This game has always allowed cheating. You can try using words you don’t know without penalty. You can see the tiles your challenger has at the end of the game. Etc. But now you play against people who can swap letters without losing a turn, and you’ll never know it. We all have played games where we end up getting crappy letters the entire time. It’s frustrating, but it’s the luck of the draw. I don’t think it’s too much to ask of the developers to have matches where you agree to not use swap + and other cheats that you can purchase. Everyone who plays a game should have the same rules. (I realize they want to make money from these cheats, but the relentless ads should be making them money too.) The game has speed games and solo games with separate boards already. Just add a true WWF classic mode that doesn’t allow paid cheats. It’s not that much to ask, if you want to keep all your customers happy. At this point, I’m going to stop playing with real people and just play the solo mode. Or maybe just stop playing altogether. That means much less ad revenue for them, when they could just allow another format instead.
Sadly the developers have ruined this game. Every time you take a turn now you have to watch some bull crap ads and some of those will not clear until they open a web page or the App Store. When I first started playing I bought the ad free version. That apparently is no longer a thing. I like playing on my skill and do not use the “advantages” because what’s the point if your not being honest? I’ve been playing without any of that and the main thing I cannot take is the adds that constantly after every turn make you wait to play and sometimes won’t clear till you close the app and reopen it. If that’s not enough the header at the top of the game constantly pelts you with adds as well. I hate that I cannot play this game honestly and know that others are as well. I expect my opponents are using the advantages but I mostly win unless they are using one of the cheats other than the ones tied into the game. Obviously the developers are money hungry and seems that’s all they care about cause you can spend money to get the advantages and all that. It would be great if they got rid of all that crap and made a straight up game no strings attached, play by your skill not your cheats. Sorry for the rant but there are plenty others like me I know that just enjoy playing without being bombarded with ads and opponents that may or may not be cheating. Guess I go back to my wordjong and scrabble, too many frustrations with what this game has become.
I have reached frustration point with this game. Just played, and computer used the word « Etnas » which they defined as « A volcano in Italy. » The word « A » signifies One, and there are no plural volcanoes with this name in Italy. Plus, it is a proper noun, the use of which computer denies to players. Computer uses Spanish or French words, such as rio or je, but when I put in a foreign word, computer rejected it. Computer, up until recently, rejected the word « Zen » but now accepts it. Not appropriate ! Often times, the computer game is described as « easy » but uses words I have never heard of, such as arcane flora or fauna from Africa or Australia or archaic money from Asian countries. And that is supposed to be the EASY game? I have a Master’s Degree in French and taught high school French, Spanish and English for thirty-eight years, so I am not vocabulary - challenged. The developers need to do some serious work improving the solo challenges making them fairer. The rules should be the same for players and the computer. If a word is allowed for the computer, it should be allowed for players. You either include proper nouns or you don’t. The same for foreign words. ( Neither of which are accepted in Scrabble.)The easy challenges should not include such things as archaic spellings of Scottish language or weird plants from Asia. Those belong only in the more difficult challenges.
Why is it that the developers have only addressed bug fixes and technical issues that other reviews have mentioned... but have not addressed the issue with the creepy men/scammers that start a game with you, and a few turns in start messaging you asking personal questions and to chat in another messaging app!? This is incredibly frustrating! The moment I tell them “No, and that I’m simply just trying to play a game,” they stop playing and I’m stuck waiting 10+ days for the game to resign itself. This takes up a valuable spot where I could be playing someone that actually wants to play. I recently muted one guy and was still able to see his messages anyways! THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED! And by fixed, I mean GET RID OF THESE PEOPLE! Not only are the scammers and creepy men an issue, but the amount of ads and pop ups are ridiculous! Honestly there’s so much going on within the app, so much clutter, and has all these dumb daily goals and mini challenges that it’s hard to navigate the app. I can care less for any of that stuff, I just want to play the game against friends or others. Get rid of this junk! I’m going to need to find another app to play on if this doesn’t change soon!
Update Dec 2021: No change. Kroger, you are killing me. You were my childhood grocery store and I loved you. I hate your recipe ads and will never watch that or any others. Ridiculous. And now WWF, you have put a banner at the top and I can’t see the score. Knock it off please. The game itself, I’d give a 5. It’s fun, good to have a touchstone for friends far away, and unknown friends. But OMG, the ads are ridiculous. There are now TWO-MINUTE ads in the game, over and over and over again. Playing the solo 12 level “find a word” games, it takes 25 minutes to play. 1 minute for the game itself and 24 minutes of ads. Really WWF? Really? I won’t speak for anyone else, but these days I have the attention span of a gnat. The 30 second gross and repetitious Gardenscapes ads now seem like a nanosecond. Who does this? And advertisers, if you can’t say it in 15 or 20 seconds, then get a better marketing firm. You are being played. Maybe I watched 40 seconds the first time, but after 6 times in a row, it’s mind numbing insanity. I now play WWF and read a book at the same time. So thanks for that. Advertisers please reconsider...a solid 20 second ad will grab my attention, 2 minutes in a game ruins all credibility or desire to purchase your products. I wrote this over a year ago and now it’s happening again. Knock it off advertisers!
