CityVille Guide: Tips, Tricks & Hints

Hey, guys I've been playing CityVille for about three weeks now and I have reached level 33 (I placed screenshot of my current city above). You can see a picture of my city on the first day, Here.

Over this time I picked up a few tips, tricks & hints I wanted to share with you. I also made some mistakes while building my city, that I hope you can learn from.

Saving City Cash

The one major thing that I did not do while playing CityVille, was save my City Cash for the higher levels. Looking back now, my city could be at a much higher level if I had just saved my City Cash. Instead I was impatient, and I used the City Cash to fill up spots in my Community Buildings, because I did not have enough friends playing the game three weeks ago.

You start the game off with 5 City Cash and each time you level-up you are awarded with one additional City Cash. The only other way to obtain City Cash is by buying it for real $ and most people, including myself, do not want to spend actual $ on a Facebook game.

Looking back now, I would have saved all of my City Cash, (which would have been 38 total City Cash at level 33) and used it to buy land expansions. As you can see in the picture above, City Coins are not the problem (I have over 400,000 coins), but it is actually the increasing demand for zoning permits that will limit your city's growth.

When you first begin the game a 12x12 Land Expansion is 21,000 Coins and you need only one Land Permit or you can just pay 1 City Cash. However, each time you buy a Land Expansion the amount of coins needed increases by 1000 and the amount of Land Permits required increases by 1. The amount of City Cash required increases by 1 as well.

To obtain Land Permits, your CityVille friends can send you up to 1 Land Permit per day. The more CityVille friends you have, the more likely you will receive Land Permits from them. If you send out Land Permits as gifts, it is likely some will return the favor.

On the other hand if you don't have a lot of CityVille friends, you must rely on City Cash to buy Land Expansions. No matter what level your City currently is at, continue to save your City Cash for Land Expansions, it will definitely be worth it later on. 


Community & Storage Buildings

Community Buildings are the buildings that will increase the maximum population of your city, meaning you can build more Housing. However most Community Buildings require a certain number of friends that you must hire, before the buildings can be completed. The good news is that you can hire the same friend to work in multiple Community Buildings. The bad news is that the same friend cannot be hired for multiple positions in the same Community Building.

Due to these limitations, you should only build Community Buildings that require a number of friends that is less than or equal to the number of CityVille friends you have at that time. For example, if you have eight CityVille friends you should only build Police Stations (7 friends required), Post Offices (5 friends required) and City Halls (3 friends required). You can also build Community Buildings that require a large number of different items, but I feel this takes forever, since these items can only be obtained from friends. A list of Community Buildings and their requirements can be found Here.

Another interesting thing I found, was that, unlike Businesses and Housing, Community Buildings and Storage Buildings do not need to be connected to roads. You can pack these buildings in the corners of your city and they still do their job. I found that I saved a lot of space with this trick, and it left me more room for Businesses, Housing and Farmland.


Many CityVille players think that all buildings must be connected to roads. They waste a lot of their City's space placing roads everywhere, when in reality they don't need to. It would make sense that Community Buildings would need roads for people to get to them, but in this game it just doesn't matter. Be sure to keep this in mind when building and rearranging the structures in your city.


Headquarters

As you progress through the game, you will be given a large headquarters that you can place in your city. I originally built my HQ, but soon found that it took up too much space and so I demolished it. However, it did not disappear, but instead it reappeared in my inventory and it said that I could rebuild it at any time (costs 10 energy to rebuild).

Even though the HQ is not built in my City, I still can collect and supply my franchises as if my HQ was built. You can also continue to expand your franchise to your friends' cities as well. In addition to this, if you wanted to build your HQ, just like Community and Storage buildings it does not need to be connected to a road.

The only benefit I found of having an HQ built in your city is that with each franchise expansion, your HQ building will grow a story higher. You can create an extraordinarily high skyscraper if you expand your franchise to enough cities. Basically, if you have enough room then build your HQ, if not then it is definitely not a big deal and it won't negatively affect your city's growth.


Becoming Mayor

The list of quests needed to become Mayor can be found Here. These quests are relatively easy, but I found the second to last mission to be difficult. For this quest you must build a grade school and to complete it to need to get 15 items, which can only be obtained by spending City Cash or by asking your CityVille friends. I actually spent 10 City Cash on this mission, because I only had a few CityVille friends at the time.

