2010: A FarmVille Odyssey

WARNING:  Unlike fan sites, there will be no fond trip down memory lane here.  The opinions here are strictly my own, your results may vary.  It's all based on the past years' worth of compiling opinions, reactions and other various data from several select mega-farmers: those, like myself, who have the Facebook limit of 5,000 friends, all relatively dedicated FarmVille players.  While some choose to orally copulate Zynga for everything they spew forth, here you're only going to get honest reaction and analysis - the good (Fertilize All!), the bad (pigpens), and the ugly (me).Oh - there may also be the occasional 'adult word' in here.  Most of us can't play FarmVille without uttering or at least thinking a few of them anyway.  It may be safe for work (depending on where you work), but it's probably a little too cynical for your kids to read.  Fair warning, right?

So....maybe by this time I should have titled this "FarmVille Remembered".  Is this a Eulogy?  It may be, folks.  If Zynga continues to lose players by the boatload as they've been doing for months now by alienating their strongest advocates - the advanced players - they risk losing not only their gaming crown but the position they've coveted for so long: the premier social gaming producer.

We saw a vast number of milestones and notable 'occurrences' in FarmVille in 2010 - here are just a few of the more notable ones.  They aren't in any particular order.

I'm sure I've either missed some, forgotten some, or intentionally blocked some of them out of my brain in order to maintain my own sanity.  Feel free to remind us of those in the comments section.

Yes, it's a long read, but in retrospect it was a VERY long year.  Get yourself a cup of coffee, or maybe bring the whole pot.  Just be careful, there may be spots here where you'll end up spraying it out of your nose.  You've been warned! Enjoy.

Removing Unwanted Games and Applications on Facebook

If you get infected with a rogue application (i.e., the 'trojans' you get from clicking on scam posts, etc.), this is the way to remove them from your account.  Be sure to bookmark this entry in case you need to refer back to it, and feel free to share it with your friends

- we all need to clean our our apps and remove games we don't play anymore - it helps you and it helps the rest of us so that we can focus our efforts on helping people who actually do play the games!
Sooner or later, we all get tired of playing some of the games on Facebook.  We tire of seeing and ignoring the requests for the games, the posts going past us and cramming up our newsfeed, etc.

Sometimes, we also inadvertently allow a rogue or bad application to do things in our name like make posts while we're not looking, advertise a service or scam, etc.

Note: A lot of people are hesitant to completely remove a game from their account because they don't want to lose all the progress they've made on the game.  Zynga keeps your game intact for at least 6 months after you remove it, in case you change your mind and want to go back to it....but frankly if you go 6 months and don't play it, you probably don't want to go back and play it at all anyway.  6 months is a LIFETIME in the gaming world, so at that point you may as well start over again anyway, and reap the benefits they pass out to new players, no?

Well, it's a new year and it's time to clean up our Facebook applications.  Not only will this make our accounts safer, but it will really help out our fellow gamers, since removing an application removes your name from the players list.  Your friends will thank you for not wasting their precious 'sends' for things like invitations, free gifts, and other game play in which you need to participate.

So...let's remove some games we don't play anymore, and get rid of some annoying applications we don't need or want around.  To do this, start by going to http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=applications

This brings up a screen which looks similar to this:

CityVille: Tips for Levels 10-50 and Beyond

I know, I know.  It's not FarmVille, but that's okay.  

CityVille, Zynga's newest foray into the Social Games Market, has taken Facebook by storm - it was even recently reported that it knocked FarmVille out of the number one spot.

Granted, a sack of flaming dog poo (don't they have that on FrontierVille?!?) could've knocked FarmVille out of first place given ALL the bugs, issues and tomfoolery in FarmVille these days, but still it's an achievement for which Zynga should get credit.

If you're going to play this game, there are some things you should know which will help ALL of us level up more quickly and be a little more efficient in our game play.


These tips assume you've completed at least 10 levels of the game, and are familiar with the concept of goods, crops, businesses, trains and boats. To get those first 10 levels, just follow the in-game tips, complete the quests/missions they direct for you, and pay attention to what you're doing.  Don't be afraid to try different things - I'm pretty sure you can't break anything that can't be fixed later.

