The News is…

Millions of people around the world are fanatical, passionate and dedicated farmers – online, that is. These are the folks who spend hours each week (or day!) indulging in the fascinating game of Farmville where everyone begins with a small piece of land and the ability to grow crops. The game’s winners can earn themselves a farming empire with huge homes. But to accomplish all this requires a good deal of money, just like in the real world. So we must begin by planting crops … but which ones? There are so many choices.

If you want to make money as fast as you can, then know that peas are a great crop to plant because of their high financial returns. Your costs are 190 coins to plant your veggies, plus there is a harvesting cost of 15 coins. The good news is that you will receive a luscious 381 coins for selling the little green babies, yielding 176 coins in daily profit.

There are two other crop considerations in Farmville. The first is that some plants will “wilt” in a very few hours. This means that if you’re not on your computer for several hours your crops will die and all the money you’ve invested in them will be lost. So if you’re going to bed for around eight hours then you’ll want to plant something that won’t wilt while you’re asleep.

A third complication in crop choice is that certain wonderful crops aren’t available at lower levels because they are rewards and advantages to climbing up the game ladder. The good news is that’s it’s not too hard to reach Level 5 and at that time you can choose the plant pumpkins. This is a great crop if you’re going to be away from your computer for a time because they aren’t harvested for eight hours and then it takes another eight hours for them to wilt or die of neglect. Sixteen hours is a very long time to be away in this farming community. Pumpkins have a total cost of 30 coins but they bring in 68 coins. Not as good as peas for pumpkins can handle neglect much better than peas.

At the lower levels, your options are very limited and it’s wise to save your money so that you can climb into the higher levels with more privileges. At Level1 of the game, you can plant Sweet Yams (matures in 6 hours), White Corn (6 hours) and Sweet Corn (6 hours) which all offer a profit of 100 coins when harvested. There is a lot of strategy when successfully playing Farmville because another choice for Level1 is Strawberries (4 hours) which pays only 10 pitiful coins. You won’t get to the top levels quickly with payments like that!

When you are into the upper levels of the game, where the best Farmville players hang out, you will find opportunities to swiftly accumulate points. At Level50 you can plant Lemon Balm which matures in only six hours and pays 45 coins. Keep in mind that there are approximately 24 hours in a virtual farming day, which means you can plant that crop four times each day for a total of 180 coins. But if you won’t be on your computer every six hours or so, consider Cabbage which pays 233 coins – but doesn’t mature for two full days. Obviously, what you plant depends upon how intense and serious you are about the game.

Quite simply, crops are the key to success – or failure. It’s important to understand crops and the best way to do this is to make your own chart of the crops and keep notes over time so that you get better at playing. Your chart should include: 1) the name of the crop 2) the cost to plant (price of the seeds + the cost to plough) 3) the time until the crop is ready to harvest 4) income (harvest price – cost to plant) and 5) income per hour. An example would be: 1) Super Pumpkins 2) 15 + 30 = 45 3) four hours 4) 55 coins 5) 13.75 per hour.

If you’re bewildered and just don’t know what to plant on your Farmville property, choose berries, berries and more berries. If, that is, you’re a serious player. You can grow many crops each day and your coins will grow rapidly. However, if you’re going to be gone for many hours, your berries will rot and your entire farm will be devastated. Buying seed and planting a crop – only to have it “wilt’ in the ground – will destroy your chances of success in a reasonable time. You will be forced to start over if this happens too often so pay attention to this critical detail.

The most important technique for Farmville mastery is recognizing which Farmville crops to plant – and when.

Farmville collectables are another dimension in this amazingly popular virtual world that is shared by millions, one which expands the richness and multiplicity of the virtual world of this incredibly popular game. Many gamers spend huge amounts of time and money in pursuit of the #1 goal of collectors: to own a complete set of whatever you’re collecting. An example is buttons: there’s a button made of abalone, one that is checkered like a racing car and one made of brass. If you owned these three, you might be avidly seeking the rest of the set. There are several reasons for becoming a collector:

Reason #1: just as in the physical world, humans love to collect objects that they love. People collect baseball cards, photographs, postcards and books. Why? Each collector has different reasons and the fact that we might not be interested means nothing to an avid collector. Farmville is no different.

Reason #2: There is definitely an element of chance in the items you can acquire, so everybody will not have complete sets. There is a certain amount of fame involved in owning either a complete set or a large number of collectables and most people love the attention that comes with success.

3. Many people simply love to collect – even in a virtual world – and for them the collections are reward enough. However, collecting can also be a deliberate game strategy because there are substantial rewards for a complete set. These include 5,000 game coins to spend any way you please, five free tanks of gas to run your seeder, harvester or tractor and 250XP (Experience Points). Of course, you might spend your coin on various collections – and never complete any of them. So it’s both a strategy and a gamble.

Every gamer has to make choices in this virtual farming community – and every other game, of course. Collecting costs coin and can be a distraction if you’re determined to be a top player as soon as you can.