Once you complete the Grade School, you must complete the Become The Mayor mission. For this mission you must have 1,000 population and collect from business 30 times (after you receive the mission).

You then become the Mayor and you unlock Piers! Piers are very important as they allow you to obtain supply through boats, rather than wasting land space to grow crops. In my city I currently have 9 piers and can fit about four boats around every pier. In addition to this, Piers serve doubly as storage buildings and can hold up to 420 supply each.

Supply is very important, because without it you cannot supply your businesses and if you can't supply your businesses, you can't collect from your businesses. If you can't collect from businesses you will not receive any coins from your businesses (It's a vicious cycle). Make sure you have enough goods to continuously supply your businesses.

Maximizing Your Energy

Using your energy efficiently is very important in CityVille. Energy is used to harvest crops, collect from houses, businesses and boats, build every type of building and cut down trees. You can gain energy in the following ways:

#1. Waiting- Five minutes of wait time = 1 energy

#2. Visiting Friends' Cities- Each visit will get you 1 energy (Once a day)

#3. Spend City Cash- 9 City Cash = 12 Energy Battery (Not recommended)

#4. Building, Collecting, Harvesting- You can sometimes get some energy from building, collecting from buildings or harvesting crops, although this is not a very common occurrence.

#5. Collections- Once you complete a collection you can receive some energy, depending on which collection you complete. For example, the Pumpkin Collection will give you 3 XP and 3 Energy.

#6. Gifts- Friends can give you some energy each day, in the form of a gift.


#7. Leveling-up- Once you level-up, all of your energy will be restored. Make a note that this is one of the most important tips to maximizing your energy. Just before you level-up (1 or 2 XP away) you should make sure that you only have 1 or 2 energy left. You should then use this energy to gain that 1 or 2 XP needed for you to level-up.

Once you do this, you will level-up and gain back all of your energy. What you DO NOT want to do is have 10+ energy and then level-up immediately. In this case, all of that energy would go to waste, since you can only gain up to the maximum amount of energy you can hold. This list can be found Here.


Play Around Your Schedule

If you remember one thing from this guide let it be to Play Around Your Schedule. In other words, play CityVille when you have free time, rather than make free time just to play CityVille.

If you have school or work, or any other important things to do, make sure that CityVille doesn't get in the way of that. If you know school ends at 3:00 PM and you usually get home around 3:30 PM grow daily crops, so that you can harvest them the same time each day. On the other hand, if you think you will be busy later or if you play every few days, grow crops or send out boats that take two or three days instead.

If you do have time to play more often, play the game according to the schedule that you have set for yourself. Do Not sit there watching the 5 energy minute timer, waiting for 1 more energy. That will waste tons of time and it could very well make you go insane! Haha, I may be exaggerating a bit, but really, do not spend your entire day playing CityVille, it won't make you level-up any quicker.

Thanks for reading, I hope this guide was helpful!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to comment below. I will gladly answer any questions you may have.

O.J. Mayo Suspended After Violating NBA Drug Policy

O.J. Mayo was suspended for 10 games after violating the NBA/NBPA Anti-Drug Program. Mayo tested positive for dehydroepiandrosterone, a type of steroid. He apologized to his family, friends and teammates for his actions. He will be eligible to return Feb. 15 vs. Philadelphia.

This season with the Grizzlies, Mayo has averaged 12.2 points this season, 2.6 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.0 steals and 1.4 3PTM per game. His scoring is down this year, compared to last season where he finished the season averaging 17.5 points.

With Mayo out for 10 games, Sam Young and Tony Allen will be the beneficiaries of increased playing time. Both of these players will see boosts in fantasy value as long as Mayo is out. Mayo's suspension should not have a huge negative impact on the Grizzlies losing season so far.

Allods Online: Character Info- Currency Tab

In Allods Online you can either click the helmet icon on the bottom right of your screen or click the default hotkey "I" to get to your Character Info Window. In your Character Info Window there are four tabs which include Equipment, Currency, Reputation and Professions. There are 9 items in the currency tab and in this post I would like to give a description of each one and include the various ways that you can obtain these currencies within the game.


