Lighthouse Cove, Where the Rich get Richer and the Poor Stay Poor

The new Lighthouse Cove option in FarmVille has a great deal to offer but unfortunately, it is very much slanted towards players who can afford to spend Premium Cash on the game.

Unlike the English Countryside (which appears to have disappeared as an option for new players), the Lighthouse Cove can be accesssed by players at low levels, where the English Countryside was unlocked previously only when players reached Level 20.

The Lighthouse Cove, advertised as a 'Fall Getaway', is a charming cove featuring New England landscapes and trees clad in autumn foliage. It is very limited initially in terms of farming, allowing players to plow a maximum of 35 plots.

It is here that the new Cove demonstrates its capitalist nature. The sole option to expand is through a payment in Premium Cash, aka FarmVille Cash. For 30 FV Cash, a player can expand the Cove to allow the tilling of a maximum of 45 squares. In other words, 30 FV Cash buys a player only an additional 10 squares of tillable soil.

On the other hand, the Quests that are initiated when the player arrives in Lighthouse Cove follow the traditional FarmVille pattern, in rewards of vital farming items including all three regular farming vehicles. If a player is patient and goes through the entire Quest sequence, he/she will receive a Tractor, a Seeder and Harvester by the end as well as a Restaurant where new Recipes can be made.

Lighthouse Cove is unique in offering players 'Bonus Quests' when he/she completes the regular Quests early. The Bonus Quests allow a week for completion and then are supplanted by a new series of Quests.

Another interesting aspect of Lighthouse Cove is that the Crops available there can be used in new Recipes both on the Home Farm and in the English Countryside. It therefore gives a player a wide variety of new Recipes to complete and master.

An Open Letter to Zynga

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For a number of years, I have written strategy guides for games, specialising in Harvest Moon and Rune Factory, series that were produced for consoles and handheld systems. At the prompting of some of my fans, I became involved with Farmville and have been playing it now for over a year. More recently, again at the prompting of friends and fans of my game guides, I began to play CityVille. Although these games share some of the characteristics that endeared Harvest Moon and Rune Factory to me, there are some essential differences that are both positive and negative.

Positive aspects of games that use Facebook as a platform include the fact that the games are free to all players and the ability to change and enlarge the scope of any game as well as the ability to introduce new items and options. The positive aspects of this are obvious. The negative aspects only become apparent over the course of time.

Although Facebook games generally advertise themselves as 'free', a player has the opportunity to purchase items that require a currency that for the most part must be bought using real money. Often these items either are Limited Editions that are time-restricted. In other words, a player will have a limited amount of time to purchase them before the items disappear from the Marketplace. There is nothing wrong with the general principle of offering players special items of this sort. What is unethical, in my view, is the way Zynga has increased the number of Limited Editions, linking them to new options that bombard the player with invitations to purchase. Special 'sales' both of FarmVille Cash/CityVille Cash and Limited Edition items likewise bombard the player almost every time he/she logs into the game.

It can be argued that a player has an opportunity to demonstrate his/her support of a 'free' game by investing a little real money in it. After all, a console or handheld game can cost between $25.00 to $50.00. The difference, of course, is that, once purchased, a handheld or console game is complete and all new options and items are included, even if they must be 'unlocked' by the player's progress and advances in the game.

When I began to play FarmVille, it resembled traditional console and handheld games insofar as many of the options required a certain degree of progress in the game rather than being options and items that had to be purchased using real cash within a limited time period. Unfortunately, this has changed in the course of the past year. There is a certain appearance of desperation and greed in the manner in which both FarmVille and CityVille operate now and it may lead ultimately to the downfall of Zynga as a successful competitor in the world of Facebook.

Many players, including myself, perceived Facebook games such as FarmVille as a haven and sanctuary of peace, a place where one could escape the pressures and problems of the real world. Unfortunately, when the game itself places pressure on the player to use real money to purchase items and options before they disappear, the game becomes far less attractive, even when the player could afford to invest the money in the game. When the player cannot afford to invest limitless sums of real money, the game becomes frustrating and the endless stream of offers become rather unpleasant.

