ChumpDump is crossing the threshold of 30 days of active and insane game play action. We've enjoyed the buzz, the PR and all the great input from players and fans alike.
There are however a few woes found along the way. ChumpDump is far from perfect. We realize this and like anything we're evolving this concept and taking everyone along for the journey.
A few things happening out there that you can expect to see some balance changes in the game to make it good for EVERYONE playing.
1, LAME whys
Players are asked to give whys when they dump and save. We want to reward those that give whys because, lets face it- the whys make the game for better everyone. We want to KNOW why people get dumped or saved. I want to know. I want to find something new, I want to see something GOOD, we all want the zesty goodness of why. However, getting lame whys is not good. The lame whys make ChumpDump less fun for me, and hurt the integrity of the experience for everyone else. We list the recent saves/dumps because there's supposed to be good tasty content as to why there, when there isn't that sucks.
Solutions?
- filter out the repeated one word whys
- filter out the whys that arent really words
Filtered whys would just remove the lame whys from the listing of saves/dumps and remove them from the stats so you don't see a bunch of lame stuff there.
- don't count the repeated word whys
- don't count the whys that arent really words
This is a bit more drastic, but its a bit more in line with ChumpDump's attitude. I'll be honest, I hate crap why's in the game. I know people don't always want to put a reason down, or can't think of one, or just want to play the game of flush flush flush but the game is what it is, it wants meaty good whys on why that person was dumped and saved.
- have your whys judged by your peers
This is basically a digg style solution. Your peers in the game judge the quality of your whys gaining you points or denying you the 1 point of the why. Harder to develop, but its on our big idea board as a possibility.
We still don't know how we're gonna handle this just yet. But take notice, we're well aware of the "gaming" happening.
2, ADOPT then DUMPing
A few players have been enjoying ChumpDump alot lately and we love that you love the game. But we also notice some inventive ways to play the game to gain leader board traction. Every game out there has its weak points, places where you can exploit this or that to gain and edge. I loved the exploits I could pull off in games to further myself in the game, that is until the developers fixed those holes.
Adopt/Dumping in a window of say 48-72hrs in ChumpDump will be closed very soon. Right now in ChumpDump, you can adopt for a 1 point increase and then run the lotto and dump that person (if they come up) and you get your 2 or 3 points if you include a why.
Some folks are adopting and dumping those folks in the game in course of 6hrs, 12hrs, 24hrs etc. Why is this a big deal? Normally I guess I would say it wasn't but again, ChumpDump has an attitude right? And I can pretty much gaurantee that when you adopt and dump in the same day, you may of seen one or two tweets from that person maybe. Basically its another exploit, one we're gonna address.
Solutions?
- don't count dumps of recent adopties in the game in a window of 24 to 48hrs
Now this only effects the action of "adopting" or following dumpies in the game. We can't track any following you do you outside the game. (hint!)
REMINDER!
Hardcore gaming is welcome in ChumpDump!! Now don't misunderstand, we know there's players in ChumpDump out to OWN, and PWN all of you. Folks with alot of friends, well.. they kinda have more ammo than the rest of us. We want everyone capable to own really, we just don't want alot of lame'ness along the way.
What's NEXT?
Honestly these are the only two big pain points we dev's see thus far in the game. ChumpDump is a unique concept that we know can either really hit the right note with some folks and the play and like it, some love it, some are intensely awesome with it, others are meh to it, and some are really offended by it. Ya gotta take the good with the bad I think. Its called ChumpDump because we stand behind the notion that you, me, them, we all got "chumps" in our feed.
We've flushed 4000+ chumps in 30 days. That's 4000 less people that you don't have endure their lame tweets or wait for their inactive accounts to come back online. On the other hand, we've SAVED 6000+ people. Thats 6000 fellow twitter peeps that have been valued as WORTHY. Very cool.
Keep playing folks, what's coming next will reward hardcore gamers even more with unique and fun ways to stay on top or attack those in the leader board you wanna see fall!
