Valentine offerings slim

13 Feb 2012 5 Comments

by Totalthinker in Buildings, Events, Idle Income, Seasonal Items Tags:

Not much news for blog’s return

I’m running behind on the articles I took time off to write, but I thought I should take the time to review the latest developments, or lack of them, in We Rule.

Once Christmas ended, and the incredible outpouring of items from the We Rule shop, ngmoco:) began to slow things down. Only three items have been introduced for Halloween, although they may still release some items on Valentine’s Day or Monday. Quite frankly, I’m relieved.

But I’ve also noticed that they’ve been sloppy and lax lately. They took a couple of days to add the splash screens to announce several items. Their blog and Facebook entries have been noticeably uninformative, especially about event rewards beyond the traditional two items.

Interestingly, they removed the experience point leaders from the leader boards but still have the leader listings for the Thanksgiving event (three events ago) without posting leaders for the two that followed. Okay, I had fallen a hundred places or so in the leaders when they dropped it, and perhaps they were afraid that new players would be scared off seeing leaders with three billion points. 

The landing strip and craft factory that were rewards for the most recent event were the coolest in a long time, maybe ever. I really liked the steam punk crafts as well. Too bad we won’t know who collected the most. ngmoco:) hasn’t updated event leaders since Thanksgiving.

Still, I have to think that’s a motivation. If Zimidar can earn three billion points, so can I. Admittedly he will probably have twelve billion by the time I collect my three, but still. I’ve never had a billion anything (except maybe molecules).

The rewards for events haven’t been that lucrative either. In the past you could count on the last reward for every second event producing the highest yield of any building in your realm. The return offered on the three events since Halloween have been decent, great for players at lower levels, but far less rewarding than shops available for coins at L60 and up.

So I have to wonder if DeNA isn’t growing as weary of We  Rule as some of the players seem to feel (or so it seems by their comments). I’m not sure what happened. Perhaps their ceaseless push to sell mojo finally put off a lot of players and they had to downsize the development, design and marketing teams.

Maybe they just decided to squeeze even more profit by cutting back. 

I am happy with the pace of new item releases, but I would like to think they’re responding to player requests to slow things down, not losing interest themselves.

Idle income bargains

I would like to point readers to two real bargains for generating idle income. The best, the golden temple, is only available to players at L59 or above and it’s very expensive. It’s also hidden next to the milliner’s shop in the build menu (at least in my build menu) and not with the items available around L60.

If you have coins to burn, this is a great way to burn them. The temple returns 430hcp (337 in xp) every 15 hours. You can add up to fifty a realm. Granted the cost is high (1 million coins) but by the time you reach L70, 337 xp hourly for a million coins is a good trade off. (It basically comes down to 750000 xp every two days for every realm with 50 temples).

Cupid’s cottage is another good deal, delivering 130cp every hour. You can get them at L23. Yes, you have to check in hourly to collect the full value, but let’s break down the numbers. One cottage costs 15000c, and delivers 780 points in six hours if you make every collection. Two ruby groves deliver 360 in six hours and cost 16000c.

That cute Cupid’s cottage can be incredibly lucrative if you’re willing to spend more time with the game. You can collect 130cp every hour.

When you’re at L23 you’re starting to get eager to level up because the number of experience points needed to jump starts to grow exponentially. If you want to install a Cupid’s cottage instead of 2 groves, and check in every hour or two, you will make the jump much more quickly. (If you only check in every six hours, the groves are the better deal.)

Seasons Greetings

24 Dec 2011 2 Comments

by Totalthinker in Seasonal Items Tags:

As the snow falls on your realms, may you find peace and also find the gingerbread house, sled shop and other items you missed in the after-Christmas giveaway in the gift cart.

At least, this was what I planned to post and then ngmoco:) released another event for Christmas eve. Many players have been cleaned out of mojo buy all of the mojo only shops and trying desperately for the promised bounty of gifts. (So far I’ve seen a sled shop and a holiday lamp). This may not have been the most well-considered release.