Let me use the example of a player who has been using my Harvest Moon and Rune Factory guides for years and who is an avid fan of those series. After a year on Facebook, she recently began to play CityVille. Within a matter of weeks, I received an email from her to the effect that she no longer would be playing the game as it 'cost too much money'. Note that the game itself remains free and in fact, in the original vision of the game, Quests are the method by which most items are unlocked. It is only because of the constant, unending stream of special offers and sales that this player was induced to spend more real money than she ever envisioned or intended.

Zynga may argue that no one 'puts a gun to your head' to force players to invest real money in FarmVille or CityVille. On the other hand, players are extremely susceptible to pressure to purchase 'premium' items when those items are time-restricted. This may benefit Zynga significantly at the start, but ultimately many players will do what my friend did.

About a fortnight after the first email, during which period my friend continued to play CityVille, after avowing her intention to end her participation, I received the following email:

'Just thought I should let you know I have had to Block CityVille from my computer. I was addicted and it was costing me too much money for this economy. I'm going through withdrawal now.
I did love playing!!!'

This player is not the only one who either has blocked the game or simply refuses to log into the game after spending far more money than any Harvest Moon or Rune Factory game would cost. Investment in Facebook games is a very slippery slope with almost imperceptible descent at times. For example, FarmVille recently has begun to offer a 'free gift' of a Limited Edition item when one purchases ANY amount of FarmVille Cash, including the purchase of a dollar's worth of FV Cash. These items now consist primarily of rare Zoo Animals for the new Zoo option. I have no doubt that many players who previously resisted the temptation to purchase FV Cash have been drawn into the investment by these seemingly benign and small purchase options.

The problem here is that the offers continue to proliferate and, combined with the frequent sales that offer FV Cash at a discount, can lead to rather excessive spending on the part of players who never intended to allocate a significant part of their 'entertainment budget' on Facebook games.

One can justify a certain amount of spending by comparing it with the vices of others. When one does not smoke or drink and, if disabled, is unable to go out to dinner or to the cinema frequently, one could argue that an investment even of $20.00 in a Facebook game is not excessive. It may not be excessive, but can one afford it? The answer in many cases, is negative. Furthermore, I believe that Zynga has a moral duty not to engage its loyal fans in this sort of constant marketing pressure.

Players of Facebook games often fill the gaps in tneir real lives with the small pleasures found in landscaping their virtual lands or making progress in the game. These games, however, should be a blessing and not a curse. Few players have unlimited real resources to place at the disposal of Zynga. Ultimately they, like the player who solved her problem by blocking CityVille, will reject the games completely in favour of console or handheld games that hold equal pleasure and enjoyment without the constant pressure to SPEND, SPEND, SPEND.

The world is experiencing an economic recession of sorts and, while virtual purchases can act as a fulfilling substitute for real purchases, this is not true when the virtual items require significant investment of real money that is needed to LIVE in the real world.

I continue to play FarmVille and CityVille regularly. While I love the themes and Limited Editions, as well as welcoming sales of FV Cash and CityVille Cash, realistically I am not in a position to make any significant investments in these games. I do believe that I have exhibited my support of these games in the past.

Why do the themes have to be SO limited in terms of time? Why can't Zynga offer a new theme every two months rather than every week or fortnight? Why are Limited Editions in CityVille available only for 5 days? That sort of time limit is unconscionable, in my view.

I urge any players who agree with this 'open letter' to add their comments and urge Zynga to give serious consideration to these issues. Thank you.

Freyashawk de Conde

Embarrassing Ignorance or Carelessness

Too often in popular Facebook games, there are embarrassing instances of misspellings. Granted that it is likely that English is not the native tongue of many of the developers, but surely the concept of EDITING is not entirely defunct. In this screenshot, a new fantasy Tree is shown with its name. 'Fleur de Les' is a meaningless name. In French, the words mean 'Flower of the'. Obviously, the intention was to give the traditional symbol of France its proper name, which can be spelled either 'Fleur-de-lis' or 'Fleur-de-lys' but NOT 'Fleur-de-les'. 'Fleur-de-lys' or 'Fleur-de-lys' means 'Flower of the Lily' or 'Lily Flower' in French. It is a very old heraldic device that became common in France during the Middle Ages.

