Games.com Blog: “Replay maps in Treasure Isle for less with new discounted fragments” plus 12 more |  |
- Replay maps in Treasure Isle for less with new discounted fragments
- FrontierVille tries to solve the case of the disappearing bonus items
- Mafia Wars London: A mere 48 hours left to steal the Crown Jewels
- FrontierVille offers free horse in exchange for email
- CrowdStar's Hello City: Get 5 free Facebook Credits -- good for any game
- CrowdStar and the National Wildlife Foundation team up to fight BP oil spill
- Can other games mimic FIFA Superstars' World Cup success?
- Frontierville tops Facebook's weekly gainers with 5.4 million new users
- YoVille: Guide to Mastering New Jobs
- FarmVille Unreleased Levels 90 - 100
- Quote of the Moment: WoW without the "WOW!"
- New Facebook game seeks to manage real-world diabetes risks
- Social game currency increasingly popular for crowdsourcing payments
| Replay maps in Treasure Isle for less with new discounted fragments Posted: 21 Jun 2010 06:42 PM PDT Filed under: Treasure Isle  Map fragments were released over a month ago in Treasure Isle, allowing players to extend their gameplay by purchasing fragments that allow you to replay maps. Currently, map fragments are on sale for 80% off the original price. That is a HUGE discount, and we can only imagine it's because these fragments aren't selling well. You can now buy 10 map fragments for 1 Island Cash (was formerly 5 Island Cash) and 40 map fragments for 3 Island Cash (was 18 Island Cash). If you have been debating buying these fragments to give you more time to discover treasure that you might need to complete your collection, now is the time. It's unclear how long this deal will last, but they are calling it a "sale" so it doesn't seem like a permanent price decrease. We weren't too sure about this feature, because it seemed like a lazy way for Zynga to make more content for the game. Perhaps the players are feeling the same and haven't been buying these fragments? Have you bought map fragments for Treasure Isle? What do you think of the feature?
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| FrontierVille tries to solve the case of the disappearing bonus items Posted: 21 Jun 2010 11:00 AM PDT Filed under: FrontierVille  One of my biggest beefs with FrontierVille (aside from it sucking away any semblance of a social life these past few days/weeks) is that when your virtual pioneer performs any task, bonuses will appear and must be clicked before they disappear. Once they're gone, they're gone forever. However, you may have noticed that -- while frantically clicking and trying to collect all of the bonuses -- a pop-up window will sometimes appear, which impedes the whole bonus collection process. Apparently, the people behind the scenes are working on fixing that problem, says FrontierVille moderator Sugar Monkey: I thought I noticed that it was easier to snag all of my bonuses today, but I'd rather just skip the whole pop-up thing altogether. Maybe there's another way to send friends all of those extra tools. Don't mess with mama's bonuses, you wouldn't like to see mama angry. [Via FrontierVille forums] Have you been having an easier time collection all of your bonuses?
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| Mafia Wars London: A mere 48 hours left to steal the Crown Jewels Posted: 21 Jun 2010 09:00 AM PDT Filed under: Mafia Wars  Heads up! If your mafia went on vacation and forgot about the Mafia Wars London Crown Jewel heist -- here's the official two-day warning. You only have 48 more hours to wrangle up as many British Passports as possible, finish missions and nab that oh-so-precious royal jewelry. Do you have what it takes to finish the big job? (Confession time: I am so NOT going to finish London -- I blame FrontierVille).
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| FrontierVille offers free horse in exchange for email Posted: 21 Jun 2010 08:00 AM PDT  FrontierVille -- if you give a little, you get a little. In this case, that means if you're willing to give up a little privacy by allowing the new pioneer-themed Facebook game send you emails, you'll get a free horse for your land. If you want the free pony (and who doesn't want a pony?) -- here's what you gotta do. When you load the game, keep an eye out for a pop-up notice from Pioneer Jack asking for your email. If you agree, you will receive an email with a link that will give you a new horse. The email came right away and looks like this (see image below).  Many have complained that they signed up to receive FrontierVille emails and did not receive the horse. If that's the case, you should try signing up for email again or, alternately, try your luck at clicking the following link. http://apps.facebook.com/frontierville/unlock.php?src=email&crt=horse&feature=horse NOTE: We have not confirmed that this works, AND you are not able to collect more than one free horse. Once you load the game, you'll receive the following message. Click 'Yes' to accept the horse.  Then open your gift box (the gift box is located in the My Stuff Menu), and you'll see that Frontier Jack has sent you a gift -- a light brown horse.  Click use to move the horse to your farm, then place it where you like. Like the other animals, your horse starts out as a mere pony, but after feeding it a few times, you'll have a full-grown horsey to add to your menagerie.  Did you have any problems getting your free horse in exchange for giving up your email? Drop a note in the comments below.
