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"