How can such carelessness be tolerated by Zynga, a company that quickly is becoming quite famous for its online games? It could not be THAT difficult to make certain that some one fluent in the language read all text before its release. I understand that these games are available in a multitude of different languages but the amount of text is not significant and surely an appearance of basic literacy in EVERY language used should be important to the makers.

23 July: Zynga fixed the misspelling of the 'Fleur-de-Lys' Tree yesterday. I have no idea if some one from Zynga read this post or if the action were undertaken entirely by coincidence. Whatever the case, I am happy to see the correction. Each time I obtained a 'Fleur-de-les' Tree, I was rather uncomfortable with it.

Impatience can cost you!

In Farmville, quite often, new items that are released in the Marketplace will be given as rewards upon completion of Quests later. Such is the case with the new Beach Ball Ram. It is an interesting pattern and one that most players who enjoy sheep breeding would like to acquire. There are ways of doing so apart from outright purchase, as lambs with a Beach Ball Ram parent who are adopted can 'carry' the pattern. The Beach Ball Ram, however, is an outright gift when a player completes one of the Quests in the sequence of the new Summer Quests. As the price of the Beach Ball Ram in the Marketplace is 30 FV Cash, the gift is a significant one in monetary terms.

Note that, with all the changes that Zynga recently made with respect to Breeding, only the Ram carries patterns in Farmville. Ewes and/or Sheep carry colours and tones.

New Crafting Silo Recipes

Farmville has been expanding almost too quickly in the past few months, with new options to craft goods from Recipes in a number of different buildings and locations. The original choice between Home Farm Crafting Spa, Winery or Bakery still is the first crafting option, unlocked when a player attains Level 25. In the English Countryside, however, obtaining a Pub no longer requires any steps or quests. You simply will be given one and told to get on with it now.

A Craftshop recently was introduced which could be constructed both on the Home Farm and on the English Farm or on the farm of your choice. A variety of new Recipes using Bushels from existing Crops were introduced with it.

The most recent option, introduced a couple of days ago, is the Crafting Silo. This is not a Crafting Building per se but as its name suggests, simply a Storage Silo for new Items that can be harvested from existing Animals or Trees. Among the new Items are Bags of Manure and Baskets of Fruits, such as Cherry, Lemon and Orange. Wool Bundles can be harvested from Sheep and Apple Wood can be harvested from any type of Apple Tree, including Chrome Apple Trees.

Items that can be crafted vary wildly from simple construction materials to a Swiss Cottage. In time, the new Crafting option could be fun, but at the moment, Storage Space in the initial Crafting Silo is extremely limited and every Item I obtain fills it, making it impossible to organise any Recipes yet. I therefore am scrambling to expand the Silo.

Like the Craftshop, a player can opt to place one on each farm. This doubles storage space from 10 to 20, but space for 20 items is insufficient when one finds that one can obtain six or seven Wool Bundles from a single Sheep Pen harvest.

Once a Silo has been upgraded, it will store 50 Items. If a Silo is upgraded on BOTH Farms, a player will have a storage capacity of 100 Items. There are no further upgrades beyond the first one. It definitely is beneficial to upgrade both Silos as quickly as possible.

Recipes that can be made using Bushels harvested from existing Crops and items stored in the new Craft Silo include:

