As Zynga announced at an event a few weeks ago, the newest title in the “Ville” franchise, which includes FarmVille, FrontierVille, and CityVille, is CastleVille. The newest title from the social gaming giant allows players to build mini-empires from castles, craft art and armour and trade, and defend your kingdom in a medieval world. The game was created by the Zynga Dallas team, which was part of the social gaming giant’s acquisition of Bonfire Studios.
Zynga Dallas director Bill Jackson explains that the studio took key elements of each ‘Ville’ title and brought the best into CastleVille. He explains that CastleVille combines with elements of self-expression from FarmVille, the ability to build the fantasy city of your dreams with CityVille, and the rich narrative and storytelling features from FrontierVille. The game is also experimenting with new ways of being social, and self-expression.
When first beginning the game, you’ll need to choose your character and build your look. Jackson says this is the most expansive character building features to date, with dozens of looks to choose from. Once immersed in CastleVille’s medieval world, peasants, princesses, pirates (and players) will choose their own path in the game by meeting new and different characters, completing quests and exploring mysterious areas.
The basis of the game is around building the castle of your dreams and transforming the unexplored land into your very own kingdom. Along the way, you’ll encounter a number of characters, who are all involved in the storyline of the game. You’ll first see Duke, who will help you build your castle and is from a neighboring kingdom. There’s Yvette (the beautiful songstress), Giselle (the lovely maiden) George (the friendly village Viking), Sonja (a sexy pirate), Rafael (a playboy woodsman) and Tom (the rough dragon slayer).
As Jackson says, this game has the most intensive storyline, which is why there are so many characters. Zynga also wants you to feel like you are immersed fully in the world, bringing in elements of fantasy and adventure. “You have to do work yourself and be part of the adventure to success at the game,” he explains. You choose your own path to discover mysterious locations, find rare items and reveal hidden characters within the game.
In terms of social interactions, you can visit your friends’ kingdoms and gift them art, armor and potions to help complete quests and challenge the forces of the Gloom. There is also a reputation system that gives you more points by how social you are in the game. Basically, the more social you are, the more reputation points you earn, and the faster you progress in the game. Obviously, this gives you more of an incentive to interact with friends and buy virtual goods. Jackson says this streamlined social experience makes it easier and more fun to play the game with friends.
CastleVille will be available to play for free in the next few weeks in 17 languages (English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Turkish, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Japanese and Thai).
Zynga has been churning out games over the past week months. The company launched Mafia Wars 2, Adventure World, The Pioneer Trail, Empires & Allies, and Hanging with Friends.
We know that developing new hits is a big part of Zynga’s business model and that profits were down in Q2 of this year because of the lack of any new game launches in the first half of 2011. We haven’t seen Q3 numbers yet, so it’s hard to tell whether these new launches are actually making a meaningful difference in Zynga’s top line.
According to Inside Network’s AppData leaderboard, Empires & Allies seems to be doing the best out of all the new titles with 19.8 million monthly active users. This is followed by Mafia Wars 2, with 13.7 million users. Of course, CityVille and FarmVille are the top games for Zynga, with 54.2 million and 28.2 million monthly active users, respectively. Perhaps the next Ville to top the list will be CastleVille.
Source: TechCrunch
Showing posts with label Social. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social. Show all posts
15.1.12
CastleVille a fun mixture of fantasy adventure and social gaming
Zynga's new game CastleVille allows Facebook users to become the protagonists in their own fantasy adventures. CastleVille is kind of like The Sims Social in a medieval setting. There are also elements of strategy and role-playing games mixed in for added fun. According to Brian Ward of , CastleVille is the fastest growing application on Facebook. It has more daily users than the Washington Post Social Reader, YouTube, the music service.
After playing long enough to get hooked on it, it is pretty easy to see why the game has developed a strong and loyal following since its official release on November 14. According to Joe Osborne of , "Zynga's CastleVille has surpassed the likes of FarmVille, The Sims Social and Zynga Poker to become the second most played game daily on Facebook with 8.1 million returning every day. The game is now in the top five for monthly players, with 27.6 million, according to . And it did it in just 22 days."
After the character creation stage, players are given the tasks of building a castle in their new kingdoms and expanding into territory that has been taken over by an evil sorcerer. These long-term goals will gradually be achieved through both quests and routine chores such as harvesting crops and working on a castle wall. Players are also encouraged to create buildings such as the workshop or the kitchen that allow them to do more things in the game.
Fans of will appreciate the wide range of day-to-day tasks players can do while waiting for crops to grow or working on quests. Players can earn extra experience points and items by doing things such as tending flowers, feeding farm animals or fishing from the local pond. Getting curious and clicking on random objects often reveals more things a player can do to kill time, such as clearing out stumps or mining for rocks and minerals.