I have played this for years and love it, but a few weeks ago, I have no idea what happened, but all of my friends that I play with disappeared, my profile name and picture changed, (and I did not change it) and I could get nothing back!! I even tried to look up my friends and get them back, I even tried through Facebook, they even tried sending me a new friend request to no avail, and it’s a total mystery what happened! I tried to contact Words with no response! I left an email address, but no response. I tried deleting the app and starting fresh and nothing worked. I did get invites from “people” that I didn’t know, but I think they were fakes or robots or something since every time I played, even at 3AM, “everyone” immediately played a word back and I just don’t believe that if they were real people, every single one of them would be immediately responding with their word at 3AM (most people aren’t up at 3AM). Even when it’s not 3AM, every single time I played a word, there was an immediate response, which just does not happen. So how could this have happened and how can it be resolved? Is there really any customer service out there to help with this? This is not the first time I’ve tried to get an answer about something on this app with absolutely no response.
Years ago I paid for the ad free/contest free version of wwf because all I want to do is play the game. You added these so called ‘enhancements’ without asking for my permission. I am so sick of playing a word and then having to wait for all the stupid ‘congratulations, you’ve made the word of the day’ or ‘your new word of the day is...’, which actually turns out to be the word of the hour when I play multiple games a day. I want you to remove all the extraneous junk from my games please. What I paid for is the game, not all the dumb congrats boxes and awards. From reading other reviews, I am one of probably thousands of others who are not happy with your so-called improvements. It seems to me that either you remove the ads and silly boxes of awards, congrats, and other things we didn’t pay for or we are all owed our money back. Of the 2 choices, I prefer you remove the junk so that I can play wwf without interruption. I’m giving the game itself 4 stars because by itself, it’s almost a perfect game. Thank you.
Where to begin? I guess it’s my fault for expecting that this game was Scrabble or a reasonable facsimile. I am an avid Scrabble player and take pride in my vocabulary. Imagine my shock when all of a sudden words that ARE NOT WORDS began to show up as accepted by this game. And imagine my even BIGGER shock when I looked up these so called words in the game’s definition section and find that AT THIS TIME WE HAVE NO DEFINITION FOR THIS WORD BUT WE ARE WORKING ON IT.....huh? And the skip your turn option with no penalty? And the option to see where you can make the best play? Why bother playing at all? I have told my friends who play with me that if they are using those options, cross me off their list. I do not use them ever. And as for some doozy “words” my friends come up with....they tell me they throw everything at the wall to see what sticks. Oh, fun. So why do I play? Oh I don’t know.....bored I guess. If anyone else feels like I do, there’s real Scrabble at a site called Word Biz that is an Internet Scrabble Club and is true Scrabble. I play it on my computer and it’s awesome. One more thing....I find all the non-game interruptions annoying. I know I can delete the app anytime I want but I do enjoy the actual strategy of playing a straight-forward game with no “help” options. One more observation.....how can a word be a word if it has no definition?
WWF used to be really fun because of the simplicity of playing with friends with nothing to pop up except for 5 to 10 second ads. Ever since an update a couple months ago now there are more ads that are usually 30 seconds. Not only that but they added these “improvements” and challenges that interrupt matches. I like the idea of challenges but I don’t like the fact that they are forced to be reviewed and waste a good 10 to 15 seconds of your time just so you can see you completed them. And the last thing I have to complain about is that the game has been freezing my entire phone almost every other match. This is the only app that I have that does that and I have an iPhone 8 Plus. I don’t know what you did to your game in the last update but fix it because I am tired of my phone freezing for minutes. The only reason I haven’t deleted your game is because I still want to play with friends but your latest updates are really wanting me to delete your game and never touch it again because you guys have screwed it up really badly. The fact that you’re getting two stars is just out of pity Due to the fact that the game is still fun to an extent...
After the last iOS update two weeks ago, the app will not work on my iPad or iPhone. My games will not refresh at all on any platform. The daily challenge is the only one that works. There is no phone tech support. The in app tech support is terrible. They give me the same options that are already posted everywhere, as though I would need to contact them if my issues were that simple. Once I’m contacting you, my issues are beyond those solutions. By then almost a week in including a game refresh which still doesn’t work. Love playing the game, although hands down all of the new stuff should be a totally separate application that you choose to use, not shoved down your throat. It’s a turn off, the changes that have been made. The classic original is still the preferred game and should be an uninterrupted option. I love the game. More games should be offered than the 56 cutoff. Customer support/technical support is lacking and terrible. 2.5 weeks now, and I’m still unable to play my games, with no idea of when this issue will be resolved. Obviously an upgrade is due for compatibility with the new iOS update, but no one seems to be listening. Therefore one star from me.
Can’t leave less than one star More bad news. Not only are these guys shoving so many ads down our throats that we can barely play the game, but they aren’t even interested in making the game work properly. The Word of the Day solo play feature never allows me to complete the day’s challenge. I get 4-5 words into it and it suddenly tells me that it can’t do something and then disappears. The challenge is gone and cannot be completed or restarted. More sloppy programming from people whose only real focus is shoving advertisement down your throat. Run screaming the other way! I expect the ads shoved down my throat constantly trying to get me to download other games they offer which do the same thing… basically it’s 30% playing and 70% dodging ads. What I did not expect was to be presented ads which advertise claiming to be someone else (scam), offer products for a charge of $1-5 to cover shipping, and then instantly be charged several high dollar amounts forcing me to close the credit card! If you WWF does business with scammers on its site, then they are the same sort of bottom feeding scum as the scammers! Run the other way!!