If the event follows the past you will need to collect one each of the teddy bears, one each of the rag doll, wind-up mouse and rocking horse, and one each of the toy soldier, dragon and nutcracker. That will be the first round. In the second round, you will need to capture, three of each teddy bear and two dolls, mice and rocking chairs but only each of the top tier items. The grand prize, the toy museum, should be the highest paying building in your realm and the teddy bear worth half that. There may be an additional prize for collecting ten of each item.

I am extremely disappointed that ngmoco:) decided to double the mojo price for early harvest. Pushing up a teddy bear harvest will now cost 2m and a toy harvest a whopping 4.

I am with my family and we have the entire holiday planned so I will not have time to follow the event as much as I might like too. Honestly, if you have friends or family, you might find your time better spent with them as well. Then, maybe, ngmoco:) may at least offer an after-Christmas half-off mojo sale to lure you back.

Waiting for Santa

19 Dec 2011 8 Comments

by Totalthinker in Contests, Seasonal Items Tags: ,

If you’re like me, you’ve been leaving space in your Christmas realm for all those gifts ngmoco:) announced for the gift cart last Wednesday. You may also be disappointed that it’s been almost a week and you still haven’t found one of those gifts.

In the past, ngmoco:) has spaced out the gifts they announced. The first one might not show up for a couple of days, the next for a couple more. But I have yet to see a single Christmas item. Moontown commented that she actually spent 80 mojo without receiving a single Christmas gift.

Still waiting for

It’s possible that ngmoco:) is waiting for Christmas eve to start releasing gifts, or they may start earlier this week. But I wouldn’t spend a lot of mojo trying to get them. If worse comes to worse, they will start showing up frequently after Christmas and you can stock them in inventory for next year.

In fact, they may start pouring in by the dozen once Christmas has passed.So what can you do with all those extra gifts you have lying around. Since ngmoco:) doesn’t seem to be warming up to WeBay, I recommend that you sell them when you want to install a new item you can’t afford. When I get a chance, I will start a chart of gift sale prices, but standard items that you receive as gifts sell for 10 percent of their purchase price. I wouldn’t empty it your inventory, but if you have a dozen vintage chateaus you can sell them to help buy a Jack Frost’s lair for the design display.

The great wall of Chickmix

One design that could be the cornerstone of a Christmas showcase it the wall in Chickmix’s north realm. The battlements would need to be replaced with holiday items, but I think it looks better than the winter walls ngmoco:) introduced. (Or, with enough ambition, a new one with diamonds would really sparkle on the snow). This wall required no hacking (unlike Guy 0084) so you should be able to figure out how it was done.

Chickmix installed the a great wall of We Rule in the north realm. You should check it out. It took a lot of patience.

I will be in Dallas over Christmas, so I my last chart update will be Wednesday night. I usually use my iPad to update but WordPress often drops entire sections when I update from my iPad. So I have to decide between leaving you a few days behind or risk wiping out the charts until I can get back to Austin. Enjoy your holidays and with a little luck, you might even stumble across a Christmas gift in the gift cart.

Winter’s coming

12 Dec 2011 7 Comments

by Totalthinker in Contests, Seasonal Items Tags:

As winter content keeps pouring in, speculation has begun about a winter design contest to follow halloween’s design spectacular. I’ve checked ngmoco:)’s blog and Facebook site for information and found none, but that doesn’t mean their won’t be one.

Based on the Halloween winners, I should warn players that the ngmoco:) judges like gimmicky design tricks. I have nothing against mazes and halloween jack-o-lantern faces made with glowing jack-o-lanterns, but I do feel there is more to design than patterns. So, regardless of ngmoco:)’s plans, the Grimoire will be featuring it’s own winter design showcase.

Since there are plenty of realms available and plenty of winter decorations coming, this year I will ask for players to fill an entire realm with their winter design. The items don’t have to be exclusively winter related, but you stand a better chance of being featured if you add items we might associate with winter (e.g., St. Basil’s Cathedral would work, but not Mt. Vesuvius). Nor does the theme have to be Christmas. You could do Valhalla, which is definitely associated with winter.

