Goodbye Farmville and Frontierville!

As of 11:30 a.m. this lovely Thursday, I no longer have the applications Farmville or Frontierville on my Facebook profile. I gave away all the tiny pixel things, or at least all the one that were gift-able, to friend still playing both/either game.

I sent a last "gift" from both a applications to said friends, telling them sort of that "This is the last gift, enjoy it while it lasts". In Farmville, this was a "mystery gift", in Frontierville a "ribbon".

mystery gift

ribbon

Now, I think I will reminiscence about these two application games a bit...

Farmville, FV, or the game where
"I'm gonna come to bed just as soon
as I've harvested my crops"

My avatar, or at least 'her' last incarnation.
Personally, I would never be caught wearing
these type of coveralls.

I started playing Farmville ... close to 2 years ago, I think? I remember being semi-bullied into it by Sally and Daniel at a party at their place, but I didn't install the app until about 2 weeks after that.I thought it was pretty lame in the beginning, but I kept playing sporadically. Then, I became level 20, and it started to be a "bit better". Farmville is one of those games where you either have to have a certain number of "neighbors" OR have attained a certain level before you are allowed to buy certain stuffs. Most annoyingly, you had to be at least level 20 to buy "farm equipments" like a seeder/harvester/tractor. And later, at level 30 (and maaaany updates later) a combine harvester.

Zynga taught you in Farmville that "clicking" to do things (harvest, plant or whatever) is GOOD. It creates the feeling that "you're doing something!" hence, that you're advancing in the game.

Zynga then taught you that you can be "rewarded" by clicking enough (aka getting enough 'experience' to 'level up'), to get the ability to "click less". Hence, the more you click, the less you will have to click in the future. For those of you who haven't tired this game, this will sound stupid and not make much sense. For those of you who actually do play/have played, you know exactly what I mean.

Since there's HUNDREDS of insider's joke-things you can write down about the game, I'll just leave you with some pictures and then make up a short list for you to laugh/wonder at.

Halloween 2010. Yup, my avatar is dressed up as a dino.

The last screen-shot of my farm, Halloween-style.
Do notice the barns on the right side, covered in spider webs.
Yes, I became level 42.
42.

As you advance in level, you acquire lots and lots of pixel-animals and buildings.
My "farm collection" was about sheep. I collected sheep.
*shakes head*
White, black, Valentine's day, St Patrick's day, Easter, Spagetti,
Mining, Pumpkin and one Scared sheep. And three lambs.
As well as one Ghost sheep, popping out of the tombstone.

FV memory. This one is a classic!
And the fast that this is posted the day before my birthday says it all...

My Farmville reminiscence-list:

• The chickens. When placing them side by side, the dip their heads just like devotees at a mosque. It's... hypnotic to look at for too long.
• Barn raising. Se picture above.
• Sending nails/bricks/planks/bottles/blankets/bees/shovels/whatever you need to get to finish a certain building.
• "You have 39 application or games requests"
• The chickens!
• The pop ups!
• Waiting for you farm to load.
• Waiting for other peoples farms to load
• "click click click" then "click click click click click click click click click". Why couldn't someone just have thought of "click and drag"?
• That you have to press the "Like" button for Farmville, in order to get the 
• The chickens!!! Finally, a bigger chicken coop, but it has room only for 60 of my 60+ chickens! I'm still drowning in chickens!
• The pop ups!!! Make them stop!
• Having 100 things in your giftbox that you can't use, but might need later. More loading time.
• Arborists and Farmhands - finally I don't have to click on every single tree and animal!
• ...*realizes this list could just go on and on...*

Frontierville, FrV, or the game where

"I gonna come to bed just as soon as

I get the energy required to..."

I started playing Frontierville right from the month it launched (June 2010). Immediately, I liked it more than Farmville - it had "quests", an avatar that could actually "do "things, and a more active simulation world.. E.g. if you felled a tree, you might get attacked by a bear. Your avatar actually had to "build" the buildings you wanted, etc. And the buildings weren't just decorations, they gave you more things to create, thus making the gaming more active.

Nice change from Farmville: Zynga took all the things they knew the players liked from FV, and created FrV. FV was passive, and you had to come up with things to do there by yourself. In FrV, the game presented you with goal options, and depending on how quick you finished one, you got able to do other things. Plus, you leveled up quite fast in the beginning. No more "boooooooooring" game in the beginning.

But, since Zynga is Zynga.... it was again a "click click click" kind of game. And pop ups all the time. You learned quite fast, that NOT using that "last" energy in you energybar saved you from at least 2 pop ups. But, you were sorry to learn that even when you had sent ALL of your neighbors some gifts, and visited ALL their farms, you still got pop ups saying "Friend X'x farm needs help!" or my favorite "Don't just sit there, how about sending some presents?" or "Invite your friends from Farmville over to play".

*sigh*

And, as with FV, I quickly turned off both sound and music.The game sounded like Super Mario Bros. if you didn't.

But overall, this was a very nice game - I actually liked it! But still, it had to go. Now, I'll leave you some pictures to look at:

The Halloween-themed banner

Halloween costumes on the avatars.

Avatars: Micke, Minnea and Linnea (from left to right).

My frontier farm. Sadly not in it's full glory,
since I took this picture as I was de-constructing it.
Do notice that:
I'm level 47.
I'm drowning in chickens - but this time by CHOICE! (thank you chicken coop!)
I have 17 000 logs of wood (thank you sawmill!)
And I had a blue hedgehog.

Saying goodbye, with a parade.

My Frontierville reminiscence-list:

• Not having enough energy to do stuff, must wait...
• Whole screen covered in money-things. Have to wait OR click on them for them to disappear...
• Varmints: groundhogs, foxes, snakes and bears.
• The pop ups. Like, all the time! All the time!!
• "Get more energy"
• "you need more of *whatever*"
• "Beware that snake/bear/groundhog/fox, pardner..."

• The use of "ye old frontier-English". It... got old fast. Again.
• Planting crops, then having to move the plots, because "they're not in order! I can't make room for all the crops I need to plant, so that I can get enough pie/food to get more energy to do stuff!"
• The Goals. Since this is not an epic fantasy game, they couldn't call then quests.
• Not having enough energy to do stuff, must still wait!
• Grow chickens, sell chickens :)
• Not having enough energy to do stuff, must wait even more!!!
• Loosing energy, money and time due to "loading errors".