Friday, June 25, 2010

Yo'Ville Has Castles, I'm Down With That! & Other random thoughts.

The only real reason I even tried Yo'Ville was because I had some 7-11 rewards that I had turned in so I stuck them in my appartment on Yo'Ville. Later I was looking at the buildings you can purchase and found a castle. That made my decision to get one and play at least in a minimal fashion.

I do like doing the "jobs" or quests they give you to make money. It is easier to pick up energy in Yo'Ville then it is in Frontierville, so I can play a little longer.

Frontierville has made a few things easier, and really the only complaint I have is when it interrupts you to share things with your friends while you are collecting bonus items. Now, farmville does this too, but not when you have 5 seconds to pick up bonus items off the ground... They either need to give you more time to pick things up off the ground or my idea is to wait until you clear the bonuses before bothering you. Better yet, find a better way to bring up the sharing like off to the side, blinking or something that doesn't stop gameplay so harshly. I really get mad when I have to publish and miss out on my little stars and energy bonus items.

Farmville has been getting so jacked up every time they update, it is making us crazy. However, it's still the primary game I play simply because I have a ton of friends playing it.. Certianly more then I could convince to purchase WoW and play.

Is it just me or do these browser based games remind you of the 80's? Is it just an excuse for people to write really cheezy games to milk people for money? At least in the 80's you only had to pay once.

That's all I got...

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Frontierville... Why they won't play it.

I have been trying some other games lately on the old Facebook. One of them is Zygna's newest game. It's got a lot of really cool features that should be in Farmville, but they went a bit too far with keeping you from playing.

I know it's a big deal for these free-to-play games to try and "encourage" you to spend money, but Frontierville is almost unplayable without it. They feed you tons of free energy, and food and coins and whatever at the start, but within an hour, you are no longer having fun. Now you are playing like work.

Some issues I have with the game is obviously the lack of energy, and what costs energy. The game feels like it is trying to make you run out at critical times so you are compelled to buy. I don't like this at all. They charge you energy to do things like feed the animals, harvest the trees or ground and any actions where you are gaining something back, but they don't give you enough to get to a fair "stopping" point.

They are empasizing way too much on making your friends help you, getting more friends, and interupting you while you are trying to chase down all the stars, coins, wood, food, and enery that pops out whenever you harvest something.

Now, I realize, this game is still in the baby stage, but I just don't see it taking off like Farmville unless they loosen the strings a little bit. Once you get above level 7 or so, the most you can play in one shot without jumping through some hoops to get energy is about 5 minutes. I just don't think that is quite long enough to keep anyone interested very long.

I do like the fact that they have "quests" you can do to make things and gain more experience while teaching you how to play the game. I am a bit annoyed that they are trying to control the story a little bit too much, because they actually force you to get married and have a kid on this frontier. Most of my friends are under level 20, but I do have one that is higher then that only because they play all day and night, but that's as far as I know about the story thus far.

All the buildings, trees, and just about everything can be rotated and moved, which is a huge plus over Farmville. Farmville is working on this but so far all I can tell is that the non-functional housing is all that can now be rotated. We are still hoping they will let us rotate the functional items soon such as the barns, stables, chicken coops, Dairy and nursery buildings.

So far that's my prediction. I think they are going to see about half or less players then they have on Farmville... Let's see how that all works out.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Living in the country, certainly changes one’s perspective…

Many of you that know me, know I am not a “Country Boy”. I have always lived in the city until about 2006 when I moved out to the country to be closer to my family. I still don’t visit them enough, but that is another story.

I have been so frustrated with WoW lately, that I have been taking a break. I am currently playing a game I never thought I could see myself playing in a million years.

So many of my co-workers and friends have been going on about this game, that I finally decided I needed to check it out, and I did. I am still playing, and I am no longer afraid of change or Free-to-play (F2P) games with the option for Real Money Trading (RMT).

Farmville… There, I said it. A year ago I would have killed anyone who asked me to play. Now, I am looking at level 34 going, “what the hell just happened here?”

One thing that I still don’t like about the game is the focus on making you log in at a certain time to make sure you get those crops harvested. It wasn’t until I started playing the game that I realized that you could fudge on the critical nature of that particular part of the game. You can let your crops sit for some time before anything can happen to them, and there is always the revive option if you really need to collect that cash.

It is incredibly easy, and of course with the cash option, you can get most stuff any time you really want it. Some items go on sale for coins later on down the road, but for impatient people like myself, it is nice to have the option to buy your way to the top.

I don’t really play Farmville for any type of challenge. The real fun for me in FV is that I can help other folks, get stuff they want and get to talk with friends that I might just otherwise not talk to as often being as most of our high school buddies and co-workers don’t have that much in common outside of the past, and work.

I am still not a fan of spamming my friends with everything I do in game, but at least now days people can shut off the feeds from the games and keep their friends “important” comments in tact. Its nice to play something my friends can actually talk about rather then me trying to explain how World Of Warcraft works. Its really just a matter of being able to have a more open dialogue with people rather them thinking I am just some crazy computer geek that has no life.

Now we can all have no life together. Weee!

Anyway, just thought I would throw out an update. I am on hiatus from WoW at this time, but I will probably return when FV gets too boring. I am already slowing down, but my farm is very cool. Well, I think so anyway.

That’s all I got…