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I am starting a thread for myself and others to talk about SOM.
I am really getting bored doing the same thing over and over and nothing new added to the game. I do know that several people haven't and are not going to renew their subscriptions. I renewed my subscription, but wonder if I was wrong. I feel like a hamster on one of those wheels that they keep running on. I would like to know if there is going to be anything more added to the game and when can I expect it. What do we as players have to do to get you to put some new things into the game. Not harder cases. Maybe some new treasures, some fun stuff. The atmosphere here has really gotten bad as far as people quitting. After all we are paying. There are game sites that are cheaper than this site and a lot of variety. I beg you to please do something with this game. It could be great. Please

I also want to add that not letting people save favor cases for the treasure hunts got very tiring and took a long time. Everyone was doing case and so we didn't have time to chat with each other. It ruined our treasure hunts that we all as a group looked forward to getting together and cheering each other on. Bad choice on your part. I still don't know what the big deal is if everyone can save favor cases, there is no group farther ahead. It isn't like some people can save the favor cases for the treasure hunts and others can't.

Please I ask for others to use this thread on ways to better SOM, if Ben will listen. I would like to chat with Ben. So I encourage Ben to come on the thread and chat with us.

I would like to hear from other agencies as to whether they prefer to be allowed to save favours or not.

As to adding content I can't think what can be added easily, some new furniture wouldn't go amis but it's not easy to code or it may obscure clues.

I'm actually curious about something, not saying I'm disagreeing but I'm wondering why the not being able to save favour cases is such a big deal. On Noir we've never been able to save cases and it works great, I'm not trying to compare the games but having never done hunts over here I'm wondering what makes it so hard. Maybe someone can explain for me?

ms helen, to answer your question it is because of our agency's get togethers. Most of us participate and get together during the treasure hunts and when the time comes if we have a case saved then we just solve it and back to our group and friendships. We encourage one another and have fun. Ins't that what the game is all about. Milmot2 was right. It is very easy to be here a little while, but when you have been playing a long time, it is boring. Same old treasures, same stuff. Even if Ben said we are going to have competitions and I will pick the groups that will compete against each other. Keeping our intact agency but maybe adding a little more to the game. Many good detectives are not renewing. You can only do so much. There should be some fun things to or rewards instead of money and the stuff you have to give to the townies. I am not going to defend my thoughts because if you have been here as long as I have and played hard like I have, then you don't know the feeling.

Also if we are allowed to get threee favor cases a day, why can't we save them. If I am tired, can't I save my cases for later.

Maybe AIU takes playing the game more serious than others. We care about the game and winning. So we are dedicated to making it happen. We don't log on every three of fours days or just when we want to, it is usually a daily thing. I guess that my alternative is to quit the game, but I keep hoping that Ben will add some new things. Just my opinion.

I also would agree with the game being dull at the moment. There's nothing to tax the little grey cells.

As far as saving favours goes, I think the main problem from my perspective is that there's no point in a small agency like mine, made up of people who are not playing every single day trying to compete. It takes much longer to complete cases on Shades compared to Noir. If we were to start a hunt with no saved favours, we'd take a week to finish it as we can't be online at the same time and don't have time to do all 12 cases. By that time someone else would have whipped it from us, which is totally fair. So no point starting and losing valuable standing points.

The only way you can really increase your chances of success is by using the AIU method of all being online together for a few hours at least. I don't have the time for that.

So I preferred it when we could save favours, at least smaller and more novice agencies stood more of a chance.

One of the benefits of saved favors is that if a person is a work or busy at home or have a baby, saved favors are great. You can still play the game even though you are in the midst of activity. Also if you are a mother and have to go and pick up your kids or do errands. It is more convenient. It is not evil to be able to save favor cases. Also wouldn't it be great to find little rewards for ourselves such as gems or other items. We could find things that we could keep.

It would also be cool to get something for winning the showdowns.I like the Ideas so far..Cinderella dose your agency have a chat room it is easy to talk and do you cases at the same time....

A - About saving favors and treasure hunts (TH).

When you could save favors, winning THs was way too easy:

1) save a favor case for each townie, involved in a TH. You can even presolved it (ie. find out who is the murderer, but save before accusing the suspect).
2) Start the hunt.
3) Solve the saved cases.
4) Rip the rewards

KKK's record was 45 minutes for a hunt.

With this strategy, there is no competition anymore and it gives an unfair advantage to big agencies. And for Ben (and I), competition is important. I quote his announcement message "We've launched a new competitive feature ..." and "Treasure Hunts are competitions where agencies race ..."

Since Ben disallowed favor cases saving, I notice that newer agencies are now playing and winning THs, which was my point, when I got Ben's attention about this.

B - No time to play favor cases?

An easy and simple solution: play beginner cases between favor cases. You can play 12 cases (including 3 harder difficulty favor cases) in less than 2 hours (or even 1 hour as I did regularly).

Most beginner cases take less than 5 mn to solve:

- there are always 2 suspects with real alibi (X was with Y and Y was with X) and 2 with fake alibi ("I was with townie ..." is always a fake alibi).

- you can get 3 stars, simply by asking for proofs in most cases: so no need to search suspects' houses or the crime scene.

C - Can't connect at the same time?

Then share passwords :)

D - Can't talk and play at the same time?

Then don't play or don't talk, although it is perfectly doable to play and talk at the same time, as Jarrek pointed out.

E - Do you want to maximize your TH winnings?

There is a very simple strategy, that no agency has implemented so far (or I didn't notice). I won't tell what it is, but is is very easy to figure out (I did :).

bilbot, I was in your agency and we did save favor cases. It is funny that you forgot that. I think that one of the reason that we are where we are is that Ben took your advice. I know that you used your bot so if playing was so easy, why didn't you play the game yourself.
People in the world are busy, having saved favor cases makes it easier to keep playing the game. People play the game for so long and then just when they hit so many points they quit. I am sure that you have some great ideas but not saving favor cases was one of them.

Try doing a treasure hunt with a baby crying. Having saved saved favors when you have the favor you just can use it and for a while get back to what you were doing. I would place a bet that you live alone and have no interruptions. Like I stated above for all the active people who do have lives, the saved favor cases are the best way to go. It alwyas happens though that you will have many saved favor cases and lo and behold you will need on that you don't have so you still have work to do.

Like I said, I am sure that you have other valuable hints, and I would like to hear them. I feel that SOM is going downhill. Our agency just lost a few members.

We do the case at one point anyway so why not have saved cases? Oh yeah it is not hard enough. Well who said that a game had to be hard, I thought that it was for fun.

OK, please pm me and tell me how to maximize winnings as the fixer charges way too much. So already charges so much of experience point and makes you pay when you get an FA, but it doesn't stop there, she still makes you pay for the experience that you paid for and more.

I would like to have others ideas.

BTW, it seems like every time that I talk about saved favor cases people think that the entire thread is dedicated to that. That is one issure that I don't like, the other is the game is boring after a while. Same old treasures. It needs to be randomized, we need to have little treausres of our own. Finding items that we can display on our detective page or something. Those are a few examples.