I feel like I did pretty good for my first month of FarmVille. I'm currently at level 47 and have 1.4 million coins at my disposal. =) Nowadays I've been focusing on building up my XP. I kind of feel once I reach level 70, I'll have "won" and can finally quit. ;o)

Ribbons.... I can pick up a few more along the way, but they aren't a big factor in what I do anymore. I have most of the ribbons already and the few that are left would require a dizzying amount of work to acquire and for what? A silly little ribbon? Just doesn't seem worth it at this point. I'm still harvesting trees and animals and can pick up ribbons from doing so, but I'm not going out of my way to nab them either.

As for XP, I'd say at least half of the XP I've been "earning" is from nothing more than converting coins into XP. At first I was plowing, planting, and deleting soybeans over and over again. With 15 coins to plow and another 15 for planting, the cycle costs 30 coins. With 1 XP for plowing and 2 XP for planting, the cycle nets me 3 XP. So basically, I can convert 10 coins into 1 XP. With the number of coins I have now, I could buy 140,000 XP. (Which is 14 levels!)

The reason I haven't done that is because it's just so darned labor intensive. I earn money faster than I can spend it, so I've recently switched to a slightly more time efficient conversion process, albeit with a worse "exchange rate." Hay bales! =)

A yellow hay bale costs 100 coins and generates 5 XP, or an exchange ratio of 20 coins into 1 XP. That's twice as bad as the soybean conversion, but time-wise, it goes a heck of a lot faster. Soybeans require 4 mouse clicks per cycle (generating 3 XP). One to plow, one to plant, one to delete, and one to confirm the delete. Not to mention any additional clicks necessary to switch from the plow to the seeder to the shovel. (I'd work on a 6x6 grid, so I'd have to make the switch every 36 plots.) Hay bales require 3 mouse clicks per cycle (generating 5 XP). One to place the hay bale, one to delete the hay bale, and one to confirm the delete.

It is possible to sell the hay bale rather than delete it, but the 5 coins it generates isn't worth it in my opinion. First, it generates one extra mouse click per cycle. (One to place the hay bale, once to open the context menu for the hale bale, once to sell the hay bale, then one more time to confirm the sale.) Additionally, the click to sell the hay bale is particularly problematic because the mouse has to be aimed at a very small "target area" which slows me down. The confirmation for deleting or selling the hay bale is annoying, but at least it's a relatively large button that is easy to hit with the mouse cursor and doesn't require such careful aim. So not only does the selling require one extra click, but it's a particularly difficult click. (Relatively speaking, of course.) And for what? An extra 5 coins? No thanks, I'll just delete it instead.

Not only that, but the crop conversion has a relatively difficult click as well--the plowing, which must be aligned just right for me to make maximum use of the area I was working on. I was using the tractor to help reduce this issue (get 4 plots with one click), but that click was particularly slow since it required precision aiming. Hay bales, since it takes up just one tiny little square, it doesn't matter if I "miss" what I was aiming for. The hay bale still gets placed, and I can click again which I'd have to do anyhow. So aiming isn't important when placing hay bales.

Using hay bales instead of crops also requires less clicking to "switch modes." For the crop conversions, I'd have to switch from plowing, planting, and deleting ever 36 squares since I'd work on a 6x6 grid. With hay bales, I work on a grid that would only fit 4 crops--but fits 64 hay bales! The extra 32 plots that frees up is allowed to grow crops to generate more coins. And I now only need to switch "modes" after every 64 hay bales instead of the every 36 crops I was doing before. Less switching!

And the final reason I like the hay bales better.... Because they all fit in such a small area, I find myself having to move my mouse around a lot less when it comes time to deleting them. "Delete, confirm delete, delete, confirm delete...." I make sure my screen is positioned so the hay bales lay immediately under where the confirmation window pops up, and often times I don't even have to move the mouse at all to confirm the delete. It's very quick--much more so than the scrolling to the edge of the monitor to delete a crop, then moving the mouse back to the middle of the page to confirm the delete.

So while hay bales aren't the most economic method of converting coins into XP, it's considerably faster. And since I wasn't able to convert all of my coins into XP using crops anyhow, those extra coins really weren't doing anything for me anyhow. Now they are! =) I still have 1.4 million coins too. Even using hay bales, I can't seem to get that number down very much. It does seem to have stabilized, though. Some days it's up a little, other days it's down a little, depending on what I've been growing.

