We’ve had a facelift – please bear with us while the new stuff is slotted into place and we ramp up the design side of things (like, add some colour, and so on). There is still a great deal to get done, this is by no means a ‘finished’ site.
If you click on something and it comes out in Latin, it’s just filler text. Proper text will be coming soon and the Latin text will be replaced. If you want to find out more about why the Latin text is used, check out lipsum.com (safe for work, and a bit nerdy) and read all about the origins.
In the meantime, please excuse broken links – chances are that we’re aware of it and it’s in a list of things to be fixed. Have a nosey around.
Here at the Emma and Pete Show we’re big fans of all things green, so we’re particularly thrilled to be able to offer you discounted tickets to the green living expo UK AWARE 2010 which is running at Olympia 2 on 16th & 17th April. They’ve expanded onto two floors for this year’s event, which gives them enough space to have an indoor electric cycle track that you can race around, and to display a range of eco-friendly vehicles.
As well as seeing all the green companies who will be taking stands and showcasing their wares, you’ll be able to listen to seminars from greenies, join in workshops and even watch a fashion show and swap your unwanted clothes for something more (or less!) stylish.
And if, like us, you’re trying to run a green business then you can pop along to their Green Business Surgery and ask them questions on how to start, or green up, a business.
Tickets cost £15 on the day, and £10 in advance online, but if you follow Emma and Pete’s magic link you can buy tickets for just £6.
FarmVille and it’s creator, Zynga, have a lot of detractors. There are those people who think that FarmVille is dull. Fair enough – if you don’t like it, don’t play it, but don’t assume that because you like it everyone who does is an idiot, a Zynga Zombie or a sad, FV addict. There are also those people who, for some reason, don’t think that Zynga should be allowed to make a profit from a ‘free’ game. Many of these people play FV, but don’t want to pay real money for the things that cost Farm Cash. That’s fair enough – if you don’t want to pay real money for the game, then don’t, you have that option. But don’t compain that you don’t have access to the premium features and don’t sound off about people who do pay real money and call them idiots. Remember that Zynga employs real people who do real work and need to get paid. If Zynga doesn’t make a profit from its games then it will stop making them.
No doubt the news that Zynga has started a Haiti Relief Fund won’t stop their detractors from whining, but for the last few days FV players (and players of Zynga’s other online games such as FishVille and Mafia Wars) have been able to pay real money for special virtual goods, with 100% of the donated cash being donated via Zynga to the people in Haiti who need our help after the devastating earthquake there. The news from Zynga this morning is that FV players have donated over $900,000 in just a couple of days and will no doubt top $1 million soon – real money, going to real people. That money will be spent on emergency relief, food and other supplies, but as my friend Maddy says, if it’s spent on suitable permaculture solutions to Haiti’s problems then it will go a long way.
FV’s contribution to the Haiti Relief Fund is White Corn. Farmers can pay 25 Farm Cash ($5) for a license to plant White Corn for 7 days. White Corn costs 10 coins to plant, gives a harvest worth 125 coins plus 3 XP, matures in 6 hours and never withers. So it’s a great crop to plant, whether you’re hoping to save up some farm coins, gain enough XP to get to the next level or just work your way through the ribbons relating to ploughing, seeding and harvesting.
Speaking of ribbons, there are two more new ones this week. You’ll need more Fuel for the ‘Need for Seed’ ribbon, as it involves seeding your farm with the Seeder vehicle. The second is ‘Cat Lady’, and you work towards it as you brush all the kitties that are wandering around the farm. Here’s a tip to help you work towards the ribbon – keep an eye out on your Facebook News Feed for when your Neighbors find lost kittens wandering around. The more cats you add to your farm, the quicker you’ll gain those ribbons!
There are also two new giftable trees this week – the Durian (it’s a good job virtual fruit doesn’t smell!) and the Cashew.
The other big release this week is Collections. As you work on your farm, ploughing, harvesting crops, animals and trees, and fertilizing, you will randomly find collectable items that belong to one of four Collections. Collectable items are also giftable, with a new collectable gift becoming available every two days. You can hold up to 10 of any particular collectable, and once you have completed a collection you can exchange it for 250 XP, 5000 coins and 5 Fuel refills. You can complete the same collection an unlimited number of times, so don’t discard those duplicate gifts!
If you find an uncommon or rare collectable then you will have the option of posting it to your News feed so that 5 of your Neighbors can share it. And when you complete a collection you can post the news to your feed and, for 24 hours, all of your Neighbors will be able to collect a random collectable to share in your good fortune. So keep an eye on your News feed and you could really rack up those collectables quickly!
Also new this week are three buildings – a bed and breakfast, a post office and a general store – that don’t appear to have any special functions at present, and peace-themed decorations. The news from the podcast is that level 70 (the top level at present) is not going to be the final level, and that the 24 × 24 land expansion is not going to be the final land upgrade either. The 24 × 24 expansion is coming soon – but if you sign up as a FarmVille fan on their Facebook page then you’ll be given the chance to get the 24×24 land expansion before everyone else! There’s also a special event on the way, to celebrate FarmVille having 10 million fans, more sendable gifts and more updates to the chicken coops.
It seems that the official FarmVille podcast is put on YouTube now, so I can share the podcast itself rather than a link. Don’t get excited, though, it’s not a vidcast!
