FrustratingVille — Updated: Free Tricorne Hat and Powder Horn

Wicked Game

After nearly a year of seeding, harvesting and plowing, I recently quit FarmVille. Before I left for good, I started playing Zynga’s newest game, FrontierVille. The thing that drew me in to FrontierVille was the fact that your character could get married (even to a same-sex partner, if you so chose) and have a child. I also liked the idea of “quests,” specific tasks to get special items and move up in the game.

Now my husband Bertram and son Cam and I are trying to finish more quests. We have to:

–find a welcome mat to welcome Cam’s teacher to the schoolhouse

–find a bee for Cam’s pocket (don’t ask)

–sell 8 adult pigs

–collect a ribeye for a Fourth of July party

We also need to find some collection items before the Fourth of July promotion runs out in a few days.

Therein lies the problem.

(That’s not my collection, by the way.)

Some of these items are nearly impossible to find. According to a poster on the Zynga forum, they were told from an official that you have a 0.02% chance of finding one certain item — a tricorne hat. But you could buy it for a lot of real money, if you don’t like those chances.

That’s insane. I never spent real money on FarmVille and won’t on FrontierVille, either. But Zynga seriously needs to change the odds of finding items (one of the specific purposes of the game) or they’ll risk losing players. People who don’t play the game won’t spend money on it, so if they made the players happier, they’d stick around. Sounds like a win-win to me.

UPDATE: A friend of mine posted links to get a free tricorne hat and powder horn. Log into Facebook, then copy and paste each link in a separate window.

http://apps.facebook.com/frontierville/giftaccept.php?next=giftaccept.php&senderId=1%3A100001197757093&gh=aee34a7f050180ba2a0a1c0c34130e7b&gift=indy_tricorn&timestamp=1278746158&ref&key=098ab283f4be26e68a6d75daa3163677%24%24ccF%28NVP.45oFK0XULNW8T_c%211PEZcGRERbh2%287109gvN7jxnB-&src=request&…aff=gift&crt=indy_tricorn&signature=495d1966b32239fa79b226efb1a47625

http://apps.facebook.com/frontierville/giftaccept.php?next=giftaccept.php&senderId=1%3A100000710506764+&gh=aee34a7f050180ba2a0a1c0c34130e7b&gift=indy_powderhorn&timestamp=1278746158&ref&key=098ab283f4be26e68a6d75daa3163677%24%24ccF%28NVP.45oFK0XULNW8T_c%211PEZ…cGRERbh2%287109gvN7jxnB-&src=request&aff=gift&crt=indy_powderhorn&signature=495d1966b32239fa79b226efb1a47625

Goodbye, FarmVille

I know I haven’t posted lately.

What have I been doing?

Farming. Virtual farming.

Getting to level 88 on a farm made of pixels instead of soil.

Yes, I knew I had a problem. My friends and family did too. But what was the harm? It was a way to pass endless hours at work (so what if I got called out on it by my boss twice?). I HAD to harvest! I HAD to plant!

Then the warning signs came.

1.  I ran out of fuel.

Harvesting, plowing and planting 455 plots (that’s 3 times 455 times…a lot of clicks) takes a long freaking time. Fuel made this easier—I could use my vehicles, but then my fuel supply ran out.

2. A lack of space.

I wanted one of every limited edition item (save those for Farm Cash—I am proud to say I’ve never spent a dime on Farm Cash). So needless to say my once-tidy farm now looks like a wreck, and has for a long time.

3. An explosion of levels.

FarmVille’s first level cap was 70. So my goal was to make it to 70, and I did. Then the levels were raised to 90; therefore, my new goal was to make it to 90. Then tonight they were raised to … 999! What?! How many years would it take to get to level 999? That’s absolutely crazy.

4. A lack of creativity.

Another big goal of many players is to get masteries (and mastery signs proving you’ve mastered crops). I was very close to having every crop mastered except the 2-, 3- or 4-day crops (and I did have a few of those mastered, just not all). Then Zynga added a few more shorter crops. Okay, fine, I thought. Then they decided to bring back previously released limited edition crops (like forget-me-nots) and make them masterable. Um, no, sorry Zynga. I guess that means the latest limited edition crops will be brought back in the future too? Not happening.

5. A bunch of fizzled ideas.

How many of your friends still do co-ops? Anyone get excited about their nursery producing a horse? Anybody trying to get every new ribbon? Why were the explanations for the wedding favor and crop bushels so complicated? And please don’t get me started on the “botanical garden” that took weeks of begging and collecting items to build, that just sat on my farm for a couple days because it took too much space. And that brings me to number 6:

6. No new expansions.

There’s no way I’d have enough room to start building the new “Japanese barn” on my farm. Not unless I wanted to spend an hour or more rearranging everything.

When the iPhone app for FarmVille came out last night, I rushed to install it. Then…it sat there. Then…I finally got onto my farm. Then…it took forever to move or to try to do anything.

Then…it crashed, kicking me out.

I think I’ll take that as my final cue to leave.

Facebook-flummoxed

As I approach my first year of being on Facebook (yeah, I know, I’m usually a little behind on these “trendy” things), I thought this would be a good time to examine some of the things that truly baffle me about it (and its users).

So if you, like me, know more about your ninth-grade crush’s life than you do your own husband’s (because Crush Boy posts more status updates), read on.

1. Friend requests.

What is the deal with people who:

A)    Send them to you out of the blue, with one or no friends in common

B)      Reject you even though you have at least five friends in common and you’re sure they remember who you are, or at least where they would know you from (high school, a workplace, etc.)