List of Currencies

There are 14 different stats in Allods that you can choose to increase. Each class has five specific stats that will have stars next to them. These stats are the most important for that particular class and should be focused on the most when deciding where you want to allocate your stat points. You will receive one stat point every time you level-up, but most of the stats will come from the gear that you equip. If you want to reset these stat points, in order to reallocate them, you must buy a Water of Life from the Cash Shop. Currently one Water of Life is 500 gPotatoes, which is roughly equal to $5 USD depending on your payment method.



Ruby Vouchers can be redeemed for Rubies at every character's class-specific trainer. One voucher plus a good amount of gold will get you one ruby. The amount of gold required increases every time you level-up so when it comes to spending your gold, make sure you plan ahead. One Ruby Voucher is given to a character each time he or she levels up, starting at level 10. Rubies can also be acquired by doing World Mystery Quests, which you receive as you travel in the world of Allods.

When you create your character, you are automatically given three stable slots. Each slot can hold one mount, but I can't see why you would need more than one mount. Mounts can be purchased in the Cash Shop for 1100 gPotatoes, which is around $11 USD. Mounts increase your speed, and as you level them up they become faster and acquire more health.



When you create your character you will only be allowed to have one profession. These professions are broken down into gathering professions and crafting professions. The gathering professions are Disassembling, Herbalism and Mining and the crafting professions are Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Leatherworking and Tailoring. In order to gain a second profession you must become Respected with your local Crafters' or Suppliers' Guild, which will take almost 3 actual months to complete. The other options are to create another character, or buy a Permit of the Master Artisan for 600 gPotatoes. In order to gain a third profession you must buy a Permit of the Exceptional Artisan for 1500 gPotatoes.



Talent Points can be spent in each character's talent tree. The talent trees can be used to improve existing spells and abilities, or it can be used to unlock new spells and abilities. When you first unlock a spell or ability, it costs one talent point. However to improve upon that particular spell or ability, you must spend 2 talent points to get it to Rank 2 and then spend 3 talent points to get it to rank three. So, in order to max out one spell or ability you must spend 6 total talent points. Every time you level-up you will receive 1 talent point and for every 5 level-ups you will receive 2 talent points instead of 1.



Rubies can be spent on any of the three talent trees that the character has. These talent trees can improve existing spells and abilities and can also be used to unlock new spells and abilities. Rubies can be obtained by redeeming Ruby Vouchers at a character's class-specific trainer, completing World Mystery Quests and by completing two other quests that you will receive once you reach a higher level. You can also get five rubies for completing the Great Mage's Diary quests. However, these pages are difficult to obtain as they are extremely rare.



Megaphones can be used to write a message in the shout chat channel, which all players in the zone will see. A Bundle of Megaphones can be bought from the Cash Shop for 5 gPotatoes (10 for 5 gPotatoes).

Mount Feed can be used to increase the speed and health of a mount. After about an hour and a half of riding your mount it will become hungry again and you must give it one Mount Feed. It costs 150 gPotatoes  for 50 Mount Feed, which is not a horrible price in my opinion. Mount Feed can be bought from the Cash Shop or bought from the Auction House, although I have never seen anyone selling mount feed in the Auction House.

Drops of Myrrh are very important to your survival in Allods Online. Every one of your patronage spells uses Drops of Myrrh, and the amount of Drops of Myrrh required for these spells increase as you level-up. In addition to this, Drops of Myrrh are used up when you die and if you want a quicker resurrection you must spend even more to have the Goblin resurrect you. Drops of Myrrh can be bought from vendors called Servants of Light, who are scattered throughout the world of Allods. They can also be bought in the Cash Shop, 1000 Drops of Myrrh for 100gPotatoes, although most players opt to buy from the Servants of Light.

Astral Megaphones can be used to write a message in the world chat channel, which all players in the world will see. A Bundle of Megaphones can be bought from the Cash Shop for 5 gPotatoes (10 for 5 gPotatoes).

Ryan Anderson Playing Great Over His Last Four Games

Ryan Anderson (Orl - PF, C) has been playing very well this past week. Over his last four games he has averaged 17.3 points, 3.5 3PTM, 7.0 rebounds, and almost a block a game. In addition to this, he has been shooting 48.1% from the field, which is a great percentage for the amount of 3-pointers he has been averaging.

