twitter, facebook, e-mail?

[Neebio]

Personally I don't mind the new buttons, so long as they arn't so big and obnoxious. However the concept behind them, not sure if its going to be worth the change. I realize its all marketing and advertising for the game, however I'm quite sure most designs that get saved are mostly solutions for player made levels, making the viewing of the majority of twitter/facebook linked designs unviewable by most people. This will probably mean that people will just find the links to them on facebook or twitter annoying and pointless, reducing their chances of visiting.

Possibly only enable the buttons on designs saved from free levels? this would mean all designs linked to the social sites would be viewable by all people.

Something to consider.

[Linkzcap]

My own thoughts:

Why would you need to "twitter" this or "facebook" this if you already have a link to the design, like resetxc said? Also, why would you need to send a design to someone on one of those websites? Really, the forum is more of a place to share designs and I doubt any of your friends care.

I am not sure on how either of those sites work but are these extra buttons really necessary? AGAIN, FC is amazing because of its simplicity. Don't ruin that.

[Paleo8]

Yeah most my friends just don't find the fun in FC like I do. If the buttons were in the shape of a disc dog they might look.... I'm not sure whats wrong with them..

[JaredR26]

I was never unclear of why you guys put it there. If people really wanted to make the effort to share their designs with people on twitter or facebook they could just copy the link anyways. Adding buttons into the game is almost an insult to a players intelligence.

Like I said: Obnoxious and Unneeded


I personally don't care if they stay or go, but I want you guys to realize that it wasn't worth changing.

I believe you vastly underestimate the laziness of most people, and overestimate the average intelligence. Of course it makes perfect sense to you, but you have a much higher than average intelligence. Even among the forums a very small percentage of active forum members fit the profile of the average FC player.

Think about it from the perspective of the random joe that comes in, plays the game, never sees the forums. They do something cool and they want to show it off to their friends, along with a neat game. They are far too lazy and uninvested to care to copy a link and make a facebook post, if the thought even occurred to them. The facebook button does all of that for them in 3 clicks. If its annoying to you but makes the game that much more popular and successful, isn't that worth it?

In addition, I believe this will tie in quite nicely with a feature that is coming soon to the upcoming new FC version.

[resetxc]

I was never unclear of why you guys put it there. If people really wanted to make the effort to share their designs with people on twitter or facebook they could just copy the link anyways. Adding buttons into the game is almost an insult to a players intelligence.

Like I said: Obnoxious and Unneeded


I personally don't care if they stay or go, but I want you guys to realize that it wasn't worth changing.

I believe you vastly underestimate the laziness of most people, and overestimate the average intelligence. Of course it makes perfect sense to you, but you have a much higher than average intelligence. Even among the forums a very small percentage of active forum members fit the profile of the average FC player.

Think about it from the perspective of the random joe that comes in, plays the game, never sees the forums. They do something cool and they want to show it off to their friends, along with a neat game. They are far too lazy and uninvested to care to copy a link and make a facebook post, if the thought even occurred to them. The facebook button does all of that for them in 3 clicks. If its annoying to you but makes the game that much more popular and successful, isn't that worth it?

In addition, I believe this will tie in quite nicely with a feature that is coming soon to the upcoming new FC version.

As long as you can show me some numbers that prove that this change has made the game more popular and successful I will stop complaining.

[pavlovscow]

Hey resetxc,

Your opinion is important regardless of the numbers. Of course, we monitor the numbers and we do want to make decisions, updates and changes that improve fan involvement and growth of the game.

That said, if it was just numbers, then we wouldn't learn the reasons why it was or wasn't successful, which is why we follow these forums. I think there are some good comments here that can be incorporated in improving features or readdressing our assumptions on upcoming features.

Thanks for the comments.

[zhyrek]

What? Did the make coffee function not get heard? You didn't think it was important enough?!? D:

[pavlovscow]

We are currently in negotiations with several coffee vendors. More news hopefully soon.

[betcha]

My hat's off to you pavlovscow, your handling this crisis very well.

If you get the coffee thing going, could it be adapted for beer too?

[zhyrek]

And soda fountains! :D

[resetxc]

I don't mean to complain so much, I am mostly just playing devil's advocate.

This change will probably get more people to share the game with others.

We are now missing digg it links and stumble upon stuff.

I understand you guys want more publicity and because of that more money...but what comes next?

[tmusquiez]

I don't think they're any use at all. I don't even show anyone my designs outside of those who have already played the game. And even if I show people who happen to ask about the game, I browse through the Manage My Designs page and pick out some decent solves I have.

Posting your solves to your facebook or twitter constantly would be as annoying as every other group/application that's been made. And I sure as heck don't want a notification saying: "So-and-so beat this level. Click here to see!!" only to find I have to add an app.

[IGLima]

I agree with reset.
I don't like the new buttons, mainly because I don't use facebook and twitter much (and I'm not lazy) and they seem to add some lag.
But whatever. Seems the general public likes them.

[Wafflekins]

I love how it goes from them being cool and new to them being useless and obnoxious

Either way I'm sure they pose at least a bit of purpose to some people that are playing FC. And I guess that's all that matters. Making it easier for people of the average IQ

[semyri]

however I'm quite sure most designs that get saved are mostly solutions for player made levels, making the viewing of the majority of twitter/facebook linked designs unviewable by most people. This will probably mean that people will just find the links to them on facebook or twitter annoying and pointless, reducing their chances of visiting.

Why not allow people to at least view the designs of paid levels but not allow them to modify them. You could grey out the build buttons and only allow the start and stop functions to work. Then people would be able to see all the new stuff that having a paid account offers.
This way it would not be stupid to post a facebook or twitter announcement of a good level, because everyone would be able to see it. It might even get more people to buy it, if they could see some of the levels the full version offered.

[JaredR26]

I agree with reset.
I don't like the new buttons, mainly because I don't use facebook and twitter much (and I'm not lazy) and they seem to add some lag.
But whatever. Seems the general public likes them.

They don't actually add any lag. Thats something else that's a side effect of our update. We're working on tracking it down to fix it.

[VERYDUMBNAME]

Personally I don't mind the new buttons, so long as they arn't so big and obnoxious. However the concept behind them, not sure if its going to be worth the change. I realize its all marketing and advertising for the game, however I'm quite sure most designs that get saved are mostly solutions for player made levels, making the viewing of the majority of twitter/facebook linked designs unviewable by most people. This will probably mean that people will just find the links to them on facebook or twitter annoying and pointless, reducing their chances of visiting.

Possibly only enable the buttons on designs saved from free levels? this would mean all designs linked to the social sites would be viewable by all people.

Something to consider.

very good point, only let people do it for the free ones or make them all free

[pavlovscow]

Why not allow people to at least view the designs of paid levels but not allow them to modify them. You could grey out the build buttons and only allow the start and stop functions to work. Then people would be able to see all the new stuff that having a paid account offers.
This way it would not be stupid to post a facebook or twitter announcement of a good level, because everyone would be able to see it. It might even get more people to buy it, if they could see some of the levels the full version offered.

I think this is an excellent idea. It may be bit of time before we could implement it, but exactly the kind of concept we are looking for. People should be able to share their awesome contraptions, with anyone.

[zhyrek]

Like instead of "designID" it could be "viewID"

[sk89q]

It would be great if FC had that feature! I've always wondered why you couldn't do it. People (including myself) have gotten around the problem by making videos, but that is obviously not an ideal (or painless) solution.