Popups Are A Rich Source of Collectables: When you’re online playing Farmville, you will randomly receive popups of various kinds. The are a rich source of collectables – but there is no control over what you receive. If some wonderful goodie appears on your screen, just when you least expect it, act quickly! They often disappear in only seconds.

No Work = No Collectables: There are constant chores on any farm – even a virtual one. You can earn collectables by being a hard worker. You earn the right to certain collectables by normal farm tasks of tilling the soil and planting seeds.

Friends & Neighbors Are Generous: Generosity pays off. When you give gifts, you can expect to receive in return. You might give your Neighbor something he desperately wants – and two days later he gifts you with exactly what you need to finish a collection. It’s not hard to acquire friends and the easiest way to meet others who want to help you is to pay attention to the game feeds. You are 100% certain to meet other players who want to be friends.

Exactly like the Real World, many collectables will be easy to acquire while a handful are particularly hard to find. The game’s inventors classified all objects as Rare, Uncommon and Common. If you are a bug collector, a ladybug will be easy to acquire but a centipede is exceedingly Rare.

What Collectables Can I Acquire? There are sets to collect like the “Country Kitsch Collection” which contains 3 Common items, 2 Uncommon and a Rare one. The Common items are needlepoint, a spigot and a pocket watch. To finish the collection you need the Uncommon objects which are a salt shaker and a thimble, plus a cow bell, which is the Rare goodie. These categories seem a bit strange because in the Real World a thimble is a very common and easy-to-acquire object. But in this virtual gaming community, a thimble will be harder to find than a pocket watch so it is availability that determines a designation.

Should I Become A Farmville Collector? the method used to assign collectables is random and haphazard. To illustrate: you may find that you have a number of Rare collectables – and no Common ones. Or your close friend possesses considerably more collectables than you, even though you have an equivalent amount of Neighbors. Just like the physical world, there’s an element of chance and only you know if you’re comfortable playing the collectables game.

If you want to be a Farmville celeb, then a savvy step could be to check out our free Farmville guide.

Pet Society is of the most popular of Facebook’s many online computer games. This animal-loving virtual world is played online and is adored by multiple millions of people. And there are ways to legally ‘cheat’ in this enormously popular game and we will discuss two of them.

Your first step is to create your own pet, your avatar, who will represent you in the Pet Society world. There are a myriad of choices which will result in some wild looking pets (have you ever seen pink or purple animals?) It’s important to be thoughtful about your creation because you will be taking care of your little darling and it’s important that you like your critter. If you don’t, you’ll be more likely to quit the game.

Once you have your pet, don’t even think about retreating to your home and living a life of isolation. To ‘win’ in Pet Society you will need to accumulate points and money and you can’t do that without interacting with other pets and their owners. This IS a social interaction game after all and there are many rewards for being friendly.

There are a lot of places to go in Pet Society. For instance, if you love tools and ‘toys’, drop in at the Gadget shop. If you love sporting events hang out at the Stadium and if your hair is a bit shaggy, don’t forget the Beauty Salon. Your precious pet is, naturally, welcome everywhere even in places where animals aren’t normally allowed.

Every game must offer rewards and privileges to keep their players interested and Pet Society is no exception. You can move up the “levels’ just as you can move up grades in school. At the top of the 47 levels of the game is the exalted Ruby Super Pet which is what all serious players aspire to be. The catch: reaching this level requires a horrifying 420,000 points and, obviously, it isn’t easy to acquire that many. So if you want to be a game rock star you must focus on acquiring points, points and more points.

Like any activity or game, there are tips and tricks to winning and these are learned in only two ways: personal experience or learning from others who have gone before and are willing to share what they’ve learned. There are powerful cheats that are totally legal and will help anybody be a winner in this game.

#1: The coveted currency in Pet Society is ‘Paw Prints’ and you can grab large number of these in the Mystery Shop. Once you and your pet arrive, purchase some Effect Away potions. Take these home and have your pet drink them because you will receive 17 Paw Prints for every potion (s)he drinks. And don’t worry about your pet’s health because these potions are harmless so allow him to drink as many as you can afford. It’s a shortcut to lots of Pet Society money.

You can always earn extra money by cleaning dirty pets. It may not sound inviting but it’s easy and lucrative. So take your pet and go wandering around the shops and public buildings, searching for dirty, yucky pets who could use a bath. They’re easy to spot because they’re surrounded by flies! There is a Soap icon on your screen so click it and clean off the poor fly-tortured pets. Then, repeat by clicking on your Refresh button – and the pets will be filthy again. You can repeat your cleaning and make even more money. Keep this up until you’re tired of cleaning pets.

These methods will allow you to rack up Paw Print points and you can use them to buy all kinds of goodies. There are multiple stores and you can buy luxuries from the Luxury store or wallpaper, expensive beds and carpet from the Furniture store. Items in all the stores are changed weekly so you won’t soon run out of treasures to buy on your way to the exalted Ruby realms.

If you want to be a raving success in Pet Society, you need a whole lot of Pet Society money as soon as you can acquire it.