How to report and block a rogue application in Facebook

Okay, I get this question a lot, so this ought to be of some help.  Here's the situation:

You see a request from something you know is NOT a normal game application (a/k/a a SCAM!), either in the game feed:

Scam Application request from the game feed.

...or in your game requests:

Scam Application request showing up as a gift request.

Still Can't Load FarmVille...? Here's what you missed this week!

If you're one of the 850,000 others who can't load your farm at all, or can't load it much past the immediate Out of Sync, here's what you didn't miss this week:

• Zynga rolled out the 28x28 expansion, for Farm Cash Only ($120FVC). Coin price has yet to be set, they're still working on it.
• Tuesday's update was bungled.  They put Poinsettias and the Gingerbread house (buildable) in the market and OOS ran rampant until they pulled them off.  They came back within the last day.  Aside from that, there wasn't much rolled out Tuesday at all.
• Thursday night's update was nonexistent.  No word from Zynga on why they skipped a day. Rumor has it that there is a huge upheaval in their Product Studio area, and some are speculating that this is the very first death knell being rung for FarmVille.
• The Winter Workshop has started appearing, although it's unclear as to whether it's a legitimate release or something Uncle Charlie has helped everyone with.  So far, it hasn't broken anything yet.
• CityVille was released this week.  Think FrontierVille, except with a City theme.  So far, it's moderately playable despite requests not working correctly, rampant disconnects, and buggy Flash code that causes spontaneous system reboots for more than a few players after several minutes into the game.
• Facebook changed the way game requests are handled across the board, and as usual it was done with little notice.  As a result, most of the tools used to 'accept all' or 'ignore all' aren't working correctly, and they aren't working at all well with the new CityVille game.

All in all, it was a good week to be Out of Sync - you didn't miss much.  I've actually started removing FV completely between farming sessions to avoid people sending me things, posting pigs, etc., since I'm one of the 850,000 impacted by a time limit of about 3 minutes on my farm before I hit OOS.

Farmer Brown
FarmVille Curmudgeon

Bigger isn't always better.....

So...the word from Zynga is that soon our gift box in FarmVille will have a capacity increase from 200 to 500.  While the recent increase earlier this year from 50 to 200 was fairly welcome, it was not without it's caveats - and the increase to 500 is just going to multiply those problems.  I know a lot of you are really excited about this change, but wait a few moments to break out the bubbly, O Ye Of Short Memory...

Five Reasons the Increase to 500 is a Bad Idea

Another Zynga Holiday Debacle

Hiya, Zynga!

How's it hanging?  Got a question for you......

How many times, Zynga?  How many times do you have to make the same epic mistake over and over again before somebody in your brain trust realizes you're doing something wrong?

It's a nice thought - it truly is.  Many people in our community look forward to long Holiday weekends.  They get to spend some time with the family, further traditions of food, fellowship and the inevitable family drama that seems to occur sometime during the festivities (Aunt Bootsy just can't hold her liquor, folks), and then spend some extra, quality time playing their favorite game.  It's just a bonus that Zynga chooses these long weekends to make them 'Double Mastery' weekends, so we get rewarded even more for our hard work and effort.

The only problem with this formula is that two times ZERO equals...yep.  Zero.  That's how many XP many of our neighbors have been able to gain since Tuesday or Wednesday of last week, because either their farm won't load, or because it goes Out of Sync the moment it *does* load. The complaints have flooded the forums, as usual, and all we hear are crickets chirping in response.

Dear Scam Posters.....

Dear Stupid People:  

Nobody hacked your account.  You're posting scam posts and sending infected emails because YOU authorized an application that you shouldn't have.  You have nobody to blame but yourself.

You tried to see a video, or wanted to play "FarmVille Slots" (which is a big disease-ridden SCAM), attended an event that wasn't a real event, or did something else that common sense should have prevented you from doing.  You tried to get something for nothing, and you were successful.  You got a rogue application authorized to do whatever it wanted on your Facebook account, and now you're angry with others for telling you what damn near EVERYONE has been saying for months now:

Bushels, Bushels Everywhere...and not a bite to eat!

