CityVille Franchise update patches issue with deleting HQ

Franchise Deleting Confirmation
You can lift your fingers from that big red button now, mayors. Zynga introduced a small update to CityVille yesterday that, when opting to delete a Franchise Headquarters, causes a pop up confirmation message to appear. The message, pictured above, asks players to confirm whether they would like the HQ to be sent to their inventory, which is somewhat old news.

Before this change, all deleting a Franchise HQ did was send it to your inventory. This change, well, informs you of that, giving you a chance to stop it. This must have been a pretty major issue to warrant what appears to be a reactive update. This change comes after several recent tweaks to the game's interface, optimizing several aspects of gameplay that before took several actions to perform. Considering the game is little more than a month old, we doubt this marks the end of game fixes and changes.

CityVille Factories coming soon, things are looking a lot like Social City

Factories!
C'mon, you were thinking it too. While no other details have been announced, Zynga revealed in a forum post recently that CityVille will soon be able to support Factories. But like we said, as to what they'll do we have diddly squat. Come to think of it, doesn't Social City by Playdom have a similar feature? Why yes--it has the exact same thing.

As similar as the two games are starting to look (a total coincidence, I'm sure), it's doubtful that Factories will be the same in CityVille. Zynga already has Businesses to make mayors their coins and Franchises to extend those Businesses. However, supplying Businesses one by one can be a total pain. This is purely speculation, but Factories could be a way to supply all of our Businesses either simultaneously or automatically. Regardless, it looks like we'll see shortly.

Lunchtime Poll: Are old CityVille buildings worth keeping?

Landmarks
CityVille is a game that constantly evolves. The items of yesterday just aren't as impressive as those released today, but what happens to those items that get left behind? CityVille forum contributor Tara424 has created a four-page thread discussing what players do with their old and busted buildings. Players appear split down the middle between keeping the buildings for old time's sake and moving on to bigger and better things. So, we're bringing this hot topic discussion to you:

Old CityVille Buildings: To keep or not to keep?
I like the diversity they bring to my city, so keep them!When you have buildings taking up less space with higher payout? Leave 'em!I don't really pay attention to this stuff. I just play as I go.Who cares how good the building is? It's all about the decor!
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Zynga's RewardVille: Is it working as intended?

Perhaps it's already old news, but Zynga officially launched its RewardVille service over the weekend. Players can now be rewarded with zCoins for playing the gamut of Zynga games. It appears that this new service is designed to replace the cross-promotional Goals and missions that were so popular between games like FrontierVille and Mafia Wars in 2010. But is RewardVille working any better than those did? Does Zynga even care?

FarmVille forum contributor Annabelle Smitty asks in a nine-page thread, "Has RewardVille been successful at getting you back into [games you once gave up on]?" Several players have emphatically answered to the contrary while a few admitted that, yes, it has caused them to pop in on games like Treasure Isle for more zCoins towards new items. However, another player, Shini2, sums up what I think is more likely the case: "Well, it's not as bad as I thought. For those games I can just do a few specific things, and it's not that hard to get my 80 points. By this I mean that I don't really have to get into the games. Just spend like 15 minutes each."

Money!Isn't that what you do, anyway? It's pretty difficult to believe that RewardVille has magically reignited the old flames most of you had with Vampire Wars or PetVille. It's more likely that most players behave just like Shini: They'll log into each game and play for the 15 minutes required to net the 80 points and jump right back into their main crush whether it be CityVille or something else. This is because it's an incentive-based system. Once players find out that all they have to spend in one of these games is a few minutes for those points, that's all Zynga will have them for. And that's OK, because we're human (and naturally opportunistic).

However, a multi-billion dollar company like Zynga didn't get where it is now by accident. Perhaps Pincus and his crew know exactly what they're up to. Zynga already realizes that a vast majority of its gamers simply does not have time to keep track of more than one game. That said, it's understandable for the company to make the requirements for acquiring points in other games so simple and fast.

More importantly, it doesn't matter how long a player is logged into a game--that data is automatically recorded by websites like AppData. If even half of FarmVille's daily active players cosign to RewardVille, that's a boost worth millions in "new" users for games that are miles behind Zynga's top three. That could translate into more promotional and advertising opportunities as well as even better standing in the leader boards. Maybe, just maybe, everything is going according to plan.

[Image Credit: Social Trackr]

What do you think of RewardVille so far? Do you think Zynga intended for it to work this way or the players have already exploited it?

CityVille Cinco de Mayo Goals: Everything you need to know

While some would call today "Revenge of the 5th (The sequel to May the 4th Be With You)," it's also Cinco de Mayo. And the worldly developer we all know as Zynga has kick started its celebrations in CityVille. Two festive Goals have appeared in the game to honor the Mexican army's defeat of France during the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862 in the middle of the Civil War. And what better way to celebrate that legendary victory than gathering Maracas and harvesting corn?