I will be looking for some sense that you thought about the general appearance of the elements. I will be looking for balance and color selection, as well as design techniques (including patterns and repetition). Don’t rush it. Take your time and tinker. Sketch out some ideas on paper. To enter simply send an email with your player id and which realm you used for the contest. Yes, you can do more than one realm.

I have already set up my kingdom for the showcase. Santa and the elves are waiting for me to add make it look as festive as possible. I suggest you start with a focal point (I used the winter walls and frozen lake) and build from there.

Submit your contest information by December 26 (yes, 2011). I will review the entries and publish screenshots of the top three-to-five entries. No, you don’t win anything. That’s why I’m calling this a showcase and not a contest.

Hoping for more return appearances

We’ve already seen the return of some popular winter items from last season. I hope there will be more to come. I loved the peppermint cottage, candy cane forests and ginger bread shop.

Fortunately, I kept mine in inventory but I would really like to see newer players get a chance to install them.Two special items I hope to see are the toy bag with animated Santa and Santa’s sleigh. Santa’s sleigh took up very little room and delivered 100xp every few hours. They were inexpensive by this year’s standards and could be used to create some interesting designs.

The mysterious moving castle

I noticed some buzz in the comments about Guy0084. Somehow he figured out how to move his castle and players want to know how he did it. I don’t have the slightest idea, but it’s certainly cool. Hopefully he’ll post a note to players on the Grimoire to share his secrets. I don’t see any competitive advantage, but I certainly see it’s design possibilities.

How did this happen? Guy0084 managed to relocate his castle to the back corner of his main realm.Hopefully he’ll share with other fans, since the trick offers no competitive advantage that I can see (unlike stacking).

Who knows? Maybe we’ll see a demonstration on YouTube some day.

Will black Friday move to We Rule?

21 Nov 2011 Leave a comment

by Totalthinker in Seasonal Items, Special Items, Vendor Strategies Tags: ,

Based on the sheer amount of shops dumped onto the We Rule Market in the last ten days, I fear for the prospect of a We Rule Black Friday.

With luck we’ll have a Thanksgiving event poaching the king’s royal woods. We could capture turkeys, ducks and rabbits, who are easy to catch. The rare creature challenge would be to hunt wild boar and deer and the delicious but useful goose that lays golden eggs.

Maybe we could even keep one of each to wander around our realms between now and Christmas.

The last ten days have made me feel we are more likely to get a feast of conspicuous We Rule consumption. More shops with higher returns, making us desperate to spend mojo for those grand farms and dragonslayer’s dens we could otherwise not afford.

In the past it’s taken about three months to replace the top earning shop with a new one. It was a matter of weeks before the necromancer’s lair replaced the thunderbird, and the dragonslayer’s den arrived to top the necromancer four days later.

The dragonslayers are eating the thunderbirds. For the first time since I can remember, ngmoco:) has replaced the top earning shop, not just in a matter of weeks, but over a single weekend. I hope you didn’t install more than a couple of the necromancer’s lairs over the weekend because they cost $3 and fell into second place with the next new release.

Here’s a quick run down of shops in the last ten days:

  • Adventurer’s tavern, L22

  • Axesmith, L44

  • Paladin Citadel (gift)

  • Magic wand shop, L32

  • Necromancer’s lair, L55 (top earner)

  • Dark Knight haven, L50 (outperforming the previous L50 leader, the Black Dragon)

  • Dragonslayer’s den, L68 (new top earner)

  • Fall trees, L11 (decoration)

  • Corn Maze, L18 (super high idle income producer)

  • Pie Shop, L42

  • Turkey Pen, L24

  • Cider Mill, L34

  • Grand Farm House, L62 (third highest performing shop)

That’s 13 different items in a ten day period (15 if you count the three different fall tree varieties).

If you add the seven Spanish items in the two prior releases, we’re talking 20 new items in two weeks. Can you say, “conspicuous consumption?” The only other competing developer I know who can come close to that pace is Zynga, who is ahead of ngmoco:) in gross profits.

Trade Nation usually introduces about six items a month, although many of those items require extraordinary gem expenditures. Would you pay 750m for a poodle?

