OUT AND ABOUT...11/28
> been seeing some witchy glitchies here and there, both on www. and m.foopets...wonder what they're up to now? (anybody else clicking "Messages" and getting bounced to the foot of the main page?)
> Foo has altered the coding in the Friends access for Gifting so that you now get the entire list instead of the first few - we imagine now that selling items is impractical, Foo figures they might as well make it easier to give them away...as temporarily faving someone made it perfectly simple to send them something, this was pretty useless, but perhaps it's the thought that counts? (addendum - it seems that it's not infinite, just more expansive than it was)
> we just realised that the new 50% tax has effectively put an end to foodollar-for-gem conversion trading, as both parties would lose half of their investment.
> there is a Suggestion up and doing well to restore Foogem Fridays - while i don't give it a lot of hope, as the minimum member pet sale increase was intended to make Adopt A Pet/Shelter offerings price-competitive, it's worth a shot...though if they go for it i'd expect the ticket to be something like 500k in gems, as that commodity is going to be a glut on the market. keyword "foogem friday" and give them some love, it's a gallant effort.
> there are also several threads in Feedback contesting the pet sales price increase - keyword "minimum price" and take your pick.
> i just saw the promo video Foo put out for parents again, it had been a while. (it's on YouTube, i've put the link up to give you all a sorely needed chuckle - it's hilarious in an aggravating sort of way for those of us on the other side of the hill). One point raised, though, caught my attention - the claim that foocosts are imposed in order to keep the site ad-free. Hmmm...there are lots of free downloads available to deal with that sort of thing...let's hear it for ads! let corporations with bucks put up the dough, not penniless animal lovers.
(...we just put that up as a Suggestion in Feedback - keyword "commercial sponsors" and watch the fireworks...)
> THINGS WORTH THINKING ABOUT...
* how much is FooMojo actually making these days, and where is the money going?
* are they fulfilling their chartered mandate to put X% into pet charities?
* who, exactly, is on their Board of Directors these days?
* and what would happen if we took the money we spent onsite and put it into company stock instead? wonder how much it would take to get a controlling interest...
WHERE WE WERE AS OF THANKSGIVING (can you spell "irony"? we can...) MORNING :
...it all started when they first "improved" the play page at the beginning of this year, making it impossible to see the care bars of your and your friends' pets as a group, and then went on to exterminate somewhere between 4 and 5 million older pets from the fooshelter shortly thereafter, in the name of "server space". Beta/WS was just when it became obvious to everyone...and when they set about remaking foo in its current moneygrubbing image from top to bottom.
now we have pokey breeding eliminated, all the older $50 pets discontinued and no longer available as new creates, a "glitch" handing out absurdly high-stat pets on all new adopts, destroying our patient and careful breeders' work and blowing the stat ratios out of the water - if you like lost-stat pets, collect newer breeds with at least one number close to the lower limit...it won't be long before they fall through the bottom - another "glitch" (which we have heard is NOT a glitch, but a trick) allowing clever people to get discontinued and year-dated collectible items from the FooMart at will - and resale of these to others who were unaware has caused unneeded expense and hard feelings - and now the minimum to adopt from a member has more than doubled from $20 to $45, making it far more difficult for our member-run shelters to rescue and place pets...and the latest insult, a 50% tax on member item sales. (the revolutionary war here in America started over less - and we certainly are lacking in "representation")
meanwhile, the Spinner has lost all foo$ prizes, and the only "change" we saw Announced is the one whereby those with credit cards can get an extra 50% when they buy foo$ from the bank...as long as you get them by Sunday 11/28 (this started, by the way, at 4pm CA time on Tuesday 11/23 - way to give a BIG edge to credit card holders who haunt the Forums, guys). The FooPetter resurfaced after a week's silence and did inform us of the Foo(ey)dollar special - and the DrRon puppet announced the change in sales tax rate, but didn't have the stones to actually tell us how MUCH we were about to get soaked for. Looks like the longrange plan is to eliminate member-to-member sales...and we'd advise watching for a tax on m-to-m pet sales in the near future.
all this on top of the huge increase in ClubFoo(ey) rates...to all appearances, FooMojo is either trying to shut the site down without their having to take the responsibility for closing it ("duh, gee - everybody left - what else could we do?"), or drive all the older members, all the thinking members, and all those who genuinely CARE about their pets completely off the site. THIS CANNOT HAPPEN. i recommend we start banding together - NOT in the Forums - and start something like a union or association of concerned members for mutual advice and protection.
(see new clickable, top right)
IN THE NEWS...
