Board Thread:Tips and Tricks/@comment-174.89.101.54-20130611204356

I want to begin by saying that though I started this game because of my girlfriend, I found breeding dragons and battling them to be quite fun, and ended up sticking with the game to level 17 so far. I like the game and think for what it is (a facebook game that are notoriously awful) it's pretty fun. But there are a few severe issues I am having difficulty looking past, that I think will inevitably cause me to quit the game some time in the near future. I was wondering if I am the only one who feels this way? Given I don't use or like facebook (gaming or otherwise), I was wondering what the frequent users standards are, and since so many games have these same issues, is it something that is just generally excepted, much like the terribly low literacy level of the so-called "social communication platform" that has taken over much of the internet?

Let's start with the most obvious and wide spread problems that go beyond Dragon City to all facebook games. Horrible grammar and endless spelling mistakes. I know many of the companies developing facebook games appear to be private investor style companies, like a small side project to main stream, or stand-alone games. And I realise that a good deal of the creators are probably foreign (not that it matters, no hate here) but why is it not a single game I've come across on facebook is without a plethora of these simple grammatical errors through every aspect of the game from menus to titles and buttons, to even the advertisements trying to promote the games? Facebook already suffers from a deficiency in the quality of its communication, what with textual lingo taking over and what not, but why do paid for games and what should otherwise be a professional (term used very lightly here) product follow suit? Sentences like "Come play best cutest MMO game here ever with pretty music to all your friends playing." or " Choose from lots of weapon to defeat the good vs evil war against demon" are too much to handle. They want to make money, but aren't delivering the quality that would indicate value. But whatever, I've spent too long on this topic alone, back to Dragon City, which isn't too bad for these particular errors.

Next, let's talk about advertisement and "sharing" in game. I fully understand that to sell a product, you require good advertisement techniques so as many people as possible see it. Advertising in the world has already reached a point of invasive rudeness that makes it impossible for one to avoid, regardless of how hard you try. However, when you make a game (and again, almost every facebook game does this) that literally forces you to "share" the fact that you just found a crying baby elf, three times in a row, every time you log on, just to potentially receive some unseen benefit, that to me is nothing less than harassment. Not just to the player, but to everyone else who has to see these consistent updates to their news feed, but wants nothing to do with it. This issue ties right in with the fact that these games make it necessary to personally harass your friends to join a game they likely don't care about in hopes you can get the help needed just to progress. The whole gems for money deal, sure, every free-to-play game out there uses a similar tactic because, yes, they do need to make money to continue the production on their game. So I am fine with the gem system, despite they also bug you constantly to spend gems you're likely struggling to get for free on useless things like speeding up a 50 second build time, or an unneeded quest line.

Due to the already hefty length of what is turning out to sound like quite a hateful review, I will try and summarise the Dragon City issues not so prevalent in other Facebook games a little quicker. I do like Dragon City and think it has potential to get better. The above topics are just something I strongly believe need to be re-evaluated.

So, first for Dragon Cities personal issues, as many of you have probably found frustrating and some have likely seen in posts before...the elemental weakness vs. strength discrepancies. When it comes to such ridiculous novelty dragons like the "Soccer" or worse yet, "Mojito" dragons, I can see where determining strengths and weaknesses could become confusing and rather difficult. Yet, when it comes to the fundamental elements (the very building blocks of life), which most of the dragons try to fit into, there are some things that just need to remain true. You all know what I'm talking about now. Fire vs. Water especially. Yeah, water on a fire dragon does a critical. Good. Who's idea was it to make a fire attack critical on a water based dragon? This is fundamentally flawed. Fire DOES NOT WORK AGAINST WATER. This should be common sense (or practical knowledge despite the fact it is not common anymore). This is the most vivid example, but many of the weaknesses and strengths Desperately need to be reconsidered. I doubt this will happen, given I've read posts about this issue from mid 2012 and nothing has changed as of yet, but for the game to get better, and encourage even more people to play, this is one of the key steps that need to be taken.

This isn't as big of an issue by any means, but Dragon City is the first and only "city building" style game I've ever seen where buying in bulk becomes More expensive. Food being 250 gold for 25 units, then jumping to 1000 gold for 75 units, despite the growing time, is harsh and unnecessary to say the least. Even in reality (which I know I shouldn't compare to a fantasy game but can't help myself) you buy in bulk to save money. If buying one TV was $1000 and a company wanted 1000 TV's they would get a discount. That's just how an economy works. It helps everyone on all sides. No one would go out and buy 1000 TV's worth $1000 a piece for a grand total of say $7,500,000 knowing full well they would only cost 1,000,000 if bought separately! They would just laugh at you and go and buy them one at a time. So, some of these numbers need to be tweaked as well to add a little logic to game play, which I feel would create a more pleasurable and intuitive experience.

Anyhow, this is starting to turn into a seriously long rant that I didn't want it to come across as, for I want the game to succeed. I just hate to invest so much of my time into a virtual experience only to feel cheated later on. I'm sure many other feel the same. Despite the fact that there is more I could go on about, most of the main issues I think I have covered and so i'll end this here. I would really like to know if I am alone in these thoughts, for most things I read on the game are nothing but satisfied players, who have just adjusted to strange elemental logic, or who are lucky enough to have enough facebook "friends" that actually play the game to not get hung up every time they want to build an Ice Habitat, and instead need to pay gems instead. 