They will also appreciate the ways that people can interact with friends. CastleVille players can ask friends for items they need or send them a variety of gifts. They can also visit friends' kingdoms and do chores in return for small rewards or completing quest goals. When players are first starting out, it is helpful to visit the kingdom ruled by a friendly non-player character known as The Duke and find things to do in exchange for money and other small bonuses.
Fortunately for people who enjoy action-oriented games, CastleVille incorporates other things in addition to feeding chickens or making hemp rope. From time to time, players will attract the attention of evil beasts and have to defend their kingdoms. Players will eventually be able to explore locked areas on the map that reveal more quests and potentially fun things such as a wishing well and a friendly wizard's house.
CastleVille is free, but Zynga gives players the option of spending real money on things they need such as crowns (which are used to buy items or skip steps in quests) and exploration crystals that allow players to unlock new squares on the map. The temptation can be strong because it takes a lot of time and work to earn some of the more useful items by killing wolves or doing chores.
Being forced to progress more slowly in the game if a player doesn't want to put some crowns on a credit card can be frustrating, but it isn't all bad. Most of the time, doing routine chores is a fun and immersive experience. It is easy to spend hours on things like growing wheat or collecting ingredients for grape juice.
However, sometimes feeding cute cows gets a little old and it would be more fun to take some shortcuts. It is hard to say for certain if the creators at Zynga should be praised for making a game that people are going to want to devote a lot of time and resources to, or if they should be condemned as evil geniuses for making it seem halfway reasonable to spend hard-earned dollars to unlock things or buy more.
Facebook users in the Spokane area should definitely check out CastleVille. It has some of the same appeal as The Sims Social, but with fewer prompts to invite other people to play or share things on the user's Wall. And unlike other social games such as or Empires & Allies, where a player might reach a point where he can't advance beyond a fairly early stage without getting more friends to join him, it works extremely well as a one-player game.
In CastleVille, playing with friends is simply another way to have fun. As it should be. That is a refreshing change from The Sims Social, where a player needs just to finish some of the quests.
Source: Examiner
After playing long enough to get hooked on it, it is pretty easy to see why the game has developed a strong and loyal following since its official release on November 14. According to Joe Osborne of , "Zynga's CastleVille has surpassed the likes of FarmVille, The Sims Social and Zynga Poker to become the second most played game daily on Facebook with 8.1 million returning every day. The game is now in the top five for monthly players, with 27.6 million, according to . And it did it in just 22 days."
After the character creation stage, players are given the tasks of building a castle in their new kingdoms and expanding into territory that has been taken over by an evil sorcerer. These long-term goals will gradually be achieved through both quests and routine chores such as harvesting crops and working on a castle wall. Players are also encouraged to create buildings such as the workshop or the kitchen that allow them to do more things in the game.
Fans of will appreciate the wide range of day-to-day tasks players can do while waiting for crops to grow or working on quests. Players can earn extra experience points and items by doing things such as tending flowers, feeding farm animals or fishing from the local pond. Getting curious and clicking on random objects often reveals more things a player can do to kill time, such as clearing out stumps or mining for rocks and minerals.
They will also appreciate the ways that people can interact with friends. CastleVille players can ask friends for items they need or send them a variety of gifts. They can also visit friends' kingdoms and do chores in return for small rewards or completing quest goals. When players are first starting out, it is helpful to visit the kingdom ruled by a friendly non-player character known as The Duke and find things to do in exchange for money and other small bonuses.
Fortunately for people who enjoy action-oriented games, CastleVille incorporates other things in addition to feeding chickens or making hemp rope. From time to time, players will attract the attention of evil beasts and have to defend their kingdoms. Players will eventually be able to explore locked areas on the map that reveal more quests and potentially fun things such as a wishing well and a friendly wizard's house.
CastleVille is free, but Zynga gives players the option of spending real money on things they need such as crowns (which are used to buy items or skip steps in quests) and exploration crystals that allow players to unlock new squares on the map. The temptation can be strong because it takes a lot of time and work to earn some of the more useful items by killing wolves or doing chores.
Being forced to progress more slowly in the game if a player doesn't want to put some crowns on a credit card can be frustrating, but it isn't all bad. Most of the time, doing routine chores is a fun and immersive experience. It is easy to spend hours on things like growing wheat or collecting ingredients for grape juice.
However, sometimes feeding cute cows gets a little old and it would be more fun to take some shortcuts. It is hard to say for certain if the creators at Zynga should be praised for making a game that people are going to want to devote a lot of time and resources to, or if they should be condemned as evil geniuses for making it seem halfway reasonable to spend hard-earned dollars to unlock things or buy more.
