Tired of the errors

[Jamz87SS]

4th day straight of non stop errors. White screens, broken links, locked up reload screens. Freezing, not being able to accept gifts, Not being able to fight dragons Wrong links coming up on call to arms post. many more, too many to list! I love the updates, I love the new content, if it means that I can't play the game though, then you can keep it!!! Please fix this game soon.

[BillOsler]

I agree. Castle Age has been UNBELIEVABLY buggy the last few days.

[Narcissa]

Ditto, I agree with everything you have said. I am getting so frustrated with having to try a dozen times through different links to get into CA and then having to refresh without sucess everytime I open a new page :(

[Dayman107]

I don't mind bearing with them while they work out the bugs. The new content is really awesome, and worth a little bit of extra patience.

[Lady Anne]

Worth a little bit of patience? Oh please. Ever since I began playing Castle Age or any of the Facebook games, I've always gotten White Pages, Page Load Errors, Slow Page Reloads, etc. Many times the page never reloads at all and even if you try again, you can't get to where you want to go.

I'm sick of all the Facebook applications. They've had months to fix these annoying bugs and have done absolutely NOTHING! Oh, but they expect you to spend your real-life money on Favor Points and other useless crap.

Castle Age used to be one of the better applications in the Facebook family, but no more. Now Castle Age is probably the worst. I can't even get to my Castle Age Home Page most of the time to get my Demi Power Points.

I find myself not even logging in to Castle Age anymore and who wants to spend an hour or more selecting all those useless gifts. No thank you. They have ruined a once great game by continually adding buggy elements which not only slow the game down but make it less fun to play. :mad:

[Dayman107]

Of course it sucks! Everything sucks!

I expect nothing but negativity from these message boards. Perhaps you should quit playing.

[Logret]

Right there with ya. Even though the new stuff is great, would help if I could simply play the game.
However I would like to point out I usually don't have this problem with the other apps I use on FB, just this one. CA is my favorite but this constant delay, especially now that they have added a time sensitive element, is incredibly frustrating.
Please fix what is wrong so that I can fully enjoy this app again.

[Dayman107]

Hehe, I was actually being facetious.

The developers will work the bugs out. They'll figure it out, but they need a little time to figure it out.

I'm okay with that, since the additional content is really cool. Considering the costs associated to create a program like this, it's a tremendous benefit to still be able to play this game for free. If enough people pay for favor points, the developers will make enough money to hire more programmers and the bugs will be fixed that much sooner.

[Lady Anne]

Hehe, I was actually being facetious.

The developers will work the bugs out. They'll figure it out, but they need a little time to figure it out.

I'm okay with that, since the additional content is really cool. Considering the costs associated to create a program like this, it's a tremendous benefit to still be able to play this game for free. If enough people pay for favor points, the developers will make enough money to hire more programmers and the bugs will be fixed that much sooner.Why would anyone pay a single dime for a game that is unplayable. I'm glad you're such an optimist, Dayman, believing that the devs will iron out the bugs. None of the other FB games, including Castle Age, have ironed out a single bug; and if you write to them about the errors, they just send you a generic reply and nothing is ever done about the bugs. They have plenty of time and resources to implement game-slowing extras but never correct a single error!

You are correct Dayman, I have quit playing Castle Age and I believe many more people will too when they realize they can't even access the Castle Age Home Page to get their Demi Power points and rewards. I get more white pages and page load errors than actual Castle Age pages. That makes the game unplayable!

When I first started playing Castle Age a few months ago it worked better than most of the other FB apps. Now, for the last couple of weeks, when they initiated the new Battle System, it has become just awful.

Why would the developers implement another memory gobbling element like the Dragon Monsters when they haven't even fixed the bugs associated with the Battle System?

So far I have quit playing the following FB applications due to page load errors and other bugs which render these games unplayable and no fun: Robin Hood, Castle Age, Pirates, Farmville, Farm Town, Age of Chivalry, Guardians of Light, Realm of Shadows, School of Magic, Dragon Wars, & Lil Green Patch.

[jletcher18]

so if you quit playing, why do you feel the need to come here and complain about it?

this game is not even a year old. they are still updating and making changes. of course there are going to be issues. one could also learn to deal with it, and think of how far a head of the curve they will be when it is all done.

or not.

[lvaldean]

Between the gift receipt process that takes at nearly 1 minute per gift, the battle screen, and now the dragon; lets just say that this game is quickly becoming one of the worst.

