Well...now that Flame has had a full night sleep, he can think more clearly...which could be dangerous
LOL.
I enjoy the forum here. I can vent when I need to...and I feel that being able to vent is a healthy thing (as long as it's not a full time brooding/hobby/way of life, lol). I try to post pro/con whenever I deem necessary depending on what my personal opinion is. The lack of sleep and stress from the past few days has made this forum a very welcome place to share/yell/bark/etc. with others. It was therapeutic to be able to come here and blow off steam. Some may consider the type of posting that occurs here to be 'bad publicity'. Call it what you will...I call it 'raw posting'
One could also call it 'freedom of speech' and 'freedom of thought'...
I think VFK is in what I call a 'chase their tail' situation. They have limited resources. They need more capital. The best way to get more money is to turn the 'free players' into 'paying members' (and for them to tell their friends about VFK). Sadly...if those 'free players' can't access the game...or are frustrated enough to stop playing...many of those people will probably not invest in VFK. The fact that there was SUCH a server issue during the Halloween holiday period leads me to believe that they didn't have the $$$ to make more servers available for the game. They HAD to have known that they'd be swamped during the Halloween holiday (I can't imagine they didn't expect the numbers that played during the period). As you can see...this goes full circle. Lack of $$$...less servers...lag/no access to game...unhappy players...less paying members....repeat. I'm not sure if VFK is still in the 'start up phase' or not. Last I heard (and what most players were led to believe) was that VFK was in the countdown to go 'Gold'. Is it? I told people when VFK started that 'countdown' that they weren't even close to 'Gold'. 6 months to a year is what I told them (much to their disagreement, LOL). And so here we are...not knowing WHERE VFK is at in the process of becoming a 'Gold' status game.
The communication problem is also a continuous sore spot for me. Why VFK chooses to make SO much more work for themselves is beyond my comprehension. Example: no defined amount of rooms to complete before reaching each prize for the trick or treating. No running counter of rooms visited or rooms remaining till the next prize. Not even any mention at all of a 'gold pumpkin' as THE prize! People seem to nearly always have to find things out while playing VFK by word of mouth...or by sheer accident (exchange program anyone?). You can imagine how many help reports they received from people wondering why they didn't get a 'gold pumpkin'. Insisting they got all the rooms. Holy...I can't imagine. Why do that to themselves? It makes no sense to me whatsoever. No mention of 'party favors' for the balls...until some people logged off for the night. The list goes on and on. Did they do some amazing things for Halloween? OMG YES! Could they have done it SO much better...and made it a pleasurable experience for the players and staff members by communicating correctly and timely? Again: I say OMG YES! However...a very easy way to stress out a person is to put something very pretty and possibly rare out in front of them...and make it nearly impossible to get at. THAT....is frustration. Repeat that feeling/situation for each 'family member'...and you can see how unhappy people can get. The trick or treating could have been fun. For me...it wasn't. When I log onto VFK, I expect the game to come up. When I click on something (or say something which is required for something else to happen), I expect something to happen right away...not minutes later. The ball starts...the lag goes through the roof and people can't get on game or go anywhere. People can't get into their inventory or closets for most of the holiday period. Need I go on? I guess to sum it up: I love the items I got over the holiday period and the way things looked...and I have the scars to prove it!
Seriously, I love VFK. It is like a home for me. It's certainly a much-needed outlet for myself and my family. We do pay to play and have multiple memberships to support the game. We even doubled those memberships for a 1-month period last month. I don't pay for things that I haven't taken a liking to. I seriously hope that VFK will survive. Life for me and my family would be pretty dull without it...although we'd still have our wonderful friends from VFK.
I'm trying to be optimistic that the holiday that just passed was just a 'freak'/'mistake'/whatever. I sincerely hope it wasn't the type of thing we will have to deal with from now on during other holidays with VFK.
Flame...here we go again...tonight having problems getting on game....inventory won't load...isn't Halloween over?