Posts by froglady

Wow, I go away for a few days and what I thought was a simple solution to end the divisiveness of bred vs parentless has turned into a huge hubbub. I do read and speak some German, but my grammar is atrocious, so I stick to English for the most part.

I think that if you were a new player with 0 Christmas stars and 0 poinsettias and you needed just one Christmas star seed to be able to breed to your Christmas trees to try to get two stars before the end of the event, you'd be glad that people were abandoning at the beginning and not the end.

But I think Exterminans' idea is the best one. Had I thought of it, I should have suggested that myself, instead of the Nursery.

The "parentless and untouched except by me" attitude is fostered by some very judgmental players on some adoptable sites, where unless you play their way you can't even trade with them or talk to them. You're a pariah unless you realize that "pureblood" is king and "mudblood" is trash. When you play enough sites like that, you feel like parentless adoptables are more valuable. It's only natural to absorb that sort of attitude when it's all you've ever known elsewhere. I've played at least 100 online game sites over 17 years, and I can tell you it's not at all friendly gamers helping each other out there. It's competition and "look what I have that you'll never get" and account numbers being status symbols. It's players coming in 4 years after the game debuted and throwing (literally) thousands of dollars at it to get to be the top of the leaderboards. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there in online gaming. This is a quiet little interlude in all the madness. It's why I like it here.

That could be true about event plants being more desirable. But those of us with extras of the same color would sometimes like to donate for those without so much luck. I remember it taking 6 months of breeding nothing but tulips between events to get that last color I was missing. Plus there are bred-only colors of roses and Christmas roses now. Perhaps if the donation page were links to the plant pages showing the plant in whatever stage it was when donated instead of just seed images, it could function as the adoption thread does now.

I don't know why it's there or why someone did it, but the seeds were picked up and then disappeared from the database, meaning trashed and not re-abandoned to the wild. I guess some people want to permanently get rid of plants they don't want so that no one else will have any of their plants but them.

I remember someone at one of the holidays abandoned a bunch of "extra" seed to the wild garden to give people a chance at getting a bred variety of an event plant. Unfortunately, that person's kindness went to waste when someone (or several someones) picked those from the wild garden and immediately trashed them because they weren't "pristine" seeds (unbred and taken only by them).

So I wondered if we might have the plants/seeds that we abandon to the garden (or that get sent to the garden when breeding) available from another list instead of going back to the wild garden? That way all those who are so concerned about having only parentless plants that were taken only by them as seeds or bred from those can have their way while the rest of us who now hesitate to scatter seed for fear it will just be trashed as "worthless" may pick up "donated" plants if we wish.

I thought perhaps it could just run on the same script as the wild garden, but pull the plants from a database of abandoned plants (would be nice if we could change that term to "donate" instead--sounds kinder) instead of generating them randomly from the new plant database. Or it could just be a page of text links to the plants, and we could choose to adopt the plant or not after seeing the plant's page.

I know this is a lot of work. Just a thought for the future, as many people who come in here from other games have been trained to think that parentless adoptables are "better" than bred ones, and don't understand our culture of sharing and helping one another to build our collections. They think we're just dumping what we don't want back into the garden for someone else to get our "leftovers".

"Pancake" is the heavy semi-solid greasepaint foundation used by actors in the theater, so called because it comes compressed in a round compact like a pancake. Pancake plant is a succulent plant that I think is a species of Kalanchoe. The leaves are supposed to look like pancakes (the food), but they never have to me.
I know that Lipstick Plant is a Gesneriad related to the Saintpaulia, but more than one species is called such. Some of the species are also called Goldfish Plant. (The buds look like lipsticks, but the flowers when bloomed are more like a Christmas cactus or Fuschia.)

Oh my goodness, my Christmas wish came true! A good book and cup of tea for my Wintergarden! So lovely. I may not emerge until Spring.

I used to play MondoZoo, but it took just too much time. Buying stock for the shop, food for the animals, hiring help, keeping up with who was dying and when to breed new ones. I tried MondoVeto, too, but gave up after 3 days. I got an A in nuclear physics, but couldn't figure out the first thing about that game. I play the MondoZooPark, though. It's easy and nice. I go only when I feel like it and can get all my "chores" done in 10-15 minutes a day, because I could care less about winning contests or such.
I used to play a lot of time-consuming games and got really serious about a couple, but having my parents to care for cured me of that addiction. Now I like the sort of game site I can visit for 10-15 minutes three times a week and still feel like I'm making some headway.

The Post Pixie sent two Christmas Wreath seeds to each person last year for the Christmas market prize. They look like Christmas cookies. I just happened to luck out and get one of each, but there was definitely a big trading thread last year, as each person only got two.

I am wondering how newer players will get the Post Pixie prize from last year's Christmas market (the Christmas wreath, which was a candle wreath or an angel). They are not breedable and I haven't seen any in the wild garden, but maybe I've just missed them out. I was going to breed mine and send the seed to the wild, but you can't.

I think of the dragon fire as a magical version of a pellet stove or indoor vented wood stove (not so much potbellied coal stove because of the shape). Guess that's cause my relatives in West Virginia still have them (all three) to supplement heating in the winter.