Words with friends used to be fun. The online game was similar to the Scrabble game played on a board. Over the past few years it’s gone on a downhill slide. Paying players seem to be forced to a child’s version of the game (WWF 2) that dumbs down the game and causes adults to give it up. When you opt to receive the classic WWF, as I did, elements of new, dumbed down version creep into the classic version. Now because I have a new phone, the classic version seems to be unavailable to me and I must subscribe to WWF 2. I won’t do it. I will discontinue any and all WWF applications until WWF Classic is restored for those of us older than age 12. Am I alone on this? We must all tell the company that we need to be able to opt for the Classic version. If WWF continues to make it difficult to receive the unadulterated classic version, I, for one, will opt out, just as many of folks I’ve played over the years have already done.
The free version of this game doesn’t just have ads. Ads I could deal with. The free version of this has horrible, mind-numbingly idiotic 30 second animations designed by psychologists to cause MAXIMUM anger and frustration on the part of the user. Every time you play a word you are BOMBARDED WITH THESE INANE cartoons that have a 30 second countdown and no way to avoid them. It is SO OBVIOUS that these were designed to torture the user into opening their wallet. Games like this should come with a warning: “the free version of this game is not actually a game. It is an instrument of TORTURE designed to either 1) drive you insane, 2) cause levels of blind rage sufficient to cause you to throw yourself under a bus, or 3) get out your credit card and give them anything they want to make the torture stop. The sad thing is, once you turn off all the ridiculous settings that make the game behave like a Vegas slot machine, and if you take enough sedatives to get you past the barrage of garbage in between plays, the game itself is actually extremely good.
When I got my new iPad I down loaded the new version because I couldn’t transfer the older one. It gave me no access to my old games and after multiple attempts get help to figure out how to do so without any response, I gave up and went back to my old iPad. Today an alert popped up stating that I can no longer continue playing without upgrading to a new edition. I’ve been playing this game for several years and I’m frustrated that I have no opportunity to contact people with whom our games have been abandoned. Furthermore, as others have noted, the newer versions have constant interruptions with meaningless bonus, awards etc. I love the game and the vehicle it’s been for staying connected with older family and friends....those most socially isolated. It’s time to look for other, more reliable options. Another example of the issues with the software: It asks for a nickname, I’ve been trying to give mine which I’ve had for years. It won’t accept it because it’s “already Taken”. Of course it is, it’s mine. Now I need to come up with a new one to post this😬
So, I never use the cheats playing other people because that just diminishes the challenges. I often practice solo games, though, and what’s been happening for a couple of month now is when a game against the “computer” finishes, it won’t allow a rematch and just bounces me back to the last move screen. In order to start another game, I have to close down the app and restart it. Add to that, even when I win against the computer, it tallies it as a “loss” on the board. Now, onto the Quick Play scheme…why are people entering games and then not playing? Why am I forced to resign and lose a turn because they won’t play just to get back to the standard playing board? Long-standing irritations have to do with the whole whiz bang add-ons, words allowed that don’t exist, and of course, I ended playing random matches because of skanky, aggressive messages from sketchy guys, a known issue for years for women that doesn’t seem to bother Zynga. Rant over. I’ll still play, but it’s becoming, in spite of all of its “enhancements”, an increasingly unwieldy and frustrating game. I know…first-world problems.
Game is great until they decide to upgrade and not tell you!
I’ve been playing word with friends for several years now and have never had a complaint. In fact I enjoy the game very much. My complaint comes when recently I’ve been trying to get into my word with friends app and everything appears to be opening as usual until I get nothing but a blue screen and nothing will happen. I finally give up and try again later. Except later I get the exact same thing. This has gone on for a couple weeks now. I’ve lost all my stats and power ups, everything I’ve worked to gain. I have 40 games that people probably think I’ve just abandoned. I’ve tried to go back to App Store and get words with friends 2 ....... different game and all my information from the the version didn’t transfer. I’m unbelievably upset and therefore wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who wants to play long term. There is no number to contact anyone. There is no email to contact anyone. Because I cannot get into the app there is no support to chat with. Everything just lost. If I could give lower than 1 Star right now I would do so!
I don’t do Facebook. I don’t want to do Facebook. Please give me the option in Settings that will allow me to stop the pop-up message asking me if I would like to contact my opponent through Facebook after EVERY MOVE!!! The other issue that the recent updates have given is the “ oops, something went wrong” in practice games that makes them unplayable and undelete-able unless I uninstall and reinstall the game from the App Store. Then I gotta go to settings and shut off all the other stuff that interrupts games....except Facebook, which seems to lord over this thing at will. I paid for it, so allegedly I don’t get any ads, but this Facebook thing is nothing but an ad. And please buy a newer dictionary. Please fix this stuff. Okay, it’s only fair to acknowledge it when the developers address your technical complaints.....so I’m upgrading my scathing “3-star” review to “4-stars” because they took my Facebook pop-up complaints to heart and eliminated the pop-ups after every turn. Thank you. To all of you who still have unresolved complaints, I highly recommend that you go into game settings (in the app) and use the technical support “help” option. They are very responsive and usually get back within two days. But I still wish they’d buy a current dictionary....!
