“…to challenge the sky – or stay on the ground…”
It would appear that such hard data as is available has been found – and as i have no competence to “translate” the more esoteric jargon in the “Bits and Pieces” links, it seems the only alternative left is to try to beard the bear in his den…the bear in this case being Mr. Janasov, and the den, FooMojo central.
As it’s pointless to whine that things are going wrong without offering a reasonable and practical alternative, we are now seeking your ideas and suggestions for how to make the site work for everyone – members of all ages and financial situations, management at both the site and corporate levels, sponsors and backers…and the pets themselves. (if the company’s main selling point is that FooPets are “alive”, it’s about time this was reflected in their handling of them onsite)
We already have some plans for this, but before we trot them out we’d like to hear from you au naturel, without any slanting of your own thoughts by the reading of ours. To the best of our knowledge, it’s possible to post comments anonymously if you want to be heard without being identified…by any faction.
Once we have consensus on a full business proposal that will put the site back on the road to what it could – and should – be, we will get it to Mr. Janasov and various other high-ranking FooMojo staff members…and if there is no response of any kind, I suppose we’ll just have to take the whole mess public.
Ball’s in your court, folks – what’s your take on what needs to be done to mend Foo’s broken hearts?
(Addendum – thank you all for the input! i agree about the things that need to be addressed – but we need to put together alternatives and solutions that will work for the corporate entity if we’re going to get any kind of a hearing, i.e. “do this instead”, and the reasons why it will boost their bottom line by increasing member satisfaction. Obviously we are dealing with people who don’t have a clue as to what does and does not work for the site – though it shouldn’t be, it’s our job to educate them if we are going to save FooPets and restore it to what it ought to be.)
By the way…i just heard from someone who lives near the offices and will hand-carry hardcopy and drop it in their laps on our behalf. Excelsior!
operationlifeboat 
Oh and if some of what I have said is too strong and can’t be used, feel free to omit it. I’m just glad to have been able to get this off my chest.
I got all this out of my system a while back when I made the decision to not renew the Club and delete the accounts one by one as they expire. The only reason I will stay past the expiration date of the last account will be if FooRadio is still in existence (and I have doubts that it will be). If so, I’ll be down to 8 or 10 pets on one acct. that will not be Club. I have to maintain a FP account in good standing to be a DJ on FooRadio, unfortunately. Somehow, though, I don’t even see FooPets lasting until my final account expires in August of 2011. I predict that one day everything will just be gone – most likely when their domain name expires in Oct. (but to be honest I don’t even give it that long!).
Peach :o)~
EataPeach has read my mind and said most of what I wanted to say so there is no use repeating. I concur.
I feel like someone had a good idea but they put the game out on the internet before it was finished, before the rules were finalized. Are there any other games like FooPets out there where the rules keep changing day to day? Have you ever bought a game board without a set of rules by which to play the game? Each time you sit down to play that board game are the rules the same, or have they changed?
The rules of FooPets says it all, “We will make whatever changes we want to, whenever we want to, with or without announcing these to the players”. What they forgot to say was, “You are our Guinea Pigs. You will bear the brunt of our trials and errors, and our mistakes will be at the players’ expense. It will be your fault, not ours, if things go wrong. We owe you no appologies, and no compensation”.
I feel a lot of imcompetence with both the programmers (computer geeks) and whoever it is who is running the show who doesn’t have any business sense. It took a couple of bad ideas in an attempt to get more money out of it’s players and now things appear to be snowballing out of control. I am also FooDollar and FooGem rich but I refuse to be bullied into buying anything at the outragious prices that things have come too. Whatever ideas they have had for financial gain appears to have backfired with every attempt. More people dropping ClubFoo, more people walking away from the game, more people finding ways to give away their pets free because 45FD is too expensive……
Sometimes I can feel those computer geeks as children, fooling around on the computer, seeing how far they can push our buttons until we crack. Maybe we are in a psychological experiment to see how attached we can get to virtual pets and then they will see how far they can push us until we give up on our virtual pets.