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| CrowdStar's Hello City: Get 5 free Facebook Credits -- good for any game Posted: 21 Jun 2010 07:30 AM PDT  In the social gaming world, real money gets converted into FB Credits to help pay for "premium" goods, such as exclusive items or to facilitate in-game virtual donations. But the special thing about FB Credits is that, normally, all social games use their own kind of premium currency that locks you out from spending in other games. Using FB Credits means that Credits you've earn in one game won't be limited to that game, and can be used for a wider variety of games and services on Facebook. CrowdStar's Hello City, a new city-building sim on Facebook, is looking to promote itself by offering 5 free FB Credits to all players of the game. This is akin to getting $0.50 USD for free, which isn't much, but 5 FB Credits will pay for some nifty premium in-game items or even a Facebook gift for a friend's profile. So click here to launch Hello City and grab your free cash today!
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| CrowdStar and the National Wildlife Foundation team up to fight BP oil spill Posted: 21 Jun 2010 07:00 AM PDT Filed under: Happy Aquarium, Happy Pets, Happy Island   Over the weekend, CrowdStar rallied its five Facebook titles -- Happy Island , Happy Aquarium, Happy Pets, Hello City, and Zoo Paradise -- to participate in a "CrowdStar Cares" campaign in which the company has pledged 100% of all sales from its Limited Edition Gulf Rescue items to the National Wildlife Foundation (NWF). Open up any of CrowdStar's games and you'll find a Gulf Rescue icon on the right side of your screen advertising the effort along with a Limited Edition offer.All items will be available until July 20th. Below are prices and images of the Limited Edition items for sale for each game, from least to most expensive (which are roughly $3 USD to $10 USD): Zoo Paradise: Golden Sea Turtle - 29 Facebook Credits  Happy Aquarium: Bottlenose Dolphin - 88 Facebook Credits  Happy Pets: Pewee Sea Duck - 88 Facebook Credits  Happy Island: Bottlenose Dolpin Pod - 99 Facebook Credits Hello City: Wildlife Habitat - 100 Facebook Credits 
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| Can other games mimic FIFA Superstars' World Cup success? Posted: 21 Jun 2010 06:15 AM PDT  As mentioned in our discussion of the week's top gaining Facebook games, EA Sports/Playfish's FIFA Superstars has seen some relatively healthy growth since launching just a few weeks ago. No doubt the FIFA branding (and the support of a major company like EA) has helped the game stand out from the crowd. But there may be an external reason for the game's recent success -- the World Cup.As VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi recently noticed, the game has logged over 3.3 million World Cup match predictions since launching near the start of the tournament. The predictions have ranged from prescient (97% picked Brazil over North Korea) to horribly wrong (only 1.6% picked Switzerland beating Spain) but these guesses are notable more for their volume than their predictive ability. For possibly the first time, a real world sporting event is driving interest in a virtual social game, thanks in part to clever integration from the developers. If FIFA Superstars' success continues throughout the tournament, we can probably expect other developers to try to capitalize on real world sporting events to drive interest in their games. Already Sports illustrated has plans for Facebook-powered Fantasy Football when that sport starts up again, and a few other developers are dipping their toes in the social sports waters. But why stop at sports? With their quick development times, social games could be deployed to coincide with all sorts of topical real world events, from elections to awards shows. If people are talking about it, it only stands to reason that people would want to game about it too. This kind of topical gaming is definitely an intriguing potential trend to watch out for in the social games space going forward, and we intend to do just that.
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| Frontierville tops Facebook's weekly gainers with 5.4 million new users Posted: 21 Jun 2010 05:45 AM PDT Filed under: FrontierVille  According to AppData (via InsideSocialGames), Frontierville has gaining an incredible 5.4 million monthly users over the last week, a 656% increase from the partial-week launch of the five days previous. Most of the gains came between between June 17 and 19 when Frontierville's users shot up from about 1.5 million to over 6 million, possibly due to a recent change in the way Facebook reports active users. Among other notable gainers, EA Sports/Playfish's FIFA Superstars continues to capitalize on World Cup fever worldwide (though possibly not as much as EA would have liked) with over 600,000 new users, a 52% jump. And somewhat long-in-the-tooth game School of Wizardry saw a surprising jump this week, gaining over 500,000 users after weeks of anemic growth (we suspect the aforementioned Facebook data reporting change).