I've been able to reliably level up about 1 level per day at this point. Days I spend a particularly large amount of time on FarmVille I might level up twice, and other days when I spend almost no time on it I might not level up at all. But I seem to be averaging one level per day at this point, which means I should hit level 70 around February 23rd, give or take. =)

-- Ryan

Ok, I have to ask - why is level 70 the magic number?

TG

Ok, I have to ask - why is level 70 the magic number?

It's the highest level you can reach. After that.... nothing. My quest will be over. =)

-- Ryan

Oh, I didn't realize there was actually a limit to the number of levels.

TG

I didn't realize there was actually a limit to the number of levels.

I heard that early on, there were originally only 50 levels, but they've since increased that to 70. Someday, I suspect they'll increase it again. There's a list of all of the levels (and what you get for each of them) at http://www.farmviller.com/index.php?title=Experience_Levels. If you're curious, it takes 437,000 XP to get to level 70. =)

Sadly, you get absolutely nothing new to plant or buy after level 40. I kind of miss waiting to see what new things I have access to. Now leveling up seems kind of anti-climatic. *shrug*

-- Ryan

Yikes!!!
You need to stop and smell the virtual roses!!!

hence why people start falling off the farming games at the upper levels and let them sit for long periods of time.

You need another hobby Ryan...

There's plenty of other games for Ryan to attempt to master. :)

TG

Hmmm... After reading this - I started to contimplate why I started to play Farmville and all of those other games in the first place. A year ago - the company I work for was going through some serious changes. And those changes were making work stressful and ugly at best... I started playing them to clear my head of the nasty stuff going on not only at work - but in the world as a whole.

I did not decide to master every level so I could dominate a game - but I'm not competetive by nature anyways. I built my own pretty little farms so that I could have something nice to look at at the end of the day.

I do not want to reach level 70 - heck, I'm having a hard time getting level 38 : ) I just like playing because its a private escape into a pretty little place that the world just doesn't seem to be as of lately.

Hope you can conquer Farmville - but what then? Are you going to Cafe World to see if you can become top chef?

I'll get off my bale of hay and go back to monogramming...
mud

Hope you can conquer Farmville - but what then?

Then....? Then, I conquer the world! MUHAHaHahahaha!!!!

Oh, just kidding. =) The main reason I started playing was just because I had read so much about the game and more people were virtually farming than actually farmed in real life, and I was curious what had sucked so many people in. I like to stay on top of what's happening on the Internet as a whole.

Once I finish, I plan to quit. It's fun for awhile, but eventually it gets old and I have better things to do....

In other news, anybody else see this FarmVille commercial? It's hilarious! My favorite part is when it says, "And here's a taste of the action...." Then shows the mouse cursor scrolling over the screen harvesting crops. Hilarious, I tell you! =)

I can appreciate humor like that a lot more now that I've played the game a bit. ;o)

-- Ryan

THat commercial was HILARIOUS!!!!!!! I know..... we FARMVILLE addicts could be construed as lame..... However, I've been also told that letterboxing are lame too.....

MW

My kids said the mom seems very familiar.

In other news, anybody else see this FarmVille commercial? It's hilarious!

I actually saw an honest-to-goodness Billboard along Highway 101 advertising FarmVille! Really, how cost-effective can that be, especially for a "free" game?

I actually saw an honest-to-goodness Billboard along Highway 101 advertising FarmVille! Really, how cost-effective can that be, especially for a "free" game?

Wow--I wish you got a picture that! =) As I recall, the folks who make the game live and work in the Silicone Valley there somewhere. Maybe it was just a way for them to show off their success more than it was intended as a "cost-effective" form of advertising? It just gave them giggles to see it while driving by? =)

-- Ryan

Silicone Valley

I'm picturing something out of Valley of the Dolls... ;-)

BAC

I'm picturing something out of Valley of the Dolls... ;-)

Hmm.... Did I spell silicone wrong? My browser's spell check didn't complain.... I'm almost scared to find out.... =)

-- Ryan

i dont' think there is an e on the end

Did I spell silicone wrong?

Silicone is the stuff they make breast implants out of.

Silicon is the stuff that is used in computer chips.

Slight difference. ;)

TG

Slight difference. ;)

Whew. At least the difference is only slight. *wiping brow*

-- Ryan

Whew. At least the difference is only slight.

Especially if you want to keep abreast of the latest technology.

Especially if you want to keep abreast of the latest technology.

I knew you'd come up with a good one. :D

TG