i thought on compiling everything since this is like a News to us on what is happening inside the office of Playfish... IT IS REALLY FASCINATING TO READ. so if you got spare time right now, you have to read these.
the article below is Part I. Part II will be posted next week.... :)
What inspired you guys to create Pet Society?
Most people at Playfish love a wide range of videogames many of which have had some influence... if you’ve ever played something similar perhaps you can spot which!
Have you any intentions of increasing the maximum number of rooms allowed?
Most of you will have noticed that we changed the structure of the house map a few weeks ago. One of the reason for this was to make it easier to increase the maximum number of rooms so it's very possible!
Questions on themes
How far in advance do you have to make decisions about themes?
Is it a team decision on themes or does 1 bossy person get the say?
How long does it take to decide what items to include / leave out of a theme?
Ideas for themes can come from anyone on the Pet Society team, although we have to ensure that a theme will result in items across most of the shops. For example, some themes don’t lead themselves particularly well to a certain class of item (i.e. furniture, DIY, gardening etc.)
For some of the requests (Beatles, Lion King, Back to the Future etc.) there are various licensing issues at play here, so we can’t use these properties without permission unfortunately.
We do keep an eye on the forums though so keep the ideas coming!
WHY DOES HIDEENI OFTEN WEAR PINK COSTUMES?
As Hideeni doesn’t speak, he sometimes feels a little under-appreciated. He’s found by wearing flamboyant pink suits that people pay more attention to him. Having said that, he’s been getting a little bored of pink lately, so expect a change soon!
why wont you give away free cc when pets level up like in all the other fb games?
We’re currently giving away a selection of cash items on the lottery wheel. Stay tuned over xmas and the new year because we have some exciting promotions to announce...
I was wondering why you guy's decided to changed what amount of visiting coins you got once you passed 50 and 75 friends.
We wanted to make the game fairer, so that new users who didn’t have hundreds of PS friends could get up to speed quickly. We’ve made it easier to generate money in other ways for players who have been playing longer. For example, we improved the odds of winning the lottery by ten-fold.
why do they named him "Hideeni" ?
When Hideeni was first dreamed up we were going to make him a master of hiding. So he'd hide in strange places and if you found him he'd give gifts to your friends as a reward. So he was like the Houdini of hiding, or Hideeni. Hideeni has since given up on trying to hide in favour of visiting people's houses in ever more bizarre costumes but the name has stuck.
I would like to know the probability process behind the GMB, can u explain that?
Items in the mystery boxes are divided into groups. Each of these groups has a weight which determines their rarity. Currently the Expensive Mystery Box has items in two groups. One of these groups has an 80% change of being picked and the other has a 20% chance.
Can you make all cc items giftable?
Making Playfish Cash items giftable only at purchase is a method to prevent hacking.
Why did Pf never update the cooking feature after the seasonal recipes last year?
Simply because we’ve focused on other features that have proved more popular. This doesn’t mean we won’t update cooking at some point in the future though.
When are you going to release the one simple feature: Send items in a BULK?
This is a good idea and will be discussed.
Why is the limit 20,000 item why cant their be no limit?
The current limit is to ensure everyone's games continue to play as efficiently as possible and prevent lag. Every virtual item takes up a little piece of space on the servers too... so if we allowed people to gather as many as they want it could get bad for everyone on the server, fast.
We would advise player’s to keep a little below this limit if you have an older computer, to ensure the game runs smoothly.
Are the developers all girls? Or are they guys fixated on "everything girly?"
The team is roughly 50% male 50% female. We create items based on what has sold well in the past and requests from players rather than solely the developers' personal interests. Having said that, the team are all PS players and fans, so have a good idea of what will work well.
I was wondering if people in the art department communicate with the programmers?
I also wonder why many of the newer items have so few surfaces programmed on them - there are loads of examples: the canopies on beds, the edges of fountains, etc?
The art team and the programmers sit opposite each other, so there’s continuous communication. We take your point about the surfaces, and will aim to improve upon this. Sometimes, due to the fast pace at which the art team work, these things sadly get missed.
Is the same designing team the one from 2008, 2009 and 2010? How many have u had?
All of the original Playfish artists still work here, but with so many games and items needing to be made, we've had to employ a lot more over the years.
Do you guys really read the Feedback forum and how do you choose which ideas get added in the game?
Yes we do. Ideas are discussed in various meetings, issues are considered, we think about what our players will think of the ideas... then they're developed. It can be a long process.
I want to ask the why don't PF makes a weekly "pre-release" to a few REAL PS PLAYERS, of the new items, features, etc. so they can be aware about the glitches, etc. and fix them before they items are released to the general public?
Easy answer - the game updates are sometimes released within hours of us finishing them. This is the reason why things can change between previews in the blog and the final live version. For example, features may be pulled at the last minute if they don’t pass our quality control. We do this in order to release the game on time.
Have you considered release a Pet Society App for iphone or ipad? I know the game it's based on flash, just wondering if there is any chance to relese of the game in another plataform.
Agree. It would be great to see Pet Society on other platforms. We’ll let you know if we have any future announcements regarding this.
Also, are there any plans/talks to make Pet Society an independent game without the need of a facebook account?
Not at the moment I’m afraid.
when will the evolving cash items like innocent bunny, robin etc. become tradable?
We have no plans for this at present.
will you try to make game run smoothly for players with older pcs too?
We’re always trying to improve the performance of the game. Some recommendations for users with older PCs are as follows:
- Use the latest version of flash player, and a modern web browser (like Chrome)
- Pet Society uses a fair amount of memory, for an old PC, so it’s worth closing other games and programs that are running at the same time.
- Clear your chest of old items. Users who are approaching the 20,000 item limit may run into performance problems.