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| YoVille: Guide to Mastering New Jobs Posted: 21 Jun 2010 05:30 AM PDT Filed under: YoVille A new way to earn coins has been added to YoVille. The Jobs feature is going to bring you more items, more coins and more fun! Become a Party Entertainer, Pet Rescuer, Ghost Hunter and many more. After the jump is everything you should know about this exciting feature.You are a few steps away from finding your YoVille dream job! What are YoVille Jobs? This is a new feature that will allow you to make more coins, get a chance to receive new rare items and give you more fun things to do in YoVille. Where Do I Start?  You will then be given a choice of several different and exciting jobs to try. You can have fun being a Party Entertainer, Animal Rescuer, and Ghost Hunter. Give them all a try and discover you favorite! By completing Jobs and mastering Job Categories you will unlock more jobs, earn lots of coins and pick up rare items along the way!   *Hint* You'll see hints along the way to help you find the statues faster. Also when you collect them all you will get an extra coin reward, so be sure to complete your jobs.  Clicking on ghosts is fun, but it also takes your Energy. You use 6 Energy for every ghost you bust.   You'll see hints along the way to help you find the statues. Follow the hints to complete the job faster.  Energy: More ways to get energy and share it too! - You can now receive and share energy through Feeds and Free Gifts. We'll have two separate feeds that you can post depending on if you are out of energy or if you just found some energy and want to share with friends. So whether you are out of energy or feeling generous make sure to "share" or ask for help and help each other out! Don't forget you'll also be able to send your friends these new Free Gift energy drink as well so ask your friends to send you some energy drinks and send some back in return. Energy Free Gifts:      Resume YoVille Jobs where you left off playing - If you are in the middle of a job and have to sign off you will no longer have to go through the entire job location to pick up where you left off. Instead when you click on the job you are resuming you will be taken straight to the room you were last in during the last time you played that particular job. Rare Items will be Giftable/Tradeable - now that the majority of players will have access to these items we will be turning these items on as giftable and tradeable so you can sell them or give them away to your friends. If you don't have this feature yet don't worry you will very soon and will be able to get a chance to receive these rare items. Until then you may have a nice friend that may want to share until you receive this feature ;) Jobs Payouts - based on your feedback we saw that many of you would like to know how much you can make per job. This will now be displayed when browsing different jobs and you will be shown a range of coins you can make during each job. This will not only show you how much you will be able to make but will let you now prioritize your time in jobs, based on coin payouts for which jobs you would like to complete first or use your energy on! FAQ: Can I work at the Widget Factory and the Jobs game at the same time? A: Your energy allows you to work at either the Widget Factory OR the Jobs game once every 5 hours. With the Jobs Game you can use your energy to keep playing as it replenishes. You do not have to wait until it's at 100%. You will need 100% energy to be able to work at the Widget Factory. Your Energy automatically replenishes to 100% every 5 hours. If you choose to work at the Widget Factory you will be able to do so every 5 hours. This is a recent change from the 6 hour wait period that you used to have at the Widget Factory. Some days you may want to mix and match these options. If you're rushed in the morning and you just want to make sure you get some coins, head over to the Widget Factory and collect your standard pay. If you have a little time for fun, make sure you try out a new Job! On average the new Jobs will allow you to earn a lot more coins than the factory. You'll also pick up rare items that are only available in jobs, and unlock new jobs as you complete them and level up. Higher level jobs earn higher amounts of coins Why didn't I find all of the rare items when I completed a job? A: The items that you find in Jobs Game are truly Rare. This means that not everyone will find every Rare item. You may not find all of the Rare items on your first completion of a Job. You can always come back and try again though. Can I trade or gift the rare items that I find? A: Yes, Jobs Game rare items are giftable and tradeable. Is the Widget Factory leaving YoVIlle? A: At this time we have no plans to remove the Widget Factory from YoVille. Do I have to do the new Jobs? A: No, you still have the option to collect coins from the Widget Factory just like before the Jobs Game came out. Do I have to pay for energy? How do I get more energy? A: There are multiple ways to receive energy. Your Energy Bar automatically replenishes to 100% every 5 hours. Check the timer below your Energy Bar if you want to know when to expect more. Energy replenishes at the rate of 1 energy every 3 minutes. You'll also collect Energy Drinks while completing jobs. It will be a large Energy Drink that will appear after clicking on the ghost, so make sure to click on it. Each Energy Drink will give you some extra energy so try to collect as many as you can! When you are out of energy click on your backpack to find the extra energy that you've found in the Job Game. If you need energy fast you can purchase 100% energy by clicking on the Energy Backpack and then Energy Refill. This will be an extra way to get that energy refill fast if you are itching to get to that next job! If you're not in a hurry, you can always wait for you energy to replenish for free. You can also collect Energy Drinks from your friends through Special Energy Feeds and as Free Gifts to send to your friends and ask your friends to send to you. Will MySpace get the new Jobs Games? A: We are working hard to make sure that we can add Jobs Game to MySpace in the near future. Have Fun! Source: Official posts by Platinum & Pink Ninja. This article originally appeared on YoVille Lounge.
