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!

Day 11

Couldn't resist just getting the clean up out of the way! (If only I felt this way about yarn and other items clogging up the apartment! Perhaps I'm getting to that point...)




Up to level 20 21 - just expanded the farm size to 18x18. Tried to box in my farmer...BEFORE I purchased the farm size upgrade, and now I have to rebox the farmer. Duh! Now that I think of it, should just willy nilly plow the extra real estate to quickly build up cash for a harvester...before I go to bed...Need to move things around, but it's time for bed!

Of note today: read on the Ravelry FV group that one woman has trained her five year old child to fertilize neighbors' plots and collect the eggs when the mother is away from the computer. Sad.

Used the time I was online today to do my usual Sunday laundry, and I also plowed (pun intended) through a stack of paper (old mail, magazines, books, articles to read, receipts, odds and ends). My very productive FV day was productive IRL as well!

Day 10

Broke down and spent $5 via Paypal to get $25 FV cash + $25 FV cash for signing up for a Zynga.com account. Turned around and purchased a "sweet seeds for Haiti" license for $25 FV cash and a limited edition yellow Victorian home for $27 FV cash.

The "sweet seeds for Haiti" promotion lets you plant sweet yams, for 3 XP that mature in 6 hours and never wither for one week. Looks like a fast way to level up!

The Victorian home is offered as part of the Mother's Day limited edition items and was by far the cheapest home on offer.

Day 9

Can finally see neighbors! Expanded farm twice, up to the 18x18 size (?) 16x16. Bought a tractor. Added a dairy farm, purchased fences and moved animals around. Keeping the gift box lean and mean by cleaning it out and placing as many of the items as I can.

Starting building the botanical garden, since I already had parts for it that neighbors had gifted me.

"Harvested" more animals today: black pig - truffles, duck - eggs, goat - milk.

Purchased lemon and cherry trees.

More tomorrow!

Day 8

Really? Day 8? I must be confused...will have to check when I signed up. Doesn't seem like I've played the game for 8 days...let's see, 4 during the work week, 2 over the weekend, 1 on a Friday that I had off from work...well, perhaps I'm one day ahead of myself.

Today's observations:
1. Can only have 50 gifts in your gift box at a time. Or at least, on level 12, that's all you can have. Perhaps on higher levels, you can store more? So, you should "use" the gifts as soon as possible - such as the animals - you'll be able to harvest their products apparantly. Today I harvested a goat by milking it. Still wondering what happens when the pig is ready for harvest...

2. Another aspect of keeping the gift box lean - take the trees you've been gifted and deploy them on the farm. Even if it means your farm looks a bit unkempt.

3. Noticed a neighbor - can't tell who, since I can only "see" three of my neighbors, while the rest show as blanks. Literally. When I visit their farm, the message generated says, "Thanks for fertilizing 's crops." WHOSE crops? WTF. This game is SUPER BUG infested. Amazing that so many people play it. I certainly wouldn't pay money for this level of bug infested software. Since the game doesn't officially acknowledge the neighbors I have, I can't expand the farm - unless I purchase FV cash to do so. Ridiculous. Makes me wonder if the bug will go away once I've reached a certain level and Zynga realized I won't pay for the privilege to expand my farm built of binary code.

4. Virtual farming is more fun than I expected and definitely has eaten into/consumed all the time I otherwise was wasting on virtual window shopping (and frequent order placing). Perhaps playing FV will lead to a fatter wallet and cleaner apartment? (As I finally get around to putting away all the purchases?)

Day 7

Observations:

1. Interesting how the game shapes your behavior - as you progress through levels, one of the "rewards" is to randomly gift you things as you tend the farm. Just imagine if, when vacuuming the apartment, suddenly a pop-up window would announce that I "won" $50 for vacuuming. (Or decluttering, etc.) Obviously, I would want to vacuum (declutter, etc.) much more frequently!

2. As time goes on, I am starting to plan when to harvest and therefore I select the seeds accordingly.

3. The more friends/neighbors you have playing, the more influenced you are by the times that they're online, since the game feed of rewards and "shared news" occurs in real time. If you're not fast enough to claim mystery eggs, they're gone in a heartbeat.

