Sitting in your post-Level 100 ivory tree house in FrontierVille with nothing left to do? Well, if you've already exhausted all of your resources for extra XP for the day, here's something productive that will help pass the time: Victory Gardens. Shockingly enough, Zynga didn't think of it first--you pioneers did. Creating your own Victory Garden doesn't have any rigid rules or rewards. This is purely something born of the creativity and generosity of high-level pioneers everywhere (i.e. these are the type you want to be friends with).
Find out how to cultivate your own Victory Garden and help out those more commonly known as 'noobs' after the break.
Wither Protection BoostPlainly speaking, Victory Gardens are tracks of farmland meant only for your lower-level neighbors to harvest. Making one is simple, but there are a few brief prerequisites. First, you're going to need room... a lot of it. This is because the standard Victory Garden contains five of each crop at all times for friends to harvest. In fact, some Victory Gardens even contain five of each animal for harvest, but that's only if you're feeling extra generous. If you'd like, you could even hold just say, a Victory Ranch, if you'd rather not worry about the upkeep.
Which is exactly the second requirement. In order for Victory Gardens to operate effectively they need to be stocked with crops at all times. This way, your newbie friends will always have something to harvest when they drop in for a visit. If you're rolling in dough and would rather not worry about your Victory Garden too much, you could always throw some Wither Protection Boosts on your crops. These Boosts keep any crops currently planted from withering and can be found through turning in the Peas Collection or paying up 40 Horseshoes, or $5.
While this might seem obvious, the last prerequisite is to never harvest from your own or your friends' Victory Gardens. Since tTend Herehe whole point of Victory Gardens is to help our fellow new players out, this would defeat the purpose. That being said, make sure to plant crops and animals for your own use in a spot both far away from your Victory Garden and obviously much smaller than it. Something that can help new players know where to tend and where to steer clear of are the "Tend Here" and "Hands Off" Signs. Buy these from the Market for 2 Horseshoes a piece and put them in the appropriate spots on your homestead to let players know what's OK to touch.
And that's about it. Follow these simple steps and you'll be well on your way to being the most beloved pioneer out there. Well, at least to your newbie entourage.
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
FarmVille loading glitch: Farmers lost in parallel universe
farmville loading glitch
It was just another ordinary FarmVille morning for fvfan26. She went about her chores, harvesting crops, feeding animals, and paying visits to her neighbors. That's when she discovered something was very wrong in the world of FarmVille. Upon arriving at a neighboring farm, she discovered the entire thing had been transported to another dimension! All that was left, was a completely sterile, white land of infinite nothingness. Needless to say, she returned home and carried on with her day.
Other farmers reported this happening to their own neighbors. There were many explanations for the extraordinary event. Some suggested that the farmers may have been lost in the Bermuda Triangle. Others thought they were perhaps shifted to Pandora. Even more were certain their neighbors had ran off to a parallel universe! But after our FarmVille scientists did an investigation, it was found that the farms were simply covered by a large holiday blizzard. Once the ten feet of snow has melted, the farms will be operational again. Fewf!
farmville loading problem
But seriously, FarmVille farmers reported having trouble loading FarmVille this morning due in-game technical updates. Those affected were usually very high level farmers. When neighbors tried to visit the farmers who couldn't load FarmVille, they were greeted by the blank farm pictured above.
Some farmers are still experiencing technical difficulties loading FarmVille. Not to worry , everything will back to normal soon enough, and you can be relieved to know your FarmVille friends aren't lost in another dimension after all. Unfortunately though, all we can do is wait it out. In the mean time, why not check out CityVille?
Image Credit: fvfan26 & GrandmasGotAGun via FarmVille Community Forums
It was just another ordinary FarmVille morning for fvfan26. She went about her chores, harvesting crops, feeding animals, and paying visits to her neighbors. That's when she discovered something was very wrong in the world of FarmVille. Upon arriving at a neighboring farm, she discovered the entire thing had been transported to another dimension! All that was left, was a completely sterile, white land of infinite nothingness. Needless to say, she returned home and carried on with her day.
Other farmers reported this happening to their own neighbors. There were many explanations for the extraordinary event. Some suggested that the farmers may have been lost in the Bermuda Triangle. Others thought they were perhaps shifted to Pandora. Even more were certain their neighbors had ran off to a parallel universe! But after our FarmVille scientists did an investigation, it was found that the farms were simply covered by a large holiday blizzard. Once the ten feet of snow has melted, the farms will be operational again. Fewf!
farmville loading problem
But seriously, FarmVille farmers reported having trouble loading FarmVille this morning due in-game technical updates. Those affected were usually very high level farmers. When neighbors tried to visit the farmers who couldn't load FarmVille, they were greeted by the blank farm pictured above.
