Zynga's Fast Load attempts to squash long loading times

While leveling up in Facebook games is often a source of pride for gamers, as larger Homesteads or Farms allow you to show off the many fruits of your digital labor, those bigger land spaces and additional decorations, animals, etc. cause a definite slowdown in the speed in which your games can load - perhaps even making it so slow that you decide to stop playing altogether.

In comes Zynga with an attempt to rectify that situation, as the company has started rolling out "Fast Load" to its games that are available on the Zynga.com platform. Fast Load allows you to immediately jump back into the game you were just playing if you happen to leave the screen, without sitting through a loading time. This is great in theory, as the elimination of loading times should mean less frustration for gamers. However, there's one major problem with the Fast Load technology: it becomes useless the second you jump into another game.

Let's say you were in the middle of harvesting animals in CastleVille and decide that you wish to go plant some crops in CityVille. While heading back to the Zynga.com homepage will allow you to activate the CastleVille Fast Load to immediately jump back in, the second you go into CityVille, this CastleVille Fast Load is lost. That is, if you finish planting those crops in CityVille and want to go back to CastleVille, you'll need to wait for the game to load all over again.

So, what good is Fast Load? Well, that depends on how often you'll play the same game throughout a single day, as keeping Zynga.com open in a browser tab will allow you to jump back into a single game time and time again without waiting for it to load. If you close the browser window, restart your computer or just load any other Zynga.com game for any reason however, you're back to square one.

Ultimately, Zynga's attempt to decrease the effect of loading times on players is admirable, but it's definitely not a perfect setup. Still, it offers promise for future developments, and we can definitely only go up from here.

[Via CEGamers]

Have you tried Zynga's Fast Load feature on Zynga.com? If you could get into your games without loading times or screens, would you play them more often? Sound off in the comments.