I’m glad FooKate is gone for whatever reason. I hear she was a nasty piece of work, doleing out her own brand of punishment on players, even stealing FooDollars from people’s accounts.
Another one they should disassociate themselves with is “Dr.” Ron. From what have read, and heard, he’s a corrupted human being, not only in his past but what he continues to do now. He’s not even a vet, had his license revoked. Where he claim’s he worked, there is no record of him being there during those times. Not a good rep for a “children’s” website.
The admins and ambassadors are merely puppets sent forth to the frontline to protect FooMojo’s incompetence with a feeble attempt to placate us with their canned non-answers. They can do nothing or say anything that FooMojo won’t allow them to do or say. I gave up on Member Support long ago. I don’t trust these volunteers, nor do I believe a word that comes out of their mouths.
There are a lot of bugs and mistakes that need to be corrected but the one that I would most like to see is a restoration of our pets’ stats that have crashed since the mistake of releasing those Ultras.
As I write this, I am getting livid, so I better stop now, catch my breath, and add more later.
I’m so fed up with the nonsense on FooPets it’s not even funny. The list could start at #1 and go all the way through to #101. With each new week, they seem to come up with new ways to drive the nail further into the coffin. It is blatantly apparent that whoever is now in charge of this website, is bent on seeing its destruction. What other logical explanation can be given for such awful business decisions and for their disgusting lack of care or concern for their customers?
Of course on one hand, I’d love to see the site resuscitated. So many people have truly enjoyed what the site once offered its members. It was a wonderful place for pet lovers to meet, and play, and escape some of the stress and difficulties of real life. The pixel pets are definitely cute and it used to be fun decorating their scenes (when you could still buy items for Foo gems occasionally). I didn’t mind buying some items, but now that EVERYTHING is available for FD only and the quality of what is actually offered has degraded to the level it is…no thank you!
I still have my account. I still check my messages and care/play for my pets daily. I have downsized from about 30 pets (total) to a total of 8 (7 on my main account and 1 on my secondary). I’m just wondering if it’s actually worth the effort to try to salvage anything good that is left, since the company seems to be in opposition to that ever happening.
My take is that Dr. Ron epitomizes the definition of “entrepreneur”. He starts up companies, sells them for a profit, and moves on to his next venture. I’m not sure who these new jokers who bought the company are…but I can honestly say that from what I’ve seen of them so far, I am NOT impressed!
One more thing I’d like to say: when I first joined FooPets a little over a year ago, I was very impressed at the potential the website had! It is truly sad to see a website with that much potential be downgraded to what it has now become. What a shame and what a waste. 😦
I’ve met so many wonderful people there: many of whom, Foopets was one of their only joys in life. I’m talking about the elderly, disabled, handicapped and shut-ins, etc.
Until FooPets decides to eliminate ALL non Club Foo accounts, I will continue to be a “member” there. I have one non-Club Foo account and when my current CF membership expires, I too (like Peach) will NOT be re-newing my membership. I’m still waiting for the “new pet” they promised us at the beginning of the year….
Do they realize it’s been well over 3 months since any new pets have been released?
Ahhh…stick a fork in me, I think I’m done now. If anyone comes up with a way to revive our once beloved FooPets, I’ll jump on the bandwagon. Until then…I’ll just cherish the good memories I have of what used to be a really fun place to visit.
