Farm Town Gift Glitch

I've been plagued by a pretty annoying Farm Town glitch in the last few weeks. When I go to send my friends and neighbours a gift it doesn't display a the list of names... and when I click on send it obviously tells me I need to select somebody. Really annoying!

If I've not sent you a Farm Town gift recently you now know why!

Farm Town - Plow multiple fields

There's a new update in Farm Town and it introduces the ability to plow multiple fields. Regular readers of my Farm Town Blog might recall that I suggested this is exactly how multiple plowing might work back in June when the "watering" feature was introduced.

While we're looking at the image take note - if they ever do add the ability to plough and sow large areas in Farm Town this is how it may well look: a large "cursor area" rather than the "drag selection" that some have suggested.

You can read that post here.

So how does it all work, well you click the plowing tool and you are presented with three options: x1, x2 and x4



you then hover over the spot you want to plough and away you go.



This is going to be a real time saver for all of those industrial farm town farmers out there... though of course it will now mean you have more free time on your hands and might actually have to go and do some real life stuff, like wash the dishes, the kids or even yourself!

A number of my friends have however reported problems when farmers that you hire use these tools, often they don't get paid coins or xp and in some cases it deletes the harvested field and returns it to it's "grassy" state.

So now we just need to sow multiple fields!

Farm Town - Avoiding the Marketplace Beggars

Begging in farm town really can get on peoples nerves. The Marketplace can be an iffy place to visit with people begging, being abusive and using Farm Town cheats to trick you into hiring people.

If you get fed up of the marketplace but still need to visit it to sell your crops (though you can do from your storage) here's how to do it:

1) Click the connection button and disconnect yourself



2) Visit the marketplace and Voila! It's empty and you can still sell your Farm Town crops!

Farm Town Carrots

I just had to post this pick of the carrots growing in Farm Town.

The tops look very pretty - a bit like a dandelion head!

Farm Town - get rich quick?

Some of you may remember my posts about making money in Farm Town on facebook, well with the advent of the new crops things have changed a little.

Raspberries especially now allow those of you with far too much time on your hands to plant about 11 rounds of crops, yes its true that Raspberries sell for less than grapes but don't forget that it's time in the ground that counts and just because of the sheer amount of Raspberries you can plant in any one day in Farm Town makes it the candidate for the most profitable crop!

Those of you who like to have a life outside of Farm Town might like to know that as far as my quick calculations show Blueberries are now the King of the three day crop giving you a profit of 197 Farm Town coins (excluding seed costs) per unit. Previously Onions were the best three day crop giving you 168 Farm Town coins.

I suspect that over the next few months we'll start to see people earning a lot more!

Farm Town - Finally hire friends to Plow

It's finally here - the update we've all been asking for. We can now hire our neighbors, friends and folk from the marketplace to plow our Farm Town farms!

1. Employees make 5 coins per field plowed.
2. Employers's cost is reduced to 10 or 15, depending if the employee is a neighbour or not.
3. Employees can only plow on fields that have been harvested, or that have gone to waste.

Also there are some great new crops :

• Pineapple
• Blueberry
• Carrots
• Pepper
• Cotton
• Raspberry

Cotton is a four day crop and raspberry a two hour crop... i'll have a look later o see which is the most profitable - but if you already know do post and tell!



Also there are some great new flowers :

• Pink Tulips
• Purple Crocus
• Yellow Lilies
• Red Poppies
• Orange Poppies
• Yellow Poppies
• Red Crocus
• Daffodils

Finally the camera function has been updated and you can now take a "zoomed in" photo!

Rotate a house in Farm Town

A number of people have been coming to this blog after searching on google with the term "How to rotate a house in Farm Town"

Unfortunately it can't be done I'm afraid - currently the only versions of the houses are the ones you see, the Farm Town graphic designers simply didn't create alternative angles. However that's not to say they won't in the future and if I recall correctly it has been submitted to them as a request.

FarmTown Update - Take Photos in Farm Town

Thats right a new update snook into Farm Town yesterday, one that allows you to take photos (Screenshots) of your Farm Town farm and publish them directly to your facebook profile in an album called "Farm Town Photos" The whole process is really easy... but I have some screen shots for you anyway!