I thought I would give Castle Age the benefit of the doubt. Yesterday FB was having problems so to make up for it I and hopefully kill the stupid dragon within the time limit I would just buy some points and spend it on stamina. I spent $50 in real dollars, should be plenty one would think. But nope, not even close.

There is now less than 12 hours less since I was unable to access the game even once yesterday. I have expended every bit of the energy purchased and each time I leveled up I increased my stamina first to give me even a better shot at this. Despite all of this effort and the effort of others, despite nearly 1,000,000 points damage on the gold dragon he is barely half way dead.

It is 11:17 pm time for bed. So I guess he won't die. I won't spend any more real money on this game, not to make up for facebook bugs or the game bugs. :mad:

[Lady Anne]

so if you quit playing, why do you feel the need to come here and complain about it?

this game is not even a year old. they are still updating and making changes. of course there are going to be issues. one could also learn to deal with it, and think of how far a head of the curve they will be when it is all done.

or not.I come here to vent my concerns because Castle Age used to be my favorite FB game. Maybe if enough people complain instead of making excuses for them, like you're doing, they might actually fix something.

So this game isn't even a year old yet. I find it ironic that Castle Age (and all of the Facebook apps.) are so outrageously buggy; but they still keep on hounding everyone to invite people to play. And then to add insult to injury, they expect us to pay real money for games that aren't finished and of shoddy quality?

One more question 'letch' … Why in the world are the developers and programmers of Castle Age implementing new elements when the previous bugs, errors and glitches haven't been fixed yet? Answer that, or are you gonna make some more excuses for Castle Age's increased shoddy quality in the last few weeks?

[Dayman107]

So this game isn't even a year old yet.

Enough said.

For someone who's handle mentions respect, you seem awfully negative about everything. How much money have you spent on these games? If you haven't spent any money, then you really have no right to complain.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

[Lady Anne]

Enough said.

For someone who's handle mentions respect, you seem awfully negative about everything. How much money have you spent on these games? If you haven't spent any money, then you really have no right to complain.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out!Oh, like I'm gonna spend money on a game that is so totally buggy and unplayable! I've spent many a dollar on games that were playable and fun to play. None of the Facebook games even come close to that!

Respect has to be earned; and so far NONE of the Facebook games have even come close to earning anyone's respect! They are all unfinished and full of bugs.

Blah! What do you work for Facebook or one of the completely horrendous games which have the nerve to ask people for money … but then only deliver a shoddy product. You are a THIEF! Anyone who pays to play your buggy, glitchy, error ridden games is a fool!

Don't confuse respect with outrage. I am outraged with most of the lousy Facebook applications. They want to rob people of their money; but aren't willing to produce a product worth buying.

[Falco]

They want to rob people of their money; but aren't willing to produce a product worth buying.Actually, in general, the games themselves have been rather nice about not requiring people to buy anything to play and advance in the game, no matter what random players say. I think it's only the insecure people who are spending more money that they think they should that want to make you feel bad about not spending money on the game. I completely agree that you shouldn't be spending money on any Facebook apps unless it's really worth it to you.

I've been hanging around the boards, and it does sound to me like the developers are doing what they can to fix the problems. It's just that intermittent load issues, especially when they cross independent layers (like between Facebook and the app) are very hard problems to solve for various reasons.

And, in general, there is no true "fix" or "solution" to the load problems. It's a constantly escalating arms race: sometimes you're ahead of the load problems, but for any successful server app, load problems are always getting bigger and bigger, and any fix only slows down or delays the growing load from impacting the users for just a little while longer. Every sufficiently interactive, successful, and secure online game will eventually encounter problems because there are only a few developers trying to hold back the problems compared to the thousands or millions of people fueling the amassing load.

It's just the way the world of massively multiplayer online games and services work. Games you pay money for are more likely to have the resources to stay ahead of the growing load, but that's not always true. Even with all the money poured into Rock Band Beatles, for example, their servers are constantly having load problems. And frankly, it's probably a whole lot more fun to add features like dragon battles. When you come out with a new feature, you're going to get tons of feedback. Positive or negative, people are very obvious and vocal about noticing, appreciating, interacting with the new feature, and that's rewarding. They will acknowledge that you exist and that you're working hard. When you spend the time staying ahead of the load problems, people take it for granted. It's less rewarding than than being a janitor. If there aren't load problems / if things are clean, then nobody notices that you exist at all, and they have no idea how hard you're working to stay ahead of the load. If there are load problems / if there's trash everywhere, then everybody's upset. The only time people will praise you for doing a good job is that if there's litter all over the place one day and then everything is clean the next.

