I will not be nearly as active on Fubar as I have been for the past 14 months that I have been here. I suddenly had 1,111 Achievement Points taken away from me for no good reason, but even when I went through the list of Achievements available, I STILL had credit for every single Achievement I had completed on the list. When I contacted Fubar staff, it was explained to me that they sometimes come out with Achievements for which they later discover that they made a programming error, and some other players may have been able to find an exploit that would have helped them complete the Achievement more easily than others. When that happens on Fubar, I was told they remove the Achievement from the site completely, so that EVERYONE loses the Achievement they worked so hard for, and they take the Achievement Points away from everyone who did that particular Achievement, even if they spent the hours, days, or even weeks it took to earn it legitimately. From what was explained to me, they have been removing Achievements from the site on a regular basis, but the points were not being taken away for a lot of us customers, so they ran a script to take away the Achievement Points many of us had earned, but which Fubar had decided to remove from the site completely.
I had no idea that they were regularly taking away Achievements players had earned, and when I saw that I lost 1,111 Achievement Points from playing less than 14 months, that meant Fubar was taking away an average of more than 2 1/2 Achievement Points on a daily basis (assuming 14 months, 30 days per month, and having 1,111 AP removed in one fell swoop, not even factoring in other AP that may have been previously removed without me noticing). That means I would have to continue working to earn at least an average of 2 1/2 AP per day, JUST to break even, then work even harder to stay ahead. That means that if two players both go for 5 DIFFERENT Achievements, each taking one week to complete, for 100 AP per Achievement, then at the end of 5 weeks they each did 5 weeks of work and earned 500 AP. That is cool and that is how games work. However, if Fubar later realizes that they made a programming error in the 5 that one player did, and some player in Egypt may have cheated to get those 5 Achievements, then Fubar takes those 5 Achievements completely off the site and takes the Achievement Points away from everyone who did them, even if they put in the time and effort to do them legitimately, and even if they weren't aware that a programming error even existed. If all 5 Achievements happen to be the ones that one of those players completed, then one of the players put in 5 weeks of time and effort with absolutely nothing to show for it, they have no points, and the other player is now 500 points ahead of them, simply by "luck of the draw". That means that for any Achievement I do from here on out, I know that for every Achievement for which I put in the time and effort to complete, I would simply have to cross my fingers and "hope" that I am lucky enough to be picking the Achievements that will not be later removed from Fubar.
I really have no interest in playing a game that does that. I have never played a game before, where a player puts in a lot of time and effort to complete Achievements, quests, bonuses, level requirements, or whatever, then the game designers come back later and say "Remember that two weeks you spent doing that one quest, well we decided we are taking the credit and points away from you and everyone else who did it, because we made a programming error." If I feel like playing games, then I will just go back to putting my time and effort into computer and internet games where the players keep the achievements and points that they legitimately earned (of course, if they were to only take away the points from the players who took advantage of the exploit, then that would be fine with me).
I will still be logging in regularly, especially to chat with my super sweet and adorable Fu-Wife, to talk to some of my other friends on here, and to help people with their Achievements and Level requirements when I can, because helping others on here has always been my favorite part of playing Fubar. I will probably still run a FAMP once in a while, and maybe even do an Achievement or two once in a while. I just won't be spending nearly as much time or effort on here as I have in the past, because it simply makes no sense to me to play ANY game where whether or not I get to keep the Achievements and points that I legitimately earn is based solely on the "luck of the draw", and on any given day at any given time I may discover that I (along with every other player who happened to do the same Achievements I did) wasted hours, days, or even weeks of game play time with absolutely nothing to show for it.
UPDATE 6 MAR 2016 - I have recently seen statuses on several Fu-Family and Fu-Friend statuses, complaining that Fubar is now trotting out old Achievements that they had done a few years ago, that Fubar removed from the site, but now they have to go through and expend that time, effort, and/or money to do again. This definitely reinforces my decision to spend very little time and effort on the game play aspects of this site, and just enjoy the social aspects.