Brick:
1 Rice Bushel
1 Rhubarb Bushel
2 Manure Bushels

Wooden Board
1 Cotton Bushel
1 Peanut Bushel
1 Apple Wood Basket

Nail:
2 Morning Glory Bushels
1 Pattypan Bushel

Beach Ball
2 Tomato Bushels
2 Cranberry Bushels
1 Grape Bushels

English Postcard
1 Lilac Bushel
2 Leeks Bushels

Lucky Penny
2 Leeks Bushels
1 Pattypan Bushel

Fuel Can
2 Wheat Bushels
2 Soybean Bushels
2 Wool Bundles

Bottle:
3 Aloe Vera Bushels
2 Field Bean Bushels
2 Milk Jugs

Shovel Set
3 Jalapenos Bushels
3 Double Grain Bushels
1 Lemon Basket

Watering Can Set
1 Maple Sugar Basket
2 Lilac Bushels
2 Peanut Bushels

Vehicle Part
3 Tomato Bushels
3 Aloe Vera Bushels
1 Cherry Basket

1 Scythe
1 Wool Bundle
2 Rye Bushels
2 Spinach Bushels

Love Potion:
4 Strawberry Bushels
4 Tomato Bushels
2 Cherry Baskets

Fertilise All
2 Manure Bags
4 Carrot Bushels
3 Chickpea Bushels

Farmhand
4 Cotton Bushels
3 Soybean Bushels
1 Cherry Basket

Arbourist
3 Peanut Bushels
4 Morning Glory Bushels
2 Orange Baskets

Animal Feed
1 Walnut Basket
2 Sunflower Bushels
2 Barley Bushels

Pine Fence I
4 Cranberry Bushels
3 Cotton Bushels
2 Orange Baskets

Pine Fence II
4 Jalapenos Bushels
3 Spinach Bushels
2 Maple Syrup Baskets

Stone Wall
5 Wool Bundles
4 Manure Bags
3 Milk Jugs

Stone Archway
2 Walnut Baskets
3 Sunflower Bushels
4 Tomato Bushels

Lamp Post
2 Cherry Baskets
4 Coffee Bushels
3 Peanut Bushels

Milking Stool
1 Milk Jug
2 Cornflower Bushels
2 Rice Bushels

Modern Table
8 Lilac Bushels
5 Rhubarb Bushels
2 Lemon Baskets

Horse Sculpture
4 Jalapenos Bushels
2 Manure Bags
3 Pink Aster Bushels

Swiss Cabin
4 Apple Wood Baskets
10 Black Tea Bushels
6 Spring Squill Bushels

Unlike Recipes that are completed in the Spa, Winery, Bakery or Pub, each of the Craftshop Recipes has its own timeframe. For example, I believe that a Stone Arch takes six hours to complete, but a Stone Wall takes only 30 minutes. Unlike the other crafting options, however, you can work on only one Recipe at any given time in the Craftshop.

As with any Recipes List in Farmville, the order in which Recipes appear depends on the ingredients that a player currently possesses. A Recipe for which all ingredients are present will appear at the top of the list. Recipes for which no ingredients currently are held will be at the bottom. I have chosen to organise the list according to type, with construction materials at the top and complete items such as Swiss Cabin and Horse Sculpture last.

Note that there is an option to obtain 'Help' from other players in the new Craftshop. A player posts a request for Help on his/her Wall and the first four players that respond will be assumed to help with the next recipe. When a player has four helpers, he/she will obtain double the product. In other words, if crafting a Love Potion with four helpers, the player will obtain 2 Love Potions rather than 1. The helpers do not appear to gain any real benefit apart from the knowledge that they have acted as good neighbours.

A final note: Some of the Recipes given above are variations on Recipes that were released with the original Workshop. You no longer will be able to craft the item using the original Recipe now. A Love Potion formerly could be made using Strawberry, Tomato and Tulip Bushels. Now you must use Cherry Baskets instead of Tulip Bushels. (Actually, this is the 3rd variation on the Recipe for crafting Love Potions. The first was a Limited Edition Recipe in the English Countryside Pub!)

Becoming King or Queen of your Castle in Farmville

The last destination on the Map in the English Countryside at present is a castle. With the final English Countryside Quest, you will receive a kingly gift in the form of an English Castle. More useful and empowering, you will obtain the right to share items between your two farms as well as that of growing any specific Crop on EITHER farm.

This solves many vexing problems as well as creating the need for new farming strategies.

The ability to access items from either farm and place them on either farm simply solves landscaping and breeding problems without creating the need for any new strategical consideration. It is with respect to farming itself that new strategies become useful.

On each farm, you have a limit of five Market Stalls, giving you the potential total of ten Market Stalls on both farms. Until you complete the English Countryside Quest, 'Home Farm' Crops can be grown only on the Home Farm and English Crops on the English Countryside Farm. Once you complete the final Quest, you can grow any Crop on either farm, as previously indicated.

Where Market Stalls are concerned, you benefit most if you do not duplicate Crops. In other words, there is no need to have a Market Stall on the English Countryside that sells Peppers if you have one on the Home Farm selling the same Crop. This may appear obvious, but there is so much multi-tasking now in FarmVille that a player needs to make certain he/she is farming in the most efficient fashion.