[Lady Anne]

… And, in general, there is no true "fix" or "solution" to the load problems. It's a constantly escalating arms race: sometimes you're ahead of the load problems, but for any successful server app, load problems are always getting bigger and bigger, and any fix only slows down or delays the growing load from impacting the users for just a little while longer. Every sufficiently interactive, successful, and secure online game will eventually encounter problems because there are only a few developers trying to hold back the problems compared to the thousands or millions of people fueling the amassing load.

It's just the way the world of massively multiplayer online games and services work. …Sorry, I don't believe that for one minute. I play quite a few other MMOG's and have donated real life cash to the ones that work properly. None of them have the overwhelming problems that ALL of the Facebook games have.

The problem is that the developers and programmers of the Facebook games don't give a rat's ass about fixing their games. All they care about is conning as many people as they can into buying 'points' before they find out how really lousy these games are.

I'm pissed because Castle Age was a fine game when I started playing about four months ago. I really enjoyed Castle Age then, it was my favorite Facebook game because it didn't have so many page load errors. I had even considered donating; but since about a month ago, it has really gone downhill in a hurry. Now the pages won't even load and it's no longer fun to play.

[Vindicator]

Castle Age was probably a 'fine game' 4 months ago because it had a lot fewer users. No paid MMORPG in existance ever has as many players on one server as Castle Age or any other big facebook game has. Even World of Warcraft maxes out at a few thousand players per server that can interact with each other. Even then you have queues getting in to world of warcraft because their servers go down all the time. Castle Age has over 1 million users that can interact with each other. The reason for this is most of those users play for free and popular. I think you really underestimate the amount of effort needed to keep these games, or even facebook up for that matter. You can actually blame these problems on the fact that these games are free. If it were that easy to make a game with 'no problems', then someone would have done so by now.

[Falco]

I play quite a few other MMOG's and have donated real life cash to the ones that work properly.Which ones? Every massively multiplayer game I've played for any length of time goes through seasons of load problems. Some have more problems than others, but usually, it's because they're more popular than the ones that have fewer problems.

The problem is that the developers and programmers of the Facebook games don't give a rat's ass about fixing their games.One problem that Facebook apps face that some professional MMOs don't is that Facebook is a separate entity from the apps. When these "partnerships" happen, it's very difficult to track down bugs, and a whole lot of effort gets wasted in even figuring out who has the information (and often just devolve into finger-pointing). I see this with Rock Band too. Harmonix runs this piece, and EA runs that piece. EA tech support believes it's a Harmonix problem; Harmonix tech support believes it's an EA problem. Behind the scenes, some of the debugging information is on the Harmonix side, some of the debugging is on the EA side, and a whole lot of the debugging information resides at the user's location, but it's often very difficult to get reliable and trustworthy information from the users, so nobody is fully equipped to track down the problem. I've seen many other examples of coordination problems like this, but Rock Band is probably the most recognizable.

All they care about is conning as many people as they can into buying 'points' before they find out how really lousy these games are. From my point of view, you've unfairly projected Dayman107's comments onto the Castle Age game developers. I've never felt any pressure to buy points from Castle Age, and unlike you, I would never spend money on a free game. I fully agree that many of the Facebook games are actually very lousy and probably made by people who don't care about making good fun games, but I don't think it's fair to lump all of the Castle Age developers in with them. From my point of view, their love of and pride in Castle Age shows. As far as free social network apps go, Castle Age itself is quite good.

I'm pissed because Castle Age was a fine game when I started playing about four months ago.Ah, I can understand totally understand that frustration. I was on the Internet in the days of the AUP, before AOL and commercialization. It's painful when things equalize with the lowest common denominator. It has happened before, and it will happen again. Popularity destroys good sites and services all the time. This phenomenon extends far beyond just web sites too, probably deep into the human psyche. I'm sure many parents have similar frustrations: "My child was such a sweet little boy at X age, but now he's such a rebellious teenager." They blame his friends, his video games, all the bad influences in his life, but they're just "growing pains" (or, "mid-life crises" or "second childhoods" which are somewhat like adult and senior versions of "growing pains"). Load problems, like the spinning reload swirl, the white screen, etc., are part of the natural "growing pains" ebb and flow. And, for the most part, things don't stop growing unless they're dead.