Posts by froglady

    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.

    I currently have 3 pots that are unusable. I think you earn them for different milestones in your garden, but you'll have to wait to use them until we get more spaces added into the Wintergarden or they make the pots useable on future slots added to the Atrium or add another gardening space that uses them.

    I hate abandoning plants, because I just know that the ones I abandon will be the colors I don't have already. I give away all my duplicates (except those needed for holiday plants) in the giveaway thread. So I don't hate giving away plants I don't want, I just hate dumping plants I might want once they're grown up while they're still seeds because I need the pot space for event plants.

    I'm not so much impatient as curious. I just know that the minute I fill up my flowerpots, Murphy's Law will kick in and the event will launch. Then I'll be caught with my slots full, and I hate abandoning plants. So if we had a time frame, we could plan when to have our pots empty. I think the place is deserted because everyone just jumps on to see if the event has started or there's been an announcement, then goes away and waits some more with empty pots and no reason to play games or do anything.

    Lavandula officinalis is the old name. The new specific name is angustifolia. And being the most common and widely-grown type of lavender, it's also the target of most hybridizers. The varieties come in many colors and sizes now. The white, pink and darker lavender colors were actually originally found as recessive color morphs, but have been bred into garden varieties, much as "chocolate" Labrador retrievers (which are technically "liver" colored) were once just rare occurrences in "normal" litters of black and yellow. They caught public fancy and suddenly breeders were actively making matches of parents to maximize their chances of getting chocolates in the litter.

    But everyone can already see all the variations in the thread in the forum if they wish. Perhaps we could have instead of the compendium a "wish list" that everyone could see. That would have the advantage that we could list the number of each we'd like as well (some people want two or three of each color variation of each plant, for instance). And us independent types that want the challenge of collecting all ourselves could leave our wishlist blank.

    I joined as froglady. Not quite sure it's my cup of tea. I like these games like Flowergame where I can stop in just a few minutes a day and a bit longer once or twice a week, and only if I have time. I quit a bunch of time-consuming games already, as my life is too hectic to keep up with them. We'll see.

    Elery, the roses are permanent, like tulips and geraniums. You will be able to get them any time. So you have plenty of time to collect all, not like marvel fern. They are called "July's plant" because that's the new permanent plant added for July (we get one every month--how lucky are we to have something new to look forward to twelve times a year plus holidays).

    Well, I now have a whole army of blue marvel ferns. *Sigh*. I still have 3 seeds and two sprouts, so still clinging to some hope for another color. Even my bred seeds have been blue. Ah, well, a goal for next year, like the burning Christmas tree.

    I like the option of changing the color of a plant. I wouldn't use it, because part of the fun for me is trying to get them all myself. I don't like the "crystal ball" thing, though. I think it will cause more plants being picked up and abandoned in search of a particular color. If you can change the color once it's grown, there's no need to find out what the color is before it's grown.
    The endless watering can is a nice idea, though I think it would be better to just reduce the rate of decrease of sun and water on the garden instead. Then you still have to water, just not as much a day, maybe even little enough that you could play the games to rain on the garden a couple of times instead of having to use the watering can at all.
    The description/sign is an OK idea. Lots of people like that sort of thing.
    I see a bump in the road with wiping plant histories. #1 Why is it even necessary if the players here are really just out to relax and there's no status attached to "parentless" plants in your garden? #2 What about the offspring history of the parents? Would that plant disappear from them, too? Players who are keeping track of breeding statistics would have their whole project messed up by someone wiping the history of a gift plant to increase their status, especially if the "pedigrees" are expanded, as was hinted at once before.
    I suggested that the extra seed slot be a "landing spot" for bred seeds mainly for 2 reasons: not many people breed their plants, as they only want parentless plants and it would be mainly useful during holidays, when you could pick up 3 seeds from the garden and still breed your last years' plants to try to get a bred-only color. So it would probably yield only one or two extra event plants per holiday, according to whether you had a pair from last year to breed or not. A permanent extra seed spot for wild garden seeds would, indeed, increase your plant production quite a bit.

    My meaning exactly. If someone new came in and had a bigger variety of flowers in their garden in a months' time than people who had been here 2-3 years, it would be discouraging to those loyal players who have progressed through their own patience and perserverance. Especially if the game currency had such powerful perks associated with it that it became something people would trade even their only event plant from last year for. A power player who had money to throw around could have every variety of every plant very quickly if the purchased advantages were too great.
    I do understand the need for paying players. Hosting a game isn't cheap. I just worry about too much power attending to the payment. I had another friend recently revamp her game and move it totally to another layout with a different domain name and change the perks to affect only one "pet", with a limited number useable on each one because her game got so out of whack. Things she thought would be small advantages were abused by unscrupulous players to "rule" the game. Again, it took the defection of about half her 5-year-long players to wake her up. In her case, the cash shop had been there since the beginning, but the power players discovered the game and figured out ways to use the paid perks that no one else had even imagined (they are good at that).
    Hence my suggestion that only small perks attend to the paying player. Still valuable, but not so powerful that other players feel they are deprived of the same gameplay as paying players. It would be enough for me to subscribe to have my plants watered and my sunshine bright for twice as long, have my choice of minigames when I click, have an extra seed slot for a bred seed, have more plant spaces in my display cases and have no ads. But giving people the option to buy every variety of every plant or raise them up in 30 minutes (given enough money) instead of 8 days would seem a bit much to me. The cash shop seems to work best when it's little extras for paid subscriptions instead of individual items that can be bought to do specific things. Just my two cents' from a browser game player with 10+ years experience and probably 100+ game accounts over that time.