Some farmers are still experiencing technical difficulties loading FarmVille. Not to worry , everything will back to normal soon enough, and you can be relieved to know your FarmVille friends aren't lost in another dimension after all. Unfortunately though, all we can do is wait it out. In the mean time, why not check out CityVille?
Image Credit: fvfan26 & GrandmasGotAGun via FarmVille Community Forums
CityVille faces new challenger in Big Business on Facebook
While city simulation games like CityVille and Social City do address how important businesses are to city life, they skimp out on the nitty gritty details. The micro manager in all of us--well, some of us--wants to worry about shipments, goods production, sales and even resource management. This is where Game Insight comes in with Big Business, a city-building Facebook game that gets down and dirty with what's really makes a city work.
Continue reading to find out how Big Business fairs among the nuances of running a city.
Big Business Gameplay
The first thing you'll notice about Big Business is that it runs without a hitch. Nearly every action is fully animated amongst bustling citizens and buildings constantly abuzz with activity. And because of how smooth the game runs, Game Insight made a point at every turn to show it off. This becomes obvious when nearly every action in the game is fully animated, which is a double-edged sword of sorts.
While it's certainly a sight to literally see your town at work, the fact that everything is animated means that almost no action is instant. Because of this, expect to spend more time in Big Business doing routine tasks than in other social games. However, this relaxed gameplay style goes a bit too far by bleeding through everything else in the game. For instance, the game's tutorial tasks you with building a power plant to fuel your city's homes and businesses, which is done instantly. This is far from the reality of the rest of the game where most other buildings will take hours to construct. And while you can speed up the process through coins and City Credits--the game's paid currency--I'd personally rather spend premium currency on cool items than faster, generic ones.
One thing Big Business does exceptionally well is its business ecosystem. If that sounds a bit confusing, what I mean is that every type of building works with the others and if one falls behind, the others lose as well. This makes for an interesting balance between maintaining your city's population through Houses while producing and either selling goods to Supermarkets or transporting to other production facilities for use in more complex goods. Though, all of which cannot be done without Garages and the transport vehicles to support them.
Level Up
Though you won't get by through simply producing and supplying goods; you have plenty more things to worry about. These businesses cannot run for long without Services. These buildings, like the Power Station and Mechanic, provide upkeep for both your business and your citizens. The more your city grows, the more Services you'll need to support it. And yet, it doesn't stop there.
Your buildings, both industrial and residential, are governed by two statistics, Ecology and Happiness. For every building you throw up, your Ecology value will take a hit, which can only be restored by adding more Trees to your city. On top of that, your citizens will become unhappy without enough Entertainment buildings, though at least they don't draw from Ecology. It's maintaining this balance that's far more important in Big Business than making the most cash possible.
By now you should have a pretty good idea of how bogged down players could get under the seemingly endless statistics and lengthy wait times for buildings to construct and actions to complete. Though if micro management is your thing, welcome to the Holy Grail of simulation games.
Click here to play Big Business on Facebook Now>
Continue reading to find out how Big Business fairs among the nuances of running a city.
Big Business Gameplay
The first thing you'll notice about Big Business is that it runs without a hitch. Nearly every action is fully animated amongst bustling citizens and buildings constantly abuzz with activity. And because of how smooth the game runs, Game Insight made a point at every turn to show it off. This becomes obvious when nearly every action in the game is fully animated, which is a double-edged sword of sorts.
While it's certainly a sight to literally see your town at work, the fact that everything is animated means that almost no action is instant. Because of this, expect to spend more time in Big Business doing routine tasks than in other social games. However, this relaxed gameplay style goes a bit too far by bleeding through everything else in the game. For instance, the game's tutorial tasks you with building a power plant to fuel your city's homes and businesses, which is done instantly. This is far from the reality of the rest of the game where most other buildings will take hours to construct. And while you can speed up the process through coins and City Credits--the game's paid currency--I'd personally rather spend premium currency on cool items than faster, generic ones.
One thing Big Business does exceptionally well is its business ecosystem. If that sounds a bit confusing, what I mean is that every type of building works with the others and if one falls behind, the others lose as well. This makes for an interesting balance between maintaining your city's population through Houses while producing and either selling goods to Supermarkets or transporting to other production facilities for use in more complex goods. Though, all of which cannot be done without Garages and the transport vehicles to support them.