Facebook users in the Spokane area should definitely check out CastleVille. It has some of the same appeal as The Sims Social, but with fewer prompts to invite other people to play or share things on the user's Wall. And unlike other social games such as or Empires & Allies, where a player might reach a point where he can't advance beyond a fairly early stage without getting more friends to join him, it works extremely well as a one-player game.
In CastleVille, playing with friends is simply another way to have fun. As it should be. That is a refreshing change from The Sims Social, where a player needs just to finish some of the quests.
Source: Examiner
18.11.11
CityVille Neighbor Strategies to Make Best Out of Social Companionship
CityVille is another successful social game that lets people celebrate their presence online. Adding neighbors to your city not only makes you popular, but also helps you earn rewards and bonuses in a number of ways. While it is an exciting way to become a popular city owner in CityVille, it definitely requires you to learn a good to be successful in your approach. If you are a first time CityVille player, you can have an idea about various such strategies from the brief guide presented below.
Adding More Neighbors
The most important CityVille neighbor strategy is to add more neighbors to your city so that your can advance further in the game. There are plenty of ways in which you can achieve a huge number of neighbors for your city...
Invite people in your friends list to and request them to become your neighbor. You may find many of your friends already playing CityVille, and they may take pleasure in becoming your neighbors.
Fan groups, forums, and other such Facebook pages can be visited to look for active CityVille players who can be invited to become your neighbor.
You must restrain yourself from spamming while looking for more neighbors.
Many advanced strategies to add more neighbors effectively can be learned from the CityVille guides.
These guides contain a number of untold secrets that can make you a popular CityVille player among potential neighbors.
How to Obtain Benefits from Neighborhood?
After you successfully add a number of neighbors to your city, the next important CityVille neighbor strategy is to obtain various advantages due to their presence. For instance, visiting your neighbors is a useful CityVille neighbor strategy to earn rewards and bonuses. Going further, you can obtain additional bonuses by helping your neighbors in various tasks, like harvesting their crops and taking care of their businesses.
At the same time, you will be benefited by the visits of your neighbors to your own city. They can help you in your tasks that will ultimately save you time and energy to perform various activities. You can also keep good relations with your neighbors so that they can be contacted when you need their help or extra energy. Neighbors also send free gifts that can help you in your city development tasks in a number of ways.
Another important CityVille neighbor strategy is to set up a franchise in the cities that belong to your neighbors. This will help you expand your businesses and enhance the business income to keep up the stocks of coins and City Cash. You may also need to return the favor by allowing your neighbors to set up franchises in your city.
There are many additional ways in which your neighbors can enrich your experience of developing a successful city. A detailed description of these ways and strategies can be found at CityVille guides. These guides are prepared by experienced CityVille players who obtain a grip on various strategies to improve their playing style. Spend time reading one of these guides to get surrounded by a helpful neighborhood.
Source: EzineMark
Adding More Neighbors
The most important CityVille neighbor strategy is to add more neighbors to your city so that your can advance further in the game. There are plenty of ways in which you can achieve a huge number of neighbors for your city...
Invite people in your friends list to and request them to become your neighbor. You may find many of your friends already playing CityVille, and they may take pleasure in becoming your neighbors.
Fan groups, forums, and other such Facebook pages can be visited to look for active CityVille players who can be invited to become your neighbor.
You must restrain yourself from spamming while looking for more neighbors.
Many advanced strategies to add more neighbors effectively can be learned from the CityVille guides.
These guides contain a number of untold secrets that can make you a popular CityVille player among potential neighbors.
How to Obtain Benefits from Neighborhood?
After you successfully add a number of neighbors to your city, the next important CityVille neighbor strategy is to obtain various advantages due to their presence. For instance, visiting your neighbors is a useful CityVille neighbor strategy to earn rewards and bonuses. Going further, you can obtain additional bonuses by helping your neighbors in various tasks, like harvesting their crops and taking care of their businesses.
At the same time, you will be benefited by the visits of your neighbors to your own city. They can help you in your tasks that will ultimately save you time and energy to perform various activities. You can also keep good relations with your neighbors so that they can be contacted when you need their help or extra energy. Neighbors also send free gifts that can help you in your city development tasks in a number of ways.
Another important CityVille neighbor strategy is to set up a franchise in the cities that belong to your neighbors. This will help you expand your businesses and enhance the business income to keep up the stocks of coins and City Cash. You may also need to return the favor by allowing your neighbors to set up franchises in your city.
There are many additional ways in which your neighbors can enrich your experience of developing a successful city. A detailed description of these ways and strategies can be found at CityVille guides. These guides are prepared by experienced CityVille players who obtain a grip on various strategies to improve their playing style. Spend time reading one of these guides to get surrounded by a helpful neighborhood.
Source: EzineMark
20.8.11
Farmville Farm Cash - The New Social Currency
I've been using Facebook for quite a while now. Before that was MySpace. I was never really into these social networking sites, but I couldn't escape them and submitted to joining these sites. MySpace was really for the younger demographic. It was a nice tool to email friends, look at photos, and post music and ideas.