As you can see the photo tool (nifty little camera icon) is placed along with the watering can and digger - just click it!


You are then presented with an image of your photo and may add a caption. Once you have done that click "next" to publish.

You then get asked if Farm Town can open the photo permission window - basically just click yes to all of the questions


Clic the green tick!

Now this was the bit that confused me - because the Farm Town photo tool works as an external application to Farm Town it opened a new window - as I clicked the green tick (Shown in previous photo) I thought my photo should show up straight away, but it didn't. But don't worry as there is one last step! Go back to your Farm Town window and you'll see this notice:


Once that is clicked you may go back to your facebook photos and see your farm!


And there it is, now the whole world can see your Farm Town photos - well ok maybe just your facebook friends!

My Farm Town Village

Ever since the latest Farm Town update i've been planning to redesign my farm. I'm only a level 27 but already I'm finding that working on my farm is taking far too long - I really hope the Farm Town developers update the game soon so we can plough, seed and harvest large areas at once. In the meantime I've decided to redesign my farm in a way that cuts down the amount of work I have to do, especially as at the moment I tend to only plant one round of crops a week (I know it will take me ages to rank up now)

Anyway some photos :


This was taken after a harvest. It's a simple layout with a stream running through the middle. My Farm Town farm is now a village! Llareggub village (no prizes who can guess where the name comes from!!)




Two small farm hands cottages... rent is very reasonable!



The water mill.

Stil a lot of work to be done - I need a lot more flowers, but i'll get there and it doesn't take as long to plough now!

Farm Town Coins - Making more money

Everyone knows that you can pay to have more coins in Farm Town, though I've not met many Farmers who have done so. But are there any other ways of making money on Farm Town? Recently one of my Farm Town neighbors asked me if they should complete one of the surveys you can find in the application, I told her to let me try it with a spare email address first... and crikey do I wish I hadn't!

First of all the survey took a good 25mins at times I was convinced I was caught in some never ending loop and it quickly became apparent that this wasn't a genuine survey but simply a way of collecting email and snail mail addresses to send you junk mail, also while some of the surveys I took offered free gift certificates for Tescos or Asda/Walmart I very much doubt that they are surveys organised by those companies.

Did I get my Farm Town coins? Yes. But to be frank it would be much easier just to buy them or just harvest for a friend.

Finally and most alarmingly: Spam, the day after finishing those surveys the email address I used was filled with spam and a lot of it was of an adult nature "Farm Town S1uts" is the only message title only I can re-publish here

My advice? If you want to get rich quick in Farm Town, harvest for wealthy friends (return the favour) or just buy the Farm Town coins!

Farm Town Glitch

We've all encountered a few bugs and glitches in Farm Town on facebook. Glitches occur in every game - visual glitches (related to graphics etc) most don't affect most gameplay. Yet Farm Town's most famous glitch (The field overlapping glitch) became so exploited that the Farm Town developers actually incorporated elements of it into standard game play.

Anyhow I thought i'd share this odd graphical glitch that I encountered the other day.

Every Farm Town gift suddenly becomes a puppy! My guess at what is happening here is that my Farm Town gift list is so stupidly long that the system can't handle all of the "calls" to load in the images and has gotten "stuck" on the puppy. I really do need to sort out my gifts. If any of my Farm Town neighbors are reading this feel free to skip me when it comes to gifts for a week or two!

Farm Town Blog

Welcome to my new Farm Town blog... returning visitors will know that I had hosted this blog on my personal site martinpaling.com However I was a victim of my own success and attracted 30,000 visitors in just one week at the start of June. Unfortunately the expense of hosting such a successful blog was too much and it soon became apparent by the end of the month visitor numbers were going to skyrocket.

So I have now moved my blog here. All the same Farm Town content just a different address!

Farm Town - Looking after flowers

So flowers have arrived in Farm Town - to see what else is new check out the post I made yesterday (literally seconds after they were added!)