I just want to remind readers that you don’t have to buy something just because ngmoco:) releases it. Buy shops only when they improve the return of the shops at your level. You may think you need that turkey pen for Thanksgiving, but by the beginning of December you will have forgotten all about it.

I save my coins to invest in the highest producing shops available at my level (which will usually be the highest producing shop for the next several levels, at least for a few weeks). If you’re below L20, look to invest in two or three. From L20 to L30, invest in four to six. Above L30 try to install as many as ten (or until you find no one’s ordering).

You don’t have to do this at once. Add them as you have money. Then invest in decorative items like rivers, trees and roads to spruce things up until you can afford to add shops just to decorate.

Here’s my Black Friday request to ngmoco:): Fifty percent off mojo and fifty percent off every shop available. You’ll still make a bundle and your fans will feel a little more appreciated.

Spooks and ghosts and goblins. Oh, my!

24 Oct 2011 2 Comments

by Totalthinker in Contests, Design, Seasonal Items Tags:

The Halloween design contest is on. So far as I can tell from the ngmoco:) blog site all you need to do is design one realm with Halloween and other spooky items from your inventory.
The deadline is Nov. 1 at 1o am PST, so get to work.

ngmoco:) has already returned last year’s Halloween items to the store in addition to some cool new ones. The candy cottage is supposed to come with a witch, but I haven’t seen her yet. If you haven’t either, don’t panic because it took a while for the ghost girl from the haunted house to show up last year.

The Haunted Hollow comes with two characters, the headless horseman and his head. For fans who remember Calvin and Hobbes, the head looks like it might be Calvin under his ghost robe running around looking for someone to trick.

The headless horseman and head come with the haunted hollow. It’s a treat to get two characters with the same building.

If you like anything, get it now because it will disappear soon after Halloween ends to make way for the Christmas/Hanukah, and, hopefully, maybe even a couple of Thanksgiving items like a Turkey pen. Last year I was hoping for a burning yule log but we didn’t get one. Let’s hope we’ll see one this year to burn in front of the Green Knight’s chair.

There is no reason not to start laying some items out to get a sense of your theme. You might even want to sketch a few ideas first so you don’t spend hours redesigning. And I certainly hope this doesn’t preempt the Grimoire’s second annual holiday contest coming up this winter.

I don’t know if there will be a Halloween design leaderboard, but ngmoco:) promises to send 30 mojo to players who enter. Don’t forget your basilisks and giant spiders. Maybe add some goblin fences.

There’s nothing wrong with blocking out your Halloween design now so you can tweak it during next week’s event. Start placing items for a general layout and leave room for a couple of items because there’s a good chance we will be catching spooks and will want to add the event rewards. You can fill in the trees and tiny details later.

New event coming?

The gift cart disappears on Tuesday. That’s usually a sign that a new event is coming. Since it’s Halloween, there’s a good chance we could be catching ghosts and goblins for some spooky cool items.

Zimidar suggested that you refresh your friends list during the event to make sure you send captured creatures to active players:

Best way to use this list of friends for Events is to refresh Social Map. On the iPad click twice and list will be refreshed. For the iPhone/iPod, to refresh social map is a two step process. First click Social Map and then go to Plus+ menu and close out of Plus+ (keep in mind, you are not closing out of WR app).

This refresh process to share does work for Events. The friends that are not active anymore will appear but after you have shared with active friends that appear on the Social Map. Best to delete inactive friends and add them back later if needed.

Oops

Janet Webster wrote to say her initials are JEW, hence the unfortunate choice of name “jewdog.”

Since we know that ngmoco:) doesn’t allow players to change plus+ IDs she will continue to use the name, but now we can congratulate a real person, Janet E. Webster, for winning the Merry Men event.

There’s only one message. Read it.

18 Jul 2011 8 Comments

by Totalthinker in Gone Fishing, Seasonal Items Tags:

And if visitors don’t, don’t cry for them

I remember when I was teaching at ACC we closed the visual design labs to hold teacher workshops. We announced the labs would be closed in classes, posted signs that the lab would be closed a week before on all the building’s outer doors, in the lab hall way, in every classroom, and on both lab doors. Big signs too. They were hard too miss.