(Originally posted in the Zynga Forums, but I can almost guarantee that like all the rest of my fair and reasonable complaints, it'll be removed shortly.)


This has been going on for over a month now, folks. I have literally hundreds of friends on my list with the same problem. Yes, I understand it's a known issue, but it's also a chronic and epidemic issue. Those of us who have been the most faithful customers, spending real cash on additional crafting cottages, mastering all the crops and leveling up above and beyond have little else meaningful to do except work on Crafting Good Masteries.

Anatomy of a SCAM

We've all seen them.  They're Facebook pages which promise HUGE rewards for seemingly very little in return - but what exactly IS a FarmVille SCAM, and how can we spot them?

Spotting a scam is easy, because 99.9999% of them are complete scams.  It's an incredibly rare event when Zynga gives ANYTHING away for free.  

FarmVille Special Delivery Boxes Have Arrived

When you click on this icon:

You get this screen:

Your friends see this in their requests:

It ends up in your gift box:

You get something you 'need' on your farm.  Fuel, construction materials, etc.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Protest

It's funny how things work out sometimes.


Last Monday night, after our good friends at Zynga (that's the company that produces FarmVille, FrontierVille and various other 'Villes') put up the Tuscan Wedding Redeemables for insane and outrageous amounts of Farm Cash (Farm Cash is the in-game currency that costs players actual, real-life money), I got mildly insulted.  That's just a notch past annoyed, if you're unfamiliar with that particular scale.

People still had these things sitting on their farm, and could share them out for free, and yet Zynga decided it was time to price-gouge and charge exorbitant amounts of Farm Cash for these items.  It sickened me to think that a company that is just in it's infancy and starting, slowly, to garner some actual legitimacy, would engage in such despicable, predatory consumer practices.

The Dog Days of Summer

I know, I know.  Zynga wanted to call it the 'Seven Days of Summer Event', but you know I tend to think of an 'event' as something noteworthy.  The only thing noteworthy of this 'event' was that it's obvious that most of the FarmVille folks went on Summer Vacation this week.

This week, Zynga 'brought back' several themes: French, Japanese, Tuscan, Island, Adobe, and UFO.  The only one which could even be considered 'nostalgic' was tonight's UFO theme, possibly the most-anticipated and yet most disappointing of the lot.

Aside from the UFO theme, how are we supposed to be nostalgic about a concept like 'a little while ago'?  I know some people who still physically shudder if they hear the word 'Tuscan', so that's still pretty fresh.  They've also filled their "Mystery Dart Game" with 'retro' items (i.e. old crap) which folks may have purchased if they were offered outright...but for a 25% increase in price, nobody's going to take a chance on getting a Jackrabbit when what they wanted was a White Stallion.

Most disappointing of the lot was the UFO theme, launched tonight.  SIX items.  Yes, just six, and ALL of them Farm Cash items...with two of them reflecting price increases since they were originally released.  The Mystery Dart game?  Refilled with items that I'd have purchased if they were offered outright....but again for the price I wasn't going to take a chance on getting stuck with yet another Stallion.

Here's to hoping that next week's offerings will be better.  I can promise you ONE new and exciting thing for next week: The blog I was writing two weeks ago when I had my heart attack.  Should be fun!

Happy Farming...even if Zynga is MIA.

Farmer Brown

Have you done your good deed today?

In another move to compete for your screen space, FarmVille is now reminding you to do your five good deeds for the day.  They'll remind you on your farm (above), and when you click on it, a list of five (apparently needy) friends will appear:

Best I can tell, these are NOT all dormant accounts who don't play very often - so this time, FarmVille is NOT using it's most dedicated, active players to sucker in the ones who have shown enough good sense to quit.  That's a change.

Click on the 'post' button for each player, and it soon presents you with the usual Facebook dialog box to post the gift to their wall (yet another good reason to prevent people from posting to your wall in Facebook!).  Players will have to click on their wall posts to claim the gift.

Once you're done, you're presented with a completion screen.  No word yet on any rewards, but if they keep up their trend, we'll get 'something' for being a helpful friend!