My god, what has his app become? It’s insanity, the obsession with piling in more junk, rewards, coins, stickers, “claim” all your rewards, ugh! I just want to play the word game, I don’t want to spend 20 minutes every time I open the game “claiming my rewards”. The past couple of versions have been so bad, so SLOW. You have to individually “claim” like 20 “rewards” for every 10 minutes you spend playing the game. And each “reward” comes with about a 10 second lag before you can “claim” the next one, and in between them all you have to watch more never-ending animation while your idiotic presents jump around the screen. I don’t care about this stuff, it’s annoying, and it’s absolutely taken over the game. This app has become a nightmare for anyone over the age of 5 or with an IQ over 50. If you’re going to make all this deranged reward stuff mandatory to play the game, and make us spend half our time in the app clicking on unnecessary annoyances, at least fix the lag so it doesn’t freeze up the screen every time.
Used to be you could play the daily word and try and score 201 points in 4 words or watch a video and get 4 more tries. Now, the daily word game is 1120 points. For 2 days you had as many tries as it took. Now, they changed something again and you only get 4 tries to make 1120 points. How jacked is that? You can watch a video (when they are working and not just spinning and spinning waiting for something to pop up and get another 4 tries. I didn’t bother after I saw how many dam videos I’d have to watch to get to 1120 points. There is always something messed up on this app. I’ve been playing this game since 2011. I love this game except for the trolls thinking it’s a match site. Seems like every time they add some new game or prize, something else gets jacked. It has NEVER worked right on any one day. Please fix ur issues. It’s a fun game which I enjoy playing everyday. And, when you add or change something, test it out before it goes on line. 🙄🙄🙄🙄. Twice now my reward for level 6 and 8 showed 400 coins. I got zero. NOTHING FOR A REWARD.
I was forced into words with friends 2 several years ago by the apps constant hounding, and it gradually became overloaded with junk games within games And it slowed to a crawl as they take a minute to congratulate you for each spurious word completed, or other task completed that has nothing to do with the game. So when it was accidentally deleted, and I found I could revert to classic words with friends, I was somewhat hopeful. However I now find the classic words with friends is only marginally less cluttered with junk, and almost equally slow. Not only that. it now has a new feature. Every now and then they force you to start a game with a cartoon character. Apparently they’ve forgotten that the name of the game is words with friends and not words with artificial intelligence. I’ve managed to keep going despite all the handicaps because I do value my few long term series with some of my friends, but I honestly believe that the management of the app is now in the hands of people who don’t understand it. I gave it a one only because apparently you can’t give it a minus 1.
Im not sure what the algorithm is supposed to be, but on a consistent regular basis I get the same sets of letters, and Ive tried the “swap” out feature which ironically, most of the time gives me the exact same letters back again, or repeats the trended problem of giving me 3 or 4 copies of one letter. Now Im having more issues with glitches where I will try to swap but instead get an error, I get charged nontheless, plus I wont get any of my letters swapped even after “refreshing” the game like it suggests, I went from having a substantial amount of in game currency (which I paid for with real $) only to then find out there is literally no support or contact page for this sick twisted money scheme of a game. I will try to at least get what I paid for back and maybe finish using it but from the awful algorithm to even just terrible matches with “similar skilled” opponents who either are way below me in skill level or way over the top better, there is just a dozen too many things I find frustrating & infuriating the more I played.
I have been playing this game for about 10 years now and have seen it get crappier and crappier over the years. Everything is about the company trying to get you to spend money. And they are annoyingly persistent. I used to win many more games when the playing board was more equal. But I now know that one’s chances of winning decline significantly if one does not take advantage of the many options available for purchase. Dislikes: -Unlimited opportunities to place a word on the board. Why is there not a reasonable limit? Where is the challenge in spending time for endless possibilities and then coming up with crazy words that most players have never heard of before? -The ridiculous “Do you want to send a sticker?” with your move? What are we? Two year olds? I have only seen one sticker sent to me since this popup started. -The value of one’s earned points has declined to about half since I began playing. -The points earned has also significantly decreased. I am guessing that there is some sort of company algorithm that shows the players that aren’t spending more money and are thus being penalized with lower rewards in hopes of getting them to do so. -And talk about Rewards! Since when is an opportunity to buy the Premium version a “reward”? I play the game anyway just to challenge my mind, but I do so knowing that my chances of winning decline as the game gets older and the company gets more greedy.
I’ve really enjoyed this app until recently. I prefer to play solo because I notice how some people you play use the cheats and it doesn’t seem fair. I prefer not to and that’s my choice just like they have their choice. So I usually play solo games. In the last month the solo challenges have changed. It used to give me at least one free replay a day because it was a free game every six hours. That was their goodwill allowing it. Not anymore. I can watch a video for 15 tokens when it takes 30 to play a game and it’s only 4 per day. So I can play two games a day now. It’s really unfair and I’m not willing to pay for more tokens. It’s clear why they did this. People don’t mind waiting and they said no way. Plus to win the challenge they added about 5 more rounds of six games each so I have to beat 32 rounds. 32 rounds plus 30 tokens each I’m sorry no way am I playing. Really unfortunate when they change things so drastically. It was fun but I’ll find another game I suppose.