Students still interrupted the workshops wanting to know why they couldn’t use the damn labs, and were pissed that we hadn’t warned them.

I don’t think people are dumb, but I do think there are a lot of dumb people.

Ellylons525 is hardly the first player to notice that visitors continue to place orders even when the Gone Fishing sign is posted (I made that comment recently). She shut a kingdom down and had to move everything into inventory because people kept ordering even though she had posted the sign.

I did that with We City and We Farm. I didn’t inventory Adventure Bay because, well, you can’t yet (at least not since I last looked a month or two ago,)

ngmoco:) could actually set up a database that you could notify when you’re on vacation. It could post a dialogue saying “This player has (gone fishing)(is on vacation)(is no longer taking your orders.”) It would be nice, but they would probably charge mojo to do so.

I finally came to the conclusion that if players place orders even when your fields are empty and “Gone Fishing” signs are posted in every realm, don’t cry for them. Let their orders spoil. Half will go back and realize they screwed up.

The other half will think it’s your fault and stop ordering altogether. This is a shame if you’re trying to build a customer base, but, believe me, others will show up.

The real irritation is the push notifications that keep popping up, and the solution to that is easy. Go into the iPad or iPhone settings, find “Notifications” and turn them off for We Rule.

Indian items

This week’s theme is Indian items for a limited time only. This is also an attempt to get less experienced players who aren’t floating in cash to spend mojo. Don’t fall for it. By the time you have decent cash reserves, the Indian items might be gone, but something equally cool will be available.

Yet another floater from the ngmoco:) design team. She should at least sing half the duet from Lakme, wouldn’t you think?

Plus, ngmoco:) recycles discontinued items as gifts, or special sales. So if you miss the Indian temple this week, you’ll probably see it again. I suspect that every Halloween and Christmas item from last year will return.

We will also see brand new Halloween and Christmas items because ngmoco:) doesn’t want those of us who have the old ones in inventory to recycle old items back into our realms.

The wedding lottery arrives

02 May 2011 21 Comments

by Totalthinker in Bugs and Crashes, Mojo, Seasonal Items, Upgrades and Enhancements Tags:

The royal wedding received far more attention than I would have expected this week. A bridal boutique, Buckingham Palace, two carriages, two tower bridges, a floral arrangement, black jewelry shops and a dowry quest.

ngmoco:) is being more generous with the royal items than the gold and ruby items. So if you really want to blow mojo for a bridge or carriage, you stand a good shot of getting them on your first or second try. At least while they’re available, which may not be much longer.

Note that I said “chance.” We’ll discuss this more later.

Jesus only got bunnies last week, and they aren’t really Easter symbols but spring equinox symbols (you know, weird pagan ritual territory commercially transformed into cute children’s fluffy toys) . I’m sure Christians will be offended. I sure am. But even people who think he’s mythical should be perturbed that the bride of the son of a mythical ruler (I mean she’s Queen, but she doesn’t rule anything) gets more attention than the son of God (even if he’s mythical).

And what’s this Duke and Duchess of Cambridge nonsense? Surely this isn’t the Duke of the fine academic institution Cambridge? I mean William and Kate make a pretty couple, but scholars? No way. Surely they don’t mean the American Cambridge which also houses two fine institutions of learning. How about the Duke and Duchess of Fashion Icons, or Duke and Duchess of Paparazzi? Wouldn’t that be more appropriate?

I’m not sold on the royal black items either. Since when is black the color of royalty? Let’s be honest, these items are black because Britain is still covered with coal dust from the Industrial age. What do people think the London Fog really is? Coal soot and sulphur and other noxious particles from smokestacks. So the black buildings may not say royalty but they do say England.

Buckingham Palace was supposed to come with a guard, at least that’s what this weekend’s splash screen seemed to imply, but I have yet to see him. The only explanation I can think of is that the guard was originally modeled after a certain eighteen-year-old guard who ended up being fired this week for posting on Facebook that Kate was a whore and a cow because she didn’t wave at him personally.

