Farming…

Farming was something I avoided pretty much till up to the Food4Friends event. Before that, I only farmed when necessary for quests (strawbs, oats etc). But then after hours of grinding I started to enjoy farming. its quite therapeutic to see your plants grow and bear fruit (and equally traumatic to see them die despite constant fertilisation??)

Although how many of you (like me) forget to turn on your pause button sometimes.. and come back to a field full of dead oats?? XD
or maybe it’s just me

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Anyway, I have learned a couple of things about the new farming system soI thought I would share.

Here’s what a new farm might look like. (if you’re lucky the hot models will be there too XD)

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1) Farm ‘tickets’.
These are now being sold at the London Seed Manager stall. I suggest you don’t bother going for the cheaper ones. This is because you can only plant seeds that are the same level or below the level of your farm =)

I got caught out because I bought a lvl 2 farm, and I couldnt plant lemon, black tea etc. which are level 3 plants.
So now I have to discard my lvl 2 farm, and buy a lvl 3 farm.  =(  Boohoo….

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2) THERE ARE ROCKS.
These are annoying. I can’t seem to get rid of them. GM - Abby ( i think ) mentioned in map chat that if we fertilise enough, they will disappear.

You cannot plant on them. Meh.

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3)PLANTING & FERTILISING

To plant seeds, you need to fertilise the area you wish to plant on. Simple =) The  “fertility” of the land you plant on will not diminish until the plant dies. YES NO MORE MINING FOR DRIED POOP RAH RAH RAH!

 You only need to refirtilise when your plant dies and you want to plant a new one in its place.

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4) WATERING

Watering is now a new feature of farming (TO me anyway). To water, you need to buy watering cans from the seed manager. These look like pink  watering can icons, and you need to water your plants daily.

When you right click on the watering can in your inventory, it will bring up a red grid similar to fertilisation. Watered patches will show up in blue. When it goes back to the normal map view, you will see cute little splotches of light blue water =)

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TAKE NOTE: If you don’t water your plants in 7 days, they will die. . . .

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This brings me to the…

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5) Day / Night (or daily cycle thing)

The floral thing below your life bar is an indication of the ‘days passed’ in your farm. At first I thought its just a flowery extra but I was told its an indication of how far along in the day your farm is at. Every morning, the ‘watered-ness’ of your patch will revert to nothing and you need to re’water’ your plants.

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As mentioned before, after 7 days your plants will die. There is no ability to pause our farm cycle, but when we leave the farm, it apparently slows down
considerably so we don’t have to keep coming back.

 (you still have to go back and check now and then)

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6) Harvesting.
Ah.. harvesting. Now the plants seem to bear fruit much more often than before. You can harvest a few times a day, pretty much.

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However, if you harvest too much your plant will die. Being the rebel I am, when I was told this I had to try it out for myself =) And true enough, when I went all out harvesting some of my plants died =)

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Another thing I have found is that if your plant is not watered, and you harvest it all the way down to 0 (as in from showing fruit to no fruit), it also dies. I’m not sure if this is true but it’s what has been happening to me as well. I did a test on this.

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Friends can now help you harvest, and when they do, it goes straight into your inventory.  Behold the power of slave labour =D This would be great in another F4F event… much more efficient.

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7) Scarecrows

Scarecrows are important for your farm. You can buy them from the Tool Shop NPC at London  They prevent moles from stealing your plants… yes them evil tunnelling moles!

(look i have more *cough* slaves* XD )

just kidding thanks for helping me harvest guys =)

Cipre HKera Loki and Ripplecloud

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Farm Entry Limit

At the moment there is a limit of 5 people per farm. This is not a bug, this is just a setting. It will be changed in the future. Right now I believe we are just meant to test out the slave-harvesting function.. =)

9) BUGS!

no not the flying kind

What we found out with the friend harvesting for friend thing is, there is a bug when those who are not the farm owner pick the crop.

firstly, it does not revert back to the original “no-crop” state, so you have to count that you have picked five and others won’t know if it has crops to be picked or not

secondly, when we over harvest and it dies, it still stays in that ‘pick me i’m ripe’ state. So when you try to pick it, it will give a message *action cancelled*

Ripple picked up on it first and she has reported it so I’m sure it will be fixed next time just be aware of it right now.

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Anyway, that’s pretty much what I know about the new farming system. =) I hope this helps.

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Many thanks to my very hot models

(iheartbadtz and PinkDiamond, Cipre, Loki, HKera and Ripplecloud )  ^_^

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And also to the kind GM Zel who spent some time answering my many questions about farming. everything i learned about farming was due to him.