New Newspaper - unwanted customers

[Supernovaonfiya22]

Thank you Swisspie, Supranovafiya, and Emmie

I just wanted to get across that the bandits may be people who are beginners and don't yet understand, rather than don't care. They could as suggested, be young children. A game like this is a reflection of real life though, some folks are just opportunists and will grab all they can.

I'm at level 23 and as I first stated have only two friends and my daughter (one of the friends is the Fairy Godmother) the other is also a higher level player. I now have one follower (level 10) unknown.

Today I decided to try and generate some cash and started to put things in my shop, taking care not to advertise. Before I could even fill five trays everything went. It wasn't at rock bottom price but it wasn't full price either, but I've not sold anything for 2 days so any advert would be long dead. What I do do though, is to check any farm I buy from, or attempt to buy from, for dying trees and always revive them ( I'm a gardener!) could this be creating the link?

Oh, by gingerbread man do you mean just the generic avatar, so it could be anyone?

Yes, the Gingerbread Man, bandit, stranger are all the same unknown variable. I'm glad you now have some insight into the problem (sucks that you were robbed though.)


One interesting observance is that they never take the higher level goods like jewelry, espressos, ice cream, etc... I have had some of these items up for two hours without advertising and they are still there now. I added a mallet, crops, and hamburgers which were all swiftly snatched up leaving the other items alone. I had the high level items priced very fairly so I find it hard to believe that my entire store is being advertised. There is no way that most players would pass up a latte for just 50c. IF they were at a high enough level, that is.
Another thing is that when I first started playing HD I would frequently see candy items for sale and I eagerly awaited the time when I would level up enough to get a candy machine. I just realized that I havent seen a single candy for sale, not even one, not from any high level player in the past few months. Now, i know we all claim that some items are "impossible" to find but we all know that that sometimes we see ads for planks,etc... But how is it that not a single player from say level 65 never has a candy item for sale? Did all the high level players just collectively stop making candy altogether? When I say I haven't seen it for sale I mean that in the literal sense- not in the newspaper or even greyed out in friend's private shops. I cant even buy the candy as Im only level 46 but are the items being sold and I just cant see them anymore? Is that what is happening to our stores as well? Hmmmm. I'm a skeptic by nature and I generally like to toss around several ideas before making a judgement so here goes another suggestion. What if the developers created a bot that bypassed the privacy (unadvertised) button for certain general population/all level items in order to bring more of those items into the game? With so many people complaining about the lack of variety in the DD it may have been SC's solution to appease the masses. For example, certain items, like building materials and lower level products, could not be made private and for the higher level items like ice cream or candy the players can't see items that they dont have access to. That would be a well-intentioned attempt on their part to help level the playing field, although if that were the case it would have been nice to have been warned beforehand.
I know all this sounds far fetched but unless someone can disprove the theory it just may make a bit of sense. Anyone care to test out the hypothesis?

[Tinkerbell]

my personal opinion, is that ads are not being placed even if we don't advertise.
Yesterday I experimented by putting some expansion items in my shop at a low price. The first two sold immediately, so I placed another two. These took about 8 minutes to sell.
My conclusion: people are visiting through the leaderboard and/or the last helpers list.

[gailjo]

my personal opinion, is that ads are not being placed even if we don't advertise.
Yesterday I experimented by putting some expansion items in my shop at a low price. The first two sold immediately, so I placed another two. These took about 8 minutes to sell.
My conclusion: people are visiting through the leaderboard and/or the last helpers list.

You may be right. But this problem did not start with the intoduction of the leader boards. It started after the newspaper changed. My unknowns are not coming from last helper list as I know exactly who I have helped.

[Lindystarr]

my personal opinion, is that ads are not being placed even if we don't advertise.
Yesterday I experimented by putting some expansion items in my shop at a low price. The first two sold immediately, so I placed another two. These took about 8 minutes to sell.
My conclusion: people are visiting through the leaderboard and/or the last helpers list.

Then why no photo or name? I have deliberately only helped those with photos and one actually helped me today and bought in my shop, (3 apples that had survived the raids!) and showed up with photo and name. I haven't got a single friend or follower that buys from me that doesn't show at least their name; those near me on the leader board also have photos, and before the last update I had never had anyone buy from me without name or photo. The speed that they buy is impossible unless they are actually living on my farm! There is no way they could load up my farm from the leader board in less than 2 seconds, and I play at all hours of the day so no helper could always be playing at the same time I do. There must be another explanation!

[Tinkerbell]

Then why no photo or name? I have deliberately only helped those with photos and one actually helped me today and bought in my shop, (3 apples that had survived the raids!) and showed up with photo and name. I haven't got a single friend or follower that buys from me that doesn't show at least their name; those near me on the leader board also have photos, and before the last update I had never had anyone buy from me without name or photo. The speed that they buy is impossible unless they are actually living on my farm! There is no way they could load up my farm from the leader board in less than 2 seconds, and I play at all hours of the day so no helper could always be playing at the same time I do. There must be another explanation!

the no photo or name thing is probably someone from the leaderboard, or slow loading. This is not something new, there have always been gingerbread men. Also, they may have been visiting your farm from the leaderboard at the time you placed the item.
Quite often when people purchase from me their names don't appear for quite a few minutes, and sometimes not until I close the game completely. This is not ideal, but its what happens.

[GepardiX]

the no photo or name thing is probably someone from the leaderboard, or slow loading. This is not something new, there have always been gingerbread men. Also, they may have been visiting your farm from the leaderboard at the time you placed the item.
Quite often when people purchase from me there names don't appear for quite a few minutes, and sometimes not until I close the game completely. This is not ideal, but its what happens.