In the latest podcast there’s some more information about Free Fuel Week (which appears to be nearly over!). Every consecutive day you play the game you get one more free tank of fuel – so 1 tank for day 1, 2 tanks on day 2, etc. If you miss a day, the counter gets reset back to 1 tank. And you have to wait a full 24 hours before you’ll get the next one.
And when you post a free fuel feed to your Wall, up to 5 of your Neighbors can collect it.
The big news this week is the changes to the chicken coops that allow you to feed your Neighbor’s chickens when you fertilize your farm. When you feed the chickens there’s a chance you’ll find some mystery eggs to share with your Neighbors – up to 3 sets of mystery eggs ‘per harvest period’, whatever that means. You also increase the chance that your Neighbor will find mystery eggs in their coop that they can share with you. You’ll also get 1 XP and 4 coins for feeding their chickens.
If your Neighbors have been feeding your chickens, then even if you don’t find any mystery eggs you will get a cash bonus. If you don’t find any mystery eggs then you’ll also get a chance to post a message on your Wall, requesting that more Neighbors come and feed your hungry chickens.
The first day these changes were put in place they caused huge connection issues for many farmers, who couldn’t get to their farms for an entire day. Fortunately these have been straightened out.
There are new Cow Print decorations and buildings, a new flower crop – Morning Glories – that takes 12 hours to mature and is harvested for 123 coins (only available at level 13 and above), and a new Starfruit tree. And there are two new Ribbons. The ‘Fenced In’ ribbon requires you to place fences on your farm (150 for the blue ribbon!) and you gain the ‘Egg-celent Discovery’ ribbons by finding mystery eggs in your chicken coops.
And there’s an update to the storage system – you can now host a barn raising to increase the capacity of your farm. Invite your Neighbors to help you improve your barn or toolshed and they’ll get 100 coins as a reward, and you’ll get a bigger building! Apparently we’ll be able to expand the animal buildings (chicken coops and dairy farms) soon.
There’s a new segment in the podcast for people to submit user questions, via the forum, and according to the Sneak Peek section we should be keeping an eye out for new things to do with our unwanted items, more ploughing/ planting/ friend missions, new buildings and new mystery boxes containing mystery animals.
As mentioned in the latest Emma and Pete Show, my long-awaited boots have arrived from the Celtic Sheepskin Company. My new house boots are handmade in Cornwall, from British sheepskin. When they arrive they’re supposed to be very tight across the end of your foot; a couple of days later and mine are easing up a little bit but are still a bit tight. It feels like they will be lovely and warm when I’ve worn them in a bit.
Celtic Sheepskin have a factory shop in Cornwall, which we plan to visit when we’re next in that part of the world, but if you want to order from their online shop you can get free standard delivery for online orders going to a UK mainland address until 22nd January by using the offer code NY1AW when completing your order.
That’s not an affiliate link, it just seems to me that they’re a company worth supporting (unless you’re vegan!).
The worst (best/heaviest, delete as appropriate) snowfall in years means we will not be venturing far from home for the next few days. I went to take some garden photos this morning, but my camera battery was flat and I will have to wait for it to charge.
Pete and I were watching Iron Man yesterday evening when it really started to snow, and decided to wrap up well and go out for a walk because the snow and the streetlights combined to make it eerily light.
We ended up finding a patch of grass down the road and attempting to build a giant snowman. The base was relatively easy:
We made a second body section, which was also pretty large, and it took us a long time to work out how to hoist it up on the base because it was very heavy and the sides kept collapsing under the weight (as did I!).
By the time we ran out of energy we had something more akin to a snow cupcake than a snowman, but it was pretty impressive :D
Lots of FarmVille players have issues with the way that the Fuel system works – you need Fuel to power the farm vehicles that make working your farm so much quicker and cut down on all the clicking you need to do every day. But everytime you use your vehicles, the Fuel level in your tank drops. It creeps up slowly over the day, but will max out the current unit of fuel and then stop. So everytime you use up a whole unit of fuel, you can’t get it back without buying more with your FarmVille cash, or finding some when you open a mystery egg.
The FV podcast is always promising changes to the Fuel system, but it doesn’t matter for the next few days because the Free Fuel Week event has started. Every day for the next five days you get a free tank of fuel when you first login to the game”
And there are two ways to share extra Fuel with your Neighbors. The first is to click on the fuel can icon in the top right hand corner of the game screen. (If you can’t see a Fuel can icon then you may need to click on the other icons that are there to read those messages first, then the Fuel can should appear.)
That will give you a chance to share Fuel with your Neighbours. The free fuel messages appear in your News Feed, so keep an eye out for them and see if you can collect free fuel from your Neighbors:
The news from the forum is that offering free fuel to your Neighbors only works once a day – so there’s no point clicking on the fuel can icon multiple times and spamming their News feeds. The extra notices will be duds. And each Neighbor is offered 1/5 unit of fuel, and it looks like only 5 Neighbors can collect, so you have to be quick if you want to collect fuel this way.
But there is a second way to share fuel with your Neighbors – 1/5 can of Fuel is now a giftable item. Send Fuel to your Neighbors when you send out your free gifts and request Fuel back if you need it. Those 1/5 cans soon add up, and you don’t have to be quick off the mark to get them. And don’t forget that we’re into the final couple of days for Holiday Presents, so make the most of them while you can!
