my apologies

Hi. I'm Neil the lead coder on Astroranch. Firstly i would like to apologise for the amount of bugs you've had and thank many of you who have helped fix many of the ones we have had so far. Astroranch is a large project and we have been using it to try several new approaches.
We are trying to work through the bugs reported but I am having trouble recreating several of them. The 2 main priorities are the crash bug and of course the premium upgrade. For the premium upgrade i need to know:
1. Where you upgraded (Main menu or oxygen store) as it may be an issue of one giving incorrect data
2. If you had a good connection when buying (if you receive the apple purchase finished conformation message you should have got the premium upgrade.)
3. If you have tried purchasing again (firstly check that the premium has been bought and you have been sent a receipt. If you have you should not be charged for clicking again) If you do wish to try purchasing again please email or PM me first for confirmation and wait for a reply.

For the crash the info i need is:
1. Day of the crash. i suspect it is when a certain quest activates but will need day to estimate which it could be.
2. If you were in the middle of any quest for same reason as above.
3. If you fell asleep in house prior to crash as it may be an issue of it trying to update to current time.

Your device and OS will be useful as well as we do know that Astroranch does push the lower end devices.
I will do my best to create a final bug free build for next update and I thank you all for being patient with us.

If you could private message me these details as soon as possible and will use them to try and get Astroranch sorted once and for all.

Thats great for those that are purchasing the full version upgrade in game Neil but what about those of us who purchased the full version on its release in February, when can we expect to see a solution to the automatic upgrade that fails to recognize our original purchase?

Heck even after several reinstalls the damn Rich List still recognizes my original username "Flin" and my previous ranch top value so why the hell doesn't the upgrade system?

Sadly AstroRanch could have and should have been the game of the year, but despite all the apologies, promises and updates more than 2 months after its release it is still unstable and with the ineptly conceived, poorly implemented introduction of the ridiculously restricted Freemium model on top of it all it is nothing less than the disappointment of the year.

At least with Ngmoco Freemium model if you choose not to purchase in game commodities you are not locked out of the game for 24 hours after only a few minutes play, that is not Freemium that is Crippleware.

this sounds like it could be a server issue. can you private message me your UDID so i can check the values the server has for you. same for any one else with this issue.

thanks to all who have sent in information so far. i'm pleased to say we have fixed several of the issues and have possible solutions for some of the others. again any information anyone with these issues can send me will help confirm where the issues are and will decrease time needed to fix them. again thank you all for being so patient with us.

just an update on the progress on the next astroranch build.
we have an update to fix the major issues in astroranch but we want to test it to ensure they are all fixed. once we are happy that all the bugs are fixed we will upload to the store. again thanks to all that have sent in infomation and again sorry for the issues you have had. hopefully this update will be the end of all these bugs.

Is this going to fix the game for those of us who purchased it months ago and are not registered on your server? (i.e. we never registered our ranch with scoreloop).

The whole experience with this upgrade has been dismal and it seems like you still are not addressing this basic problem for the hundreds/thousands who cannot upgrade and are stuck with a game they paid for but cannot play.

I purchased the upgrade and such yesterday, also try to get the someitems for it as well (like money and chars and such) however it will not download for me and it kind of really pisses me off that i cannot find a way to download the gold but i get charged for it if i try it again...

this is a known issue and should be fixed in next update. i'm sorry for the inconvenience caused. again if anyone is having issues please personal message me the details such as device, OS, connection and anything else you think is relevent as this will speed up fixing any bugs.

good news! we believe that we have solved previous users not getting premium upgrade automatticly. this should solve the issue for many who were having the issue if you have registered (or played in slot 1) before the change to freemium. if you are still having issues do contact me and we will get it fixed asap but i'm confident this should solve the issue for the majority if not all. no upgrade will be needed for this fix so as long as you start playing somewhere with a good net connection it should work automattically. once the new update is tested completely we will upload it and that should solve the majority of other bugs.
special thanks to Flin for his help on the issue.

I tried again (wifi on - sitting next to my router) and cannot upgrade - so the problem still is not fixed. I have a 3g Ipod Touch and play games with wifi off. I purchased the game about 2 weeks after it came out and only play in slot 1. I have never removed the game from my Ipod.

With all due respect, the programming issues should have been sorted out before changing to freemium (or cripple ware in my case), or you should have put the game back as it was until you did get the programming right.

If you issue yet another update that does not work for those of us who paid for the game before it became freemium, you are only going to greatly upset everyone once again.

been testing astroranch and have had no problems so upload is going out. will take a few days and should solve the majority of issues. if anyone is still having issues send as much details as you can. as for the previous post the game uses server data to determine if astroranch was bought before the freemium change so would have been nessesary for users to have played online at some point before the change. we suspect that some of the users having issues were playing offline so wouldn't have been set on the server. we are looking for another way to check this but we can set server data manually for these users. if you are affected by this PM me with your UDID to identify the server data and your astroranch reciept for proof of purchase. any relevent info (connection strength, if you have connected before etc.) will also be very usefull. i hope this update will make you all a lot happier.

I sent you my receipt and UDID yesterday by PM, but it looks like you didn't receive it, so I've sent it again.