Yes very often game doesnt load images or names then anyone can be ginger bread.

[Lindystarr]

the no photo or name thing is probably someone from the leaderboard, or slow loading. This is not something new, there have always been gingerbread men. Also, they may have been visiting your farm from the leaderboard at the time you placed the item.
Quite often when people purchase from me there names don't appear for quite a few minutes, and sometimes not until I close the game completely. This is not ideal, but its what happens.

It's not lag. I know that happens, but these never appear, and they aren't from the leader board, I check before I put anything up for sale and after. The same faces are there and they aren't the buyers. Here is a screen shot I took. The goods were up for 10 minutes so thought it was safe and started putting more up. The first buyer was a friend who has no avatar but has got a name, then I got a surge of buyers and everything was gone within a minute, and yes, some were faceless to start with, but this screenshot was taken 10 minutes later, after a refresh, and the other buyers were loaded but ginger bread man stayed a ginger bread man. In fact he was still there when I woke up the next morning. I didn't recognise the other buyers either, but that was before I started noting down who I helped, so could be them. The ginger bread man might not be a new thing, but he is for me, and it's every time I put something up for sale. And three different people buying up all goods within I minute, without advertising, seems to be very unlikely.

[Tinkerbell]

It's not lag. I know that happens, but these never appear, and they aren't from the leader board, I check before I put anything up for sale and after. The same faces are there and they aren't the buyers. Here is a screen shot I took. The goods were up for 10 minutes so thought it was safe and started putting more up. The first buyer was a friend who has no avatar but has got a name, then I got a surge of buyers and everything was gone within a minute, and yes, some were faceless to start with, but this screenshot was taken 10 minutes later, after a refresh, and the other buyers were loaded but ginger bread man stayed a ginger bread man. In fact he was still there when I woke up the next morning. I didn't recognise the other buyers either, but that was before I started noting down who I helped, so could be them. The ginger bread man might not be a new thing, but he is for me, and it's every time I put something up for sale. And three different people buying up all goods within I minute, without advertising, seems to be very unlikely.

Really? I have always had everything sold very quickly in my shop. Everything's almost always gone within a couple of minutes. Nothing new there.

[Swisspie81]

my personal opinion, is that ads are not being placed even if we don't advertise.
Yesterday I experimented by putting some expansion items in my shop at a low price. The first two sold immediately, so I placed another two. These took about 8 minutes to sell.
My conclusion: people are visiting through the leaderboard and/or the last helpers list.

Because I cannot play the game as I used to, instead of quitting the game altogether I started a new farm under another ID. Just for fun and to see how it would work out if you do not take away trees and rocks. And to check if it would be found by potathead if there was no trace AT ALL. ( no facebook connection, no friends, no leaderboard, nothing)
As soon as I started putting things in the shop, cowfeed, ofcourse WITHOUT advertising, it was bought by the potatohead.

the farm is level 8, has one friend (me), no boat, I started this farm two hours ago and already the ninja virus has got it.
Triggered by cowfeed. Sigh. How depressing.

"They find your farm through something you have done in the past". NO. NO. NO. And once again, NO.

No friends except my other farm.
No followers
No advertising
Don't help anyone, ever
LB score 1 (and that was from when the LB was just introduced)

EVERY time I put an expansion item in my shop it is immediately purchased by a gingerbread man. This is with my farms side by side and my finger poised over the stall.

This NEVER happened to me until the last update, and started immediately after I updated.

The gingerbread men are real players... and different ones. One decided to follow me, and I had to shut down my farm and hang up a "closed" sign for 3 days to get him to un-follow me. Two others managed to find an un-revived bush that I keep behind the barn so my mini-farm stays on my ! bar. But how they are finding me??? No logical explanation... but the problem came along with the horrid new newspaper, and I hope you are tearing that code apart to find the glitch.

Please... no more insulting our intelligence please. I much prefer a simple "sorry, we haven't found the problem yet". Could an interim solution be to revert to the old newspaper?

Hi
Tink, sorry, but the two cases mentioned above disproves that the cause of this issue is that farms are accessed through lb.

doesn't seem likely for people to all of a sudden going through the bottom of leaderboard to find goodies. If this is the case, Mary and I'm sure others would have voiced their concerns when the leaderboard was first introduced.

[Swisspie81]

I've scanned through this thread: http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...nted-customers, but figured I'd post my thoughts here since it has a bit of a twist.

I know we've all guessed it, something piggy is REALLY happening.

I haven't been advertising since level 35 because I didn't want anymore followers and wanted to stock my shop for my neighbors only.

Well, guess what? Last night I just acquired a new unwanted visitor who BECAME A FOLLOWER. I've had 8 followers for a while and seeing that it changed to 9, scared me half to death. This happened after I loaded my shop with a bunch of common items.

1) I didn't advertise.
2) I am not in the top 200 leaderboard listing.
3) This follower is level 25, has their dock unlocked but is nowhere near me on the whole of the leaderboard.

And now I keep wondering why we see more expansion parts in the DD, is it because of this glitch? Well, my conclusion, we're definitely oinked.

I did help two players and it's been a while so my name should of dropped off their last helpers tab by now. Other than that, I remember that those two players were higher than level 25. That's why I didn't take this into consideration.

I repost Aristo's observations here also as an example.

Again, people who are high level (think she's 51... Or around there) shouldn't see THAT much lower level people on LB unless she has been doing one boat per level since level 25. Unless that level 25 player opened dock but helped a thousand crates before... Just not plausible.

Gaining followers only possible through DD, LB, and if you help stranger farms.

Those examples eliminate all the three theories. Unless all are highly exceptional cases.


but the amount of feedback since the new DD maintenance ensures that the problem is pervasive