So how do you look after Farm Town Flowers? Well it seems they might be very similar to the trees, I'm told that they never die, but i might test that out for myself... they can however wither, so to liven them up you need to water them. doing so will cost you one credit. However if a friend does it for you they will earn one credit! Check out the images below for more details.

A number of people say they can't see flowers in Farm Town. This is more than likely because you have the turned off in preferences. To sort this out go to Preferences (The spanner icon) and makes sure "Show Flowers" is ticked.

Ok so lets have a look at planting and watering, When you first plant a flower you'll see this sign:



Planting is really easy, you just select them in the store and stick them down, no need to plough! Here's what my first Tulips look like:



As you can see they take up much less space then vegetables. The raindrop sign above them tells you how much water the Farm Town flowers need - these ones having only just been planted don't need any watering, but let's have a look at what that looks like anyway:



The watering can is now in a yellow handyman type box icon along with the Farm Town bulldozer. To use you hover over the area you want to water and press your mouse button... and there's a nice animation to show you are watering. Remember this will cost you one credit in your own farm or earn you one credit in a friends farm!

While we're looking at the image take note - if they ever do add the ability to plough and sow large areas in Farm Town this is how it may well look: a large "cursor area" rather than the "drag selection" that some have suggested.

Happy farming!

Farm Town - Flowers are here... and much more besides

So we've all been waiting for Farm Town flowers - and now in the latest update to Farm Town they are here... and lots more besides!

First of all lets look at the flowers:

As you can see some of them are locked until higher ranks, but don't worry as you can send some of them as Farm Town gifts! Lilies, Roses, Zinnias and Hyacinths may all be sent as gifts - so ask your friends to send them today!

New flowers include: Crown of Thorns, Carnations, Marigolds, Tulips, Lillies, Roses, Zinnias and Hyacinths. You'll need to water your flowers regularly. You can either get your friends to do this or do it your self with the new watering can feature:

Here's a list of the new gifts you can send :

• Lilies


• Rose


• Rooster


• Zinnia


• Turkey


• Hyacinth


• Goat

But the goodies don't stop there, also new are a whole range of buildings, objects and landscaping features.

First of all the new Farm Town buildings:




They include a wind pump,watermill (two versions), gazebo, playground, water tank and wind tower. Unfortunately a lot of these are not unlocked until later ranks!

Next lets have a quick look at some of the new Landscaping features in Farm Town, first of all water features:




Let's face it the ponds were a bit miserley, but now you can build your own river complete with bridge - I have the feeling we'll be seeing some Farm Town "Moats" very soon!

Next let's take a look at the new hedge/fence features :



Gates are now available for the hedge, stone wall, white fence and barb wire fence.

Ok now let's have a look at some of the new objects :




Plenty of new Farm Town stuff here: a Grill (BBQ), US style mailbox, lawnmower, wheelbarrow, two variations of a bench, a doghouse (dog kennel) for you puppies and a patio table - perfect for holding a Farm Town party!

New animals include a Bull and a Goose, plus some new animals in the Farm Town "Gifts" page, these include: a Rooster a Turkey and a Goat.

Also new in this Farmtown update are some new hairstyles including a cornrow!

I expect a lot of farms will be getting make-overs in the next few days!

Farm Town - Variable harvest prices

For some time now Farm Town has featured warnings that prices at the market might change. I know some of my Farm Town neighbors are not looking forward to this, they have their favourite crops - and they plan to stick with them. At the moment I must admit i'm sticking to planting onions in Farm Town, not just because of the

economics of them. Primarily it's because my farm is so big and I just don't have the time to get online often enough so a three day crop is ideal.

But I have to admit I'm looking forward to variable pricing in Farm Town, it will add just a bit more depth to the game. Though I do wonder how they will implement it. The clever thing to do would be to adjust the prices according to "supply" i.e.; if on the day you go to market everyone is selling Onions then the price offered to them is significantly lower... a great bonus to those Farmtown players who like to plant some of the crops that traditionally sell for less... and of course it would mean that your "storage" actually came in to its own. You could store your Farm Town crops for a day when the prices suit you.