4. Currently, for Mother's Day, there's a carnation promotion. When you plant carnations - you get three experience points (XP), enabling you to level up faster, since most seeds are just worth two or even one XP AND they're dirt (pun intended) cheap at just 11 coins each.

5. Now at level 11.

6. Have way more trees and animals. "Harvested" my first chicken. Although when the chicken is "ready," upon mouseover, a scythe is displayed, all that happens when you harvest the ready chicken is that the counter is reset to zero. Wonder what the other animals do when harvested?

7. Still haven't installed Rescue Time on this machine to monitor.

8. Have definitely focused much less on aimless internet shopping.

9. Must explore the relationship between the collectibles, storage and habits of Americans to hoard stuff.

Day 6

Moved on up to level 9!

Was gifted a needlepoint picture (not sure where to put this or how...) and a lovely butterfly (which, it turns out, I can't "use" until I reach level 10). How one "uses" a butterfly is beyond me.

I also got a chicken in a mystery package. When you hover over the chicken, it shows a percentage of "readiness." Just what am I supposed to do with the chicken when it's ready? Slaughter it? Make it lay eggs? Do I have to do something with ready animals, or can I just leave them? What if I'm a vegetarian?

Also, just where do all the harvested vegetables and fruits go? They're magically whisked away to some tractor trailer in the sky.

Now have three neighbors...although, I thought I accepted/was asked by one more person, but for some reason, that neighbor request seems to have disappeared.

Find I now make planting choices based on when I'll be able to get on the computer.

Fertilized neighbors' farms and fed their chickens today for the first time. Apparently, you're supposed to do this once a day. You also gift your neighbors once a day. This is one aspect of the game that while I suspected you needed to be networked in order to play, I had no idea that NOT having neighbors would make this a dull game indeed.

Even found other places on the internet where one can solicit "quality" neighbors, as opposed to duds. I imagine the dud neighbors simply never visit your farm, never gift you anything, etc.

Installed Rescue Time at work to track how much time I'm spending playing the game. Need to reinstall on this computer to get a complete picture of just how much time it's taking. Considering I could (or would) otherwise be endlessly shopping for yarn or books, for now, spending time on FV is better than being tempted to buy things I can't afford and don't need.

Day 5

Yesterday I sent out a number of neighbor requests from the Farmville interface to email addresses I got from the Farmville group on Ravelry. I'm somewhat confused, as the requests don't immediately lead to having a neighbor. Seems like it would be more efficient to send Facebook friend requests first, THEN once accepted, invite them to be a neighbor.

Just before I went to bed last night, I read that to create new plots, just click on the plow tool, go to any grassy area, and click to plow. I had no idea! So, I went from six plots to 30 (added more tonight). Which, is what lead to the wilted strawberries I encountered this morning when I logged in at work. :(

On both my home and work laptop, I installed the toolbar add-in to monitor when the crops need to be harvested. So, I've already let the game inform my behavior. Not only am I watching the clock to catch the next harvest, but when I plant I now think about what time it will be when the crops are ready and if I'll be on the computer at that time.

My FV spending habits also seem to closely mirror real life. Every FV cash I got (until now) burned a hole in my pocket and I couldn't spend it fast enough. Since I had no idea how many FV dollars I could earn or when I might receive more, I just spent what I was given. Currently, I have one FV cash in my account. Same goes for the coins. At one point, after replanting and leaving some plots fallow, I had just one coin in the account.

Why this blog?

As an experiment, to check out Farmville for myself, I signed up for Facebook as my former alter ego and started farming. I was immediately "gifted" a carrier pigeon coop and not too long after, a picnic table. The pigeons are a smart gift from the program, as without any "signs of life" on my electronic farm, I would most likely quit playing early on.

Zynga wants me to spend money eventually, so it's important to hook me as soon as possible.

As part of this experiment, I will not spend a single real world dollar on playing this game. Should the game become a true time sink, I'll have to revisit my motives for playing.

Worst case scenario, I'll become hopelessly addicted - but stop spending money on yarn and patterns?!? One can only hope.

I signed up on April 30, 2010.

Just sent neighbor requests to people from Ravelry on Sunday, May 2, 2010.