You can share your own suggestions too via the comments. If I like them, I may even include them in the next instalment!
In no particular order, here are this month's entries...
#126: Add fewer baking recipes
This is something I've voiced concerns about more than once, and following the addition of the Sapphire Oven at the end of last month, I decided that it was time it was taken to the Suggestions Box! There are too many recipes being added to the game which are the product of baking rather than cooking. From cakes and tarts to cupcakes and cookies, we seem to be getting away from the sorts of food you'd actually expect to see on a menu in a restaurant.
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| Sapphire Oven recipes - all products of baking |
Don't get me wrong, there is a place for baking in the game, but it should be a minor one. We have the sister game, Bakery Story, for your baking needs. Looking just at cupcake dishes there are 17 different varieties have appeared over the years - they would be much better placed over in Bakery Story.
There's a world of food out there and although we've explored plenty of it (and learnt aplenty!) I refuse to believe that we've exhausted it. There's got to be scores of dishes which have as yet been untouched, so I ask Storm8 to stop lazily rehashing cupcakes and be a little more cultured!
#127: Add indicator showing players are online
This one comes from my good neighbour, Ali Cat Cafe. A common feature in online gaming is a form of notification which indicates when other players are live in the game. Restaurant Story certainly comes under the online games category, so it would be nice to see this feature added.
A simple way of applying it would be to add a small bulb next to each player's diner name in the Social window (be it the Neighbours or Community tab) which is red when they are offline and green when they are active. The main gain from this would be easier choices when it comes to sending part requests to neighbours. If the green bulb is lit, you can expect to receive help sooner.
There are probably other minor benefits too, such as a smoother correspondence with fellow players as we could clearly see if it's going to be possible to conduct a conversation. There's little more frustrating than starting a conversation on someone's wall and not getting a response for many hours because unbeknown to you the recipient has just gone to bed. And it works the other way too!
#128: Give the customers cutlery
A slightly light-hearted idea here. Have you noticed how the bots eat with their fingers, and that they do it without even touching the food?!
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| Customers eating in The Garlic Tree |
Let's have some manners! I'd like to see forks and knives introduced, with the customers tucking into their meals much more sophisticatedly. When you really think about it, there's actually quite a lot that the game's developers could do with this. There could be a variety of different styles of cutlery which can be bought in the market via a new tab. This would allow us to further customise our restaurants and make them all the more unique.
In fact, providing forks and knives could become an integral part of the game's overall process. As well as cooking and serving food, we could have to manage the washing and placing of the cutlery - if there's not enough crockery available then it can incur those angry red faces. Your host may end up with a fork in his or her back!
#129: Reduce repetition of recipe statistics
This is a culmination of months and months of grumbling in the goals content reports. Every single time there seems to be a least one recipe (and sometimes the lot) whose numbers are identical to an existing dish. To make things worse, the existing recipe in question is often one which was only itself released recently.
Previous Suggestion Box posts
26/09/15 September 2015
29/08/15 August 2015
25/07/15 July 2015
29/06/15 June 2015
25/05/15 May 2015
29/08/15 August 2015
25/07/15 July 2015
29/06/15 June 2015
25/05/15 May 2015
So the gamemakers need to address this. Refrain from using the copy and paste function when putting together the statistical properties of new foods. This is something which probably frustrates me more than most since I have to try and write an analysis of the recipes following their addition, and that's becoming more and more tiresome as the same numbers get trotted out again and again.
#130: Be innovative on Black Friday
I've already posted my main Black Friday preview, but that didn't really include much about what I wanted to see from the big day. In truth I'm actually not looking for any particular items, but I do have one hope - be innovative Storm8.
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| Black Friday 2014 teaser |
Generally Black Friday sees box items, old limited time offers and removed decorations returning to the market for heavily discounted prices. This is very much welcomed, but the problem is that these sales are highly subjective - some players will like some items more than others will, and that means that everyone will have a different view on how good (or bad) Black Friday is.
There's an opportunity here for the game's developers to offer more than just the usual stuff, and it could make the difference in ensuring that everyone feels good about Black Friday. For example, look at the fury which has flared up multiple times this year due to the iOS-Android disparity. This could be the ultimate opportunity for the iOS exclusive gem dispenser and bundles to be offered on Android devices. That could go a long way to repairing some badly burned bridges.
Away from the iOS-Android imbalance, there's many things Storm8 could do. They could offer the two appliances added for gems in 2015 for coins; they could provide a massive sale on expansions for gems; they could give everyone an extra appliance slot for free; they could introduce some special bundles designed especially for Black Friday; they could supercharge the stats on selected recipes.
Come on Storm8! Make this Black Friday the biggest and best of them all!
This doesn’t pertain directly to Restaurant Story, but it sure takes away from enjoyment of the game.