Out of deference to the royal couple, ngmoco:) or DeNA may have decided to fire his character as well. All of which leads me to believe that the royal couple (we don’t capitalize royalty in America) received such deference either because British players buy more mojo than the rest of us, or that someone in the royal family plays and personally buys more mojo than the rest of us.

So, ngmoco:), on the next Christian holiday, say Veteran’s Day or the Fourth of July, let’s give credit where credit is due. Let’s have some American flags with crosses instead of stars like the founding fathers intended. And maybe a fireworks stand because nothing celebrates Jesus like fireworks, even if we shoot them off a week too late. And on Christmas, I want a We Rule nativity with a quest for each of the three kings.

Lottery Luck

My friend Ziessel wrote me in Trade Nations that he only spent eight mojo to boost gifts and he got a Black Dragon even though he’s only L34. He wanted to know if he did something wrong.

Readers—especially readers who spent hundreds of mojo and only got a handful of golden stuff—don’t be mad at Zeissel. The gift wagon is a lottery, aka a crap shoot. Some people do well, others don’t. Now it’s possible that ngmoco:) secretly tracks the amount of mojo spent and boosts the number of cool gifts with the amount of mojo you spend.

The question is, which would you prefer? Spending 50m on the chance of a gold tavern or a guaranteed black dragon?

Bug fixes(?)

ngmoco:) also released a new upgrade aimed at making We Rule more stable. And, in my experience, it is. It now only crashes once or twice when I harvest and not four or fives times like it used to. It does however, crash more often when I launch.

On balance, I’m happy with the improvements and I hope this bodes well for more to come. I suspect most long-term players will be too. New players, on the other hand, might wonder why a game this long in release is still so buggy. But that’s because they have nothing to compare it too.

So a genuine thanks to ngmoco:) for improved stability along with a request that it doesn’t stop.

Easter egg hunt

25 Apr 2011 10 Comments

by Totalthinker in Groves, Seasonal Items Tags: , , ,

Bunnies, bunnies everywhere. Not at first, mind you, each realm starts with two, but before long there is a bunny infestation.

The bunnies are gone by now, but they were ngmoco:)’s nod to Easter. Not the religious, Jesus rising from the dead Easter that I plugged in my new blog Righteous Indigestion yesterday, but the spring solstice Easter with bunnies and bunny eggs, peeps and candy, that probably sits more comfortably with ngmoco:)’s Japanese parent company DeNA.

The bunnies were impossible to capture mid jump even when they multiplied like crazy. But when they did jump, their ears wiggled like helicopter blades.

I’d originally intended to post a special blog yesterday because a source had written me that ngmoco:) would include a special Easter egg in the game just for Easter weekend. I have been waiting the entire month of April so I could spring the surprise.

According to my source, if I stacked to black dragons together and dragged them on top of the black castle while simultaneously planting six grapes, six garlics and leaving the other farms empty, with the exception of one magic farm which would need to be planted with strawberries, then the giant golden dragon would tap dance on top of the dark castle, my name would appear at the top of the experience points leaderboard for fifteen minutes (to make sure I had time to take a screen shot even if the game crashed six or seven times, which it did) and I would win a million xp.

I tried this six or seven time without success. I realized, at this point, that I had exchanged my black castle for the new lopsided one. So I pulled up the original email to send a reply asking if the castle made a difference and that’s when I noticed the sending date.

It seems while I’d been congratulating myself for my success with my own April Fools prank, He Rules, I allowed someone to punk me.

So there was no special Easter edition of the Grimoire, but there were dozens of bunnies in my realms.

And new wisdom groves.

Wisdom groves

I’m not sure who thought these up. At first I thought it was stupid to have trees growing books, and then I realized they might as well grow books as well as rubies, diamonds and sapphires. But they will probably look pretty surrounding a druid’s library.

They deliver 540xp every six hours (or about 90 per hour) which is a decent return, but almost no coins to speak of. And since they cost 160000c you will never earn your money back.

The wisdom groves look strange even when surrounding a library. But they may have been created to remind of an age, before the Kindle and iBooks, when people read from paper. Now that I think of it, however, real medieval manuscripts, even when bound, were often much larger than this and they didn’t grow on trees.