Anderson's much larger role in the Magic offense, can be attributed to the departure of Rashard Lewis. He has scored double-digits in every game since January 7th and has definitely made a solid impact on the Orlando Magic so far. With Anderson playing, the Magic have won the last 13 of their last 16 games.

Currently Ryan Anderson is only owned in 50% of all Yahoo fantasy leagues. If you need points, threes, rebounds or blocks, this guy will help you out in all four of the categories. As his minutes continue to increase, his fantasy value will continue to increase as well. Make the pick-up before someone else in your league does!

Allods Online: Empire Herbalism Guide Levels 1-140

Hey everybody, so I made my Summoner on Allods and decided to choose Herbalism as my profession. As of now my Herbalism is at 250, but I found the most trouble trying to level my Herbalism from levels 1-140. In particular, I found levels 131-140 were the most difficult levels for a Herbalist on the Empire side. I checked online, but could not find one guide that could help me, so I decided to figure it out on my own and make a guide for it. Hopefully, this guide is helpful and will get your herbalism level to 140 much more quickly then I did.

First off, a profession can only be leveled up to whatever your character level is multiplied by ten. For example, if your character is level 9, you can only level up your herbalism up to level 90. Secondly, I took an extremely long time to get past level 1 herbalism, when in reality the Violet plants were right next to me.

As soon as you talk to the Herbalism trainer (Who is in the top floor of Yasker's Tower, which is in the very center of Nezebgrad) the Violet plants are all around that room, as well as in the hallway nearby. You must buy the Herbalism book from the Herbalism trainer to learn the profession, and buy the Rusty Sickle from the Herbalism Trainer, in order to start collecting these herbs. You can easily spot the Violet Herbs, by the little green Nodes floating around the plant. I missed this and many people in the channels still continue to ask where to find these plants. Answer: Right next to the Herbalism trainer!

 

I stayed here collecting Violets until I reached level 30 in Herbalism. I'm sure you can level your skill up higher here, but I only went up to level 30 before I went on to the next quest. The first Herbalism quest you are given only requires that you collect 10 Violets anyway.  You can get your Herbalism skill up to level 65 by collecting Violets here, though it may take a while.

Once you turn this quest in, you can then get the next quest called, The Basics of Herbalism: The Second Step. This quest requires you to bring 13 Carnations and 13 Dandelions to Nadine de Grandeur. To complete this quest, you must go to Old Square and collect 13 of each of these flowers. I marked the area on the map below, with two yellow dots. There are a good amount of nodes here, so it won't take a long time to complete this quest. 

Once you have collected the quest items turn the quest in and you can get the third Herbalism quest called  The Basics of Herbalism: The Third Step. For this quest you are required to bring 13 Lilies of the Valleys and 13 Sorrels to Pebbles the Rowdy. Pebbles the Rowdy and the quest items can be found by the three yellow dots on the map below. To get there, you can go out by where is says To Severny Steppe and then go west, or go out by where it says Arena and go north.

 

Once you get to this area, you can keep collecting herbs until you get to level 131. It went pretty quickly up until about level 120, but then slowed down considerably from 121-131. After that I did not get any more skill-ups from this area. I then went around Nezebgrad for literally four hours (without a mount) collecting herbs and finally I reached level 140.

I put dots of various colors on the Nezebgrad map above, illustrating the different levels of herbs I found in each area. These colors depict as follows: White Dots= Common Herbs, Green Dots= Uncommon Herbs, Blue Dots= Rare Herbs and Purple Dots= Epic Herbs. Unfortunately I cannot prove whether or not a higher grade herb makes you skill-up faster than a lower grade one.

From level 131-140 I ran around Nezebgrad collecting these herbs, but there was no pattern that I found (e.g. 20 herbs collected= one skill-up). Instead I found the leveling was much more random. As an example, I collected 5 herbs and I leveled from 135-137 within this time. On the other hand, I had to collect 10 herbs just to get from 133-134.

The good news is that once you finally reach level 140 in Herbalism, it is smooth sailing from there. You can go to Igsh Military District where the minimum level to collect herbs in 140. You should level from 140-150 just by collecting about 15 herbs from this area. Everywhere you go to level-up your character from here on out, will have herbs that will quickly increase your Herbalism skill.