-Peek
wow you said basically just what i was thinking. i’m to the point of losing all hope for foomojo. if you all can do something to revive it that’s cool, but i’m done. i bought a single cat from the shelter a few days back and had the glitch of it saying i bought the same cat 7 or 8 times. my ledger showed that i bought the same cat 7 or 8 times all listed at the exact same time. well this showed that i was in the negative for fds because of this glitch and foo has shut me out from my account except to member support. i dropped my message about all this into that black hole of apparent no return and no reply. at this point it’s apparent to me that foo just wants to self-destruct.
i had the same thing happen to me last February – we had just come out of the First Annual Jellicle Ball, and though i actually wound up losing money, i snuck some foo$ into the account so i could pull out the three $300 Free the Fosters cats we had the event on behalf of. one got “registered” 3X, to the tune of $900, WAY more than i had left. i ran in panic to an ambassador friend, who told me that i would automatically be suspended for the overdraft (thank heaven this was before friends were locked out of suspended accounts so i could tend), and it took about 4 or 5 days to fix – though that did include a weekend – when something weird happens to me it always happens on a bloody Friday. my ledger showed one amount (the bad one) but at the Mart my “real” balance appeared : you should be the same, so they can easily see what happened.
anyway, i yelled and screamed, and once they did reinstate, they restored all my bonding to 100% – including the new adopts that were at zero…but that was then, AND i had a senior ambassador in there pitching for me – plus i was in better odor with them then than i am now.
if you want to shoot me your member link i can go bang on some doors for you – and these days when they get caught with their knickers down, they’ve been tossing in extra bucks as hush money. you can grab my email from the About Me logo if you don’t have it already.
(PS – i’m on the way to pull a cache and make sure your kids get tended for the duration)
Thanks. my account that this happen to is this one. http://www.foopets.com/member/20651644
reading that something similiar happen to you i can see this is most likely the scenario i’m in also. i do have a friend, kitty bullet that said she tried to help out my account if she could. not sure if she was or not. anyways i did send something to member support for what that was worth. i don’t really know any of the admins all that well. anyways thanks for the offer of help. have fun and happy meows 🙂
i checked quickly – it opens normally for me, and everyone seems to be okay (i’ll go through in detail later, especially the fosters) and bring your link to someone who can kick butt and take names.
we’re pretty much on the same page – there are a few specific ways i have in mind to best address the issues you list, but the list itself pretty much covers the waterfront. many thanks!
one thing…on the few (3 or 4 out of 16 or so, i think) accounts i have ClubFoo’d – mainly the shelters for operating capital – i have had no difficulty getting rid of the feed via Preferences, or the silliness at the bottom on ANY account, just by disabling meebo, also in Prefs.
i currently spend quite a bit of time on MagiStream – a site started and run by teenagers that manages to cope with all the issues above…on a shoestring budget from member donations only (to get monthly special-release unbreedable pets, which nonpaying members are free to buy for site tender from those who have them).
they have an excellent trading system, terrific all-volunteer mods (but they must qualify, and if they goof there is a court of higher appeal), and OPEN communication with site admin at all times, especially if there is a problem or planned change.
FooMojo’s problems are as much or more with attitude as budget.
First – FooMojo needs to stop treating their CUSTOMERS like trash. Even those that don’t pay to have ClubFoo are customers – they generate income on-site for FooMojo.
Second – stop alienating the adult population on FooPets. Technically, we were there first before FooMojo decided to turn FooPets into a paid babysitting service. There needs to be some place that adults can go and be adults – other sites that cater to children have managed this so why can’t Foo?
Third – stop trying to line their pockets at the expense of my wallet. If it’s a good product or value for the money, I’ll buy it. If you force it down my throat, I’m just going to cough and then vomit. I’ve got a ton of FGs and FDs sitting there doing nothing because I refuse to be “pushed” in to making a purchase of crap items. I also am letting my Club membership run out on all my accounts (and then subsequently deleting those accounts) because ClubFoo is no longer a value for my dollar. They promised certain things when I joined ClubFoo and so far I haven’t gotten what I paid for (mainly the ability to remove that God-awful Activity Feed).
Fourth – release the grip on your purse strings and PAY for decent site coders/creators. There are so MANY problems on the site that there isn’t even room to list them all. Stop screwing with the little crap and fix the problems so the players can interact with their pets & environments without errors and hassle.