They may also be ngmoco:)’s subtle response to players asking them to stop requiring mojo for high-yield groves. These groves are so expensive that few L31 players will be able to afford them (or L40 players either).

Are they worth investing in? I swing back and forth. They’re very easy to stack and harvest, but ten will set you back a huge chunk of change. Personally, I think of these as a luxury investment for players who generate so much cash they can afford to piss it away.

On the other hand, I ran the numbers. If you fill a realm with wisdom groves (192) and faithfully harvest every six hours you will earn 400000xp a day. That can push you up the leader board quickly. But remember, you get almost no coins back, so make sure you have enough income generating properties to make sure you can quickly recharge your account after blowing several million on ten or twenty of these.

Reviewing investment strategies for the new year.

03 Jan 2011 7 Comments

by Totalthinker in Design, Groves, Seasonal Items, Strategy Tags:

If I have one New Year’s resolution this year, it’s stop playing every online game. There’s just too damn many of them, and—as many of you know—they hook you with a formula that you already love or you wouldn’t have downloaded the free trial.

I’ve gone from a half hour every few hours to being sucked into playing hours at a time. I find it really tough because I review these games for iPad Envy. I have to give them enough playtime to make an honest evaluation and then I discover I’ve invested all this time getting my island, city, restaurant, farm, smurf hideaway, cat rooms or fish tanks set up and, damned if I don’t want to hold onto the little fiefdom I’ve built online again.

But I have to. Sorry Mi Mi, Buster and Velvet, my touch pet kitties. But Teddy Bear and Jenny Manytoes and Coco Puff, my real cats, deserve my attention and nothing hurts Teddy Bear’s feelings more than being told he can’t sit on my shoulder and purr because it interferes with harvesting coins from couches.

We Farm will probably be the next to go. I mean, honestly, aliens, polar bears, llamas and NASCAR? Farmville? It’s definitely on the chopping block. After all, who really wants their names posted all over Facebook for making level 12 in Farmville. The Smurfs? Already gone. They were cute, but how many cherry cakes can you bake before you run out of interest?

Adventure Bay looked really interesting, but I made it to Level 30 in two weeks (without blowing a lot of money on spice) and I’m not sure I want to wait around stacking jungles for a couple of months until they add another five levels and a new island. The game has a lot to make it really attractive and it it’s at my top of the list of new iOS social networking games. You can order, help players sail on expeditions as well as sail on your own, and you can also hunt for treasure.

The point of the game is to have fun.

That’s the point of all these games.

We Rule is still fun for me, but I notice a lot of the players I used to trade with have abandoned their kingdoms. So it’s luster seems to wane for some. The good news is, this means you can move up the leader boards as they fall off.

But this is my message for the New Year. Play it while it’s fun, and when it stops being fun, (or your spouse checks you into social game spenders anonymous) find something more fun.

Honestly, however, We Rule remains the standard for iOS social networking games.

If you read this blog because you actually like the writing, I will be posting somewhere even after you move on.

Quick Thoughts

Last seasonal decoration tour

If you’re still looking for a few seasonal decorations to enjoy, one reader suggested zenxacred’s east realm, and I finally got tired of working decorations around the layout in my west realm and redid just about everything.

Zenxacred went for the kingdom of darkness encroaching on Christmas approach. I didn’t see this before the Christmas posting, so I’m including it now. Thanks to reader Superknight98 for the tip.

Click image to see full size
After postponing the inevitable, I finally gave in and completely redid my west realm to reflect the season. Notice the stacked sleighs toward the bottom of the window. It didn’t dawn on me that I should do this until the night before ngmoco:) removed them from the game.

Click image to see full size

While I was redesigning I also noticed a new character, which brings me to my next quick topic.

ID alert

We have another new character I can’t identify. Since he’s holding the block of ice in his hand, I suspect he’s the ice sculptor. But the original release illustration showed the house without a character to accompany it. So I could be wrong.

Who is this guy? He just showed up in my east realm the other night. I’ve never seen him before. Any thoughts?

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New content not downloading

Has anyone experienced a message that you need to relaunch the app so new content can download only to have the same old content download? This happened to me today for the second time in a month and it got me to thinking.