Make sure at levels 20, 30 and 40 you remember to buy the next level sickle in order to harvest higher level herbs. Also, if you have enough bag space, be sure to save your green (uncommon), blue (rare) and purple (epic) herbs. You will find Alchemists later on who will pay you for your herbs that have certain agents (e.g. Healing Agent, Strengthening Agent).

Well that's all from me, if you are stuck between levels 131-140, keep collecting herbs in Nezebgrad (All except the Quest items) and you will eventually reach 140. It definitely can get aggravating, especially if you don't have a lot of patience, but if you keep at it you will definitely get to 140. Good luck to all of you, I hope my guide has helped!

If you have any questions, feel free to comment on this post.

Fantasy Basketball: 2010-11 Season to Date Player Rankings (Top 25) as of January 19, 2011

Most Improved Players From Last Month

#1. Dorell Wright (GS - SG,SF) This guy wasn't even close to being in the top 25 a month ago. However, with his exceptional three-point shooting, Wright has skyrocketed up the rankings as of late. He currently averages 16.4 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.7 3PTM per game! This is definitely a surprise to most, since he was taken in the last few rounds in most fantasy drafts and that is if he was even drafted at all. Dorell Wright also helps out in steals (56) and blocks (31) while only turning the ball over 74 times this season. If he continues to play like this, it won't be long until he works his way into the top 20.

#2. LaMarcus Aldridge (Por - PF, C) Aldridge was another guy who was not in the top 25 fantasy rankings last month. He has turned it up a notch over the last month, averaging 25.9 points, 10.2 rebounds and a little over a block a game. Not only that, but he has also been shooting 52.6% from the field and 78.7% from the line, a FT% which is not bad at all for a big man. In Monday night's game against Minnesota, Aldridge scored a career high 37 points and also added 12 rebounds. If he keeps playing at this level, this guy could very well end up a top 20 or even a top 15 fantasy player by season's end.

My Review Of gPotato's MMORPG Allods Online

I've been playing CityVille for a few days and I wrote a review on it about a week ago, which can be found here. However, if you are an avid gamer, you wouldn't think of CityVille as a "real game", but more of like a "check once a day for 10 minutes kind of game". When I say a "real game" I mean a game filled with hours of gameplay, millions of strategies, skills, spells, and much more content than a Facebook browser game. In my opinion, one particular game that fits this "real game" description, which most of you probably have heard of is World of Warcraft.

I played WoW for about two years and I loved the PvE (Player vs. Environment) and PvP (Player vs. Player) that it provided, as well as the Quests, Mounts and End Game (Battlegrounds, Raids, Epic Mounts, etc.) content. However the only problem was that I was paying $13 a month, plus the initial price of the game and the expansion (Wrath of the Lich King). I had a level 70 Feral Druid and a level 70 Rogue, but I quit before Cataclysm came out. My friends kind of lost interest, plus paying that much for a game was just not worth it in my mind. I haven't played an MMORPG in about a year, and I told myself the next MMORPG type game I would play would be Diablo 3 (which hopefully is released in 4Q11). However, I stumbled upon Allod's Online and my gaming plans instantly changed.


My Discovery Of Allod's Online

More and more games are being released as F2P (Free-To-Play) type games, with an option to pay for additional advantages in the game. My original plan was to search for one of these games, play in for a little while and then write up a review on it. In my search, I found a F2P game called Champions Online, which seemed to be just like DC Universe (A superhero MMORPG, I always wanted to try). However, the F2P version of this game is going to be released January 25, 2011. Since I wanted to choose a game that was released already, I skipped over this game, but I made a note to check it out at the end of January.


Anyway, after searching a little more, I finally stumbled upon this MMORPG called Allods Online. After reading about this game, I learned that it was published by Astrum Nival in Russia. I was shocked to see that it was a Russian game, since most of the MMORPGs I found were made by Asian Companies (except for WoW). What initially intrigued me the most was that Allods Online had a $12 million dollar budget, whereas most MMORPGs don't have anywhere close to that to work with. Originally released in 1997 in Russia, Allod's Online Open Beta testing in North America and Europe was released to the public on February 16, 2010. Even with the $12 MM budget, the game being originally released in Russia in 1997 and the F2P system, I was still hesitant downloading the 3.3+ GB client.