The easiest way to implement the variable pricing would be to generate the prices randomly - that could work but only if the prices were set the same for all players. Personally I prefer the model set by "Supply" but I guess we'll have to see. Afterall we still don't have our Farm Town flowers!

Farmtown - Most popular game on Facebook

According to the website allfacebook Farmtown has become the most popular game on Facebook. Nick O'Neill writes:

Farmtown has been on a tear recently and as of today, the game has overtaken Pet Society as the largest application on the Facebook platform based on daily active users. (Source)

Read the full article at allfacebook.

Farm Town - That little blue save button!

"Does the save button in Farm Town actually do anything?"

I know a lot of people are confused by the save button in Farm Town and wonder if it's actually necessary to use it at all, if you click it you're often told their are no pending changes to be save or that pending saves have been made, so does it actually do anything and should you use it? - the answer is yes it does do something and yes should use it - when necessary.

So that begs the question : when is it necessary to use the save button?

Simply put: if you're about to leave/log off from Farm Town and the button is blue, press it bef

ore you go. It's as simple as that!

Everything you do in Farm Town is saved to a number of databases on the Farm Town servers, but it's only saved every so often, I have no idea how often (though It seems to very regularly - every 30 seconds perhaps?) but if you leave before it's automatically saved you could lose recent changes, or "pending changes" as Farm Town calls them. I tested this myself recently after a number of people asked me what the saved button did. I sowed a number of fields, logged out (while the button was blue - indicating I was inbetween autosaves) then logged back on to see that fields were back to their ploughed state.

So yes the save button does work but the reason it seems rather redundant is that the Farm Town autosave occurs very frequently.

Farm Town Lottery

I don't know if there is some kind of Farm Town bug or not but for the last week or so whenever I log into Farm Town on facebook, no matter how many times I've already logged on that day I seem to win the Farm Town lottery!

Perhaps I should try repeatedly logging in and out to see if there really are a million coins to be won on the Farm Town lottery?

How to make money in Farm Town

You're probably reading this because you were searching how to make money fast in Farm Town.. there are various ways to make money in Farm Town... but only one way is easy: and that's buying credits through Paypal. If however you're looking for some Farm Town trick or cheat then I'm afraid there isn't one... no sadly despite what you may have heard you cannot arrange scarecrows and crates in a special way to boost money (you'd be surprised what some people believe though!)

You could try the "Earn Coins" tab, though i'd advise taking part in any of those surveys - the truth is that they are not surveys at all but a cheeky way of allowing cold calling centres and email spammers to harvest your personal details. I filled one out using a spare email address I have and suprise, suprise the spam it came flooding in!

No if you want to get rich quick in Farm Town then you're just going to have to knuckle down and do some serious networking and find some successful Farm Town friends. On my first day in Farm Town I got lucky and harvested a friends farm and earned 20,000 coins, it these kind of friends you need. So how to get them?

Well you could try the marketplace... I've never used the marketplace to find work but in my early days I did go there to hire. And I have to say I never hired the guy or girl shouting loudest, or typing "PLZ HIRE MEEEEE!!!" it put me off hiring them straight away, begging in the Farm Town marketplace is annoying to a lot of people. If you must find work at the marketplace find an open area of ground and type a simple message in language that can be understood "Hi I'm looking for work, will follow instructions carefully" is one that someone used once - I hired her!

Once you have got a job at the Marketplace it helps to be polite, thank the farmer and mention that if they add you as a buddy you will look out for them next time you have a harvest. Building up relationships like this really helps.

To add wealthy neighbours you could try one of the many facebook Farm Town groups or even the official forums. I've added a few people this way but generally if they don't turn out to be constructive friends I delete them. Farm Town is a social networking game... if you are going to harvest for someone it pays to keep that farmer happy, to compliment them on the effort they have put into their farm, to assure them that you will look out for them when you next have a harvest... and why not just have a chat, make a friend... you'd be suprised at how well you can get on with your fellow farmers and in the end if you do get on well with them they'll almost certainly ask you to harvest for them again! Standing in the Farm Town marketplace shouting "HIRE ME PLZZ" doesn't endear you to anyone!

