Day 102

Checking in...to say that I have successfully used FV to stop shopping on the internet. Am actively resisting the pleas to purchase discounted FV cash to buy LE items. Even I can see that there's only so much fun I can get out of owning collections of electronic ephemera. At least I won't have to worry about how to dispose of the Swiss Alps replica or the Tuscan Planter when I hang up my plow in FV!

Who cares what day it is!

Harvested cupcakes last night, planted lavender, bought a Shiba Inu and now my farm has gone through the "way back machine." Not touching it until I see what solution, if any, Zynga will come up with today. Thank god my FV cash spent on my puppy is back in my account. Suppose it could be worse!

Day 45

The more neighbors you have, the more time everything takes... tricky balance to achieve - just how many neighbors can you keep up with? At first, you can't do much without neighbors and active playing time is quite restricted. At this stage, just ferting and feeding the chickens on my neighbors' farms is taking over 30 minutes. Then there's accepting and sending gifts. Accepting and sending from the individual gifts is quite time-consuming and takes way too many clicks. Just sending a gift en masse at least lets you communicate to your neighbors that you're an active player, even if you can't always take the time to customize the gifts you send. What a dilemma.

Must say that the game continues to be an excellent substitute for online shopping. Occasionally, I find myself wanting to browse at some of my favorite haunts, but if I first go to FV and busy myself with all the possible tasks, by the time I'm done, I just want to get off the computer.

Twice, I've had FV neighbors reach out to chat. One is a young boy, who simply demands items for his farm. Fair enough. The other is a recently disabled man, who obviously wants more of a connection with his neighbors in FV. I'm deeply conflicted, as I started playing the game as my alter ego, and continue to.

Friends of Friends of Friends

To recruit friends - "quality neighbors," I started with the Ravelry Farmville group. Then I devolved, so to speak, to those on the "Gamer's Unite" network. I don't know how this happened. Somehow, between wanting the personal connection of playing FV with fellow fiber enthusiasts, yet not wanting to play as myself, and wanting to expand my farm as rapidly as possible, I found a wide range of people and characters to play with - from a young boy in Romania, to a bird, to grandmothers. Amazing. My neighbors are international, with heavy concentrations in Holland and Poland (why is that?). I just added one in Japan.

Reminds me of my teenage years, when my girlfriend and I competed to have the most and widest ranging network of penpals.

Day 32.5

Bought the water (water tower), vanilla ice cream (neopolitan cow) and slurpee (water slide) at 7-Eleven for $5.50. Sliding down my own slippery slope! Time to plant Goji berries when the current crops (grapes for co-op) are done.

Cashier asked if I was a "FV Fan," said yes, but not DH. She replied that she plays FV, YoVille AND Mafia Wars. I said I only had time for FV. ;)

Total spent playing FV = $20.50. Does it all count if I bought consumable products? Good question. Since I haven't shopped at a 7-11 in a bazillion years, it's not like I was planning on spending money there. Next stop: Green Giant produce at Target. I'm such a marketing pawn. And of course, I'll have to buy the other products at 7-11 to unlock the "ueber prize of 200 FV cash." Let's see - I won't buy those products until: I've completed level three mastery of the Goji berry and/or we go for another walk in the neighborhood before we move.

Day 32 - My how time flies!

Ah, so much has changed. Expanded to 24x24. Have over 30 neighbors. Tuscan wedding was rolled out and broke many farms. Just traded in my wedding favors for the Tuscan wedding cake - THAT was a mistake, the thing is grotesque and humongous! Wild mustang active - but seems mine's going to escape, since there's no way to resend the link for people to click on.

Broke down and bought $10 worth of FV cash to get the Tuscan mystery box with a mirror lake. I was fortunate enough to get the mirror lake on the third box. First box had the prairie dog - cute, but pointless. Second box had the maypole, which I turned into a playground item for the schoolhouse and the THIRD box had the mother lode - mirror lake! Now, I've gone from saying I would not spend a single penny on FV to having spent $15 total. I feel it's worth it - for the amount of gameplay enjoyment I've gotten, yet, at this pace, I will violate the spirit of the experiment - which was to spend nothing at all. Thus far, it's less than 50 cents a day.

In the last few days, the gifting cycle has been broken - but seems to work now - IF you access from FB. The Zynga message center is still down. Mine shows 50 count as the awaiting messages.

Just installed the "gamers unite" snagbar and it seems to work. Who knows if I'll be kicked off the game. Have progressed from light, casual, fairly goal-directed playing to wanting all of the goodies in my feed and simply not having the time to sit here and click on them. Especially the eggs, which go like hotcakes.

Tempted to walk with DH to the nearby 7-11 to buy FV co-branded items to get the codes. I wonder how much it costs to buy one of each promotional item? Surely someone has done the math. A bottle of FV water can't hurt...see, more money spent on items I don't need.

In real life, we're moving. Since I started playing until now, we were served with a 60 day notice to quit the premises so my landlord can move in his son. There's a long backstory, but in the end, we're getting a better place and will finally live like civilized adults instead of over-the-hill college students/teenagers. Our current apartment is very small and over time, I've gerry-rigged it to fit in as much as possible. I have way too much and it's ended up looking like something out of an episode of "Hoarders." It's time for real closets, storage and being able to put everything in its place. What a concept!

Whew.

Day 12

Currently doing monoculture...for the 3 XP per crop (sweet yams promotion). Though, it's getting a bit boring. Obviously, some of the random awards are triggered by planting a variety of crops. Considering splitting up the acreage...unless I can hold out for the next size farm and THEN plant other crops in the expansion. This morning I bought the harvester, so now I have the monoculture farming trifecta - tractor for plowing, seeder for seeding and harvester for reaping. Still need to work on my timing to ensure I log in only as a reward for doing other things.

Monitoring the game feed for mystery eggs, fuel, rewards. So far have managed to completely forget about online shopping. Opening mystery eggs and gifts is addictive enough - even if the goodies are all electronic.

I play with people across the globe, which means that some of the goodies in the game feed are gone before I see them. Trying to log on before I go to work to see what's there!

I've noticed some players leave their animals until they're all ready to be collected from (or I could be imagining this) and others pile up the mystery eggs and gifts to be presumably opened at a much later date. Not me - I'm still Miss Instant Gratification!