I just adore the way my wintergarden looks. Nice warm dragon fire. Gorgeous festive table. Comfy soft warm chair with blanket throw. Now I just need a big mug of something hot to wrap my hands around and a really good book and I'll be set. Thanks for the Christmas gifts!!

On the "pay for perks" topic that was active earlier this year, I said that the best paid "advantages" were small conveniences that made it quicker/easier to care for your garden on a daily basis and not the ability to buy yourself a complete garden within a couple months of starting. I spoke about competitiveness and perfectionism, and was told that those things don't exist here. Obviously they do. I have been here 3 years and have not got a burning tree. I also don't have several of the Valentine's hearts, nor do I have all the Marvel Ferns, Audreys or Jack-o-Lanterns. (Please don't start gifting them to me, I would like to try to get them myself, because I like the challenge).
This is a free game. You truly don't have to pay a cent to have everything everyone else has, and you can't say that on most browser games. Most sites live by making it impossible to achieve goals without paying or by having the prettiest/most desirable things be limited edition paid items. Heck, not only can't you get them if you don't pay, you can't get them if you don't pay in the right week of the right year.
Here anyone can join today and have a chance to get some old Christmas trees. We who didn't get them all last year have a chance to get them this year. And as long as the team doesn't change the whole tone of the game, I'll still have a chance to get this year's new ones next year.
I think we are stupendously lucky to have stumbled upon a place that has stellar art and caring admins, a place that's run at a financial loss because its owners receive joy from giving us joy. Isn't that what Christmas is about, anyway? Giving joy to others without asking or demanding something in return? The Flowergame team does that all year long. Maybe it's not exactly the way you wanted it to be or what you expected to get, but you're not guaranteed that in real life, either (especially when dealing with husbands).

Yes, there is only one question mark meaning you have one or more varieties that you haven't discovered, not one question mark for each. So when roses came out this summer, there was a lot of wild speculation on how many colors there were to collect and breed until someone got a compendium with no question mark. You can have one question mark and several missing colors.

I bred my first three seeds, hoping for an old alt from 2010 and thinking the new alt might be breed-only (or one in the garden and one breed-only). So I got two 2010 alts and 1 from last year. Now I have two jack seeds from the wild garden and one bred Audrey. Might just give up the bred Audrey seed and grab one from the garden instead.

My first seeds I took the first day finally grew up. It took 5 days for them to sprout with full sun and water, then I was offline for 3 days while my mother was in the hospital and they finally grew up today. I have another batch of seeds I got yesterday, but that's going to be it for me this year. My first batch got me 2 of the 2010 alt jack and one 2011 alt I already had (if anyone needs a "gourdy-looking" pumpkin, let me know). I can only hope the two jack seeds I got from the wild garden yesterday give me at least one of this year's alts and I'm begging on bended knee that the one bred seed from my Audreys is the new alt. Does anyone know if you have to get an Audrey from the wild garden to get the new one? Or can you breed it?

Blees you all. I couldn't figure out how to remove a decoration to put another in its place.

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found an old thread from last year in the help section.. and finally catched the ghost.. to bad that it is not staying in the atrium like last year..

But it is. It's in your decoration storage waiting for you to put it into your atrium (look at bottom of page below the flowers from your atrium page).

This is wonderful. Can't wait to see the new jack-o-lanterns and the surprise that Nephele has for us. I'm sure it will be well worth the wait. This site is the best-kept secret on the web for people who love pretty artwork. (Hope it doesn't stay that way...I've gifted some plants to folks but never seem to see them here).

edit: I can't seem to use my new decoration. Could someone tell me where it goes (and how to remove whatever is in its way)?

That last flower right before the famous herb is called "butter and eggs" in the Appalachian Mountains of the Eastern U.S. It grows everywhere there, too.
I recognized St. Basil's. Lovely landscape pictures. Many of them remind me of the time I spent living in far northern California near the Cascade Mountains. It's funny how different parts of the world have similar features and plants, isn't it? I'm glad you enjoyed your trip and as a bonus didn't miss the treasure hunt.

When it rains, it rains evenly on your whole garden (just like in life). Doesn't matter which plant needs more or if you have one plant or a whole garden full, the rain comes on the whole garden equally. When you use your watering can, you have to fill it up as you use it because each plant takes a certain amount from the can, which holds a limited amount. So 5 full drops (10 waterings) from one game, because that's one watering can full. So if you think of it as each drop being an inch of water, in the watering can you have 5 inches of water (but collected in one narrow space). In the rain, the whole garden gets one-half inch of water each rain. More water total than the watering can, but you can't control where it goes.

So glad to hear everything is OK. I just worried. I played a game once where the admin was lying in ICU on a respirator fighting for life and everyone on the game was kvetching about why she hadn't been around to finish her projects. It was 2 months before we found out she was sick. So I get a little scared when we don't hear from the usually-active staff members for almost a month.

Congrats on the baby, and hope your vacation was wonderful. I'm sure the event will be lovely, as usual.

More particularly, hope the staff is OK. I don't think anyone has posted since mid-August, and it's not like them to be away so long. The event can go to blazes, I just worry that something's happened, especially with the silence on the boards. The last thing I remember staff posting was a request for translation help, and my offer went unanswered. That's unusual with such a responsive and active staff. I wish one of the staff would just get on here and let us know everything's OK.