Level Up
Though you won't get by through simply producing and supplying goods; you have plenty more things to worry about. These businesses cannot run for long without Services. These buildings, like the Power Station and Mechanic, provide upkeep for both your business and your citizens. The more your city grows, the more Services you'll need to support it. And yet, it doesn't stop there.
Your buildings, both industrial and residential, are governed by two statistics, Ecology and Happiness. For every building you throw up, your Ecology value will take a hit, which can only be restored by adding more Trees to your city. On top of that, your citizens will become unhappy without enough Entertainment buildings, though at least they don't draw from Ecology. It's maintaining this balance that's far more important in Big Business than making the most cash possible.
By now you should have a pretty good idea of how bogged down players could get under the seemingly endless statistics and lengthy wait times for buildings to construct and actions to complete. Though if micro management is your thing, welcome to the Holy Grail of simulation games.
Click here to play Big Business on Facebook Now>
FarmVille cakes!
Looks like the trend of paying homage to your favorite game in dessert form continues. FarmVille recently held a contest and these 15 confections took the grand prize, which was 1,000 Farm Cash and 1 million coins. Not too shabby, eh? Kinda makes you want to see what you can do with a little flour and sugar.
farmville funhouseMy absolute favorite among the winners is this Fun House cake from HDGurl (based on the FarmVille funhouse item to the right) and she says that, yes, every bit of this cake is edible and no fondant or sugar paste was used in the construction.
"This cake was created in about 20-30 hours over the course of several days, and used approximately 4 lbs of modeling chocolate, making it fantastically delicious, and entirely eatable!
...This cake was near impossible to scale because of the lack of pictures with any angles, this was obviously because it is not a real structure. I think the challenge of that simple fact made the Fun House the obvious choice to create.
The "base" of this cake is two home-baked 9X13 chocolate fudge cakes, filled with chocolate raspberry mousse. The top 3D structures are made of rice krispy treats and melted chocolate chips as "glue".
Every figure was hand sculpted out of modeling chocolate (mixture of basically chocolate and corn syrup), & rice crispies... and the Caramel Apples have... of course... CARAMEL on them! Support for the signs, and barn were wooden skewers."
Also, a hats off to the 'Falling Leaves' cupcakes by Monica Groeger, the 'Gnome' cupcakes by mommagoes and the 'Happy Thanksgiving??' cake, by Silver Kathy, with a pig, sheep and cow sitting down at a feast. To see these FarmVille-themed sweets and more, click through the gallery below.
farmville funhouseMy absolute favorite among the winners is this Fun House cake from HDGurl (based on the FarmVille funhouse item to the right) and she says that, yes, every bit of this cake is edible and no fondant or sugar paste was used in the construction.
"This cake was created in about 20-30 hours over the course of several days, and used approximately 4 lbs of modeling chocolate, making it fantastically delicious, and entirely eatable!
...This cake was near impossible to scale because of the lack of pictures with any angles, this was obviously because it is not a real structure. I think the challenge of that simple fact made the Fun House the obvious choice to create.
The "base" of this cake is two home-baked 9X13 chocolate fudge cakes, filled with chocolate raspberry mousse. The top 3D structures are made of rice krispy treats and melted chocolate chips as "glue".
Every figure was hand sculpted out of modeling chocolate (mixture of basically chocolate and corn syrup), & rice crispies... and the Caramel Apples have... of course... CARAMEL on them! Support for the signs, and barn were wooden skewers."
Also, a hats off to the 'Falling Leaves' cupcakes by Monica Groeger, the 'Gnome' cupcakes by mommagoes and the 'Happy Thanksgiving??' cake, by Silver Kathy, with a pig, sheep and cow sitting down at a feast. To see these FarmVille-themed sweets and more, click through the gallery below.
FarmVille Unwither Ring goes bye-bye at the stroke of midnight (EST)
Newsflash! The semi-controversial FarmVille Unwither Ring will no longer be available to buy at the stroke of midnight tonight (EST). So if you were planning to spend the 250 Farm Cash to buy one of these for a loved one (that includes yourself) this holiday season, you better whip out that credit card and get on it.
farmville unwither ring
This is the second appearance of the Unwither Ring in FarmVille, and for the uninitiated, if you own this ring, your crops will never wither. Ever. Which, by virtual farming standards, is nothing short of a miracle. No more setting timers to remember to harvest your crops and no more losing your precious coins when your crops die. You just plant crops, they grow and then they patiently wait for you to come back and harvest them for coins, crop mastery points and XP.