1. Cinco de Mayo:

    Have or place one Mexican Taqueria
    Collect 3 Maracas
    Harvest 30 Corn


The Mexican Taqueria is a new business in CityVille that costs 2,500 coins and earns 330 coins for every 75 Goods consumed. To find the Maracas, just ask your friends for them through the Goal menu. All the while, harvesting 30 Corn will cost 1,860 coins total and take at least one day to harvest, if you plant them all at once.

CityVille Cinco de Mayo
2. Ready to Party:

    Have a Mariachi Band in your City
    Have 3 Mexican Flag Poles
    Send 3 Tour Buses to Neighbors Taqueria Restaurants


This second Goal is slightly more difficult in that it relies on your friends actually attempting the new Goals. First, we imagine the Mariachi Band is a quest reward for completing the first, as it's unavailable in the Market. Mexican Flag Poles are available in the market for 200 coins, but sending three Tour Buses to neighboring cities will be the tough part. Try collaborating with your friends through walls posts, messages or chat to make sure you can send all three before Cinco de Mayo becomes but a memory.

[Source: CityVille Info]



Check out the rest of our CityVille Cheats & Tips right here.

Have you seen or completed the new Cinco de Mayo Goals? How else do you plan to celebrate the holiday?

CityVille: Collect from Houses, get random population boosts

CityVille Population
Sick of adding variety or flavor to your cities with new houses to increase population? (Who needs 'em!) Zynga has introduced an interesting update to CityVille that, when players collect from Homes, will randomly drop population increases. Remember that strange little phrase many of you found next to building information in the Market? You're looking at it.

Whenever you collect from a Residence, there is now a small chance that, in addition to coins and XP, a small moving van icon will appear. Click on it and you'll receive a small overall Population boost in proportion to the Residence you collected from. However, each House you own has a cap for how much it increase your population by, again in proportion to the home's original. So, this is a temporary fix to a growing problem: space.

[Source: CityVille Info]

Have you seen this new feature in your city? For how long do you think this will alleviate the growing population versus space problem in CityVille?

CityVille: Zynga ups storage to 26 items, but only for certain players

Apparently, a fairly large set of issues has been put to rest in CityVille concerning the Warehouse and storage features. For users that had two Warehouses, that second Warehouse has now been removed from your town, as it was the culprit behind "multiple technical issues." Additionally, Zynga has granted two extra slots of storage to players who were affected.

Let's reiterate that once more - two additional storage slots will bring the total up to 26 spots of storage at maximum. Only if you were affected by these issues will you receive those bonuses, however. Furthermore, there doesn't seem to be a requirement for how often you used your Warehouse before the glitch, as the most early of original Warehouses in the game will automatically receive the capacity boost as well.

Will two free spaces ultimately cause a riot with users in CityVille? With the fact that free space is such a commodity in the game, I'd have to say I wouldn't be surprised if this hurt Zynga more than it helped them in the end.

Was your CityVille town under the Warehouse glitch? Are you happy that Zynga has offered you additional storage because of it, or should the upgrade go to every person that plays the game instead?

CityVille down? Here are some games you can check out while you wait

Today just hasn't been Zynga's day, at least where CityVille is concerned. The game has been suffering from massive loading issues today, starting with users becoming stuck at the 93% portion of the game's loading screen. Personally, I faced this earlier today, but after a few refreshes, I was supplying my businesses as normal. Things only went downhill though, as the game is now entirely unavailable to play, as of this writing. No really, go try it. Did you get a white screen? Did the game freeze at the loading screen? For most of you (that is, unless you're lucky), the answer to one or both of those questions will be yes. Never fret, though, mayors. All is not lost, and your cities will be retained for when the game is working again (according to the forums, there is no exact ETA).

In the meantime, though, why not take a look at some other interesting Facebook games that you can try out while you wait for CityVille to come back online? Each summary below links to our full preview/hands-on take of each game, so why not check them out?

Pig Up! - PopCap's newest game is available for a limited time, and sees you controlling a pig, with wings! This seemingly simplistic game asks you to click on the screen to send the pig higher and higher while collecting green apple "Flapples." You only have so many flaps of your wooden wings before falling back down to earth, but the game can last just as long as you can, with no time limit. Earn the highest score and you'll climb your friends leaderboard, all of the way to the top. And they said pigs couldn't fly...

Pet Tales - Adopt adorable fluffy kittens and puppies and create a peaceful sanctuary in a park for them to play. You'll have two major goals: to keep your pets happy by feeding and playing with them, and to decorate your park with enough toys and landscaping to draw in other critters with which your own pets can play. Similar to Nintendogs on the Nintendo DS, Pet Tales allows you to get up close and personal with your pets, and has realistic, charming graphics to back it up.

My Country - A city-builder with a twist, My Country allows you to go in-depth on the construction and design of your buildings, as you must not only purchase their bases, but also hire the individual staff members that will work there. You can paint your buildings different colors, and then sit back and watch the many animated vehicles drive through your streets. Who knows, maybe My Country will give you plenty to look forward to in the future, for when / if CityVille ever goes down like this again.

Three games from three entirely different genres - hopefully you'll be able to find one that you like enough to last us until CityVille is back up and running at full speed.

Have you been able to get into your CityVille recently? Will you try any of these games to get you through until the game is back up and running?