11/10: well, pokey breeding is gone and we have the new "improvements" in its place...and in keeping with the recent run of improvements, prices (both ClubFoo and FooMart) got "improved" in Foo's favor, we lost a few things or had them made more difficult to use (like the Scenes/Decorator moving to the Play page, and the loss of the Fashion Shows), and the only way we can see "pet care is easier than ever before" is that a lot more people will be leaving, not having the pets at all being the easiest way to care for them.
This time FooMojo may really have cut its own throat...though many of us are just too committed to the pets to say die, no matter HOW hard they try to kill us. Interestingly, this is being stated and debated once again - or still - on the old Beta tryout thread, with much the same pattern of "Whee! I got picked!", "This is so cool", with quotes from foo's party line, and honest "What the heck?" reactions to the problems raised and people trying to help each other in the absence of any help from foo...plus ca change, plus la meme chose.
FOR UPDATES AND DIALOG - go to the old Beta testing thread (Announcements), and the Price thread (ClubFoo) on the Forums. Also, there is a Suggestion up in Feedback to try to convince Foo to eliminate the new ClubFoo pricing increases - keyword "Club Foo Price", and several pleading for a return of pokey breeding (keyword obvious...), and give them your votes and input.
11/12 - FooGem Fridays are no more...at least at the moment. they may or may not plan to reinstate them in some form for the holidays, no word yet.
We've lost another ambassador - Kaylina has joined Lainee and resigned her commission. she'll be sorely missed, but we can't say as we blame her, the way things are going...and she'll probably be better off. It can't be easy dealing with upset members when FooMojo doesn't tell you much, if anything, more than anyone else on the site. Good luck, love - you've been a trusted friend and did the best you could with a near-impossible job.
11/17 - it seems even FooMojo can be embarrassed by accumulating foopoo...recently, surplus droppings have stopped appearing in the pets' scenes - and as we seriously doubt this is out of consideration for the members, we can only assume that delivering a freshly adopted pet - supposedly well-cared-for in the fooshelter - whose "pen" has been thoroughly covered with chocolate (which had been piling up ever since they instituted foopoo, or the pet's arrival in the fooshelter, whichever was more recent) was too much for even their sensibilities. at least, as a side effect, our lives become a bit easier...
11/19 - we just investigated the "new and improved" Adopt-a-Pet Shelter tab on the Play page. Congratulations, FooMojo - you finally found a way to make it impossible to find out anything about a pet selected for discounted adoption other than what you feel like revealing...which now include stats, which, interestingly enough, was the rationale offered us when we were scolded a while back for agitating for neuters to be offered at a standard price of $50 - that members would be able to see that stats and pick and choose too easily. (now you can pick your stats, and those decent with math - or a calendar - can figure out whether they've been fixed...but distinguishing older pets from those who have been accelerated, or identifying a specific animal, is blocked). Link number, photographic history, and actual age now cannot be determined (though we will continue to try to find a way around it...), rendering it nearly impossible to find and rescue a specific pet consigned to the fooshelter without paying the full $300 fee. Way to go, guys - break a few more hearts, make a few more dollars...
11/22 - now that foogems are only good for limited FooMart items, they are the only thing you can win playing FooLette...anyone care to join us in deleting the Wheel as soon as it appears so that we can enjoy our pets - the REASON we go to their Play page, despite the fact that this is now the only way to access your scenes or the Adopt a Pet Page? Incidentally, ClubFoo members - one of their main selling points was early access to new pets...been quite a while since we saw one... come to that, been quite a while since anything new turned up in the FooMart, hasn't it? we find it ironic that the last item added was the hole FooMojo is busy digging itself...
11/23 - additional irony (or are they actually READING this? they'll turn our little heads, lol) - just today, less then 24 hours after we mentioned the FooMart's silence, new items have started turning up, including some of the new member submissions. An inside source gave us a peek at some upcoming items - some aren't bad at all, but it's still a sales gimmick to keep foo in business getting the most for the least...you pay $2foo (nonrefundable) to submit an item, and if you're lucky get back $10foo, or a net of $8foo (that's eighty RL cents, in case you didn't do the math) in exchange for the rights to your work - which probably cost you considerably more. A commission on sales would be the more equable way to go...especially if they decide to use yours as a collectible, or it turns out to be popular. And it turns out that the back-door access to discontinued and year-dated items is NOT a glitch, but a clever sales ploy on Foo's part - they've been making a fortune off folks who thought they were getting away with something. Hmm...hate to take their part, but that smacks of a kind of poetic justice, in a way. If you see something on a member sale page that is otherwise unavailable, unless the price is at or below list, you're better off getting your own from the Mart. We ARE sorry for the people who spent money on year-dated collectibles at the time of issue, though - now that these items are available to anyone with patience and the ready, theirs will depreciate drastically.