If I could, I'd give ya'll "0" stars...I'm sick & tired of checking a word in your "dictionary" to see the comment that you accept the word, however ya'll say no definition is to be found. I also HATE your acceptance of archaic words (usually Scottish), foreign words or slang but not always proper English...& when I "introduce" you to definitions from the Oxford or Webster's dictionary, you'll "consider" that word & never allow me, or anyone else for that matter, to see your inclusion or continued exclusion of the word. Also, your acceptance of slang, abbreviations, & nonsense words just angers me no end. Also hate the way you've allowed vendors to hide &/or put the "skip/x" symbol in places that are difficult to see or hit. I would pay to play Scrabble but my family, the only persons I play with, unfortunately Scrabble is no more..so I'm stuck with you, you miserable cretins! I’d update this…but it’s pretty well put above. The ONLY reason I continue with this crappy version of the Scrabble board game, is I play with my Nephew…the ONLY reason!!!
The game is fun. BUT the upgrade wrecked it!!! Couldn’t play on my I5S anymore. Started playing on Kindle but games disappear... they go to the versions that can only be played in newer versions of IPhone which means to keep playing the game I have to play on the IPhone which version is now full of a bunch of time wasting junk!!!!!! As if the advertisements aren’t bad enough no there is a load of extra unwanted time wasting junk you can’t op out of!!!!! So friends I’ve been playing for many years I can only play on IPhone version. other friends I can start and back and forth on Kindle maybe a dozen turns and then the game disappears!!!! So trying to play only on Kindle only works for some friends and not others. You’d think there would be a higher level of sophistication and security to prevent cross contamination between Kindle and the phone versions.. unless they planned it? I really just want to play on Kindle the classic game... I hope they resolve this problem ASAP or I might have to see if regular scrabble is as good or better than words with friends.😥
I agree whole heartedly with Yellowbugnana. However I am not rating the ap anything more than a one star because I don’t think choosing no stars is an option. All I want to do is play scrabble with my friends. I can’t stand all the junk running in the background and the waste of time it creates in between moves. I don’t want treasure boxes. I don’t want to play with random virtual opponents. I don’t want congratulations. I don’t want to have Zynga-imposed goals. Yuck. I don’t want to buy the option to swap without passing or any other cheats. I wrote to Zynga, without any response, obv, suggesting offering players the choice to play with or without all the sparkles, treasure boxes and other mindless clutter, the option, as it were, to just play the straight game of scrabble. I too, paid for the ad free version, which I agree, with another reviewer, because the ads were so, so, aggressive. I’m not judging those who like treasure boxes and mindless clutter and sparkles. I just want the option to play just plain scrabble with my friends who want the same. There I’ve said it.
I have had this app on and off since 2012 and never when I played in previous years did I experience what I have since I downloaded it a few days ago. Many players start a game and typically are not high scorers, they begin to chat innocently enough such as thanking me for playing. I am okay with this or a great word or great game. These profiles have been men and want to know if I have children, where I am located, and if I have a significant other. When I state I am not interested in discussing my personal life and am only here to play the game two have them asked for my Gmail account as if I didn’t say I wasn’t interested in any discussion. These are huge red flags to me for hacking or possible information for something dangerous. I would feel more secure and better if the chat option was more used with pre-populated phrases for encouragement. This is not a dating site and I am uncomfortable being quizzed regarding me, my children, and my location. Be safe on here for sure!
Warning. There is a picture of a nice looking man on words with friend nan vicent pagilinan. He is a scam. He stalks women he is using this name and pix and it’s not him. The phone number he is using is from Texas I used a anywho and paid for a search. Nothing came up then I used another site to find people I am a paralegal and know where to look. Words needs to block him from this game. There is a guy on Facebook with the name Vincent pangilinan by did not want to send him message. But women watch out this is happening on a lot of games you play with real people. He deleted me and resigned games with me lol he knew with questions I ask he ha been found out. He had at least 5 flags beside his name now he has none. So he changed some things he is axed out on playing so know he is at it again
I agree with these other reviews, I HATE all the gimmicks! Just give us back the original. I want to win, or lose, fair and square. I will not watch ads the whole time I am trying to play-it’s not worth it. I paid for the ad-less version and that is what I want. You keep putting something up in front of my screen preventing me from playing unless I click on “continue “. I believe if I do, ads will begin to appear again and you will be tracking my every move and invading my privacy. This has been going on for months and I will not click to approve that. I paid and shouldn’t have to go through all of this again but I would rather you charge me another small amount and leave me alone if that is what you have to do. Get rid of all of the superfluous garbage and just let us play with NO cheating! I would love to hear from a developer!
There are two things that I find truly frustrating. The first is that there are special “Words with Friends Words” that offer absolutely no definition, and don’t exist if you look them up anywhere else. Often times these words consist of obscure letters that people are desperately trying to put together and somehow it makes a “word” that’s acceptable to the game and often gives great points, because the letters are automatically worth more, being more difficult to use. How is this considered fair and not cheating? The second is that I may have a few letters left that I can use to score more points, but all of a sudden the game ends and somehow I lose, regardless of being ahead literally the entire game? If I have tiles to play that can make words and score more points, how does the game just end? If allowed to play the remaining tiles I would easily win. Again, how is this considered fair and not cheating? This is extremely frustrating and doesn’t motivate me to play.
For the most part I never have any technical issues with this game! I enjoy it and play everyday. I do wish there was a way to get a full premium version with no ads. I generally would never pay for something to get rid of ads but I would for this game because I play it so much and get annoyed that a ad or video ad takes over entire screen after EVERY move! I think it is too much! Also include some of the word meters and other game helpers and I would pay. One thing that will forever bother me is scoring less for long words than many two letter words on a TW DW TL etc. it is not easy to create long words that fit somewhere in this game but to only get 8 or 9 points is so stupid IMO. Overall love the game! Updated Sunday November 5th. Got a new iPhone 8+ upgrade went to re-download I see a words with friends classic and words with friends I download them both looking for the hindsight and the swap and I don’t see them on either game I’m wondering where everything went and what’s going on don’t ruin this game for us!!!!!
