the VFK Home Page, under this specific Australian Founder's Membership:  ** There's our answer on when this offer will expire too.  When the boomerangs are gone. **


UPDATE: We were not at liberty to discuss this until now, but we have been in negotiations with one of the sacred aboriginal tribes here in Australia, and have just completed arrangements for them to provide the boomerangs which will be sent to the new members.

The boomerangs are being created by hand by one of the aboriginal elders, as part of a project we are supporting to help aboriginal children.

There are obviously a very limited number of these authentic handcrafted aboriginal boomerangs, and when they are gone we will have to end this offer.