I have a love/hate relationship with Farmville although, after seeing 'The Social Network' at the cinema, I now understand that Farmville exemplifies ALL of the basic principles on which Facebook was founded. It is the ultimate social networking game, constantly chivvying the player to send Gifts to Neighbours and invitations to non-playing Friends.
It really wouldn't be a bad game were it not for the overload of prompts. Players (including me) often become annoyed by the nonsense Gifts that arrive in bulk for some limited 'collection' of items that can be found when ploughing your Field. There is far too much of THAT for any one, I believe.
In any case, I recently became enticed back to Farmville when a lost Himalayan Cat began to appear. As an owner of Himalayans, I could not resist. Art imitating Life in a big way!
Having immersed myself in the game again, I discovered the following: Farmville really isn't much fun until you reach Level 20. At Level 20, you can begin to craft items and sell them. You can join co-op jobs to deliver a specified total of Crops to an imaginary buyer.
Furthermore, unless you have at least 10 Neighbours, Farmville is rather lonely and difficult. Many purchases are unlocked only if the Player has 10 Neighbours. It may not sound like a hard goal to achieve, but the Neighbour aspect of Farmville is very glitchy. I tried to help a couple of new players obtain Neighbours in vain. The friends I solicited for help actually accepted the players as Neighbours but their names never were added! This occurred despite the fact that BOTH players accepted the Neighbour invitations.
In any case, here are a couple of tips from my own experience:
Although the game will tell you that you can send only one Gift per day to any Neighbour, the total actually is three. You have to wait a few hours, of course, before you will be able to send another Gift. The tip here involves the acceptance of Gifts from a single Friend. A prompt will appear with the gift advising you to send a 'Thank you Gift' in return. DO THIS ONLY WITH THE BEST ITEM THAT THE PLAYER HAS SENT IN THE CASE OF MULTIPLE GIFTS! Once you have sent a Thank-You Gift, you either have to wait eight hours before accepting the next one from the player or give up the opportunity to keep the Gift 'live'.
I will explain this further. As you only can send one 'Thank you Gift' in an eight hour period, if there are multiple Gifts from a single Player, accepting all of them will end the Gift process except for the one for which you chose to send a Thank you Gift'.
In other words, a Player sends you the following:
A Train Whistle
A Special Delivery
A Cow
The best of these Gifts is the Special Delivery as it will contain construction materials for your Current Building projects. Moreover, Special Deliveries ARE Special. The game issues an invitation to send them rarely. They do not appear on the regular Gift Page. If, however, you accept the Train Whistle first AND click on the invitation to send a Thank You Gift for that, then proceed to accept the Special Delivery and the Cow, the latter Gifts will be 'dead' in terms of being able to return them to the original sender.
Why is this important? If your Friend sends you a Thank You Gift in return, the Gift will remain 'live' and you can send it back and forth indefinitely. If you are trying to complete a number of construction projects, this can be invaluable. A host of Train Whistles is not as useful. A host of Cows can be useful, but there is nothing special about them. They will appear on the Gifts Page regularly.
That is the first little Tip. The second involves Mystery Gifts. The game will urge you to send Mystery Gifts as 'they can contain fuel' but in fact, they can contain items that are far more valuable to a player. Although they may contain weird items such as Old Bikes or Owl Statues, they can contain Seeders and Harvesters as well! These items cost 30,000 Coins each.
In the early days of my involvement, I told one of my Harvest Moon friends that I wouldn't use machines in farming. I was a purist. Now, however, beyond Level 20 and involved in the crafting of goods, the machines are a godsend. If, therefore, you would like to have the farming machinery and don't have sufficient income for them, send Mystery Gifts to your Friends, so that they will return them to you.
Showing posts with label Crafting in Farmville. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crafting in Farmville. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
New Crafting Option in Farmville
Despite my sometimes jaundiced view of the rather aggressive commercialism of Farmville, it does have a multitude of endless interactions with the player and constant interfacing with other players as well. Lost Animals, Pregnant Sows, a Farmers' Market that offers Bushels of the Crops that you and your Neighbours grow as well as Co-Op Jobs are among the Options that appear whenever you play Farmville. Unfortunately, the Farmers' Market and Co-Op Jobs can be experienced only by players who have increased their Levels of experience. I now have tried both.
Between the Co-Op Job Option and the Farmers' Market Options, I personally find the Co-Op Jobs rather tedious, even when a Neighbour assists. Essentially, what is required is that you grow enormous quantities of a single Crop within a limited time period. If you do not have machines to till the field, sow the Seeds AND harvest the Crops, you will be forced to invest a substantial amount of REAL time in the venture, with very little reward really. You can earn a Bronze, Silver or Gold Medal and of course, you will earn whatever income and experience your Crops produce.
For my Co-Op Job, I chose to grow 1500 Red Tulips as I love Flowers. A Neighbour and Harvest Moon comrade very kindly added his effortst to mine. In all honesty, without his help, I could not have completed the Job and in fact, he was the MVP in this labour, supplying over 60% of the Red Tulips for the 'Wedding' organisers who contracted with us for the items. Annoyingly, some glitch in Farmville forced me to harvest the last 200 Tulips TWICE. I had completed the entire job and indeed, had re-tilled a number of plots when the game told me that the game had been 'enhanced' and forced me to reload. To my horror, when I did, I found that the 200 Red Tulips had regrown themselves magically and had to be harvested again.