In addition to the increasingly time-consuming pointless “challenges” that I never accepted, I don’t care about, and that don’t seem to mean anything, the developers still haven’t fixed some things that they broke a over a year ago in one of their stupid updates when they added more clutter and junk. One of the more annoying ones is that the red indicator on the app icon of how many games are awaiting your move no longer updates in a timely manner. So maybe there are games waiting for you but you don’t know because there’s no indicator. Or maybe it says there’ s 10 games waiting, but when you open the game there aren’t any, and only then the indicator updates. Real useful. Another thing they broke at the same time is the Next Game arrow. For any given game you have going, it randomly might be available, or you might have to go back to the list of I played games to choose the next one. When they broke these features that used to work properly, I thought, “oh well, they’ll get around to fixing them eventually.” But, apparently it’s more important to use developer resources to add to the never ending senseless peripheral challenge stuff that only gets in the way, slows the game down, and annoys us. Much more important for some reason. Oh, and this stuff goes for all versions, “Classic,” WWF 2” etc., which all basically seem to be the same. I don’t know why they insist on multiple versions when there’s really only one game.
This “was” a simple and engaging game to play with friends. However, the developers decided to force players to watch ads (and right now, FarmVille is the only ad they have) after EVERY move🤯. It is a case study in greed and desperation. They offer a $10/month way out of ads, but at a cost of $120/year, which is what that equates to, it is obscene. I would have been happy to spend a flat $10 to remove ads forever, or even for a year, but never $10/month. I wonder if FarmVille knows that their ad is being used so voluminously, that instead of gaining new players, people are moreover completely turned off by it. Perhaps, Words with Friends doesn’t understand economics. Perhaps, they just want people to stop playing their games entirely. Perhaps, they loathe FarmVille. At any rate, a work around for the ads is to simply swipe up and close the game, then restart. 3-5 second inconvenience as opposed to 15-30 seconds of watching little cartoon farm animals annoy real people to fiddle with them.
I have played words with friends for years. They have added a bunch of stuff that I don’t care a toot about. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve accidentally hit “play word” when I didn’t want to play the word. They used to have a failsafe “do you want to play that word”? They don’t have that anymore. They keep pushing me into other games. It used to be that when you saw “next game” and tapped it, you’d go to another game you were playing. Now it doesn’t mean you have another game to play, it can mean that they’ve paired you up with a stranger or a computer and it starts a game that you have to resign to get it off your screen. They have added badges or some sort of perk that you have to watch for no reason because you played some specific letters—like you play letters for them? I play letters for points and to win the game. Not because they want me to play all the letters in “tulip” or some other word they choose. I have been thinking about quitting altogether because of gobs of stuff I don’t want.
I have played this game for years and basically enjoyed it, but recently in the last week or so it has become an annoying game. Twice now I have been invited to play and had to make sure I wasn't sitting on a bar stool. They strike up a conversation with come-on lines and flattery. They ask how I'm doing, then comes all the personal questions. This morning was the last straw, the so-called player completely disappeared from the game after I bombarded them with a whole list of personal questions that I feel are nothing but bs. I even asked them if they were a Russian troll. I checked all the active games and completed games I've played and the player who said he was Charles Bernard was nowhere to be found. I think you need to find out what is going on. I'm beginning to think the game is now a vehicle for hackers. I may not be coming back to it once my active games are completed. I don't need this grief.
This app used to be lean — simple presentation, zero fluff, no upselling of dumb add-ons or alternate modes of play — but now it’s just plain gross. Ridiculous numbers of pop-up offers, suggestions to join tournaments, hypey colors and screen layouts, even myriad ways to personalize your game board (plaid tiles, anyone?). Then there are the cheats. You know an app is playing to its lowest tier end-users when it permits third-party “cheat apps” to suggest better words, substitute letters that weren’t even in your tray to begin with, or evaluate the game board for more lucrative tile placements. Where’s the fun (or honor) in that? I’ve played WWF for years, and just looked the other way as the game gradually devolved into what it’s now become. I enjoyed a game or two with friends or family I didn’t have much contact with otherwise, and we always played in the spirit of the game as it was designed. WWF was a fun little time-passer on daily train commutes, or on breaks at work. Now it’s little more than a dismal ocular assault that panders to its user base, monetizes dishonor and laziness, and really, isn’t even fun to play anymore. I’m in the midst of a game with my cousin at the moment, and regrettably it will be my last. I’m sure we can find another, less slimy, game to be our new go-to, and I really hope others show Zynga and the abomination that is WWF the door. Even U2 is less of a sell-out than Zynga! Give Words With Friends a hard pass.
Great Game…Horrible company. Non-Stop ads and popups
Love this version of scrabble-like games. Thats the ONLY good thing I can say. If it was just the game with banner ads…i would give it five stars but NO… they ruin it with non stop full screen full SOUND ads…oh yes…dont think you can sneak and play a word at work and expect that just because you have turned off sound in the game that this applies to ads..oh no no…FULL SOUND blasts over your device!! Notifications…there is a setting in the game to only have notifications about your game…this is a straight up lie. I get pop up notifications about “word of the day” and others that I have ZERO interest in….and its every day multiple times a day. Ad tracking…most apps ask, the first time you open them, if you want the app to track you for targeted ads…..however if you opt out with THIS app…WWF asks you over and over and over again. Truly is a horrible experience. I wish there was a suitable alternative. And when there is…outta here!!