ReplyDeleteHave you updated to iOS 9.0 and had the Game Center window continually pop up? I’ve searched the web and apparently there’s no way to get rid of it. It's really annoying.
I have updated to iOS 9.0, and yes, I have suffered with the Game Center window. However it's not been happening 'continuously' for me. It's probably happened half a dozen times, and not at all for several weeks.
DeleteI presume you've tried logging out of the Game Center within Settings? Other than that I can't think of any other troubleshoots. :)
I hate when I'm remodeling with something I need a lot of like tables and those tables are no longer for sale for others because EVERY TIME I place one it bouncing me back to the beginning and I have to scroll to get to the correct page again. Grrr! Seems to only be with things I own that aren't for sale anymore though.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. I covered this almost a year ago in the Suggestions Box (Dec 2014), and really wish Storm8 would do something about it. It really makes redecorating (especially for Halloween, Christmas etc.) much more laborious. :)
DeleteI think I am going to complain to S8 about this. It took me FOREVER to decorate for Halloween as almost all old content has been removed. It is very frustrating and makes me want to stop decorating my restaurant for holidays - which used to be one of my favorite parts of the game.
DeleteA suggestion I have - similar to many others you've made - is to have a way to rate players other than tips alone. Maybe factor in how often they visit their neighbors and other community members (I run into many full restaurants and can't tip), if they respond to part requests, how often they log into the game, cook food, etc. I have such a hard time knowing if my neighbors are active or if they have stopped playing and even if they are playing, if they are worth keeping around. I have some neighbors who have a 3-4 tip rating but they never tip me or respond to my requests, I have some who have a 0-1 tip rating but are very active otherwise and help me out a lot. And then I have some neighbors who occasionally log in to collect tips, but aren't actually playing anymore, so I think a different kid of public score/rating that factors in all kinds of play rather than just tipping would be helpful. Dontcha think?
ReplyDeleteThere's definitely scope for something like that, but I think you've got to be careful - a player may feel a bit offended if their rating was low!
DeletePerhaps rather than an overall score we could have each player's statistics alongside their wall. it could be a little like the stats that we have on our own profiles in RS2 (and I covered that in #95) but focused on the kinds of numbers you've outlined which can help paint a picture of the type of player.
I might just use this concept in a future Suggestions Box! :)
Been busy this week and couldn’t comment - time to catch up on your blog! :D
ReplyDeleteBakery Story 2 actually does feature forks and knives! :D I don’t think it was out at the time this post was published, but is that where you got your inspiration for #128? I noticed my customers using them when I served up muffins. It would be cute to see it in Restaurant Story, but there’s a certain charm for me with bots just happily closing their eyes and digging into their food right away :) I’m not sure that proper cutlery use would convey that same charm, however realistic it might make the game.
I definitely have to agree with what you said in #130. There’s been a lot of disparity this year with Android/iOS offerings (what with the bundles, value packs, gem dispenser, and now most recently the special item offers for new game downloads), and it would be really nice to see S8 attempt at settling the score, if you will, by offering iOS-exclusive items to all players on Black Friday. I’m partially saying this for personal reasons (I want that Jazz Band from back in February pretty badly!), but it’s a really good suggestion, and I hope they take it into consideration.
I’m not too sure about offering the gem appliances for coins, though, for the following reason: last year, more for Bakery Story than for Restaurant Story, S8 introduced discounts on gem items already in the market. While these were nice to have and appreciated by some players, I feel like they took “slots” away from content that could otherwise have made a return, that players would have appreciated more. Part of what makes Black Friday exciting, at least for me, is the window of opportunity to get items that aren’t always in the market for very long, or haven’t been for a while.
However, I do agree on extending sales to other aspects if it doesn’t affect the number of floor decorations on offer. Steeper discounts on expansions, possibly steeper discounts on (returning) boxes, supercharged stats - sounds great to me! :D
(Not the bundles though, unless S8 has finally figured out how to extend them to Android and Kindle players :P)
I had the forks and knives idea before BS2's release, so I reckon Storm8 saw this post and made a quick last minute alteration! ;)
DeleteIn all seriousness, I quite like your thoughts on cutlery in Restaurant Story. If we're being honest, gaming apps have moved on substantially since RS was first launched, and so it does now look somewhat dated. But when I think about it that's part of what makes it so special - it's becoming a bit of a vintage game, and we wouldn't change that for the world. And that includes the lack of cutlery!
I guess we have a difference of opinion when it comes to the content offered on Black Friday. As much as I enjoy the prospect of an opportunity to bag rare items, I feel equally excited at the thought of existing market items being offered at a substantial discount. That's even more significant this year since there seem to have been quite a few very expensive additions in recent months which I may look at differently at a lower price.
For your sake, and the sakes of the thousands of other Android players out there, I really hope some of the iOS exclusives are included on Black Friday. You guys have called for it enough, they need to listen! :)