Building a garage? Need parts? Here's how to get them efficiently!

We have another construction project - a garage!  Zynga has given us information on it here.


If you need parts, don't just blindly send them to folks unless you KNOW they need them.  Instead, use the 'Ask for More" feature inside your building - just like all the other buildings and beehive!

Click on your unfinished building, and select 'Look Inside'.


Once inside, you'll see this:

This will allow you to select which part to request, and give you the opportunity to request parts from up to 30 of your friends.  Once you have sent these requests, they show up for your friends like this:

Friends may send you the materials "free" (they don't count against your 30 gift sends allowed every 4-6 hours) with a single click.  Couldn't be easier!

Baaaaaah!

Dear FarmVille,

Thanks for letting me by this 300,000 coin sheep that yields 30 coins a day.  I feel like a schmuck waiting to harvest it.  Just think, in only 9,975 days I'll have made my money back.

Love,
the schmuck who bought it.

I'm Back! (kinda)

The rumors of my death have been exaggerated...but it was close there for awhile.

Feeling better now, but will be slowly working my way back to full speed again.  In the meantime, although you all know how I love FarmVille, today's thought for the day is to make sure everyone knows the warning signs of a Heart Attack.

Not only do they HURT, but it turns out they're very expensive, too.  Not something any of us needs.

Thanks for the good wishes and thoughts, everyone!  Glad to be home and on the mend, finally!

Farmer Brown

Last Chance for Swiss Limited Edition Items!

Just a reminder there are only two days left on some of the awesome Swiss Limited Edition items in FarmVille!

Note:  All images used are presented under the Fair Use Doctrine,  17 U.S.C. § 107 and other similar statutes.  Copyrights are the property of the respective holders, and no infringement occurs or is intended.

Seriously, Zynga? WTF?

Hi, Mark!


It's me again.  I know I promised to give you a little time to get your act together at Zynga, but I really didn't mean for you to take care of all those laundry list items and screw up FarmVille at the same time.  That's a joke, by the way, because the silence coming from Zynga on ALL of these issues is all we get from you.


Let's review, shall we?

• You rolled out the long-awaited Farmer's Market.  Millions could not access their farms for a week, and when they finally got into their farms, the sound of that awful theme song for FarmVille was drowned out by a collective, worldwide yawn.  

We get what out of that exactly?  A few XP? Some gas? There hasn't been a bigger disappointment since Geraldo opened Al Capone's safe.

Enjoying that FarmVille Scam?

I hate removing Facebook friends. I really do.  I'm a firm believer in 'the more the merrier'.


Sadly, I've removed a LOT in the last day.  Probably more than MANY of you have.  Some were very good friends.  Some were close friends.  Some were my first neighbors.  Now they're all gone, and gone for good.


Why?  Because you're either too stupid or too greedy or too gullible to try and click on every FarmVille Scam out there.  


It's a VERY RARE EVENT when Zynga actually gives something away, but when they DO, you'll see it IN THE GAME or ON THEIR WEBSITE.  It will be on all the credible blogs. Nowhere else.


I've TRIED to educate folks. There's even a page out there now called FarmVille Scams, which tells you how to block these things and which ones are scams (all of them, of course).  I paste it to my OWN wall so often it's sickening, and yet I swear some of you use that page to go and see which ones actually spit out FarmVille Cash like it's a mouthful of sour milk.


So....this is directed at all 325 former Facebook friends, so that you can be a better neighbor to the NEXT person you add - because it won't be me again.  The rest of you can just sit back and chuckle:

How to post a FarmVille shared link to a group

This may help some of you master the technique of posting links to Facebook groups. Good luck!

R.I.P. Nursery Barn 2010-2010

I'm about to delete my Nursery Barn.  


After much thought and consideration, I've decided that this contraption is simply something for lower-level farmers to use to get some breeding experience, a couple horses to breed from for free, and store a bunch of the foals and calves that randomly litter so many farms in FarmVille.


See, here's my problem with the Nursery:  It produces very little for the time it took to build and for what it produces.  Just not a good return on investment for something that takes up so much screen space.