Farm Town - Still no Flowers

Well I've been playing Farm Town for over two weeks now and despite the message in the store that Flowers will be ready in two weeks... there still not here! They really would be a welcome update, a lot of people my mum (or Grandma as she likes to be called on Farm Town) spends more money and time on making her farm look attractive than she does farming.

Still, it's easy to hope you can deliver an update on a certain date only to find it's not yet possible: something I find happens quite often to us at Scenography - The Theatre Design Website However I have noticed some minor updates to the program.

I'm pretty sure the option to visit a marketplace in Farm Town in your language wasn't available a week ago - or am I imagining things?

Also another language drop down box in the preferences tab.

How to rank up in Farm Town

Ranking up in Farm Town with Grapes:

Although I wrote a post about how to rank up in Farm Town a week ago I have had a number of people email and post and disagree with me about which is the best method.

However I stand by what I wrote the quickest way to rank up in Farm Town is with hay bales... the maths proves that because you can buy a vast amount of hay bales in the same time it takes to plough, sow and harvest the next best contender: Grapes.

Just to make it clear ranking up in Farm Town with Hay Bales is all about ranking up fast! It won't make you money. If you want to make money and rank up then you need to plant grapes... which as I also pointed out in my first post are also the most profitable plants too.

However the drawback with planting Grapes to rank up is that you will become a slave to farm town, you'll need to log in every four hours and you'll need to cram in at least a minimum of three harvests a day... and even then your only getting 9xp per grape field over a space of 12 hours.

As I explained to a friend recently: Lets say you have a 10x10 farm and plan to rank up with grapes in the space of 12 hours you will earn 900xp. However on the same bit of land you could also put down 100 hay bales and earn yourself 500xp.

wait 500xp isn't more than 900xp!

No it's not. But you are forgetting that it doesn't take 12 hours to buy 100 hay bales! Lets say it takes one minute to buy one hay bale (and that's far too long), in 12 hours you could plant enough Hay Bales to earn 3,600xp Now that is a lot more than the 900xp you'd earn from the Grapes on a 10x10 farm!

As I said before you'd have to have no social life to do either - however a clever combination of Grapes, Hay Bales and some other choice crops could help you rank up in Farm Town quite quickly and without having to log in every four hours.

Farm Town - Ploughing and Seeding Trick

Ploughing a large farm in Farm Town can be a real pain, especially when your avatar decides to walk around your entire farm and fields to get to that one little patch that he needs to work on. There is however a little trick. It's not a Farm Town cheat - but it will help you on your way.

As this Farm Town video shows what you need to do is stand on the left or top side of the field and plough or sow in a neat line, be careful to only sow or plough each adjacent field or your avatar will start walking around.

Hopefully at some point the makes of Farm Town will release a patch that allows us to plough and sow by dragging a selection box over our fields. But until then this is the fastest trick I could come up with!

Farm Town - Crops and Space

There are two ways to plant crops in Farm Town, both have pros and cons. The default way puts space around each "Field" This is good as it enables your Avatar (Character) to easily navigate around the field. However it doesn't make best use of the space in your farm.

The second method actually grew out of a "Soft Exploit" in which users found they could overlap fields. Although you're no longer able to completely overlap fields in Farm Town you still can align them directly next to each other. However the drawback to this is that your Avatar may often struggle to get around big farms... they'll get there eventually it can just take time!

To take advantage of this feature load up Farm Town. Click on the Preferences icon (Image of a spanner) and tick the "Remove Space Between Fields" tick box. Then when you next plough your farm simply line the fields up next to each other.

Make Farm Town run better on your PC

I've been asked by some of my friends and neighbours on Farm Town how they can speed up their computer when playing the game. This video describes some the quick and easy things you can do.

First of all left click on your screen and set "Quality" to low.

Secondly go to preferences (Spanner Icon) and disable things you don't need. If you are visiting a big farm to harvest I always disable trees, buildings and freeze animals. Disabling trees also prevents you from accidentally harvesting someone's trees. Finally use a resource friendly browser like firefox.