Recently a reader asked me to evaluate the sleighs in the comments and I didn’t know what he was talking about. Two days later, sleighs showed up in my content.

Is it possible that some players get items before others. Or is there a problem with iOS4 that blocks new content from downloading right away. I know this seems wierd, but if anybody actually got new content today, please let me know.

Investment Bets

Players continue to wonder what the best investment strategies are: groves, buildings or (the now defunct) sleighs. Should we pay real cash for buildings? Shouldn’t we consider the investment costs when making purchases?

The answers will always depend on the player and what you hope to accomplish from the game. But let me sum up some of the thoughts I’ve posted over the last few months:

  • It’s better to invest on items that will return on a regular basis—especially both coins and experience. Wait until you have a lot of spare cash before blowing it on a lot of decorations with a one time experience return.
  • Don’t worry about the up-front investment cost. The items with the better returns will pay for themselves over time. The buildings with the best return for you are the ones with the best returns for your customers. The more you buy, the more they will come to shop (provided you build your network).
  • The more you spend the more you make, provided you spend wisely. So don’t be afraid to buy.

I have changed my mind about total points. I think they’re as important as hourly return. But I try to balance both. For instance, the 650 points for the Falconry is still a high performer compared to others, but since it takes 72 hours to earn them I still think players are better off placing an order with something that pays off fewer points far more quickly.

On the other hand, total points earned is far more important for items that return in less than a day. Most players will accept and turn around overnight orders that process in the same day, but no quicker.

I still think groves are the best of the regular return investments, especially the ruby groves. Poseidon’s Founts also have a good return, but they take longer to earn the money to invest (90K verses 10K). Until you have built up a large fortune, the groves will get you where you want to go faster for less money.

This doesn’t go against my argument about ignoring the cost of buildings. Players don’t shop at groves, they cash in every six hours. I wouldn’t spend 350000 coins for a building that only returns 20c and 15xp an hour, but an expensive building that pays off 2000 points to players in a couple of days will bring customers back to your kingdom, especially if you have several of them.

I missed the boat on the sleighs because of the Christmas holidays and my thoughts were elsewhere. For most of the season I thought they were cute but for 7500 for only 100xp return I felt they were pricey. Then on the last night of the season it dawned on me that since I had lots of coins to spend (and more groves than I could make room for already), they made sense for a player in my position. They also take up almost no space, can be stacked side-by-side without being difficult to tap for harvest.

Thank goodness, they stop coming with reindeer after the third one. Other wise I would have a reindeer infestation.

The sleighs may be gone for now, but they will be back next year and something similar will probably show up in the meantime.

I consider these a luxury investment. If you have stacked your kingdom full of rubies and you have a couple million coins to invest, founts will pay off more in the long run as will the next version of the sleigh they release. But players below L40 usually need cash, and rubies still provide the best return for the investment dollar.

Should you buy buildings?

I would say, yes for the viking. Maybe for the Wyvern’s Forge. Probably not for the castles unless you want to decorate with them (and players who have been to my kingdom know I do).

I know they’re costly. Three dollars for the wyvern’s forge is a lot, but unless you buy mojo in the 2000m cask, three dollars is still cheaper than the cash equivalent of the 50 mojo they would have charged otherwise. And the fewer mojo you buy at a time, the more expensive the cash cost will be.

And remember, you can shuttle them between realms. If you need to remove the other shops to make room for something new, you have to lose them for good.

But let’s return to the Wyvern’s forge. It offers the second highest hourly payout and the fourth highest total payout. If I were a player at L26 who couldn’t order the prestigious chimera, red dragon or chateau, I would have to consider making the investment. If, on the other hand, I were an L40 player with tremendous coin reserves but not a lot in my real bank account, I would go with the big ticket items that require coins.

Personally, I wished they would give players the choice of paying with cash or coins. Personally, I wish they would allow us to move everything back into inventory the way other games do.

Most of all I wish those forges weren’t so butt ugly. They remind me of the trailer house parked next to the gorgeous mansions of Olympus.

Contact me at Email iPad Envy, or
Email The Hidden Grimoire.

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