FOUR INTERESTING VIRTUAL FARMERS

This is supposed to develop into something like a review of characters cum proposal for a different game or companionship with some ideas acceptable for people with creativity and similar hobbies.
At this moment all I want is use the great pictorial facility of Blogspot.
The actual text about the authors of these farms, what do I see in Farmville and how do I judge the people who play it - will be here in the days that come.
Thus, if interested, return. Will be fun.

I am talking about
Vesna Lompar
Tim Carey
Lav MGM and
Goran Bojkovski
actually how did they inspire this project of a post.
Take this only as a trailer.

The top ranked of the farms among my 200+ friends is the one in constant transformation and upgrade by its mistress my old time friend Vesna Lompar, a graduate in italian language and literatura (used to recite Dante by heart) and latter journalist with Radio Belgrade. She has been all over the world, I met her in Amsterdam ages ago where she lived and worked with her late husband whatever seemed attractive and we were often partners in travels (Austria, Florida, Jordan, Cyprus) until she decided to return her Dutch passport and settle in elegant comfort in the heart of Belgrade.

Have a look how does Vesna imagine her farm.



Vesna has a large collection of very highly ranked Serbian painters, loves to travel and spoke to me the other day how she succeeded bringing a salaried "housmaister" in the building thus transforming the derelict pile of flats into a clean, very safe (cameras, domophones and so forth) structure.


On the other hand Tim Carey is Englishman. Somebody told me: "Of course, it shows". There is this class-division visible, the high ground for the master and the low lands for the working peasantry! This is not true because I know the guy and he is a hard working European, I think, marketing manager of British American Tobacco company in Amstelveen. We do enjoy Remy Martin and he simply happens to have a spare uncorked bottle now and again, thus demonstrating style and funds, but he is a homey person. His farm has nothing to do with the structures of Lav and Goran.
There I want to make a point.


What Tim would not disclose is how he succeeded elevating the ground and trnfrt quite a persuasive 3-D feel to a virtually 2-D environment. Anyway, here is his comment placed elsewhere about this post:

Interesting idea... Was thinking last night on why the farm looks like it does...
You will have to excuse the crops that appeared (the intention was to have a farm with no crops (ie purely a county retreat)... I needed to generate extra funds to theme for Christmas which messed things up a bit... the hovel over to the right was storing my decorations.
My mathemtical mind was interested in the way you could make 3d effects with 2 dimensional building objects... hence the raised area (which due to the graphics had to be in the top corner).
I then wanted to balance this rigid structure with random trees planted throughout (with the side benefit of hiding those areas of the 3d structure that aren't possible to create using the tools available).
Where the class / English element definitly kicked in was the house... When I first picked this frustrating application I (and a number of friends) set ourselves the goal of getting the mansion... Within Farmville there is no real end to the game and the mansion seemed like a reasonable chequered flag.
With all this in mind - I wonder if it changes perception of the character as demonstrated by the farm? I set myself a clear goal, wanted a clear (and innovative) structure but still wanted an artistic feel to the final design.
Would be intersted to see where this blog goes.... The idea of using characterisation within games sounds interesting...
And finally... ;-) Great Blog !!!

(I am blushing all over)

Now, thew farm of Lav MGM is something different. It has a villa, it has a hell of a lot of items, it is same size, but, well, there is this atmosphere of a Balkan well-off, nouveau riche owner managing it. See how many domestic animals are all over the place and just compare it with Tim's farm where there is not a single hen or pig or even horse.

They may be neighbors all right but they come from two obviously different backgrounds and different cultures. The may both be quite amiable people but their differences will not help them striking lasting friendship: they think and behave differently.

I thought of proposing to those wizards of the Farmville to allow areal views of quadruple farms, actually five would be ideal, that one owner could have a view of the properties of his or hers immediate four neighbors.

But then, they, those software wizards and the money managers behind them, could also enlarge the game towards building the environment consciousness. Like compost production, like wind energy (imagine the lamps are lighted at night time, if it is not too expensive) and the farms stay dark (relatively) during the night (of the central server) but not so if you have your own windmill electric plant.

Sorry, I am being carried away...

Finally, the farm of Goran Bojkovski. My pre-predecessor as a boss of the YNTO (Yugoslav National Tourist Office) for the Netherlands was Petar Bojkovski, a good friend, passed some years ago out of consternation I would say. Goran here would not respond whether he is anyhow relted to that Bojkovski, an ethnic Slovak from Banja Luka who soke some Macedonian because he served his military obligation in Skopje. Anyway.

In a moment I will come back to add some comment over Goran's farm.
PS
PLEASE NOTICE THAT THE PICTURE ENLARGES WHEN YOU CLICK ON IT