Harvest Moon Forever: Fantasy Kingdoms Guide on IGN

Friday, July 2, 2010

Fantasy Kingdoms Guide on IGN

A little guide I wrote for Fantasy Kingdoms now is published on IGN, although I created a page for the game as well:

Fantasy Kingdoms Guide on IGN

I still am extremely impressed with Fantasy Kingdoms. Although there are marvelous Buildings and Artifacts that require Kingdoms Cash to purchase and easily might seduce a player into investing real 'coin of the realm' in the game, they make it easy to play the game and to enjoy it without investing a single penny. Furthermore, I have been rewarded again and again for my interest in this game in the brief period in which I have played it. When the game was inaccessible, I received a Chest containing 900 Mana with an apology. I had not contacted any one or complained, incidentally, but the apology and Mana Chest (currency) were generated automatically. Yesterday, an email containing a 'coupon' for an Artifact, the Unicorn Topiary, ordinarily purchased for 2000 Coins, was sent to me. I contrast this generosity and concern with the unsatisfactory responses that I received so far from Farmville Support.

Although I love Fantasy Kingdoms personally because the concept and graphics are developed from a traditional 'fairytale' universe, I must make it clear that this game does not require deep strategy. It is more of a visual delight and a form of creative 'meditation' for me, in that designing the landscape of a Kingdom is sheer joy and dissipates some of the stress of my daily life. If a player is looking for a game that requires strategy, Fantasy Kingdoms would not be the answer. It is a work of art in which the player can participate and shape to his/her liking.

On Friday, I wrote: I am not certain if I will pursue work on a guide for Farmville any further, even though there is some strategy involved in playing the game successfully, as I am not entirely happy with a response I received from Zynga when they failed to deliver an item promised to me.

When I contacted them initially, they simply requested my User ID and the platform on which I was playing the game. When I sent that information to them, however, they then demanded a screenshot of the Carrier Pigeon message.

The Zynga response on Friday asked me to capture a screenshot of last week's Message from Zynga on Farmville telling me that they were going to give me Carrier Pigeons. The Carrier Pigeons never were given to me. Other players have received them. I did not. I am at a loss to know how I possibly could capture a message that appeared on the screen almost a week ago. It seems to me that as they generated the message, they should have a record of the offers they make to players, and it shouldn't be my responsibility to supply the impossible. It is a trivial matter, and I only post the issue here because I have been reviewing Farmville, along with a few other Facebook games, and this response reflects poorly on the company.

On Saturday morning, I received another email from Zynga about the issue. This one was from a different representative who apologised for the fact that I had not received my Carrier Pigeons and announced that they had been sent to my Gift Box. The issue therefore is resolved now. I still am rather disgusted by the endless hoops through which the first representative made me leap, and especially his demand that I perform the impossible, but perhaps he has received a little scolding from his superiors. I certainly have no cause for complaint in the quick response of the second representative and his willingness to solve the problem at once.

I therefore intend to continue to work on the little Farmville Guide at this point in time. Once Grand Bazaar is released, however, I doubt I will have much time for anything else!

2 comments:

Synth said...: I had problems with FarmVille and their support as well.
In my case, I couldn't buy a tractor and the fuel tank didn't show up. When I wrote them all I got in return were automatically generated emails telling me to try and clean my cache etc. Of course nothing worked.
By the way, have you tried checking your spam folder if the pigeon is there? I sometimes get facebook and farmville emails directly there...; July 2, 2010 at 8:58 AM
Freyashawk said...: Ah, Synth, thanks for your comment. Your suggestion with respect to Spam was a good one, but alas, no email appeared there from Zynga or Farmville. I can't believe that they requested a screenshot of a transient offer that appeared LAST WEEK in my Farmville game. Is it even POSSSIBLE for me to obtain a screenshot of something that occurred in the past? I am very disgusted, to be honest. They obviously make a lot of money from their games and to try to make it impossible for a player to obtain a gift that THEY promised is really a little shameful. I have been working on a Farmville Guide. As always, I wouldn't receive any payment for this work, but why should I invest MY time and energy in a game guide for a company that doesn't honour its commitments and treats players shabbily? One reason I always support Natsume is because they go out of their way to try to help players of their games.; July 2, 2010 at 12:56 PM

For all Harvest Moon fans and players

As Freyashawk, I have written about 150 guides for games, most of which have been guides for Harvest Moon games. These are published on IGN. IGN has given me the title of 'Mistress of Harvest Moon' and I strive daily to earn the right to maintain that title. Although there is a link page on IGN that lists all the guides published there, they are not organised by game, but rather given in alphabetical order. I therefore created this page in order to provide links to the guides I have created for each Harvest Moon game. If you access the General Guide for any game, links should be included to all other guides for that game in a section at the end. I will try to add links to ALL guides as time permits, but until I do, you always can refer to my user page at IGN for the complete list.

I wrote the Official Strategy Guide for Tree of Tranquility for BradyGames as well.
Harvest Moon Forever!

How to Use my Guides

I write three different basic types of game guides. I usually write a General Guide for every game, which is fairly comprehensive and deals with all aspects of the game. It may or may not be in the form of a Walkthrough, dealing with game aspects as they occur. My Innocent Life General Guide is an example of a General Guide that is organised as a Walkthrough.

After writing a General Comprehensive Guide, I often write a Calendar Guide giving birthday and festival dates, with additional information that may be helpful, such as favourite gifts for each individual. For all Harvest Moon games, I usually write a number of 'mini-guides', such as Events Guides for each year of gameplay, or Recipe Guides that give all recipes one can make. Fishing, Mining, Shipping or Item Value Guides are other mini-guides that can be very useful when playing Harvest Moon. Character Guides give detailed information about every character in any specific game. My Courtship and Marriage Guide is devoted to all aspects of Courtship and Marriage, including schedules of Heart Events, Rival Heart Events and the likes and dislikes of every Eligible Girl and/or Bachelor.

Although this site is devoted to Harvest Moon, I have included links to game guides for other games. I created a separate link section for Animal Crossing Wild World as well, because I wrote more than one guide for that game.

N.B. All my game guides are published by IGN. This webpage has been created simply to allow players to find links to all my guides more easily.

Copyright Infringement Warning

It is really sad to discover that there are individuals who are willing to steal my guides and to attempt to publish them under their names. Fortunately, there are many players who recognise my guides when they see them anywhere on the internet and who are willing to alert me when some one tries to steal my material. I want to thank all those players for their help in these cases.

Some one stole one of my guides and tried to publish it on Gamefaqs under his/her name. The guide has been removed and the poster has been banned. I now have a contact in the Legal Department at CNet. I spend many months sometimes writing a guide. They are available for the private use of any individual without cost, but they are not available for theft!
If you want permission to include a link to one of my guides on your site, please contact me directly.

Friends of Mineral Town and More Friends of Mineral Town

You will notice that I wrote far more guides for More Friends of Mineral Town than I did for the original 'Friends of Mineral Town'. At some point, I would like to publish more specific Events Guides for Friends of Mineral Town, but players should be aware of the fact that ALL Calendar Events Guides for MFoMT can be used when playing the original FoMT. The Events are the same in most cases in both games. If, therefore, you are playing FoMT and you wish to know the events that can be experienced in the third year of gameplay, refer to the 'Third Year Calendar Events Guide' for 'More Friends of Mineral Town'.