Incidentally, you no longer need to worry about taking Bushels for the Home Farm while on your English Farm or taking English Crops while on the Home Farm, even if you have not completed the English Quests. All Bushels now will be accessible irrespective of a player's current location. Furthermore, you need not be concerned as to the current location of neighbours. All Neighbour Crops will be accessible now irrespective of his/her current location.

Co-op Jobs remain the same at this point in time, but note that Crops planted and harvested on EITHER farm will count towards your required totals.

As far as Farm Aids are concerned, the Unwither Ring only can be placed and operated on the Home Farm. For the English Countryside, there is only the very unsatisfactory Unwither Clock that has to be activated every 30 days again with a fairly hefty payment in FV Cash.

My own advice is to steer clear of the Unwither Clock but to purchase the Unwither Ring if at all possible. Note that the Unwither Ring is available in the Marketplace only at certain points in time. It is available at the time of writing this post, on 29 June, but will vanish from the Market in two days.

The price of the Unwither Ring is 250 Farm Cash, which is a considerable sum in 'real money' but it lasts forever and its benefits are as considerable as the price. To be able to grow fast-growing Crops, in particular, without having to worry about harvesting them before they wither, is an enormous boon to a busy player.

The following tips are applicable solely to players who have an Unwither Ring and have unlocked the ability to share Crops and Items on both Farms.

If you have the Unwither Ring, it is wisest to grow all fast-growing Crops on the Home Farm and slow-growing Crops on the English Countryside. You lose nothing by doing so. After all, if you are the sort of player who harvests any Crop as soon as it ripens, you can do so even with the Unwither Ring in place. The advantage of this, of course, is to free you from any anxiety or need to watch the clock.

As previously indicated, Co-Op Jobs will recognise Crops planted and harvested on the English Countryside as well as those grown on the Home Farm now. If you are trying to obtain a Gold Medal, you may grow the same Crops on both Farms but if you do so, avoid duplication of Crops offered in the Market Stalls. There is no harm in offering the same Crop on both Farms, but no benefit to you either.

Self-Sufficiency and the Philosophy of Farmville

Lately, Farmville has been awash with Quests of all sorts, from the continuing saga of the English Countryside to new Craftshop Quests and the 2nd Anniversary Birthday Celebration of the game itself.

We often discover things about ourselves when playing games such as Harvest Moon and Farmville, the sort of games that are open-ended and allow individual choices on the part of the player. I did not really discover anything NEW about myself, but certain personality traits have been reinforced in playing Farmville, Fantasy Kingdoms and Rune Factory.

For a start, I definitely am a creature of habit who likes to return to a place that is familiar and a place that becomes increasingly invested with memories and pleasurable visual encounters. In other words, if I create a beautiful montage or corner in a Kingdom or on a farm, it pleases me to return to it to discover it anew each time I play the game. Memories, of course, are not merely memories of the actual game, but memories from real life of events that occurred during the period that I played the game. Certain Harvest Moon games have extremely poignant memories attached to them because of the fact that the game brought me consolation and necessary distraction at times of personal tragedy or great physical agony. It therefore would make no sense for me to destroy and then reconstruct a farm or kingdom completely unless I never was happy with it.

The second trait that is both good and bad is that of being of an inveterate packrat. I am as much a packrat in Harvest Moon and Farmville as I am in real life. It disturbs me greatly to lose items that are invested with significance. Other 'useful' items are saved for the chance that they may be needed in the future. The latter trait is one I could modify somewhat without too much damage to the psyche. After all, one can purchase a new box if one needs to send a parcel. One needn't save old boxes... (That habit was born when I sold dolls, and it actually made sense then, but I now am beginning to jettison boxes that are not being used.) In Farmville, I recently have begun to 'clean house' a little as well, because of lack of space and a packed inventory.

Farmville has changed immensely since the early days when I had one little farm instead of two large estates and very few neighbours to help me complete Quests or even construction projects. In the past year, I have become 'friends' with many of my Neighbours, people I met through Farmville, Lovely Farm and Fantasy Kingdoms. In that sense, Facebook as a social network can be very positive.