Fifth – let loose of the purse strings even more and PAY for REAL forum staff and Support staff. I refuse to even enter the forums any more due to the BULLSHIT that goes on in there, much of it caused by the arbitrary rules and whims of the so-called “Ambassadors”. I’ve been on many sites and NONE has a forum that is as badly moderated as FooPets. And you don’t even want me to start with the deplorable state of affairs of the Support Staff – which is really a misnomer because the people in there ARE NOT actually trained in Customer Support nor in any type of fashion to deal with customer tech problems.
And lastly – stop adding new crap and changing stuff around for a while. Constantly making changes to things in the game at a rapid pace just makes for more things to go wrong along with frustrating your customers/players. Leave your meddling hands out of the game for a while, fix the current problems, release a new pet or two (like you promised to do in Jan. 2011), and then maybe change one or two things and make sure they function correctly for the MAJORITY of the users, then you can play around with changing something else.
Until a lot of this starts happening, they will continue to loose loyal players to places like Facebook (with App Games) and other sites like Chicken Smoothie for the younger ones. No one likes to come to the store and buy a crap product that doesn’t work and have the store not only tell you there’s no refund, but you’re the cause of the problem and have you permanently removed with the help of the police.
Peach :o)~
we’re pretty much on the same page – there are a few specific ways i have in mind to best address the issues you list, but the list itself pretty much covers the waterfront. many thanks!
one thing…on the few (3 or 4 out of 16 or so, i think) accounts i have ClubFoo’d – mainly the shelters for operating capital – i have had no difficulty getting rid of the feed via Preferences, or the silliness at the bottom on ANY account, just by disabling meebo, also in Prefs.
i currently spend quite a bit of time on MagiStream – a site started and run by teenagers that manages to cope with all the issues above…on a shoestring budget from member donations only (to get monthly special-release unbreedable pets, which nonpaying members are free to buy for site tender from those who have them).
they have an excellent trading system, terrific all-volunteer mods (but they must qualify, and if they goof there is a court of higher appeal), and OPEN communication with site admin at all times, especially if there is a problem or planned change.
if a bunch of kids working out of a garage can run a site this complex this well, there is no reason FooPets needs to be the mess it is.
FooMojo’s problems are as much or more with attitude as budget…if they were open to their players, they would have all the free help – much of it highly skilled – that they need. i have never heard of ANY site either needing, or gouging their players for, the kind of cash hit that Foo is these days.
I have Meebo disabled via the computer side so it doesn’t appear on ANY website that encompasses it. Doesn’t help and the Activity Feed on FP still appears. I still have technical problems accessing the site and was told that it would go away if I would just give Kate the names of ALL the accounts I use to access FooPets as it is being caused by an IP ban that hasn’t been fully released. That in and of itself is pure crap and I refuse to give any information to them when they already have that info. on hand and can easily release and reset the IP address from their side, but just don’t want to bother with it – just because they WANT to be difficult. And I doubt it’s just an IP ban that’s causing the problems I described to them as the problems arose WELL after that ban was enacted. Also, I have reset and changed my IP several times along with changing my MAC address (what a royal pain in the @$$ that was!) and still the same problems exist. Those same problems exist when I access the game (and other accts. that are not mine but have been given permission to log in to) from other locations around my state when I’m on the go with the band and using a laptop that belongs either to my daughter (just bought at Christmas time) or the keyboardist. Neither of these machines along with any in my house can get FP to function correctly and show numerous “Mad Kitty” errors during a session. I’ve just given up and don’t really give a rat’s ass anymore what happens on there – when my time is up, I’m gone and there really isn’t any foreseeable way to make me stay and put up with any more crap from their bull. I was just today solicited by a friend (#2) of a friend (#1) to convince #1 to stay as they had been discussing leaving FP. I told #2 that I wouldn’t bother trying to convince #1 to stay as I wouldn’t want them to do the same to me. Everyone has their breaking point and apparently #1’s has come as has mine.
Peach :o)~