I have played & enjoyed WWF for years. Along the way, I have had to lose playing time to wait out or work around many irritating “improvements”, & fend off many ways to cheat. You frequently interrupt the game to say I’ve accidentally “accomplished” some pointless side goal not my own, & then make it impossible to get back to the game without tapping “great” for something I despise. I feel especially jerked around by that last thing. “Great,” It is not. Just now, I got put through a new diversion involving leveling and pages. It took so long to find a way out that I began to think I had been expelled from WWF. As a final insult, to get out of its teeth, I had to tap “Great!” I value the player contacts I’ve made, and I enjoy coming up with words, so I keep playing; but is it really not possible to opt out of the irrelevant time-wasting crap? I know I am not the only adult playing this game. There are many who would welcome a clean version like you once had. Please consider it.
This is such a great competitive way to interact with friends and family, and at the same time keep your mind sharp. Words is educational and also a great distraction from the stress of the day. It is user friendly and so much fun. What is nice is that the game is not a cheat or a computer setup unless you use the extraneous tools available and your opponent does not know that are doing that which I think is a very very unsportsmanlike maneuver and you a cheating because it is not a win using your own skills. There should be no pass and getting new tiles without the loss of your turn. I also don’t like all the interruptions inserting the awards constantly. I just want a straight play without all the whistles and bells. Otherwise I love the site.
Oh Words With Friends, what happened?? Used to be a classic Scrabble game, fun to play with friends and now we are all so sick of the badges, pop-ups, congrats, daily goals and other super annoying so called extras that just slow the game down and make it awful to play. None of these things can be turned off in settings, and I have used the paid version of this game for years so I should be able to. I know I am not alone. With every update something worse is added. Today’s new annoyance is the game doesn’t allow you to just go to the next game like before, now it suggests other people to play with, can’t turn it off. Zynga needs to read these reviews. Also, what’s up with the words that aren’t real words (according to the game), but can be played anyway?? And some of the definitions of words are downright BIZARRE. So disappointed in the direction this game has gone. On the hunt for another word game for grown-ups.
I have really enjoyed playing the (paid version) classic words with friends for years. However, you have added a bunch of extraneous junk to it, slowing the games down with pop up garbage, magic boxes or what ever all those treasure chest things are....it’s all very annoying! It all slows the play of the game. If those added ‘play’ features were on the game previously, I would not have bought it. I have written to you via email asking how i can remove them. I never received a response. Please get rid of all that extra stuff...it’s ruining your otherwise great game, at the very least, allow users to opt out of them! UPDATE: nothing has changed. Developers don’t care about the feedback. They even added more junk to it. I have been playing this game since 2011. I am no longer going to play. It’s still slow & jammed with play features I can’t get rid of. Not what I purchased. Junk game. If you are looking for a good word game, similar to scrabble...keep looking.
I used to play this game years ago, and recently got back into playing. So much has changed since then, some good changes and some bad. I enjoy some of the new features like “word strength,” but lately when I try to activate it the PayPal ad plays, but then doesn’t activate the word strength. This also happens when I try to watch an ad to get coins in the store. It’s very frustrating. I like the solo plays, but recently actually paid $9.99 to go ad free for 30 days because the ads that popped up between turns were so obnoxious! I don’t like that there isn’t an option to go ad free indefinitely. I understand that Zynga needs ads to keep the game free, but with so many people saying that they hate them, and saying that they are not playing anymore because of them, why aren’t they listening?
I was loving this game WwF Classic until a week ago. For some reason my “Mini Games Leader Board” was removed. It will let me play the games; however, my scores never get recorded. It’s not fair! They were being recorded up until a week ago, but not anymore! I sent a HELP request to the company. They told me to force close the game; check to see if there are any new updates, and if that doesn’t work to unload and download the game; but they didn't really recommend it because there is a possibility I could lose my data, my scores, etc… so now what? I’ve done all of their suggestions, EXCEPT, unloading and downloading the game because I don’t want to lose my data! I am so Disappointed because I don’t get to have my scores recorded for winning my mini games! Why can’t they just put it back, and open it back up in my game??
The ads in this game kick me off the game at least 30 or more times a day, at least till I get sick of having to shutdown my iPad after every move and switch to a different game. Also you now have to get tickets to play the solo challenge and you are allowed to get 5gem free 4 times a day except that it is always “still connecting” so you can’t watch the ad to get them. Also can’t get the fee coins for watching an ad it’s always still loading! However after every play in the game the ads load just fine, the problem is you just can’t close a lot of them and some of them take you off the game completely. You do sometimes off me a “deal “ to watch ad free for 30 or 40 days for ten to fifteen dollars, how can you possibly consider that a good deal? I’m on a fixed income and it difficult to find money to but groceries let alone pay a ridiculous price to play a game that doesn’t respect it’s players .
