Harvest Moon Forever: Attitudes of Game Creators Inspire Loyalty

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Attitudes of Game Creators Inspire Loyalty

I would like to believe that a good attitude and a good response by a game creator in the face of an obvious error would inspire loyalty in players while acknowledging that it cannot override the essential entertainment quality or value of the game itself.

Fantasy Kingdoms have experienced a multitude of problems in the past few days. Free Gifts would not transfer, players could not visit other Kingdoms and often a player would apply to the Wishing Well in vain... Three months old, they obviously still are working on their game, but I have to admit that their willingness to admit to a fault and to compensate their players is admirable.

A few moments ago, when accessing my Kingdom, I received a message:

'We are sorry for all of the Maigc Storms and Fairy Dust lately. As a part of the Kingdoms Loyalty Programme, I have placed a very special Mana Chest in your Giftbox.

Love, Harmony.'

Contrast this with Farmville's response to an even greater series of disasters for players yesterday. Where Farmville is concerned, players have lost Animals, Barns, Gifts and other Items. Items placed on a player's land have vanished (permanently it seems) and the only response AFTER almost a full day of problems was that 'Farmville is aware of issues with loading Farmville and are actively working to resolve them'.

I personally lost a number of Gifts as well as a Japanese Trellis that Farmville gave me when I completed my Japanese Barn. I set the Trellis on my land today, having read a message from Zynga to the effect that the problems had been resolved and it vanished into thin air. Clearing my cache and reloading the game twice did not resolve 'the issue'... I would be much surprised if Farmville gave its loyal followers any compensation at all, let alone compensation equal to that given by Fantasy Kingdoms.

No comments:

For all Harvest Moon fans and players

As Freyashawk, I have written about 150 guides for games, most of which have been guides for Harvest Moon games. These are published on IGN. IGN has given me the title of 'Mistress of Harvest Moon' and I strive daily to earn the right to maintain that title. Although there is a link page on IGN that lists all the guides published there, they are not organised by game, but rather given in alphabetical order. I therefore created this page in order to provide links to the guides I have created for each Harvest Moon game. If you access the General Guide for any game, links should be included to all other guides for that game in a section at the end. I will try to add links to ALL guides as time permits, but until I do, you always can refer to my user page at IGN for the complete list.

I wrote the Official Strategy Guide for Tree of Tranquility for BradyGames as well.
Harvest Moon Forever!

How to Use my Guides

I write three different basic types of game guides. I usually write a General Guide for every game, which is fairly comprehensive and deals with all aspects of the game. It may or may not be in the form of a Walkthrough, dealing with game aspects as they occur. My Innocent Life General Guide is an example of a General Guide that is organised as a Walkthrough.

After writing a General Comprehensive Guide, I often write a Calendar Guide giving birthday and festival dates, with additional information that may be helpful, such as favourite gifts for each individual. For all Harvest Moon games, I usually write a number of 'mini-guides', such as Events Guides for each year of gameplay, or Recipe Guides that give all recipes one can make. Fishing, Mining, Shipping or Item Value Guides are other mini-guides that can be very useful when playing Harvest Moon. Character Guides give detailed information about every character in any specific game. My Courtship and Marriage Guide is devoted to all aspects of Courtship and Marriage, including schedules of Heart Events, Rival Heart Events and the likes and dislikes of every Eligible Girl and/or Bachelor.

Although this site is devoted to Harvest Moon, I have included links to game guides for other games. I created a separate link section for Animal Crossing Wild World as well, because I wrote more than one guide for that game.

N.B. All my game guides are published by IGN. This webpage has been created simply to allow players to find links to all my guides more easily.

Copyright Infringement Warning

It is really sad to discover that there are individuals who are willing to steal my guides and to attempt to publish them under their names. Fortunately, there are many players who recognise my guides when they see them anywhere on the internet and who are willing to alert me when some one tries to steal my material. I want to thank all those players for their help in these cases.

Some one stole one of my guides and tried to publish it on Gamefaqs under his/her name. The guide has been removed and the poster has been banned. I now have a contact in the Legal Department at CNet. I spend many months sometimes writing a guide. They are available for the private use of any individual without cost, but they are not available for theft!
If you want permission to include a link to one of my guides on your site, please contact me directly.

Friends of Mineral Town and More Friends of Mineral Town

You will notice that I wrote far more guides for More Friends of Mineral Town than I did for the original 'Friends of Mineral Town'. At some point, I would like to publish more specific Events Guides for Friends of Mineral Town, but players should be aware of the fact that ALL Calendar Events Guides for MFoMT can be used when playing the original FoMT. The Events are the same in most cases in both games. If, therefore, you are playing FoMT and you wish to know the events that can be experienced in the third year of gameplay, refer to the 'Third Year Calendar Events Guide' for 'More Friends of Mineral Town'.