It took me about an hour to download the game and all of the patches. I was kind of happy the game took a relatively long time to download, as it showed me the game was constantly being updated with various fixes as well as new content. After the download, I chose one of the two servers and was then directed to the character creation screen.


Character Creation Screen
I expected to be able to choose from a few different classes, maybe ten at the most. However, to my surprise, I was given the option of choosing between a character class from The League or from The Empire (Later I would discover that The League was like The Alliance and The Empire was like The Horde. These being the two opposing factions you could choose from in WoW.) I chose to be a Summoner for The Empire and I was taken to next screen.

Again this game surprised with the amount of different character customization choices I could make. These nine different decisions included race, archetype, gender, face, facial features, hair style, hair color, skin color and figure. Yes, that's right you can choose your "figure", meaning you can be a huge beastly warrior, a small mage or average sized paladin or anything in between! In addition to this, Allods has 6 races, 8 classes and 28 totally different archetypes to choose from. In my opinion, this character creation screen was just as good, if not better than WoW's. I myself, made an average sized defiler, chose my character's name and started the Allods adventure.


First Hour Of Gameplay
Thrown into the Astral world of Allods, I immediately noticed that the User Interface was much like World of Warcraft. The top left of the screen held my character's health bar and mana bar, as well as my current level and a picture of my character. Along the bottom of the screen were various boxes, which contained my basic melee attack and starting spells that I was given.

Next, the game made me go through a tutorial where I learned how to move around, and target and attack enemies. I ran through an astral ship defeating enemies and I even got to shoot a cannon at an enemy ship. Once the tutorial was over, I leveled and I gained 1 stat point and 1 talent point. When choosing which stat to increase, there were five stars to show which were the main stats for my class (one next to each stat). For the talent tree, I was limited to choose from one of 3 skills at first, but there are 16 skills in total that you can eventually unlock.

I finished the tutorial and then I arrived in Nezebgrad where I have been doing quests and leveling up ever since.


Here are some other features I found out about Allods so far:

#1. Fatigue When you gain EXP through killing monsters and doing quests, you gain the same amount of fatigue exp each day, up until a certain point (If you gain 300 exp you will gain 300 fatigue exp). You can turn in this fatigue exp for real exp by visiting a Goblin Innkeeper. This fatigue system was designed to give casual players a way to level up quickly, without having to play 8+ hours a day. I found if you play for more than 6 hours a day you usually use up all of your fatigue exp for the day.

#2. No Auto-Attack Unlike in WoW, you cannot auto-attack, but instead you must constantly choose which attack you want to use each and every time. However, if you can summon a minion, you can make the minion auto-attack enemies.

#3. Talent Grid Starting at level 10, you can use rubies to buy squares in your talent grid. Most of these squares improve the skills that you have already unlocked, while some squares are entirely new skills within themselves. Example: You spend talent points to unlock a damage over time (DOT) spell called Putrify. One square you can buy increases the time the spell lasts by 10%.

#4. Professions Very similar to WoW you can learn professions, although you can only have one when you first start the game. The gathering professions are Disassembling, Herbalism and Mining and the crafting professions are Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Leatherworking and Tailoring. Your profession can be leveled up to (your current level * 10). So if you are level 10 and you are a herbalist, you can only advance to level 100 in herbalism.

#5. Rubies With every level-up you will receive one ruby voucher, and with that voucher and a little bit of gold (the amount of gold depends on your character's level) you can buy one ruby from your class trainer. You can also do a few World Mystery quests in order to gain rubies as well. 

#6. PvP Unlike WoW, where there are tons of servers and you must choose between PvE and PvP servers, Allods Online currently has 2 U.S. servers. The only servers you can choose from in Allods are PvP. You can attack anyone from the opposing faction, anywhere you want, as long as you're powerful enough to get past the city's guards. It can be annoying when you are a low level, but I feel it makes for a much better game.




#7. Cash Shop Though it is F2P, Allods has a cash shop, which gives the player the option to pay actual $ in order to get advantages in the game. Examples: You can buy a one-time use item that gives double experience for 2 hours or you can buy an item that allows you to have another profession. All in all I don't think the Cash Shop will put non-paying players at a serious disadvantage. However, I believe that it will help paying players advance more quickly through the game.