Contrarily, the personal pages were overwhelmed by fancy templates, blaring songs that would initiate once you clicked on someone's profile, and convoluted information from one page to the next. No one profile was uniform. They were all tricked out by junky backgrounds and photo collages.
To remedy this, my close friends and I decided to switch over to Facebook for a more simple and mature networking site. All profiles were uniform, and it was so much more appealing. After a while, most people dumped their MySpace accounts and switched to Facebook. Nice. Then came all the applications on Facebook.
The first game application I remember is Mafia Wars. Now it is Farmville. I have buddies who tell me that they can't keep their girlfriends/wives attention because they are always on Farmville. I am sure it is more than just women playing this game. Word is that it is very addicting. I kept seeing Farmville pop up on my Facebook Newsfeed. I kept saying, "This is just another game, it will die out." Oh, how I was so wrong!
Farmville has over 72 million users worldwide. Yeah, I said it. That's not a misprint. 72 million. Keep in mind there are an estimated 304 million people in the United States as of July of 2008. Therefore, there are a lot of Farmville players out there.
Farmville is a simple application. FarmVille lets players build and customize their farms, starting out with a small parcel of land that they till and seed with a wide range of crops including berries, eggplant, wheat, soybeans, pumpkins and artichokes. Players can add pigs, cows and chickens and build barns, chicken coops, windmills and greenhouses.
Neighbors get rewarded for assisting their fellow neighbors. They get points for scaring away pests on a nearby farm, or feeding chickens on another players spread.
So what is the appeal to this phenomenon we call FarmVille? I think there is an element to it that is cute. Players think it is amazing how you can cultivate your own little farm and develop them out as your own. Obviously, people see this as a fun little escape. In the end, the desire for Farmville cash and coins drives them back to harvest their farms. If they neglect their farm and don't come back to harvest them, their crops will die. There is a competitive element going on here. It is ultimately about 'farm' status. I know it sounds hokey. But farm cash is like the new currency in cyberspace.
The appeal is addicting to urbanites as well as actual farmers. Deep down, I think it makes people realize and become aware of where their food comes from. In Farmville, there is never a drought, frost, floods, or diseased plants. It harbors a bit of a 'utopian' sense. I don't know. Who knows what the next phenomenon will be? Who would have thought it would be a game like FarmVille.
Source: eZine
Contrarily, the personal pages were overwhelmed by fancy templates, blaring songs that would initiate once you clicked on someone's profile, and convoluted information from one page to the next. No one profile was uniform. They were all tricked out by junky backgrounds and photo collages.
To remedy this, my close friends and I decided to switch over to Facebook for a more simple and mature networking site. All profiles were uniform, and it was so much more appealing. After a while, most people dumped their MySpace accounts and switched to Facebook. Nice. Then came all the applications on Facebook.
The first game application I remember is Mafia Wars. Now it is Farmville. I have buddies who tell me that they can't keep their girlfriends/wives attention because they are always on Farmville. I am sure it is more than just women playing this game. Word is that it is very addicting. I kept seeing Farmville pop up on my Facebook Newsfeed. I kept saying, "This is just another game, it will die out." Oh, how I was so wrong!
Farmville has over 72 million users worldwide. Yeah, I said it. That's not a misprint. 72 million. Keep in mind there are an estimated 304 million people in the United States as of July of 2008. Therefore, there are a lot of Farmville players out there.
Farmville is a simple application. FarmVille lets players build and customize their farms, starting out with a small parcel of land that they till and seed with a wide range of crops including berries, eggplant, wheat, soybeans, pumpkins and artichokes. Players can add pigs, cows and chickens and build barns, chicken coops, windmills and greenhouses.
Neighbors get rewarded for assisting their fellow neighbors. They get points for scaring away pests on a nearby farm, or feeding chickens on another players spread.
So what is the appeal to this phenomenon we call FarmVille? I think there is an element to it that is cute. Players think it is amazing how you can cultivate your own little farm and develop them out as your own. Obviously, people see this as a fun little escape. In the end, the desire for Farmville cash and coins drives them back to harvest their farms. If they neglect their farm and don't come back to harvest them, their crops will die. There is a competitive element going on here. It is ultimately about 'farm' status. I know it sounds hokey. But farm cash is like the new currency in cyberspace.
The appeal is addicting to urbanites as well as actual farmers. Deep down, I think it makes people realize and become aware of where their food comes from. In Farmville, there is never a drought, frost, floods, or diseased plants. It harbors a bit of a 'utopian' sense. I don't know. Who knows what the next phenomenon will be? Who would have thought it would be a game like FarmVille.
Source: eZine
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)