I sincerely doubt this will be the last time that the ring makes an appearance in the FarmVille Market, but if you don't buy now you will (1.) miss out on giving your near and dearest the most awesome FarmVille gift and (2.) might be waiting another six months (or more) to get your next chance to buy the One True Ring.
farmville unwither ring
farmville unwither ring
This is the second appearance of the Unwither Ring in FarmVille, and for the uninitiated, if you own this ring, your crops will never wither. Ever. Which, by virtual farming standards, is nothing short of a miracle. No more setting timers to remember to harvest your crops and no more losing your precious coins when your crops die. You just plant crops, they grow and then they patiently wait for you to come back and harvest them for coins, crop mastery points and XP.
I sincerely doubt this will be the last time that the ring makes an appearance in the FarmVille Market, but if you don't buy now you will (1.) miss out on giving your near and dearest the most awesome FarmVille gift and (2.) might be waiting another six months (or more) to get your next chance to buy the One True Ring.
farmville unwither ring
Friday, January 13, 2012
FarmVille Winter Sneak Peek: Hot Springs, Penguin Fishing Hole, Ice Cow & More
It looks as though Zynga will be looking to continue celebrating Winter in FarmVille through the entire winter season (that is, even after the holidays as passed), as we've come across some new unreleased images of four new items that we believe will be coming to the game in the near future.
The four items, listed from left to right in the image above are: Monkey Hot Springs, Penguin Fishing Hole, Ice Cow, and Ice Duck.
Remember, the final names of these items are still up in the air (these may just serve as placeholders), and there is no actual guarantee as to whether these items will officially be released in the game, so keep that in mind. Additionally, we're not sure how these items will make an appearance. Will they be part of an upcoming Mystery Game? Will they be free gifts, premium items in the store, or Mystery Gift prizes? Only time will tell, but we'll be sure to give you all of the details once we have them.
The four items, listed from left to right in the image above are: Monkey Hot Springs, Penguin Fishing Hole, Ice Cow, and Ice Duck.
Remember, the final names of these items are still up in the air (these may just serve as placeholders), and there is no actual guarantee as to whether these items will officially be released in the game, so keep that in mind. Additionally, we're not sure how these items will make an appearance. Will they be part of an upcoming Mystery Game? Will they be free gifts, premium items in the store, or Mystery Gift prizes? Only time will tell, but we'll be sure to give you all of the details once we have them.
FarmVille Animal Sneak Peek: Brown Gypsy Horse, Brown Gypsy Foal, Baby Penguin
If you're an animal collector in FarmVille, I've got some great new unreleased item images to share with you! These animals are, from left to right in the image above: Brown Gypsy Horse, Brown Gypsy Foal, and Baby Penguin.
Not to be confused with the black and white, regular Gypsy Horse released at the end of November as part of the Winter Holiday theme of items, this Brown Gypsy Horse will be an entirely different animal, able to be placed inside the Horse Stable and bred with a Stallion to produce the adorable Brown Gypsy Foal also seen above. We're guessing that if the Brown Gypsy Horse doesn't make an appearance in a Mystery Game soon, that it will be available in the store for Farm Cash.
Meanwhile, the Baby Penguin is equally interesting, if not even more so. Since Penguins have been available in the game since even last year, this begs the question - Could Zynga be looking to create a Penguin "home" of some kind, through which these Baby Penguins would be bred? Or will it simply be released as a regular animal release in the store? Only time will tell, but personally, I'm hoping for another animal storage building (especially if it means I get to have all of those cute, fluffy Baby Penguins running around on my farm!).
Remember, there is no guarantee that these items will be officially released within the game, so keep that in mind. Keep checking back with us though, as we'll make sure to give you guys all of the information about these new animals if and when they are released.
Not to be confused with the black and white, regular Gypsy Horse released at the end of November as part of the Winter Holiday theme of items, this Brown Gypsy Horse will be an entirely different animal, able to be placed inside the Horse Stable and bred with a Stallion to produce the adorable Brown Gypsy Foal also seen above. We're guessing that if the Brown Gypsy Horse doesn't make an appearance in a Mystery Game soon, that it will be available in the store for Farm Cash.
Meanwhile, the Baby Penguin is equally interesting, if not even more so. Since Penguins have been available in the game since even last year, this begs the question - Could Zynga be looking to create a Penguin "home" of some kind, through which these Baby Penguins would be bred? Or will it simply be released as a regular animal release in the store? Only time will tell, but personally, I'm hoping for another animal storage building (especially if it means I get to have all of those cute, fluffy Baby Penguins running around on my farm!).
Remember, there is no guarantee that these items will be officially released within the game, so keep that in mind. Keep checking back with us though, as we'll make sure to give you guys all of the information about these new animals if and when they are released.
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