I enjoyed this game for many years. One thing you have to be wary of, though, are the players who cheat. I enjoy pitting my knowledge of legit words with someone who does the same. I recently accepted a challenge from an unknown player with an average word score of 30 plus. She was obviously using a cheat sheet. No honest player uses four strange non-words ( with no definition) in one game. She was simply better at cheating. After a couple of games with her I understood why she has played so few games in the several years she has played. Iwould like to see the rules changed to exclude words with no definition, impose time limits on players and loss of turn if a player tries an unacceptable word. I don’t know how to prevent cheating but this would help.
This particular Words with Friends app needs to repair some software issues. Let me point out the obvious first. There is always an ad that pops up after every word submission, but no payment option to remove ads. As for the software side, the ads appear to be rushed when it was installed to the program. It never streams well, and half the time the ad does not auto adjust to your screen size. So when the short ad is complete, you can’t close it out. My app has crashed multiple times during an ad, and during gameplay. If it doesn’t crash, my screen will freeze. On average, I play around 1-2 hours per day. During those times, I would have to shut the app down to reset it. And this happens averagely 3 times within 2 hours. Just for the record, my iPhone has a 128gb memory, and nearly half of that is available. And all updates are current. So if you’re reading this, there are plenty of other apps to choose from.
tl;dr — Aesthetically pleasing gameplay, and the app performs smoothly. Minus 3 stars for shoddy ad removal via a half-baked “subscription” & no other options. — The game is fine — I appreciate that this version of WWF (why, WHY are there 3 nearly identical versions on offer?) sports, to my eyes, the most streamlined UI of all the popular social crossword games (Scopely’s new take on Scrabble should take copious notes). The app behaves as expected, which is a good baseline for any mobile game/application in 2020. BUT: who do you think you’re kidding offering a $9.99 USD “ad free bundle” which only removes the ads for 30 days? Just offer a subscription model like literally EVERY other app has shifted towards in the past year. Call it what it is. Because I’m old enough to remember when customers could choose to endure the ads for a free mobile game (and that’s still a fair trade-off), or we could pay a few dollars *once* simply to remove the ads from our experience. Why has that option fallen out of favor? You want players to throw you $10 a month? Fine, offer a subscription & bundle up the ad removal & a replenishing stock of boosters/power-ups/in-game currency. The players who want that will pay for it. For the rest of us who just want to get the ads out of the way, give us the option to throw you $5-7 USD & be done with it.
The newest Update is NOT FRIENDLY. I can't play my GAMES without the GAME going to my AWARDS!!!! I have been playing words with friends for numerous years......good to pass the time plus meet new players(I have played with most of the Ladies for years). Question on why now a player can only have 1500 coins in their Bank. It used to be Unlimited, so you could use Coins to purchase the different frames for your photo. Some players might not be able or willing to Buy the Styles of Frames plus all the extras. It would be a Cool Option again for players to use their Coins to purchase frames. Years ago I had a very Awesome frame for my photo. Thanks for looking into that. dpetunia29 😎
Like many games these days, words with friends has become all about advertising and in app purchases. It also has no customer support, not even a way to access one. So if you win a game against the app itself, and the app freezes and refuses to give you credit, there is no one to contact and no way to claim your win. That has happened to me at least once a week for the past several weeks. Another annoyance are the many words that the app claims are legitimate just because they show up in a dictionary, but are in fact clearly defined as abbreviations or proper names or other terms not acceptable in Scrabble. Recently the game has forced players to watch ads just to access ‘free’ games, without notifying you that was about to happen. I am hoping for an alternative to this game to show up in the App Store soon.
The WWF dictionary makes it very clear that these words are never allowed: 1. Proper Nouns 2. Hyphenated Words 3. Words that use an apostrophe 4. Prefixes or Suffixes 5. Derogatory Words or Slurs Over the years, Zynga has grown very lax on these very simple rules, even letting players use words that no definition exists for, but states you are working on one. That’s not how any dictionary works. Archaic words, nonsense words, and words not sourced elsewhere, but in reality are invalid. The use of derogatory words and slurs has increased phenomenally over the last five years. Any search engine will tell you the words Zynga allows are derogatory. I can tell you from experience, the boards are set up that up way. If I don’t want to use words I know to be offensive, I have to play a lower scoring word. Somehow, there is no way to report this infraction of the rules through gameplay to Zynga support at all. The feature has been removed. I noticed the Zynga Developers have not responded to anyone’s problems’, complaints’, and concerns’ on here, which is very disappointing. One person gave a five star review, but went into litany of detail of trouble she had been having with the app. Zynga developers thanked her for the great review and ignored everything she wrote.
Come enjoy The Original Word Play! Grab your mobile device and prove you have what it takes to best your friends and family in this addictive multiplayer game. Whether you need to relax after a long day, or are looking to train your brain, Words With Friends Classic is perfect for you! Make sure to keep your mind sharp as you choose the perfect move on the board, as one word can be the difference between victory and defeat! Are you looking for a way to build your vocabulary by yourself? Our Solo Challenge is the answer! There is no better way to train your brain than against our fiendish word masters. Looking for new friends with whom to play puzzle games? You can practice your crossword skills with our random opponent matchmaking. No matter if you play with friends old or new, stay connected with our in-game chat, and track your progress with unlockable stats. Think you're the best at word games of all your friends? Prove it by racking up points and beating your Weekly Challenge! For more information, see our Terms of Service: https://www.zynga.com/legal/terms-of-service and Privacy Policy: https://www.zynga.com/privacy/policy" “The game is free to play; however, in-app purchases are available for additional content and in-game currency.” Just another title from Zynga’s Games With Friends™