It's a very cute concept.  Who doesn't love the fantasy idea of taking little babies and having them grow up into adults?  Of course, these adults are apparently already pregnant and deliver to you 5 foals or 10 calves to share - that never made any sense to me, but we're talking about FarmVille here.  


I've concluded, however, that to the FarmVille farmer who is serious about leveling up quickly, and accumulating coins and XP, those 7x9 units of space can be used to plant high dollar crops or house things (like your chicken coop) which have a far better ROI.

Need to chat with Zynga?

Here's where to find Zynga chat when it's available. Go to this URL:

http://zynga.custhelp.com/app/home/gameid/63/sn/1/uid/36819079/pb/1/locale/en_us

...and click on the "Chat Now" button.

Open Letter to Mark Pincus, CEO, Zynga.

Mr. Mark Pincus
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Zynga Games Network, Inc.
San Francisco, CA

Dear Mark (and team):

How far you’ve come. I had to remind myself the other day that I’ve been playing Poker with you guys since 2007, back in the days when you had no problems sending us to scam websites for chips, and you spent the revenue while we spent days removing spyware from our computers.

I remember thinking back then that your organization must be run by a bunch of kids. See, I’ve been in the Information Technology business for 30 years, so anybody who gets behind a keyboard but never heard of punchcards is a kid - you’ll have to forgive me for that.

Still, it’s been a long time in internet years, since you and I have been doing business, and I’ve always referred to the folks that run your company as ‘kids’, primarily because it never occurred to me that grown-ups could get away with such outrageous Corporate behavior. Yes, I’m still a little miffed over all the spyware, and still chuckle to myself when you first tried pawning off FarmVille as your own creation...while WE were all enjoying Farm Town.

Imagine my shock to learn that you are 44 years old and hold an MBA. Considering Zynga’s recent Corporate performance, that amazes me. It also amazes me you’re still getting gobs of Venture Capital - they must not play your games the way your customers do.

Farmer vs Zynga, Chapter 1

The following is a chopped up version of something someone else posted regarding the dead White Stallions. It was full of so many stock answers, I kept theirs and filled in some remarks of my own for Zynga. It's supposed to be funny, folks. Laugh.



Chat Transcript 07/13/2010 07:02 AM
Hi, my name is Susan R.. How may I help you?


Susan R.: Hi Farmer John Brown, EIEIO, how are you today?

Farmer John Brown, EIEIO: Hi Susan, not good. Not very good at all. I've just logged back onto my farm and discovered that my beehive, which WAS complete and full with 200 bees is back to only being 18/50 finished. You rolled me back an entire crop. I was told that Zynga really never intends to let us complete one project one time in FarmVille. Is this true?

Susan R.: Farmer John Brown, EIEIO, I do not believe that is true. We have not been advise that has happened.

Want to build your Beehive Fast? Use HELP!

Look Inside your beehive and select 'ask for more'!



Then select the friends you want to send you materials. THEY will get a help request via Facebook that looks like these:



One click and they've sent you your material - and it's a free 'send' for them!

Posting links to the group wall.

Hey guys!

I've recently come across quite a few questions on how to post links to the group wall. So in true Sami form I'm gonna give ya a little run down :o) ( It's so much easier to type it once hehe)

Of course, You will need to head to the home page of the group. I have it bookmarked so it is easy to get to.

Heres the link!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=133818313299080



Once you get to the group page you will see what I call the status bar. Not sure if it is a status bar in a group or not. But thats what we will call it today :o) This is what it looks like.

In the status bar you want to identify your animal- What breed or Wandering Stallion/Bull. In this example I will post the White Foal :o).

After you have identified your animal click on the 'link" option underneath the status bar.

This will pop out another bar, In this bar you want to copy and paste your link.

Once you have your link in ther link bar you now must "attach" the link by clicking the "attach button".

When your link is attached you now click the "share button"

Finally, You have posted your animal to share to the group!! :o) It will look like this-

I hope this helps! And as always if you have any questions, I am just a message away :o)!

Happy Sharing!

Sami!