Capricious Rule Change

From Dictionary.com:






ca⋅pri⋅cious

[kuh-prish-uhs, -pree-shuhs] 




–adjective
1.
subject to, led by, or indicative of caprice or whim; erratic:





I have had it up to here with the idiots at Tribal DDB, Hasbro and whatever team of 4th graders they let loose on developing the game of Monopoly City Streets. Here is what set me off, in full, below:

Deflation Hits the Streets



As promised, we have been working to combat foul play in the game and have begun correcting anomalies which have been used by a few to inflate their MONOPOLY City Streets coffers.


Last week, in the interest of adding more excitement to game play, we increased the value of many of the streets when we relaunched the game. However, as a result, rental income on the most expensive streets grew exponentially. During the past 24 hours, we have adjusted the rental income multiplier to correct overinflated rents which some have exploited in their quest to become a real estate mogul.


We did not take away any income from the past several days, but you will notice that starting at the most recent payday, you did receive reduced rents on your buildings. Over the course of several days, this adjustment will once again level the playing field among all players.


The incentive to buy bigger – and more expensive – streets remains overall, as those streets have more potential for development (and thus more rent) over the course of the game. So, you may have to adjust your buying and building strategy and begin negotiating with other players to get to the higher levels of the game.


We apologize for not posting the update about rent before the change was made to the game. But, we are confident that this change will be in the best interest of all players.


Next up in the quest to combat cheaters: deletion of accounts.



Source: Monopoly City Streets Blog (I swiped the whole thing because I now no longer trust them not to try some serious Memory Hole deleting of posts whole sale at this point.


Commentary (parts of it I have posted on forums and other blogs as I vented)



I love Monopoly and I love maps. This game managed to bring the two together, and I have immensely enjoyed playing this game. 


The development team (as well as the people who manage them) has some very serious issues, and it has been obvious from the start. I can give them a few false starts, but my first clue these guys didn't have a clue what they were doing when they instituted the tax system along with a rent payment system that completely negated what the tax was for...even if I don't agree with the tax. If I can't ever own more than 20 streets without losing money, why am I playing this game? 


Certainly not to create a Real Estate Empire, or be a Real Estate Mogul. 


Anyone with a Junior High education should have saw the exponential growth of income that resulted from the rent multiplier...and them stealing (Yes, I said stealing) a day's rent to fix a problem THEY CREATED without telling us in advance. My strategy for yesterday's turn would have been totally different had I known in advance what they were planning. 


I would like to suggest that the people in charge of developing the fundamentals of this game should pick up a book on Game Theory and Mechanism Design. The game is still broken and I wonder if anyone involved with this project ever graduated high school. 


The game is still salvageable but, at this point, I have little confidence anyone at Tribal DDB or Hasbro can fix it.   


I am certain that there are people out there who see the same things I do, and they are hard at work developing better games that use the data from the Open Street Map. 



I'll keep playing for the next few days, but my play will be overshadowed with an ever present worry that the idiot game developers are about to make another change that will invalidate everything I have worked for...and then call me a cheater because I am better at math or strategy than they are.


I can see them changing rules and adjusting formulas...but good grief...to do it without telling us in advance, and not paying out rent that the players had worked for? 


This reminds me of the fiasco of Amazon stealing copies of 1984 from the Kindles that people had bought. That move has forever removed the Kindle from my list of things to be purchased...and raised a serious concern that I may not buy any other eReader because of it. 


Before this rule change on how these knuckleheads calculate our rent payouts, I was looking forward to purchasing a copy of City Streets. Not anymore. Game play will have to be much improved before I'll be giving hasbro my hard-earned dollars. 


I am hoping that someone comes up with an open source version of this game that actually works and gives players the incentive to achieve rather than be punished for understanding the game and taking the trouble to develop winning strategies.

0 comments:

Post a Comment