Bigger isn't always better.....

So...the word from Zynga is that soon our gift box in FarmVille will have a capacity increase from 200 to 500.  While the recent increase earlier this year from 50 to 200 was fairly welcome, it was not without it's caveats - and the increase to 500 is just going to multiply those problems.  I know a lot of you are really excited about this change, but wait a few moments to break out the bubbly, O Ye Of Short Memory...

Five Reasons the Increase to 500 is a Bad Idea

1.  This will encourage players to keep items in their gift box longer, using it as virtual storage...and then lose them.

One of the number one complaints I see on the feed come from players who have lost things from their gift box.  They make purchases, accept free gifts, collect things from the feed, etc., and then start whining that their things either did not appear in the gift box or disappeared after a refresh.

The gift box is perhaps the most unsafe place to store something in the game, period.  It is second only to the neighboring system as the most poorly written and executed piece of code in the entire game, and it's performance backs that up well.  Keep in mind that the gift box also allocates workspace for the game, which is why the game gets so pissy when you're approaching your limit.  Opening mystery eggs, mystery gifts, special delivery boxes, etc., all rely on having open slots available in this module to function properly.  There have also been suggestions that your relative gift box free space has been linked to things like breeding, calf and egg production, and other things in which the game requires temporary work space.

The gift box was always intended as a transition space.  The lesson to walk away with is this:  If it's valuable to you and not expendable, don't leave it in the gift box.  Stick it on your farm or in storage.

2.  Consumable items are going to be harder to come by on the feed.

With this much extra storage space, folks are going to naturally collect more from the feed and hang on to them.  If you think it's difficult to grab a 'Fertilize all' or a set of Arborists now, just wait until the increase goes into effect.  If you play the game actively, you only need a few of these on hand anyway.

3.  The insane snag bar people will become even more insane with their indiscriminate use of the bar.

With a limit of 200, these wingnuts pretty much got cut off shortly after that quantity.  Now more than double that amount, and try collecting a Mystery Egg or a Collection Item by clicking on the feed.  You're going to have better odds going out to the nearest 7-11 and buying a scratch-off lottery ticket.

Yes, yes, the Dark Side will spew forth the old, tired argument that this gizmo only checks the feed once every 60 seconds, but that's just THEIR Snag Bar.  If you have more than 60 folks running this thing and they are timed properly, you've got someone sucking the life out of your posts once every SECOND.  You don't think these things synchronize themselves to the same beat, do you?

4.  It's going to cause farms to stop loading and go Out of Sync.

I put this one in here only because EVERY change Zynga makes does this.  I can't remember the time they actually implemented a material change in the game and it didn't cause somebody heartache and grief.

5.  People will be spending even MORE time cleaning out their gift box.

That's less neighbor visits (which now officially take the lowest priority in the game for most players), less fertilization, less XP, and less efficiency in the game.

Stop 'enhancing' stuff and just FIX it!

If Zynga was truly interested in improving the gifting system (and let there be no illusion here: Zynga is not interested in ANYTHING that doesn't increase their 'numbers') they would:

• Allow us to re-gift ANYTHING, just like we can do in most other Zynga games.  If I have things in YoVille or Mafia Wars, I can pretty much send them to whoever I want - even, in some instances, if I paid decent cash for them.  I have more stuff in storage than I could ever fit in a 50x50 farm, and some of it I would love to give away...not sell for a minuscule fraction of what I paid for it.  We should be able to re-gift anything we collect or anything that's in a storage medium of any kind.  If I want to send you my combine, I should be able to do that.  I paid for it, I built it, it should be mine to do with as I please.

• Allow us to mass delete items from the gift box without having to 'sell all'.  Because the gifting system is set up as a very selective, reciprocal system, you have to accept myriads of things you don't want just to return them (because we all know that despite having any sense, people send what they want back instead of just asking for it). It takes a lot of time to sell off 60 "Special Delivery" boxes individually - time that could be better spent helping neighbors, breeding, truffle hunting or anything else that needs to be done.

• Knock off with the slow-ass popups when we 'use' a collection item.  I already KNOW I accepted it, I just clicked on it two seconds ago.  I already KNOW it's a limited time collection.  If you must keep these pop-ups, for the love of all things holy speed them up.  It's like it was written so a dyslexic third grader has time to read each one of them.

• Improve their system architecture to do away with the 24-48 hour waiting period while they verify your 'friend' status with another user, or prevent people from sending you things during that time period.  I'm good with either one of these, although I will point out that I can add someone in almost any other Zynga game and send them things immediately - things they will actually get and not experience the 'gift not found' error.

Who's got the A-1?

So, Farmers...while many of you may be looking forward to the increase to 500, I see it as too little, too late, and that's very much by design.  If you feed someone dog food every day, they're going to be excited when you decide to give them hamburger - it's a natural reaction.

It would just be nice if they'd carve up one of those Longhorns I found in my Animal Trough and feed us all Prime Rib.  Don't we deserve that?

Happy Farming!

Farmer Brown

Want some more critters to fill up that gift box? Check out Sharing Foals and Calves!