A Facelift For Butter Picks
Posted on March 8, 2010 | 7 Comments
Last Friday we flipped the switch and released our latest version of Butter Picks. I want to talk a bit about the changes and why we made them.
There have been some grumblings about the new design, as there always are when things change. The supermarket effect is a term that was coined to describe people’s natural resistance to a change in a system they’ve become accustomed to.
So if we knew people would be pissed off, why did we make the changes? Here’s what we think has improved with the new version of the game:
- You can now use Butter Picks outside of Facebook. Over the past year the app was frequently unusable because of Facebook bugs. The app will be more reliable now. Also, many people can’t access Facebook at work.
- The app is much faster and more responsive. By removing Facebook from the equation we remove more than 60% of the time we had to spend talking to the internet. With the new calendar you can now jump from day to day without the very slow refresh of the whole page.
- “Disappearing picks” should be fixed. Quite a few people complained about “disappearing picks”. I believe this was an interface problem caused by Facebook javascript bugs, and it should now be solved.
- The prize rules are better explained. Quite a few people have asked me why I changed the rules regarding the awarding of a star. I haven’t changed the rules! They’re actually just front and center now, written in a way that people can understand.
So we think things are better, but we’ve left some things out, and we’re not finished making changes. Here’s what’s coming up soon:
- Friend rankings and weekly rankings. We took these away temporarily, but they’ll be back shortly.
- NCAA Basketball. We’re going to add every game that’s in this year’s tournament to see who knows their college hoops.
- New Prizes. To make the game more fun, we’re adding a bunch of new prizes. The first ones will be the superstar (risking every game and getting every game right), the goat (getting every game wrong), and the supergoat (risking every game and getting them all wrong.)
- An iPhone app.
- New ways to win butter. Currently you get a bunch of butters every time you level up. We’re reducing that, but we’re going to add a “butter pot” that a ribbon winner will win. The number of butters in the butter pot will depend on how many people have picked for that day.
Like all software, we know there will be bugs. If you have found any, report them to us please! We’ll fix them asap. And if you have any other ideas for the game, please let us know.
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7 Responses to “A Facelift For Butter Picks”
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March 8th, 2010 @ 6:58 pm
At first I couldnt figure it out so I didn’t like it. I would click on my picks and nothing would highlight. I find that I have to keep refreshing and then that backs my out and I have to click nhl to get back in and then its fine. so you were saying we should be able access at work where we cant access face book how will we do that?? I mis my friends but I hear that coming back so thats good!!
March 8th, 2010 @ 7:00 pm
Hey if this app will run smoother with less bugs Great ! We need the daily, weekly leader boards back fer sure thats what makes kicking Orkis ass so much fun and you know what the friend daily competition thing is priceless good job on this Ben oh yeah , the real time picker ticker top right box should come back 2.
March 9th, 2010 @ 10:01 am
so do we no longer lock in our picks ?? … I liked that, it ensured me that my picks were entered.
March 9th, 2010 @ 11:29 pm
Hey Ben…like the new interface, I assume you know the formatting is screwed with safari (or was last I checked)…my only beef is that you can’t see if a game is “in play” for any league without going to that league page itself. Its way easy to forget to look in each league to make sure you hit that days events…I think there was an advantage to having the “grid” that showed how many games on each day. Any way to merge the new graphical interface with that numeric information? As always, dude, you rock…thanks for all the fun. My friends hate me for beating them, but I can live with that! Take care.
March 10th, 2010 @ 2:42 pm
Hi guys – thanks for the feedback. Weekly and friends leaders coming back soon.
Stephen, I fixed a few of the Safari issues yesterday and will deal with login problems in Safari shortly. I agree that some more info about which leagues are “active” would be helpful.
March 10th, 2010 @ 9:31 pm
Hey Ben I just levelled up to 11 in nba, about to level up to 8 in epl and I’m 50 pts away in nhl from l2 so adding it up its like 31 new butters.With the changes the butter amount will be reduced, by how much is the question ?
March 11th, 2010 @ 10:46 am
Hi Michael – currently you get two butters for levelling up. There will be other ways to earn butter soon!