C)       Sit on your friend request for weeks without confirming or ignoring you as a friend. (This last one is particularly annoying if you see their status updates show up on your news feed. That means they’re ON Facebook but they’re choosing not to confirm or deny you. Get off the fence, people! Ignore me or don’t but stop being passive/aggressive about it. I give people a week and if they still haven’t responded, I remove the request.)

2. Crowd-following status updates.

My previous post addressed this. You know the status updates I’m talking about:

A)      The Cryptic Status. “Black.” “4  .”  These usually involve old memes given new life as a status update designed to confuse people not in-the-know. These get old very fast.

B)      The Bandwagon Status. “If you love the troops, put this as your status for the next 24 hours.” Then there are the ones who try to lay on a guilt trip. “99% of people who love Jesus won’t put this as their status. Will you?” People who repost things like this make me wonder if everyone else were jumping off bridges, would they be next in line?

C)      Fun with Tags Status. If someone’s going to tag 3 people in their status, why don’t they write on one of their friends’ walls instead? Or write a note? Not everybody cares about their reindeer games.

3. Group and Fan Abuse.

A) More Fans Than… Groups

I admit that some of these started off funny (“Can This Pickle Get More Fans Than Nickelback?”) although they grew tiresome (“Can This Onion Ring Get More Fans Than This Onion Ring?”). Enough, please.

B) Making a Stand Groups

“I dont care about your farm, or your fish, or your park, or your mafia!!!” Well, then, group members, why don’t you hide the posts of your fellow farmers and mafiosos, and get a life like you tell THEM to get.

C) “Socially Aware” Fans

Mary Hall became a fan of “Making Drug Tests Required to Get Welfare.” Thanks, Mary. Sorry I don’t feel strongly enough to care about becoming a fan of this.

So, in conclusion and in summary, I do love Facebook. But some of the things people do on it make no sense to me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go update my status with “Blue unicorn ” and join a group called “can this sausage roll get more fans than cheryl cole” and ignore 10 friend requests, and…and…

Is there anything that puzzles YOU about Facebook? Leave a comment (and I promise not to dissect it). 

Why the man-hating on Facebook?

About a week after the whole post-your-bra-color-and-we’ll-say-it’s-for-breast-cancer-awareness thing, you may have noticed these cryptic status updates:

Jane Doe had lunch with a baseball bat in an elevator  because that’s how I roll.

Mary Jones loved my science teacher in line at the bank because Big Bird said to and he’s my leader.

So what does it mean? It means your friends are _______ (fill in the blank with the adjective of your choice) to follow along with a Facebook game that’s being spread through private messages.

The game may be harmless “fun” but what’s kind of disconcerting about it is the fact that this, just like the bra “game,” is designed to confuse guys.

This is the message I received in my Facebook inbox about it:

This is hilarious!!!! Please Don’t spoil the fun, and keep it going…………DONT
TELL ANY MEN!!!! Type out the sentence you end up with in UR STATUS!!!

Pick the month you were born:
January——-I kicked
February——I loved
March———-I karate chopped
April————I licked
May————I jumped on
June———–I smelled
July————I did the Macarena With
August——–I had lunch with
September—-I danced with
October——-I sang to
November—–I yelled at
December—–I ran over

Pick the day (number) you were born on:
1——-a birdbath
2——-a monster
3——-a phone
4——-a fork
5——-a snowman
6——-a gangster
7——-my mobile phone
8——-my dog
9——-my best friends’ boyfriend
10——-my neighbour
11——-my science teacher
12——-a banana
13——-a fireman
14——-a stuffed animal
15——-a goat
16——-a pickle
17——-your mom
18——-a spoon
19——- a smurf
20——-a baseball bat
21——-a ninja
22——-Chuck Norris
23——-a noodle
24——-a squirrel
25——-a football player
26——-my sister
27——-my brother
28——-an iPod
29——-a surfer
30——-a homeless guy
31——-a llama

What is the last number of the year you were born:
1——— In my car
2 ——— On your car
3 ——— In a hole
4 ——— Under your bed
5 ——— Riding a Motorcycle
6 ——— sliding down a hill
7 ——— in an elevator
8———- at the dinner table
9 ——– In line at the bank
0 ——– in your bathroom

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White———because I’m cool like that
Black———because that’s how I roll.
Pink———–because I’m NOT crazy.
Red———–because the voices told me to.
Blue———–because I’m sexy and I do what I want
Green———because I think I need some serious help.
Purple———because I’m AWESOME!
Gray———-because Big Bird said to and he’s my leader.
Yellow———because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars
Orange——–because my family thinks I’m stupid anyway.
Brown———because I can.
Other———-because I’m a Ninja!
None———-because I can’t control myself!

Now type out the sentence you made and place it in YOUR STATUS line and SEND this message TO LADY ONLY friends

Why ladies only? Guys are too stupid to participate in this or know what’s going on? And if it’s because guys are less likely to participate because they have better things to do, I’ve got news for the creator of this meme: Plenty of girls do too.

Facebook is becoming the equivalent of those stupid chain do-this-or-else-your-cat-will-die e-mails and ones with forwarded, stale jokes that you never read.

What should be a place to catch up with friends is looking more like a junk mail pile where you have to sift through the endlessly copied-and-pasted statuses to get to something that you might actually care about.

And the man-hating is puzzling and disconcerting (and no, I’m not a man who’s saying this).