My Progress So Far
Currently I have been playing Allods for about three days and I have reached level 14. My ultimate goal is to get to level 42 (the current max level cap), and I really want to get to level 35, because that is where the quests start to build your own ship. I read that you get to travel through the astral in the end-game and attack other player's ships, board their ships and then steal their treasure! I heard this may take a few months to get this far, but the players I asked say it is well worth it.

Conclusion
I have played this game for only three days and I already believe that it is a better overall game than WoW. The best part is that you do not have to spend a dime to play it! I'm sure when word gets around about this game, many WoW players will switch over to Allods Online.

Feel free to comment on this post if you have any questions that you want me to answer about Allods Online.

Fantasy Football: 2010-11 Season QB Rankings (Top 20)

Biggest QB Shocks Of The 2010-11 Fantasy Football Season

#1. Michael Vick (Phi - QB) At the beginning the the 2010-11 season, Kevin Kolb was the named the Philadelphia Eagles' starting QB. Everyone was talking about Kolb and if he could fill the shoes of the departed McNabb. There was really not much talk about Vick at the start of the 2010-11 season. Even in fantasy drafts, Kolb was taken before Vick is basically every fantasy football league. However, in Week 1 against the Packers, Kolb went down and Vick was summoned. Although the Eagles ended up losing that game, Vick put up solid fantasy numbers, rushing for 100+ yards and throwing for 175 yards and a TD. Despite this, the Eagles kept saying that Kolb was still going to be their starting QB once he returned from injury. By the end of the season however, Kolb had only played in a total of seven games and Vick became the starter, putting up huge fantasy numbers. The scary thing was that Vick missed three games, but still ended the season as the best overall fantasy quarterback. Michael Vick should definitely be the undisputed number 1 fantasy QB in 2011-12 fantasy drafts. Depending on the type of league, he could even be listed as the #1 overall fantasy player of 2011-12.

#2. Josh Freeman (TB -QB) Top QBs usually go hand in hand with being on a good NFL team. Aaron Rodgers on the Packers, Tom Brady on the Patriots, Peyton Manning on the Colts, Drew Brees on the Saints... Josh Freeman on the... Bucs? Yeah, not many would have expected the season that Josh Freeman had this year, being only a second year player and all. The guy threw for 3400+ yards and 25 TDs while only throwing 6 picks. Not only that, but he also rushed for 364 yards, which was second most for QBs this season (Behind Vick). He went undrafted in most fantasy football leagues this season and even by the end of the regular season, Freeman was only owned in 68% of all Yahoo leagues. He ended the season as the seventh best fantasy QB. Considering the fact that he wasn't even projected to be a top 20 fantasy QB, being seventh is not too bad. Look for Freeman to be a top 10 QB in fantasy drafts next year.

My Review Of Facebook's New Most Popular Game: CityVille

A Little Background Information On CityVille
Released only about a month ago, Zynga's CityVille has quickly become the number one most popular game on Facebook. Overtaking the former most popular game, FarmVille (Also created by Zynga), CityVille currently has over 86 million users worldwide. These are astounding numbers, considering the fact that the game has not even been out a month. After seeing and hearing
about CityVille, I decided to try it out for myself and write a little review on my findings.

First Thoughts On The Game
Before I even started to play CityVille, I knew that the game was created by Zynga, who are also the creators of FarmVille and Frontierville. I played FarmVille for a while, but after FrontierVille was released, I left FarmVille to go play FrontierVille. I quickly found FrontierVille to be very much like FarmVille. This being that you could plant and harvest crops, tend to animals, and buy decorations in both games. The main difference that I found in Frontierville was that it was much more reliant on Facebook friends than Farmville was. In fact, it was almost painful, constantly asking your friends for necessary items, such as nails and boards required to complete goals and tasks. The only other way to get these necessary items was to use "in-game money" which could only be bought for actual real-life $. I figured that CityVille would have a very similar gameplay style to both of these games, but more like Frontierville because it is one of Zynga's newer games. However, I believe that Zynga will try to find a balance between Frontierville's gameplay (reliant on actual $ and Facebook friends) and Farmville's gameplay (which attracted millions of users) in a way that maximizes their overall profit. After thinking about all of this, I finally entered the world of CityVille.