Farm Town Tricks and Cheats

(Or : How I went from rank 0-24 in one week)

Rank 0-24 in Farm Town in one week? Yes absolutely I did. There are lots of tips and tricks in Farm Town… though there are no “Farm Town Cheats” as such.

So how did I manage to rank up in Farm Town so quickly, did I play it a lot? Yes, but not as much as you might think!

Farm Town - Hay Bales are your friend!

In Farm Town your rank is decide by XP points (Experience Points) you gain XP points by performing various tasks, such as; Ploughing, sowing seeds, buying objects etc. You get 1xp point for ploughing and 2xp points for sowing seeds. Most people will rank up in Farm Town by ploughing and sowing. However the whole cycle from ploughing to sowing to harvesting takes time. The fastest turnaround may had from the Grapes, they take four hours to go from seed to harvestable plant. So planting Grapes is a fast way of getting XP providing you plant and harvest at least twice a day. Oh and here’s a top Farm Town tip, if you plant and harvest enough of them in a day they are also the *most profitable crops in Farm Town too!

However there is something else you can do that earns you even more xp… however it will cost you money!

Maybe you don’t have the time to plant Grapes three times a day, I didn’t! However If you look at some of the objects you can buy in Farm Town you will soon realise that some of them reward you with quite a nice bit of xp. The trick was figuring out what object you could buy for the least money and the most xp.

The Answer : Hay Bales!

Hay Bales

Hay Bales are the quickest way to rank up in Farm Town. It’s not a cheat, it WILL cost you money, but it will help you rank up! Hay Bales cost 50 credits, and they reward you with 5xp, they may also be sold for 6 credits… so you are going to lose 44 credits per Hay Bale.. but remember this is about ranking up in Farm Town – not making money!

The way this works is simple; ask your self how long it would take to earn 3xp per square of your farm with a field of Grapes compared to the xp earnt from a Hay Bale, the answer is four hours… now imagine how much xp you could earn from buying Hay Bales in four hours. Lets say it takes a minute to buy and sell a Hay Bale, that means you could buy and sell 240 Bales in four hours, earning you a whopping 1,200xp! And that’s based on it taking you an entire minute to buy and sell a Hay Bale.

Now i’m not saying that’s what you do – unless you are a brain damaged hamster, however it’s no hardship to creatively place a few Hay Bales here and there… and then maybe sell and replace them all every day or so.

Farm Town - Hay Bales help you rank

Think i’m speaking nonsense… have you ever wondered why Hay Bale messages are so popular in Farm Town?

*technically Trees are the most profitable crops in Farm Town as you don’t have to re-seed them and the harvests never go off!

Farm Town - Mansion House

I found a farm with a mansion house today, I have to say its a bit on the small side. It’s pretty much the same size as the barn and not too much bigger than the greenhouse – disappointing!

Farm Town

A couple of weeks ago a friend invited me to add a Facebook application called "Farm Town" I generally ignore most facebook application invites as generally they are just spammy and manipulative. However Farm Town proved to be very different. It's a flash game based upon the premise of farming and selling your goods at the market, but it also manage to pull in some social networking features: Similar to old flash based games like Hotel Habbo an the old Mentos Cruise ship.

I was always interested in those games as a basis for communication. I've found Farm Town to be a little addictive and quite a challenge - deciding what crops will reap the best rewards at the market, deciding when and if to purchase more farming land. You're also (Rather like The Sims) able to buy houses, objects and animals to populate your farm. In Farm Town your farm sits in a "Virtual Neighbourhood" populated by your real facebook friends (if they play the game) And you are able to visit their farms and help clear up after hurricanes, or help out with the watering of their crops.

A neat addition to the game is the ability to pay your friends or other users you meet in the Market or Inn to harvest your crops - the benefit of this is that it increase the value of your crop as your friends are able to harvest more volume... and of course it encourages interaction. Remarkably the application was only launched four months ago but has already attracted over 4 million users. Apart from the logistical and financial concerns involved what I find most remarkable is that such a genial game has met with such success... a lot of the people I meet are 30+, indeed even my mum has joined under the name of "Grandma"