You can choose between a number of different Co-Op Jobs but it appears that they all involve a task of growing and harvesting large quantities of a single Crop.
The Farmers' Market, on the other hand, has been invested with a Crafting Option that might prove interesting. When it first was announced, I was asked to choose between a Bakery, Winery and Spa. I chose the Spa, thinking that it would involve Flowers more than other Crops.
Actually, I suspect that the Recipes in all three Crafts require a wide variety of ingredients. As in games like Rune Factory, you need to raise your level of experience before you can make more than one Recipe.
So far, I have made 'Fresh Sachets' at my little Craft Cottage and sold a few to a Neighbour. Each time you make a Craft, your levels of expertise improve and the quality of the Goods will improve.
The Recipe for a Fresh Sachet is: 3 Pumpkin Bushels, 3 Cranberry Bushels, 1 Sunflower Bushel
What is interesting here is that you can 'buy' any Bushels you do not have from a Neighbour's Stall if he/she has them, which extends your potential to complete Recipes for Goods.
It is not as interesting as Grand Bazaar, or any other Harvest Moon or Rune Factory game, but it is a step in the right direction!
Later: The automatic option to make a choice between the three Crafting buildings no longer is given to players. I was rewarded by responding instantly with the gift of a free Spa, but now you must buy one or more of the three buildings at the Market. The Buildings are: Bakery, Winery and Spa. The three Buildings are available only at Level 25 and each costs 100,000 Coins, making me rather happy that I responded to the offer when I received it! You may not even see them at the Market if your levels are not high enough.
If you do not have a Market Stall, you cannot do anything with the option as it all works through the Market Stall. Now, at the Market Stall, there are new Menus that allow you to Use either Bushels or Goods or, when you choose Bushels, to Make Goods or Uss a specific Bushel as before simply to gain Mastery Points during harvests.
At Level 15, with a Market Stall, you can buy Goods now as well as Bushels from Neighbours. The 'Fresh Sachet' costs 1100 Coins. If you have a vehicle, you can trade the Fresh Sachet for Fuel. I was rather disappointed to find that this is the only way to use the Goods at present, although Farmville promises that there will be an option to acquire special items in future as well.
Between the Co-Op Job Option and the Farmers' Market Options, I personally find the Co-Op Jobs rather tedious, even when a Neighbour assists. Essentially, what is required is that you grow enormous quantities of a single Crop within a limited time period. If you do not have machines to till the field, sow the Seeds AND harvest the Crops, you will be forced to invest a substantial amount of REAL time in the venture, with very little reward really. You can earn a Bronze, Silver or Gold Medal and of course, you will earn whatever income and experience your Crops produce.
For my Co-Op Job, I chose to grow 1500 Red Tulips as I love Flowers. A Neighbour and Harvest Moon comrade very kindly added his effortst to mine. In all honesty, without his help, I could not have completed the Job and in fact, he was the MVP in this labour, supplying over 60% of the Red Tulips for the 'Wedding' organisers who contracted with us for the items. Annoyingly, some glitch in Farmville forced me to harvest the last 200 Tulips TWICE. I had completed the entire job and indeed, had re-tilled a number of plots when the game told me that the game had been 'enhanced' and forced me to reload. To my horror, when I did, I found that the 200 Red Tulips had regrown themselves magically and had to be harvested again.
You can choose between a number of different Co-Op Jobs but it appears that they all involve a task of growing and harvesting large quantities of a single Crop.
The Farmers' Market, on the other hand, has been invested with a Crafting Option that might prove interesting. When it first was announced, I was asked to choose between a Bakery, Winery and Spa. I chose the Spa, thinking that it would involve Flowers more than other Crops.
Actually, I suspect that the Recipes in all three Crafts require a wide variety of ingredients. As in games like Rune Factory, you need to raise your level of experience before you can make more than one Recipe.
So far, I have made 'Fresh Sachets' at my little Craft Cottage and sold a few to a Neighbour. Each time you make a Craft, your levels of expertise improve and the quality of the Goods will improve.
The Recipe for a Fresh Sachet is: 3 Pumpkin Bushels, 3 Cranberry Bushels, 1 Sunflower Bushel
What is interesting here is that you can 'buy' any Bushels you do not have from a Neighbour's Stall if he/she has them, which extends your potential to complete Recipes for Goods.
It is not as interesting as Grand Bazaar, or any other Harvest Moon or Rune Factory game, but it is a step in the right direction!
Later: The automatic option to make a choice between the three Crafting buildings no longer is given to players. I was rewarded by responding instantly with the gift of a free Spa, but now you must buy one or more of the three buildings at the Market. The Buildings are: Bakery, Winery and Spa. The three Buildings are available only at Level 25 and each costs 100,000 Coins, making me rather happy that I responded to the offer when I received it! You may not even see them at the Market if your levels are not high enough.
If you do not have a Market Stall, you cannot do anything with the option as it all works through the Market Stall. Now, at the Market Stall, there are new Menus that allow you to Use either Bushels or Goods or, when you choose Bushels, to Make Goods or Uss a specific Bushel as before simply to gain Mastery Points during harvests.
At Level 15, with a Market Stall, you can buy Goods now as well as Bushels from Neighbours. The 'Fresh Sachet' costs 1100 Coins. If you have a vehicle, you can trade the Fresh Sachet for Fuel. I was rather disappointed to find that this is the only way to use the Goods at present, although Farmville promises that there will be an option to acquire special items in future as well.
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