Sunday, July 4, 2010

Miracle of the multiplying nursery critters.

I have 35 animals in a capacity 20 nursery. I don't know how that happened. Want to see?


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And here it is inside:


Friday, July 2, 2010

Farmville bug: Disappearing building parts and what to do about it.

Farmville has just admitted what many of us figured out - parts for nurseries, Japanese barns and probably for stables are just disappearing. You add them, you can see them in the structure too. But the next time you enter your game they are not there! They go to Farmville heaven I guess.  They claim they have "fixed" some of the problems. Maybe, Maybe not. The problem appears to be much worse if you are building 2 or more buildings at the same time.
 
A suggested work around: Gather all the needed parts first. Transfer them to your gift box but do not put them in the building until you have everything that is needed. Then put at least one animal in the building to make certain. Once the building is completed, and you have some animals in it, it seems unlikely that farmville will stead parts from you.
 
Farmville says that "critters" are also disappearing. I wonder what that's about, and why their messages have to be cryptic!
 
Ami Isseroff

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Farnville Bonus policy

"
There is now a limit of 10 feed collections per day. This includes all bonuses so food, exp, coins, items, etc. are all counted in that 10."
 
They are talking about the Facebook feed of reward items That means if you collect 10 truffles or whatever, you can't collect fuel rewards or a copper butterfly. Read it and weep!
 

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

What is the new Farmville gift limit?

You may have noticed that the Farmville gift box now accepts many more gifts. There is a limit though. Apparently the limit is 200, though it might keep changing.
 
The giftbox is at the junction of a lot of not too great design decisions. The first problem is that the gift acceptance mechanism doesn't know the box is about to be full, and doesn't warn you evidently until you have lost a gift. The second problem is that the gift box has to hold a lot of things that should not be there, because they should be sent directly to their destination or to an overflow if the destination is full. For example, if you are building a stable, there is no reason why the parts have to go to the gift box rather than to the stable. There is no reason why Tuscan wedding favors can't go to the wedding tent, rather than making you pump away at accepting them and then making you waste time again getting each one into the tent. Farmhands and Arborists accumulate in large numbers if you are smart, and they should get a separate store. Collectibles should be going straight to the collectible store, and if if some of the items go beyond capacity too quickly, the capacity should be increased. It's not our fault there are too many emperor butterflies and not enough copper butterflies.
 
Beyond all these problems there is the problem of the fixed size of Farmville. There just isn't enough space for half a dozen mansion, assorted prizes like the Eiffel tower and all the other things that accumulate for top end players. There should be a way to expand the farm or else to add a link to a second farm.
 
Still, 200 is better than the old limit of 50.

Farmville Bi-plane

Farmville has a great new bi-plane that can take all the fun out the game. You fly the plane and it grows your crops. The first flight is free. Then it costs money - Farmcash money. Farm Cash is scarce and be had in quantity only by paying real money.  There is a Farmville coop job (peanut butter and jelly) that gives these planes as a reward for a gold medal finish. I wonder if the first flight of each plane is free.
 
Of course, what it means is that anyone who gets Farmcash by buying it can finish their coop jobs with gold medals in a jiffy - ten a day if they like. That's not much of a game, is it?

The cost of a bi-plane flight depends on how many plots have to be ripened and on on how long it would take for them to grow. That is, if you plant a long maturing crop like artichokes will l cost more, perhaps around 15 FV cash to igrow it instantly. If you plant blueberries, which mature in 4 hours, it might cost 5 cash. The amount also depends on the number of plots. Maturing 10 plots costs less than maturing 400 plots. If you want to save money, use the bi-plane only after crops have matured for several hours.
 
 

Friday, May 21, 2010

Correction - Farmville Toolbar Bonus

The 25 FV Cash bonus is avialable by clicking the link in the sidebar at http://farmville.com
On the left there is an announcement about the toolbar. It doesn't matter if you already installed it. You can do it again.
Sometimes at the end of the process you get to farmville and it says there is 25 cash in the giftbox but it is not there. However if you open the page again or restart the browser, the 25 cash really do appear in the gift box.
 
It is available for Firefox 2.0 and supposedly for IE7 if anyone still uses that. It doesn't work in Chrome or IE8 or Safari it seems.
 
Ami Isseroff

25 Farmville Cash to install toolbar in Firefox - Get it while it lasts

In Firefox 2.0 plus - Click on someone's Chicken coop expansion and probably elsewhere and you get this link:
 
 
Use the link to install farmville toolbar. When all done, go to farmville again and you get 25 FV cash. There are a few kinks. You will need to click at the top of the page to let Farmville install the toolbar. When it is installed, the intallation process doesn't see to go anywhere. You need to go back to your Farmville page. But there are really 25 Farmville Cash waiting in the giftbox.
 
No kidding. Get it while it lasts.
 
Ami Isseroff