It is interesting to see how the characters of other people are displayed not only by their choice of games but by the way they behave when they play a game. Many individuals are quite happy to play both social games that involve assistance to Neighbours and combat games that require hostile actions towards their Neighbours. Others play only one type of game, either bored by the idea of sending gifts to Neighbours or put off by the idea of confronting them in combat.

I personally dislike online combat games. If I wish to take out my aggressions on some one, I would rather do it unilaterally against a computer-generated enemy. I loved the early Lord of the Rings games for handheld systems and consoles because my enemies there were devoid of any positive traits and could be slain without any hesitation or regret. I hated everything that Sauron represented and found his minions hideous for the most part. I therefore took pleasure in destroying them.

When enemies are attractive physically or are human beings or animals, it is more difficult for me to slay or destroy them. The games I really found I disliked were those that required the destruction of neighbouring civilisations, whether or not they were computer-generated or built by Neighbours. I do not like to leave smoking devastation behind me and I truly hate to return to my own civilisation to find it in ruins.

In any event, to return to the subject of Farmville, it was one of my first experiences of playing a game where success REQUIRED Neighbours and assistance to and from other people. When one is not playing the game actively, requests from Neighbours can be a trifle annoying, but one needs to remember that those same Neighbours gave assistance when one required it! When one is playing a game actively, Neighbours who respond to requests in a timely fashion are invaluable and it actually kind of restores faith in humanity to some extent. It is a sort of kindness, even if the items that are given are 'virtual' and have no real value.

In this context, it has horrified me to discover how greedy and thoughtless some players can be. There are wonderful players who share their valuable Trees and Animals by posting them on their Walls freely to every one. The greedy Neighbours who take every single Tree when some one posts more than one and who never post a 'thank you' in return are more common than one would like to think. Again and again, I have seen pleas from generous Farmers for their Neighbours to make a simple response of 'Like' when they take something so that other players are not disappointed when they click on the Item only to discover that it is gone.

I am going to write another article on Facebook gaming protocol soon because I do think some players are merely ignorant or thoughtless and have not considered the significance of their actions when they take three Items instead of one from a Neighbour's Wall and leave no comment to thank the giver.

Today, when I was harvesting my Crops on my Home Farm, I realised that the centre core of the Farm has not changed much in a year. In that central space, I grow all the Ingredients needed for my favourite Spa Recipe, which is 'Farmer's Frenzy Perfume'. Many player make their lives easier by concentrating on Recipes that require only two or three Ingredients. I, of course, make my life as complicated as possible, by making the Recipe that requires the largest number of Ingredients!

Actually, I have a passion for Flowers and Perfume, so Farmer's Frenzy Perfume was a natural choice. It is a Recipe that is unlocked only when the Spa is fully upgraded to Level 5. I therefore spent many months looking at it longingly, striving mightily to make enough money and create sufficient items to unlock it and to be able to purchase the last upgrade with Coins that I had earned through my own labours. It uses ingredients that require a fairly decent level of experience as well.

One can purchase Bushels from Neighbours, of course, and doing so is an important part of gameplay, but I like to be able to supply all the ingredients for my perfume myself if Neighbours do not provide them in their Market Stalls.

A favourite Flower of mine is the Iris and unlocking the Iris as a Crop represented another important milestone in my Farmville experience. I still reserve one plot on my Home Farm for Irises simply because they are so lovely. I remember the days when I had not unlocked the Iris but needed it as an Ingredient. I would wait impatiently for some one else to grow them so that I could obtain Bushels from another Player's Market Stall. In the early days, I had only one Neighbour who ever grew Irises and she did so only occasionally. Later, I had a Neighbour who grew the ingredients for the Petal Sachet Co-Op Job consistently.

There is a vintage British comedy about self-sufficiency and farming. In England, it was entitled, 'The Good Life'. When aired in the States, it was given the title, 'Good Neighbours'. When I first began to play Farmville, I thought it would be an exercise in self-sufficiency, an attempt to grow everything oneself that one might need. In fact, self-sufficiency is the antithesis of the Farmville philosophy. The entire focus of the game is sharing, whether it is Bushels, Animals or unique Items.