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| FarmVille Unreleased Levels 90 - 100 Posted: 21 Jun 2010 05:00 AM PDT Filed under: Farmville  The new levels will be as follows: Level 91: Veni Vidi Agri Level 92: Incomparable Farmer Level 93: Soil Savant Level 94: Farm Overlord Level 95: Stellar Farmer Level 96: Transcendent Tiller Level 97: Universal Farmer Level 98: Paragon Farmer Level 99: Epic Farmer Level 100: Omnipotent Agriculturalist This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak.
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| Quote of the Moment: WoW without the "WOW!" Posted: 21 Jun 2010 05:00 AM PDT Filed under: Farmville  "Using Farmville as an example, I only needed to play it for a couple of hours to realise how closely it's modelled on an MMO framework. Everything from the grinding 'quests' and achievements system, through to peer competitiveness and in-world currency. The trouble is, Farmville doesn't quite have the thrill factor of a hard core MMO. It's not a fair comparison, but the point is that it's hard for Farmville to keep innovating so that the endless tasks don't seem frustrating or even pointless.I've spent many an hour doing pointless / frustrating things in World of Warcraft for example - but it didn't seem that way as there was always an enticing goal at the end of it. Sure, Farmville offers bigger an better houses / sheds / farming equipment but it wears thin pretty quickly. The challenge for social virtual worlds, like gaming more broadly, is keeping it interesting, and it seems there's still some work to do. There's also the issue these social worlds aren't truly socially interactive: when my avatar can chat and farm with my neighbour, then I'm starting to get interested again." - The Metaverse Journal Blogger Lowell Cremorne discusses one of three reasons social games don't interest him as much as traditional massively-multiplayer games
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| New Facebook game seeks to manage real-world diabetes risks Posted: 21 Jun 2010 04:30 AM PDT  Using virtual Facebook games to improve your real life is getting dangerously close to becoming a trend. First it was The Life Game, which linked in-game success to user-defined real-world goals. Now it's HealthSeeker, a just-announced game focused on healthier eating and lifestyle choices.While HealthSeeker is focused on helping and educating people with Diabetes (it's sponsored by the Diabetes Hands Foundation) the introductory video stresses that anyone can benefit from the healthy changes encouraged by the game. As in The Life Game, gaining experience points in Healthseeker involves accepting and performing "missions" that involve simple changes in your everyday life -- such as using vegetable oil instead of butter in cooking, for instance. The social element comes in via "kudos" that you can send to friends to encourage them on their missions or "challenges" that you can issue to urge friends to become healthier. Ideally, the social pressure will make you more likely to stick with the changes than if you were just "playing" alone. Of course, there's always the risk you'll just lie about your success online instead of admitting your failure to your friends. Stay strong, health warrior. Stay strong!
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| Social game currency increasingly popular for crowdsourcing payments Posted: 21 Jun 2010 04:00 AM PDT Filed under: Farmville  Social game players are used to doing virtual work (i.e. harvesting fake crops) for virtual money (i.e. Farmville cash). But that concept has taken a strange twist recently: players exchanging real work for virtual cash.The fake-money-for-real-work idea is becoming increasingly popular, according to a recent San Francisco Chronicle profile on crowdsourcing company Crowdflower. The company offers its proprietary Swag Bucks as payment for a variety of menial, hard-to-automate tasks such as verifying and categorizing search results or evaluating tweets as "positive" or "negative." Those Swag Bucks can then be exchanged for everything from cash and gift cards to, increasingly, virtual currency for use in social games. In fact, CrowdFlower CEO Lukas Biewald says he expects virtual currency payments to reach $1 million this year -- up from a mere $50,000 last year. That's a bit surprising, since the company's virtual currency offers aren't nearly the best deals on offer. For the same "Swag Buck" price as a $10 Farmville gift card, you could get almost $15 in PayPal cash or over $20 in Amazon gift cards. The fact that more people are taking the social gaming currency instead says something about the addictive appeal of these games, I think.
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