Ways To Play FarmVille - A Bit Of History
FarmVille was first introduced to us in summer '09 by Zynga an inspiring company who brought us other tittles such as the highly addictive Mafia Wars. Because of Zynga's previous success with online gaming they were able to market FarmVille in such a way that it's popularity grew very quickly to the position it's in today, with 70+ million active members all finding the time and ways to play FarmVille each and every single month.
Ways To Play FarmVille - What makes FarmVille so popular?
The game is currently offered on several platforms, so you're not short of ways to play FarmVille. You can find FarmVille on Facebook, FarmVille.com and recently Zynga added an iPhone or iPod touch app so that users can play on the move. FarmVille is increasingly popular with all kinds of age groups young and old alike.
The reason it appeals so much to its users may not just be the game play but its social aspect. The way it involves all of your friends and neighbors to an extent that you rely on each other for items and gifts or to ask for help around your farm or vice versa. Its a great conversation topic, sharing your experiences and tips with each other or to talk to friends you may not usually talk to. Myself, I'm a fanatic i'm not a guru and nor do I promote myself to be, but I cant wait to get to the next level and see what new things FarmVille can offer me. Whatever the reason users like FarmVille I know that 70 million users per month cant be wrong.
Ways To Play FarmVille - Play It On Facebook
As mentioned above there are three ways to play FarmVille. The first is the most popular and is on one of the most well know social networks out there, I am of course talking about Facebook. FarmVille was born on Facebook and is largely to blame for its huge popularity. FarmVille on Facebook is played on a flash platform and can at times be slow so a computer with a good graphics card, a lot of memory and a fast internet connection is recommended.
As this is played on Facebook, FarmVille connects with your friends and lets you know who's playing the game too, this makes it easier to request your friends to be neighbors and share gifts. You can set preferences in the settings menu within the game to change the level of email notifications. There's nothing worse than opening your email to see tons of emails from FarmVille, especially when you've got hundreds of neighbors. Don't worry all notifications will be displayed on your wall in Facebook so you wont loose them.
Ways To Play FarmVille - Play It on FarmVille Dot Com
The second place to play FarmVille is at FarmVille.com, it is very similar to Facebook and connects with your Facebook friends, but to me the game play seems more polished and you don't have all your Facebook distractions. One downside is not all gifts earned on FarmVille.com will transfer over to Facebook and vice versa. Instead these will be locked until you login to the platform they were earned on. My guess is this is to entice players to play the game on FarmVille.com as well as Facebook. Other than what was mentioned above there are no other real benefits to playing on either one, but I personally prefer FarmVille.com over Facebook as it seems to play smoother, its all down to personal preference.
Ways To Play FarmVille - Play It On iPhone or iPod Touch
The last place you can play FarmVille is an app for the iPhone or iPod touch. It is a great little app with a lot of effort put into it. The FarmVille app loads very quickly and has great graphics. The downside is that that as above you'll find that certain items can only be used on the iPhone/iPod app which means that you maybe switching platforms to use items. This can be annoying but doesn't happen all the time. Plowing and sowing seeds takes longer so purchasing a tractor is highly recommended. I also love the push notifications that alerts you when to harvest, kinda reminds me of the tamagotchis of the nineties, in a funny sort of way. All in all I'd give Zynga 9/10 for this app as it well made and best of all its completely free.
Source: eZine
