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.