Review Of My First Hour Playing CityVille 

Upon entering the game, I was greeted by CityVille's guide, Samantha. If you can't read the picture the greeting says, "This land's got potential! Become Mayor, and build the city of your dreams!"After clicking "okay", you are asked to build a cottage in order to increase your city's population. Once you build the cottage, you must use two energy before you can move people in. After you move people into the house, you can collect 50 coins from that cottage every hour and a bit of exp as well.

Energy: Represented by the yellow bar on the top of your screen. Energy is needed for building, farming, collecting and basically everything else you do in CityVille. You can gain 1 energy every 5 minutes, you can visit friends' cities for energy or use in-game money to buy more energy.

Experience Points(Exp): Represented by the light blue bar on the top left of your screen. Exp. comes from collecting from businesses collecting from homes, harvesting crops, etc. The more experience points you get the higher level you become. As you advance to new levels, more businesses, houses, crops and decorations become unlocked and available for you to purchase.

Next, you are directed to build a bakery, which is categorized as a business. After spending a few energy to finish the bakery you must supply the bakery with goods.

Goods: Represented by the purple bar on the top of the screen. Goods can be obtained by harvesting crops or by buying goods directly from the Train Platform, which is on the left side of the railroad tracks. Businesses must be supplied with goods in order for them to operate and in order for you to collect coins from them.

 

Coins: Represented by the number in the top left corner of your screen. Coins are used to purchase buildings, crops, goods, decorations etc. You can get coins from collecting rent from houses, collecting from businesses or from selling your goods.

Next, I was notified that my citizens were sad and that I needed to build more Community Buildings to increase my city's population limit. I then proceeded to start building a City Hall, but mid-way through I ran out of energy. While waiting for my energy to recover, I decided to send invitations to some of my friends who had already starting playing CityVille.

Luckily, a couple of friends accepted the requests within twenty minutes of me sending them out and I was able to visit their cities. Upon visiting their cities, I collected from their houses and buildings and was awarded with some reputation and coins.

Reputation: Represented by the red bar on the top of the screen when you are visiting your friends' cities. It is also represented by the number next to the heart (both in red) under your name and profile picture at the bottom of the screen. When you help out a friend's city, your reputation level goes up. As your reputation level increases, you will get more bonuses each time you help out a friend.

By the time I added friends' and visited their cities I had regained enough energy to finish my City Hall. However, when I clicked on my City Hall, the screen above popped up, saying I had to hire three friends to work in my City Hall. I sent invites to ten of my CityVille friends, but no one had accepted the request during the hour that I played.

CityVille friends didn't respond to my City Hall request, I didn't bother sending any requests for snowballs or snow flakes.

 

 I clicked on the second goal called "The Fussy Baker", hoping that it wouldn't require me to "Ask My Friends" for anything. Unfortunately, it did turn out to be another "Ask Your Friends" goal and so I couldn't complete that one either.

By this time I had played for a little over an hour and there was nothing left for me to do (Besides waiting 5 minutes for a total of 1 energy). You could buy energy in the market for 1 City Cash to 1 energy ratio, but it is quite expensive. The cheapest price for City Cash is 1000 City Cash for $99 USD, which comes out to about $1 USD for 10 City Cash. Some people may pay that price, but I would never even think of paying for virtual items or virtual money, especially at that price.

My Conclusion
CityVille is definitely a combination between Farmville and Frontierville, with a few added features which I like, such as the buying and selling of goods between friends. I also like the bonus meter and the collections (taken from FrontierVille). The bonus meter gives an increasing added bonus, dependent on how quickly you pick up coins and experience. The collections give exp, coins or items, depending on which collection you complete. However, I do not like the goals and the increase max population buildings which require you to constantly send requests to friends in order to advance in the game. I feel that it is annoying, to both send these requests and receive these requests.

Aside from these cons, I believe that this game is very addicting and its number of users will continue to grow. Just as with Frontierville and Farmville, CityVille users will constantly check their city to harvest crops and collect coins and experience points from their buildings. I will play CityVille for the next week or so and come up with some good Hints, Tips and Tricks for my next blog post.

P.S. Here is a screenshot of my city after 4 hours of playing. I reached level 7, I increased my maximum supply of goods by building three silos and I only have 482 coins!

Stay Tuned, Current and Future CityVille Users!